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The Little Death posted:There's also the question of where exactly she just came from. The "magic" excuse obviously can always apply, but I like to think she waiting just off-panel for the camera to pan to her dramatically. Standing there all night just waiting for the moment. We know the characters look directly at the audience to express displeasure about puns, so obviously the 4th wall is very apparent to them. I’ve noticed that characters pop in from off screen A LOT in Mookie's work, like just now with the corpse bride ambushing Snout on a flat plain (Even though he had just been looking in that direction and would've seen her). I figure Mookie doesn’t even begin to consider the existence of anyone offscreen, so neither do his characters. rannum posted:So I know mookie purposely doesnt plan things out, but, to this point it does seem like he had like...ideas? He may not have sketched out anything that would happen in a real timeline, but he had a rough outline of things he wanted to do. Yeah that was my other takeaway from this chapter, he's clearly put a lotta thought into this one (for Mookie). The intro showed Dirk and Jacob's golem having adverse reactions to the storm of souls for some reason, then later we see Acibek (another golem) have the same reaction and we can infer that being golems is what caused all their reactions. I think Dirk was originally said to be some kinda DnD creature, so him actually being a golem would be a big reveal. I don't know why any of that even matters but it's a level of prep Mookie's never shown before (and maybe never will after). It's too bad he's such a bad writer that the only way the plot can move forward is by some random goon bumbling on stage to vomit a river of words at us about what's going on and what Dominic has to do next, cause he might be able to do something with all that setup.
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Sep 23, 2020 16:47
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The Little Death posted:No he was definitely coming up with vague story arks at this point, in fact SoS ends with a bunch of teaser images for story arcs that would follow. We're still waiting for the one about Dominic's old friend, Mosley. Perhaps Mosley is Dominic Deegan's legacy. Perhaps at the end of his journey, Snout will meet Mosley.
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Sep 23, 2020 17:40
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In theory a story about a seer who purposefully as well as passively gets visions of Things That Make the Story happening or whatever and then it being about how this guy who's only power is seeing that a thing is going to happen and he has to figure out through hard work and research what the deal is and hopefully not jump the gun while having no other powers than "I got a vision that X would happen" could be interesting. Domdeeg going "well, time to use my power where I just read the author's notes" is not that story.
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Sep 23, 2020 22:38
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To be fair, that's not Dominic's power. That would require Mookie to actually make notes. Edit: Actually, I'd say Dominic's power is a bit limited in this regard. He's the only character who Mookie stops to ask "what would Dominic know here?" The caveat being, the follow up question always seems to be "what vision do I need to give him to instantly figure out everything he doesn't know yet?" Everyone else either knows everything (if they're a bad guy) or knows what Dominic knows. PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Sep 23, 2020 |
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Sep 23, 2020 22:40
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It's no wonder Mookie's having trouble with a story where the premise is some guy without any kind of magic vision is trying to investigate something by looking for clues and reading books. Every time anything is discovered in DD it's the Robot Ghost of Christmas Past From the Future showing up and delivering questgiver dialogue.
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Sep 23, 2020 23:33
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I absolutely did not think of the Ultron thing with Acibek but it does fit It also rules that there's these characters from the past we know nothing about so understand nothing of their motives or relationships so we just absolutely do not care about them, but Acibek "betraying" the bad elf guy is supposed to have some kinda emotional/narrative weight Like, just give us two strips of Acibek learning about the world then oops he discovers the awful secret behind his creation and reveals the truth to the people.
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Sep 23, 2020 23:48
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That's not such a terrible idea, it's a quick peek into someone else's adventure to see the important hit without necessarily getting the rest of the context. Imagine a story about a bunch of future post apocalyptic Ewoks finding out what caused an ecological disaster on Endor, and eventually we learn that it was this huge machine exploding in space, so we get a flashback to Luke facing the Emperor on the Death Star - it doesn't matter who Luke's friends are, who the rebellion is, what his relationship to Vader is, those aren't relevant to the story of the post apocalyptic Ewoks on their journey of discovery, the giant evil machine exploding is. Execution, though.
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Sep 24, 2020 00:29
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Skypie posted:I absolutely did not think of the Ultron thing with Acibek but it does fit Eh. For once I'll go to bat and say Mookie probably isn't aping comics. Scientist creates an artificial being and it either rebels against them or interprets their commands in such a literalist fashion as to become a problem is pretty drat old. Hell, you can see shades of that in some versions of the Golem of Prague and all that. Speaking of, while I know it's just meant to be a scarf and evoke Dominic Himself, Acibek's scarf in the flashback to him and the Super Friends vs the Chosen 1.0. did at first read as Mookie's take on a tallit to me.
