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YF-23
Feb 17, 2011

My god, it's full of cat!


RoboChrist 9000 posted:

Legacy is worse written though. Dominic Deegan is more offensive and still the second worst artistic endeavor ever written (maybe... Beyond: Two Souls really gives it a run for its money), but in terms of the sheer craft of writing, I feel like Legacy tops it.

I feel like comparing Mookie's writing to David Cage's is an insult, but I'm not sure towards whom.

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Dabir
Nov 10, 2012

From what I remember Mookie writes rape when it's in service of something else, like trying to make a terrible point that nobody wanted made about heroic villains or a godawful joke about Dominic's love life. David Cage is just touching himself to his female characters suffering sexual violence and has only barely been stopped from having depictions of it actually show up in the final products. Yes, I know about the dead women's asses, but, again, I don't remember Mookie ever killing a woman off arbitrarily because there hadn't been enough corpse butts for his tastes lately.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


YF-23 posted:

I feel like comparing Mookie's writing to David Cage's is an insult, but I'm not sure towards whom.

Oh no, I wrote ze bad comic.

Mookie has a load of issues but the Stonewater arc seems to have been borne out of immeasurable stupidity and tone-deafness, rather than the inevitable-#MeToo creepiness of Cage.

Beelzebufo
Mar 5, 2015

Frog puns are toadally awesome


It's very Mookie, but I hate how Danica and Grex never kill anyone with their violence in a setting where otherwise people get mowed down constantly. There is a superhero trope element to that, but in other superhero stories the switch between violence as action and violence as potential death is story driven and they don't usually coexist simultaneously within moments of each other. I think Mookie is the only person I've ever see write a superhero story where their implausibly non-lethal violence (and hell she's not even using he lightbeams, just punching them) is like a canon superpower and better than the dumb violence of the jocks detectives. It just undercuts the supposed morality of hist story so much. It does end up feeling empty because there isn't even a call to common good or justice, it's literally just "let starpower do everything".

It literally is, what if Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen (working with the government, mascot superhero) but played straight. No bad outcomes, no dead people.


Again, Mookie you madman.

Samovar
Jun 4, 2011

I'm 😤 not a 🦸🏻‍♂️hero...🧜🏻



YF-23 posted:

I feel like comparing Mookie's writing to David Cage's is an insult, but I'm not sure towards whom.

The world.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

In conclusion: Lady Green Lantern is America so shut the gently caress up and stay out of her way.

Mx.
Dec 16, 2006

I'm a great fan! When I watch TV I'm always saying "That's political correctness gone mad!"
Why thankyew!


Uncanny Valley posted:

I downloaded the streams way back when. Looks like either UStream's auto-archiving or my copies might be missing a few sessions, and the videos are lovely UStream quality, but ~37.5 hours of Dominic Drinkin is still a hell of a lot of Deegan.

If Tesseraction is cool with it, I can upload to YouTube or Google Drive?

please!

PoptartsNinja
May 9, 2008

He is still almost definitely not a spy


Soiled Meat

Kavak posted:

Mookie has a load of issues but the Stonewater arc seems to have been borne out of immeasurable stupidity and tone-deafness, rather than the inevitable-#MeToo creepiness of Cage.

Stonewater is definitely a Mookie self-insert and with the more recent revelations that Mookie sees himself as an Orc and that he aspires to be "Lawful Good," the whole sequence feels like he was, at the time, trying to find a way to justify or indulge in a dark fetish while still being able to consider himself "good person."

PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Aug 22, 2020

TheHan
Oct 29, 2011

Grind, you poor fool!
Grind straight for the stars!
Missed opportunity not naming this comic White Savior.

Rotten Red Rod posted:




Semme, disguised as a callgirl, goes undercover with the corrupt cop while Grex sneaks into his office and finds incriminating evidence. This also takes like 3 pages.

Surely you mean Grex was disguised as a callgirl? Since Semme is also a cop and going undercover in their own department is a completely unnecessary risk? A non-binary character being written as using their gender identity to trick men feels very...sus. It could just be me, but considering this same chapter has characters bet on how somebody will be presenting that day I don't have a lotta goodwill towards Mookie when it comes to these things.

Rotten Red Rod posted:

According to Mookie in this blog https://starpowercomic.com/a-look-back-and-a-look-ahead/, they didn’t want to deconstruct the superhero genre.

Mookie sees a hero not 100% certain that they have the Mandate of Heaven and thinks that's a deconstruction of the genre. This blog post also confirms they would bounce the script back and forth and both make edits. Star Power doesn't feel like it had the full effort of ONE writer, but you're gonna tell me two minds worked on this? Oh no!

Agent Rush
Aug 30, 2008

You looked, Junker!

Rotten Red Rod posted:

It's funny how he thinks he's not good at color when the issue is that he's not good at any art.

And he's still just winging it now. He won't put in the effort and practice to actually learn the fundamentals. If you wanted to learn how to draw, there's like a billion resources out there for you. I know someone who currently leads free art classes/practice sessions on an animation Discord.

Is this an open Discord?

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

TheHan posted:

Surely you mean Grex was disguised as a callgirl? Since Semme is also a cop and going undercover in their own department is a completely unnecessary risk? A non-binary character being written as using their gender identity to trick men feels very...sus. It could just be me, but considering this same chapter has characters bet on how somebody will be presenting that day I don't have a lotta goodwill towards Mookie when it comes to these things.

Nope, it was Semme. They are not a cop though, they're a private detective.

It's possible that plotline is exploitative, but, again, it didn't feel like something I'm qualified to judge. And if you think about it, that COULD be a really interesting idea for another comic or series - a non-binary detective that can go undercover as a man or a woman. (Just not written by Mookie.)

Like I said, this comic would be better if it was about Semme.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

Agent Rush posted:

Is this an open Discord?

Yeah, it's Ethan Becker's discord. I'll edit in an invitation here when I find it.

Edit: discord link here: https://discord.gg/eKD9hfy

My friend streams the sessions on his twitch page: http://www.twitch.tv/iamspacedad?sr=a

Totally free but tips are appreciated.

Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Aug 22, 2020

FlocksOfMice
Feb 3, 2009
You can really feel his immaturity pouring through Danica as she shouts "Why didn't we just go and beat up the criminals way before this!?"

He really honestly thinks the solution to crime is just find the bad guys, knock them out with overwhelming force, and then put them in jail, doesn't he. The idea that you need things like evidence and rule of law is frustrating to him because well if the GOOD GUYS are doing it, how can they do wrong? Just get the goodest guys! And give them the biggerest guns!

This is a child's understanding of justice and crime.

Israel and Palestine would stop fighting if only America would come in with BIGGEREST GUNS and tell them to stop! And then they'd realize they're being DUMMY HEADS and doing FIGHTBATTLES when America has even MORE GUNS and so they need to work together because all global conflicts are based on people being dumb silly foreigners who can't examine their own actions!

I think Star Power ends up saying a LOT, honestly. It's a desperate complaint to the world that it isn't as simple as it looked when I was 6 years old barely able to understand the comic books I was reading. How dare you be complex? How dare humans have dimensions? In school I thought all the bullies were mean because they were stupid doo-doo heads, and now you're telling me they might have had lovely homelives or it was ME acting like an embarrassing idiot and no one could stand me?? UMM NO the bad guys are MEAN DOODIEHEADS, watch this SUPER PSYCHOLOGIST point out how DUMB they are! Villains don't pose a threat! Bullies are all paper tigers! If only I could punch people really hard I'd fix EVERYTHING in a DAY!

I've read fanfiction where the mary sue has angel and dragon wings and dates every single character in the source material, that've had more mature understandings of the world than this.

TheHan
Oct 29, 2011

Grind, you poor fool!
Grind straight for the stars!

Rotten Red Rod posted:

Nope, it was Semme. They are not a cop though, they're a private detective.