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Sep 24, 2020 00:38
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I suspect mookie did the "eh just tell the protagonist what the deal is" has a similar root as him making the federation mooks super-capable in Star Power. Much like how he was frustrated that mooks in media are usually portrayed as incompetent in a contrived manner, he was probably also frustrated at the cliché of the protagonist being presented with a mystery about what the problem is that they have to solve to get to ~the real plot~ of solving the problem. And as Star Power demonstrates, he doesn't understand the narrative importance of these things. He doesn't replace them with someone else that is compelling in its own right. He thinks that by just subverting narrative expectations he is doing a smart thing.
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Sep 24, 2020 10:43
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I propose that Dominic Deegan might just be the epitome of anti-art.
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Sep 24, 2020 12:44
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dominic deegan is art i have discussed dominic deegan on these forums for a decade and god willing will do so for another decade
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Sep 24, 2020 12:55
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YF-23 posted:I suspect mookie did the "eh just tell the protagonist what the deal is" has a similar root as him making the federation mooks super-capable in Star Power. Much like how he was frustrated that mooks in media are usually portrayed as incompetent in a contrived manner, he was probably also frustrated at the cliché of the protagonist being presented with a mystery about what the problem is that they have to solve to get to ~the real plot~ of solving the problem. And as Star Power demonstrates, he doesn't understand the narrative importance of these things. He doesn't replace them with someone else that is compelling in its own right. He thinks that by just subverting narrative expectations he is doing a smart thing. Ahh, yes. To quote Mookie: I like subverting expectations in my stories and settings. It’s very easy to do, too. Just take something you’ve seen done a million times and do the opposite.
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Sep 24, 2020 16:39
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I'm torn between expecting him to be a huge fan of The Last Jedi or being unreletingly upset about someone daring to subvert his expectations.
Kavak fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Sep 24, 2020 |
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Sep 24, 2020 16:45
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Ahh, yes. To quote Mookie: I like subverting expectations in my stories and settings. It’s very easy to do, too. Just take something you’ve seen done a million times and do the opposite. "For example, there have been millions of good stories. I'm doing the opposite."
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Sep 24, 2020 17:08
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YF-23 posted:I suspect mookie did the "eh just tell the protagonist what the deal is" has a similar root as him making the federation mooks super-capable in Star Power. Much like how he was frustrated that mooks in media are usually portrayed as incompetent in a contrived manner, he was probably also frustrated at the cliché of the protagonist being presented with a mystery about what the problem is that they have to solve to get to ~the real plot~ of solving the problem. And as Star Power demonstrates, he doesn't understand the narrative importance of these things. He doesn't replace them with someone else that is compelling in its own right. He thinks that by just subverting narrative expectations he is doing a smart thing. Personally I think Mookie's so dumb that he thinks Dominic making a gassy baby face and learning everything is the same as doing research and making deductions. Dominic can't do smart things like investigate the scene of Acibek's final battle or research the species of the fish man he's never seen before since Mookie doesn't have the skill to plot something like that out. He can't even do it now, so everyone around Snout keeps meticulous journals to make sure all new information is easily conveyed to the audience. The one time we actually saw him try and write a mystery was the clone arc in Star Power, and that was full of baffaling revelations and goofy character motivation. Joke's on us though, cause a character that's only superficially smart has broad appeal. Nobody wants to watch Sherlock slowly gather details on Mr.Gibson's marriage, the crime scene, the murder weapon and character motivation. If Sherlock reveals he knew all along that Mrs.Gibson planned to murder herself with a pistol tied to a rock then he looks like a big brain smart boi.
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Sep 24, 2020 17:17
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Kavak posted:I'm torn between expecting him to be a huge fan of The Last Jedi or being unreletingly upset about someone daring to subvert his expectations. I’m going to give him some benefit of the doubt (based on Star Power’s protagonist) and assume that he’s at least not one of the shitters upset about women and/or POC having major roles. Hell, I think a comparison between DD and TLJ is also warranted: both had ideas that were genuinely interesting beneath all of the worst bits, but the execution basically made it impossible for those ideas to be developed.
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Sep 24, 2020 17:22
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What the gently caress is wrong with his chin?
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Sep 24, 2020 19:02
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I didn't think you could cram so much evidence Mookie issues with women and fetishes into one panel there at the end.
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Sep 24, 2020 19:59
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Billy Gnosis posted:I didn't think you could cram so much evidence Mookie issues with women and fetishes into one panel there at the end. Yeah, having his modest mom defend his innocent boy self from the evil sexy woman is just so Oedipal. I meant it sort of is a joke, but it always ends up being real with Mookie. Chapter 12: The Storm of Souls Part 4 This next section is fairly short and sort of pointless, because most of what happens does not change the status quo all that much.  Celesto experiences the same type of visions Dominic does, but makes a less stupid face.  This is a very anime about the way characters can just look at something like the storms old and just know it's Chi value or whatever. This is a fairly standard narrative trope, but it feels really lazy in DD where there is nothing else driving the story forward.    Again meaningless action nonsense I wouldn't even mind this usually but I'm just so aware of the amount of wasted space there is in this strip to build stuff up. Why isn't this used to build up to Celesto's character a little more? As it is we still don't know why he's motivated to join the chosen but we do know that in like a trippy dreamscape he can control his severed hand  Klo Tark pulled his disembodied head voice of God shtick, having already figured out that Celesto is the champion of evil somehow.  Who knows where Helixa came from in this strip she just there all of a sudden not even clear if she is really there or if this is some sort of psychic projection. again not something I would always mind but it's sort of grading how little consistency there is between strips. Props to Mookie on that first panel that I actually sort of like the look of agony on Celesto's face there. Chapter 12: The Storm of Souls Part 5  Hate to spoil it for you but Klo Tark isn't eaten by the storm so all of that was sort of pointless. It serves the purpose of this pointless cliffhanger/stupid end of strip juxtaposition that Mookie loves to do, and feeds another action sequence later that gives Dominic another vision that he could've gotten a million other ways. So thanks for wasting my time Mookie. Here's where Mookie gets real real dumb in this arc. Mookie is about to try and set up a troubled hero questioning whether he should save the world narrative, and is going to be awkward and ridiculous the whole way through.   Again out of nowhere attack on Luna's self-esteem. Can't be a DD arc without that! Also spark does one thing that I love Mookie for, which is try to make some sort of pun or joke, but completely missed the mark by getting the reference wrong. What the hell is a jar of sap? Obviously people are sappy, and he was thinking of syrup which is made from sap. But he sorta skipped the middle part, and reference something that nobody has ever purchased or used ever.  So here's where Dominic faces the evil and corruption of the world. This lady doesn't like that his mom let a bunch of students get murdered by a demon wizard. Love how Dominic's mom isn't just the headmaster of the prestigious academy but is literally the reason this town is good. We have another word for that Mookie, it's called gentrification and you're a bastard for promoting it.  I mean I know she's being presented as dumb and so god drat crazy, but objectively everything she is saying here is true.  Oh but she's a bigot, which means she's bad and Dominic can be disapproving of her. I find this whole section funny, I can't tell where or why this would come up in Mookie's brain is an idea. Did he have people want to run him out of town? Did a friend group challenge him on being weird and he got all huffy about it? How does this gel with his love of authority and the law and "facts"? There's just something about this particular character combined with Mookie's love of the morally righteous always correct lawful character that strikes me as hypocritical. When Mookie says lawful he means lawful to whatever he defines as right and good. He, with no self-awareness, creates these strawman characters who oppose whatever his darling protagonists want or love, and gives no thought to whether or not there could be ambiguity and who is correct in a situation or if there could be legitimate anger even if what the characters doing is misguided  See, there is only one way to understand what happened and it's the way that absolves Miranda of all blame. And there's literally a defensive gentrification used in the first panel, combined with rationalizations about how Miranda spending money and being the philanthropist like an awful medieval Bill Gates somehow absolves her of allowing three of her students to die to one of her personal enemies.  The mob surfaces again. Here though it's ambiguous and contradictory, not everyone is against Miranda but there is some controversy. This is gonna make it all the more hilarious when Dominic starts contemplating letting the world end because some people don't like his mom.  See, like I don't understand this. Was Mookie incensed by the way tabloids pick on celebrities? Is he mad that rich people are held to a higher standard sometimes? This arc canonically makes Dominic the scion of what can only be described as a wizard dynasty, and he's bitching that the common folk aren't appreciative enough. I had forgotten that this happened in this arc and I still cannot believe it.  So there is a memorial, make sense touching and sweet. Get ready for the biggest dick move in history  I laughed out loud when I read this strip. I can't believe Mookie thinks this makes Miranda look kind or generous. It can only be read as upstaging the memorial from the parents of the dead children. It's so garishly over-the-top and doesn't even feature their pictures.  