It's possible that plotline is exploitative, but, again, it didn't feel like something I'm qualified to judge. And if you think about it, that COULD be a really interesting idea for another comic or series - a non-binary detective that can go undercover as a man or a woman. (Just not written by Mookie.)

Like I said, this comic would be better if it was about Semme.

I can't pretend to be the foremost expert either, so it could is a concept that can be pulled off in a non-negative way. Mookie's just shown such an ignorance about gender in the past and present that I can't help but sideye anything he writes about it, especially when he starts flying close.

Hostile V posted:

In conclusion: Lady Green Lantern is America so shut the gently caress up and stay out of her way.

Speaking of Green Lantern, the Star Power is loving boring. You don't have to load your heroes up with unique skills to make them interesting but besides the laser blasts (which are already hella generic) she just has a sword and shield :geno: I get that he wanted to do a paladin superhero, but you'd think there'd be more star themed powers? The sword and shield could be made out of metal and you wouldn't lose anything.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

She doesn’t even use the sword and shield much, her real powers are...well, she’s Superman, except badly written.

Codependent Poster
Oct 20, 2003

You're called Star Power but you don't actually have any sort of relation to what a star is! Like no fusion powers, or gravity powers, or magnetic powers, or heat powers.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

well but she gets her power from the light of stars, I can't think of another superhero that does THAT

Invisible Clergy
Sep 25, 2015

"Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces"

Malachi 2:3
Danica means "morning star" :rolleyes:

Libra
Jan 5, 2011

Wait why doesn't she get a morning star instead of a sword then? That's a free Mookie-level joke right there.

Beelzebufo
Mar 5, 2015

Frog puns are toadally awesome


Let's Get This poo poo Goin'



Chapter 1: Oracle for Hire


Mookie retoractively split the archives into chapters, so this is less a chapter than the first handful of strips where Mookie was operating on what seems to be the concept of a newspaper comic. They aren't very interesting or egregious on their own, but they do contain the protoversions of the tropes and cliches Mookie would rely on for the next decade. LIke RRR, I will not be posting every strip, but condescing where I can





First some D-tier humor, and also the first inclusion of Mookietrope #1: Sexualized women are dumb and bad. This may seem small but it does hit me, given some of the things this comic will do in the future, that strip 2 is about a dumb bimbo with enormous boobs, and the joke is "god, her boobs are terrible"



Mookietrope #2: Terrible puns. Self-explanatory really




Mookietrope #3: Weirdly explicit humor in an otherwise extremly immature comic.
Mookie will make puns and jokes like this, but overall the vibe of the comic is very much like is with the legacy: a sort of discomfort and naivete when it comes to sex and sexuality. This obviously can also be seen in the madonna/whore complex that will be everywhere in this comic.



Here we have the first introduction of something important to the Narrative. This is the first introduction of Siegfried, or Siggy, who will be an antogonist, then an ally, then an antagonist again, to our hero. He is also the prototypical Mookietrope #4: Jerk Jock of the setting.





Siggy asks to see how a duel with a famous swordsman who has besmirtched is honour will go. Dominic sees that the duel will not go well, so Siggy brutally beats Dominic. The next strip has nothing to do with this story, dipping back into gag a day. It is also where you can see the newspaper comic influence, since it is a Sunday colour strip, which is something mookie would continue to do to the end of the comic.



Oh right, Spark is Dominic's talking cat who love's alliterattions. He just sort of appears on strip and is annoying.

Chapter 1 also introduces us to two more main characters of the series.





Stunt and Bumper, bumbling thieves who I think initially were supposed to be like jokey antagonists to Dominic, always trying to steal his spellbook.

Summary: For me what's interesting about these strips is both a) the patterns we already see starting but also b) the fact that DD really didn't seem to start out as the ongoing serialized narrative it became. When it was this sort of gag-a-day thing, especially in the early 00's, I can see why people would be pulled into it, especially with the daily update schedule. If Mookie had kept it more like this, then his lack of planning might have been much less of an issue. The start of the next chapter has sort of the same feeling as these strips, but it becomes a longform narrative then. I think Mookie introducing characters like Luna derailed the idea of the strip quite a bit.