Instead it chooses weird arcane tower glyphs that I'm sure she understands no one else does. Perhaps one of the biggest ways to wank over how smart much smarter you are than everyone else.  And features poems from her shiftless long-haired husband! It's unbelievable how narcissistic this woman is. The fact that Mookie thinks that this is something that should be done is insane, how does he even function in society. Just imagine how insufferable he would be given gifts if he thought this was a good thing to do.   And here's yet another ridiculous over-the-top proving of Dominic's point. The yellow Callan press has totally covered up Greg's heroism and the evils of Brett Taggerty. And again this idea of people's history being used against them, which is a legitimate problem but is very ham-fisted and sort of out of place in this particular arc, especially given what happened to Amelia. Mookie definitely had a theme or point in mind when he was writing this but I'm really not sure what it was. And he's having his whole Kal–El moment about whether or not the humans are worth saving. Totally unlearned and really unclear why Dominic thinks he has the right to decide that. I guess because he is the champion it is technically his choice but it's such an unearned arrogance on the part of his character.  Dear old Dadeegan comes into the picture to explain that the woman who was angry about children being murdered really is just out for herself and there's no redeeming part of her. This is really ridiculous it's absurd that Mookie would write the story like this. I can't say anything more than that it's just so vile a way to view, I guess, victims demanding restitution for their loved ones dying? Like that's not how it's framed here but that is who the character demanding justice would be in reality.  And here's where another absurd contrivance comes in. His parents also faced the storm of souls, or at least fought the chosen to prevent the end of the world. His parents had a beat for beat recreation of this moment, where Miranda was also convinced that maybe the world should just burn, I guess along with her the baby in her belly   Then you get that line right at the beginning: "most people are selfish, petty scum who aren't worth helping" but sometimes there are good ones! gently caress off Mookie. You don't get to be the judge of who is good or bad, and if your liberation or revolution assumes the worthlessness most people that you are terrible reactionary scum yourself. I cannot over emphasize how awful this thought is, to dismiss most of humanity as worthless except for the people you like. It explains so much about Mookie's worldview  But you see these three martyrs were some of the good ones, because they died I guess, or Miranda would only teach good people? Of course it's going to turn out to be true and they will all have died selflessly but it's all awful.  Don't worry we'll get to see the students dying selflessly later, but first were to get an action sequence with Dominic zooming around in the mining scape with no real point. That's for next time though. Like I said I actually found this part of the arc one of the worst things that Mookie has written. It's so self-congratulatory and contain such a contempt for the norm he is in the vast majority of people that I think really shows a degree which has nice guy persona masks a smug superiority I don't think a person who is well-adjusted or has a healthy view of the world would write something like this. Beelzebufo fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Sep 24, 2020 |
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Sep 24, 2020 20:16
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So was Helixia the woman who had danger-activated boobs?
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Sep 24, 2020 20:34
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I want to say yes because her breasts are enormous by the time she dies
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Sep 24, 2020 20:36
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"Why should I care about the world" is real stupid coming from a privileged guy with rich and famous parents and incredible magical powers. Like I could see that working in a story where the main character has a real lovely life and is badly mistreated by the people around them - but with Dominic it just comes off as whining that people don't like him and his family as much as they should.
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Sep 24, 2020 20:42
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Sep 24, 2020 20:51
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Heliotrope posted:"Why should I care about the world" is real stupid coming from a privileged guy with rich and famous parents and incredible magical powers. Like I could see that working in a story where the main character has a real lovely life and is badly mistreated by the people around them - but with Dominic it just comes off as whining that people don't like him and his family as much as they should. And in this case, it's related to the deaths of 3 people in Miranda's care! This is again a situation where if you change things just a bit so that Mookie's self-insert isn't right %100, they become the bad guy. Of course, in this narrative, there was nothing Miranda could have done to stop the infernomancer. But in the real world without unstoppable devil wizards, people with money and power do harm others with negligence! And paying for a fancy funeral or making a city no longer a "crime-ridden hell hole" (presumably through coffee shops and higher property values) doesn't absovle them of that negligence. This is so on the nose class-warfare/apologia for the rich that it makes me wonder what oldschool Elon Musk mookie was slobbering over.
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Sep 24, 2020 20:54
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Sep 24, 2020 21:04
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That’s what irks me: even if Mookie threw in that random-rear end bit of character assassination of Penelope just being an opportunist, she’s still got a point. By any measure from someone outside of the main characters, Miranda screwed up big time by not being there to protect her students because she was dealing with family drama. And then she had the gall to make her memorial pretty jarringly overshadow the one created by their loved ones, instead of making it an extension of the one that was already there? And that’s not even touching on her fantasy gentrification. For every Quiral, how many more rural towns (like the one the story starts in) are there that are left to basically wither away because all of the wealth, knowledge, and magic are all concentrated in one area? Especially if there’s no apparent indication that they’re doing anything to keep the gap from widening even further?
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Sep 24, 2020 21:22
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So, if I understand right, Dadgan’s point is that while most people aren’t worth saving, the people who save those people are worth saving. But if the people they’re saving aren’t worth it, why is saving them still good? “Most people except key good ones aren’t worth saving” is a thought that ends only in objectivism and declaring altruism itself evil. I’m wondering how Mookie managed to tip his train of thought over before getting there.
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Sep 24, 2020 21:25
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Oh man, I forgot entirely about the Shrine to the Holy Deegan Trinity:
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Sep 24, 2020 21:28
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Aww dammit, I just realized he’s ripping off the Triforce (Courage, Wisdom, Power) with that memorial, too.
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Sep 24, 2020 21:31
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Holy poo poo, how the gently caress do you even write something like this? The memorials got me. Like in any competent comic this is a fantastic showing of Miranda's hubris and something that just blatantly signals how far she's fallen from grace. She built an impressive but ultimately hollow and shallow monolith that isn't even remotely personalized to the people she's memorializing as a display of her wealth directly across the street from the heartfelt and personal one put together by their loved ones. Mookie uses this to show that actually his mom is good and the conspicuous displays of wealth are actually better than handmade things.
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Sep 24, 2020 21:41
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The Little Death posted:I want to say yes because her breasts are enormous by the time she dies I feel like there's better ways to insert one's breast expansion fetish than Mookie's.
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Sep 24, 2020 21:41
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Holy poo poo
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Sep 24, 2020 21:42
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The Little Death posted:I had forgotten that this happened in this arc and I still cannot believe it. It's one of my favorite parts of Dominic Deegan because of how blatantly awful it is, and also of how Mookie is probably the only person in existence not to realize this. I also give bonus points for "wisdom, courage, and intelligence" aka the triforce but replace that dumb jock "strength" with the noble nerd "intelligence".
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Sep 24, 2020 21:43
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Sep 24, 2020 21:44
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The Little Death posted:
quote:Get ready for the biggest dick move in history I, too, laughed out loud. Its incredible he thought this was Fine, Normal and Good to put into his comic
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Sep 24, 2020 22:28
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I remember posting on the keenspot forums about that memorial and honestly, the consensus of the whole forum at the time was that it must be a gaudy, eye-searing nightmare of ego, meant to show up the town’s personal memorial. We were surprised when it was supposed to be nice. I didn’t realize how relatively early in the comic’s run we’d all turned on Mookie.
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Sep 24, 2020 22:37
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Thinking on it, I’m also rolling my eyes at how Klo Tark just automatically assumes that Celesto must be evil because he’s the “champion of chaos”, and immediately goes on the attack instead of trying to convince him to turn on the Chosen. Especially considering that literally the very first thing his master ever did was to reject the control of his creator and assert his own morality and beliefs instead. Celesto’s... a few things, but being a true believer in a cult that wants to turn everything into oblivion doesn’t strike me as one of them. All it would have taken was probably a bit of nudging to convince him to sabotage the Chosen’s plans, which would have served both of their ends: he gets their power to enact vengeance against Dominic, and Klo Tark’s job becomes one hell of a lot easier.
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Sep 24, 2020 22:42
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That would require a Mookie to act in a way that wasn't self-righteous and "pure good," and no Mookie--not even Fish Mookie--can ever compromise their beliefs like that.
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Sep 24, 2020 23:08
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there's some fascinating ideology going on here from a "written 15 years ago" perspective though - i don't think even present-day mookie would have so little consciousness as to do this today, it's something that can only exist in a particular time and a particular level of sheltereness. even an equivalently sheltered teenage weeb today would write with a very different social conscience and try to make the statement somewhat different.
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Sep 24, 2020 23:26
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I also don't think the ill effects of gentrification were anywhere near the public consciousness at the time. Anyway it's funny how Luna learned about Momgan like yesterday and immediately turned into such a big fan she's willing to pick up fights with established members of the local community over it.
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Sep 24, 2020 23:42
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