Also, Art-wise, we can see the obvious anime influences. In particular, Mookie's famous Snout-faces are there right from the beginning. Mookie is aping the anime shortcut of having the mouth appear in the middle of the cheek for characters in profile, to save on having to animate the entire face. Except of course in a static medium like a comic strip it serves no purpose and just looks bad.

Next Time: The Curse

Beelzebufo fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Aug 23, 2020

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

I remember seeing early Deegan back in the day (and never following it, because even then it seemed dumb) and it always struck me as weird how modern their clothes look. Like, they're supposed to be in a fantasy setting, but everyone looks to be in jeans and t-shirts. I'm still not entirely sure if it was a conscious artistic choice or if Mookie had no idea how to convey the setting through their clothes and just drew whatever was easiest to do.

super sweet best pal
Nov 18, 2009

Open the gates! :unsmigghh:

Mx.
Dec 16, 2006

I'm a great fan! When I watch TV I'm always saying "That's political correctness gone mad!"
Why thankyew!


SardonicTyrant
Feb 26, 2016

BTICH IM A NEWT
熱くなれ夢みた明日を
必ずいつかつかまえる
走り出せ振り向くことなく
&



I updated the op and crossed out the rule to not talk about original Dominic Deegan, because there's just nothing to talk about wrt Legacy.

Looking at a few posts in the beginning, posters were...well, I wouldn't say hopeful for Legacy. More like a bile fascination. It's amazing how things turned out.

SardonicTyrant
Feb 26, 2016

BTICH IM A NEWT
熱くなれ夢みた明日を
必ずいつかつかまえる
走り出せ振り向くことなく
&



Also, I don't think there's anything wrong with early Dominic Deegan. Wrong phrasing, I mean there's nothing wrong with having a silly bad webcomic in the 00s. I mean, it's bad, it's objectively bad, but remember it was the 00s. Everyone who was a creative type had a webcomic. None of them were good. If it wasn't a sprite comic, it was a gamer comic. If it wasn't a gamer comic, it was based on anime, and since everyone had read How To Draw Manga it all looked really similar.

What's egregious is that after ten years of comics, it literally did not improve. In fact as Mookie tried his hand at worldbuilding it got worse.

SardonicTyrant fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Aug 23, 2020

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

Oh yeah agreed. The comics back then were dire but we read them anyway. Although I'd argue that Penny Arcade is still poo poo.

SardonicTyrant
Feb 26, 2016

BTICH IM A NEWT
熱くなれ夢みた明日を
必ずいつかつかまえる
走り出せ振り向くことなく
&



Rotten Red Rod posted:

Oh yeah agreed. The comics back then were dire but we read them anyway. Although I'd argue that Penny Arcade is still poo poo.
*watch beeps, it's the "remind everyone Gabe called a woman a whore for having an silly opinion on Spiderman that made Gabe angry and has never apologized for" alarm* Good heavens, just look at the time.

SardonicTyrant
Feb 26, 2016

BTICH IM A NEWT
熱くなれ夢みた明日を
必ずいつかつかまえる
走り出せ振り向くことなく
&



Seriously, gently caress Mike "Gabe" Krahulik. Mookie is a weird guy, but no one was influenced by him like Gabe and Tycho.

super sweet best pal
Nov 18, 2009

SardonicTyrant posted:

None of them were good.

Apologize to Kid Radd.

SardonicTyrant
Feb 26, 2016

BTICH IM A NEWT
熱くなれ夢みた明日を
必ずいつかつかまえる
走り出せ振り向くことなく
&



super sweet best pal posted:

Apologize to Kid Radd.
I am sincerely sorry for dismissing Kid Radd. That was a good comic.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

SardonicTyrant posted:

Also, I don't think there's anything wrong with early Dominic Deegan. Wrong phrasing, I mean there's nothing wrong with having a silly bad webcomic in the 00s. I mean, it's bad, it's objectively bad, but remember it was the 00s. Everyone who was a creative type had a webcomic. None of them were good. If it wasn't a sprite comic, it was a gamer comic. If it wasn't a gamer comic, it was based on anime, and since everyone had read How To Draw Manga it all looked really similar.

What's egregious is that after ten years of comics, it literally did not improve. In fact as Mookie tried his hand at worldbuilding it got worse.
I would disagree but I'm rereading Narbonic for funsies and while the main strip is still pretty solid, Garrity is absolutely correct it didn't find its feet until it introduced Madblood and the Sunday fan interaction strips give me secondhand embarrassment. Like they're innocuous really and people liked Narbonic a lot and it's still a good comic but I'm also glad in the commentary Garrity's like "god...yeah, yeah these happened" that kind of are just stumbling blocks from the rest of the updates. She's also a good creator in general and has learned a lot of lessons as time went on.

In conclusion: yeah they sure all were like that huh.

e: except Kid Radd which upon many revisits has consistently held up as being pretty good.

Mx.
Dec 16, 2006

I'm a great fan! When I watch TV I'm always saying "That's political correctness gone mad!"
Why thankyew!


SardonicTyrant posted:

Also, I don't think there's anything wrong with early Dominic Deegan. Wrong phrasing, I mean there's nothing wrong with having a silly bad webcomic in the 00s. I mean, it's bad, it's objectively bad, but remember it was the 00s. Everyone who was a creative type had a webcomic. None of them were good. If it wasn't a sprite comic, it was a gamer comic. If it wasn't a gamer comic, it was based on anime, and since everyone had read How To Draw Manga it all looked really similar.

What's egregious is that after ten years of comics, it literally did not improve. In fact as Mookie tried his hand at worldbuilding it got worse.

dominic deegan is fascinating and the world is a richer place for mookie having drawn it

i hope mookie draws a thousand more comics

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

Kid Radd had the benefit of being 100% custom pixel art that someone poured truly immense effort into.

Invisible Clergy
Sep 25, 2015

"Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces"

Malachi 2:3
Oh boy, that webcomic I hate is back in style.

Thanks a million, The Little Death. This is going to be a blast.

SardonicTyrant
Feb 26, 2016

BTICH IM A NEWT
熱くなれ夢みた明日を
必ずいつかつかまえる
走り出せ振り向くことなく
&



Invisible Clergy posted:

Oh boy, that webcomic I hate is back in style.
Without quality, he draws.

TheHan
Oct 29, 2011

Grind, you poor fool!
Grind straight for the stars!
I think my original thought was that after Dominic Deegan, Mookie would've had to improve in some capacity. But then it turned out he just did Dominic Deegan in Space for seven years then went right into Dominic Deegan Shippuden. And y'now what at least the first two hold your interest.

Evrart Claire
Jan 11, 2008

The Little Death posted:

Stunt and Bumper, bumbling thieves who I think initially were supposed to be like jokey antagonists to Dominic, always trying to steal his spellbook.

Note here: They're intentionally bumbling idiots because Mookie hates the idea of noble/cool thief characters. Thieves steal things, they're bad, why should they be treated as cool??

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

Yeah he wrote a lot in the Star Power blogs about how he dislikes rebels and being "cool". I'm willing to bet these characters are based directly on his former friends D&D characters.

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

Rotten Red Rod posted:

Yeah he wrote a lot in the Star Power blogs about how he dislikes rebels and being "cool". I'm willing to bet these characters are based directly on his former friends D&D characters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5aZOW42vbQ

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SardonicTyrant
Feb 26, 2016

BTICH IM A NEWT
熱くなれ夢みた明日を
必ずいつかつかまえる
走り出せ振り向くことなく
&



Rotten Red Rod posted:

Yeah he wrote a lot in the Star Power blogs about how he dislikes rebels and being "cool". I'm willing to bet these characters are based directly on his former friends D&D characters.
Wait, all of his self-inserts are heavy metal rockers, but he hates rebels?










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