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PoptartsNinja
May 9, 2008

He is still almost definitely not a spy


Soiled Meat
So, does it snow a lot in Maltak?

Sloped roofs are mostly a protection against snow collecting and crushing the building from above.

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Sindai
Jan 24, 2007
i want to achieve immortality through not dying
I think the bizarre roofs are just him poorly copying part of orcish architecture from Warcraft.

Beelzebufo
Mar 5, 2015

Frog puns are toadally awesome


Sindai posted:

I think the bizarre roofs are just him poorly copying part of orcish architecture from Warcraft.

the closest builidings are that, mimicin the assumed mammoth tusk architecture, with something stretched over and between them, that WoW was going for in Orcish buildings. That's what you see on the left

Then Mookie got lazy with the further away buildings, and instead he just drew the spokes all jammed together in a way that makes no sense. Now it looks more like they have enormours scales or maybe chitneous plates from some giant insect as rooves.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

I spent very little time on this and it was still too much time



Also Corpsemommy's neck appears to be broken, or maybe she's an owl

Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Jun 18, 2021

Invisible Clergy
Sep 25, 2015

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

Malachi 2:3
Why did they bring corpsewife?

Billy Gnosis
May 18, 2006

Now is the time for us to gather together and celebrate those things that we like and think are fun.

Invisible Clergy posted:

Why did they bring corpsewife?

Just be glad she (probably) isn't naked for this section

Twelve by Pies
May 4, 2012

Again a very likpatous story

Zerilan posted:

were you around for "clothes-minded"?

Nope, I wasn't around for any of the Chance stuff. The earliest thing I definitely remember is DOWN TOWN EROSSUS and I wish I still had the picture of the Popeye looking dude holding two water bottles with that photoshopped onto his shirt.

Evrart Claire
Jan 11, 2008

Twelve by Pies posted:

Nope, I wasn't around for any of the Chance stuff. The earliest thing I definitely remember is DOWN TOWN EROSSUS and I wish I still had the picture of the Popeye looking dude holding two water bottles with that photoshopped onto his shirt.

It's a good starting point into Mookie really because it sums up his whole weird attitude towards sex and women in like two strips.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Twelve by Pies posted:

Nope, I wasn't around for any of the Chance stuff. The earliest thing I definitely remember is DOWN TOWN EROSSUS and I wish I still had the picture of the Popeye looking dude holding two water bottles with that photoshopped onto his shirt.
Good news, waffleimages hosted images are mostly back, it might be available in one of the original threads again.

Twelve by Pies
May 4, 2012

Again a very likpatous story
Sadly I don't have archives.

Zerilan posted:

It's a good starting point into Mookie really because it sums up his whole weird attitude towards sex and women in like two strips.

Not to mention it contains a lot of the comic's best character, Ball Made of Smaller Balls.

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!


Lemony posted:

Actually, it just occurred to me that, despite being a D&D pastiche fantasy world, I don't think we've ever seen a horse. The answer is obviously that drawing horses is hard and Mookie can't do it, but it's a really glaring omission now I think of it.

There was a horse pulling a wagon really early in the comic when Dominic and Luna were moving out of their original weird racist ablest town. Both were not very well rendered.

Samovar posted:

Your brain is trying desperately to protect you from the psychic damage of reading it. Why do you hate your brain so much?

Don't worry, my brain deserves this

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


I can't blame anyone for not wanting to draw a horse.

Ague Proof
Jun 5, 2014

they told me
I was everything
Hovse.

Tesseraction
Apr 5, 2009

He did early in the comic and it wasn't awful, it's probably one of his better drawings:



Helped by silhouette I suppose.

Twelve by Pies
May 4, 2012

Again a very likpatous story
Honestly I'd rank those first two panels as among the best he's ever drawn.

Evrart Claire
Jan 11, 2008
There's some actual composition beyond two talking heads standing at 3/4s view to each other.

Beelzebufo
Mar 5, 2015

Frog puns are toadally awesome


Class Action Part 7



I don't have much to say about this, other than I hate that Luna's expression of interest in sex is always framed as cheering Dominic up. This wouldn't even be a problem for me if the characters were different, but with Luna's weepy codependence, it feels a little gross that she frames her sexuality around pleasing Dominic.



There's some obvious romantic tension between Cassafin and this knight, though I honestly don't remember if it goes anywhere. It is funny how much Mookie seems to feel the need to agressively pair his characters into heterosexual relationships.
Also, good plan there Cassafin, just wander into a disaster zone with unrefrigerated produce and hope you find someone who might need it.




Very natural dialogue here. Also, it's the return of the just-off-screen powers people have in the Deeganverse. Empty plain? No problem, just stand to the side and you'll still have the element of surprise.



I like this dude's style.



Speaking of Horses! Here's a sad one with an emo haircut. I actually think Mookie didn't like trying to draw horse eyes, since he only draws big anime ones.



This is actually a good joke, flowing naturally from what we know of the characters. Kudos, Mookie.



Again, Jacob remains the best character Mookie has ever written. He almost has a Disney villain quality to him at this point, in that he just seems to be having fun and reveling in his evil, which is exactly what I love in a villain. I think him being a Deegan by blood made him a little sympathetic to Mookie, which is why he was willing to let Jacob get away with stuff like this.



This is both interesting in that was clearly Mookie planning for a story many years in advance, but also annoying in that it set awful kind of magic technobabble where people can just send something by looking at a mundane object. I hate this kind of exposition because it's always so specific, without really explain to us as the reader how this information was gained. Like what does it mean that it seemed as if it died "as a result of expelling something"? It is a specific line to include that's obviously leading somewhere, but nowhere that the reader could know because all of this is hidden from us. I just find it lazy as a way of writing in technobabble, which despite magical setting is what this is. Magibabble.




Spark a psychologically tortured Luna, knowing how fragile she is. I did find this really in poor taste because even though Mookie meant it as a joke, it's really not funny given everything we know about Luna's damaged psyche. Even the lighthearted strips involving Luna somehow revolved around her sadsack codependency.



Of course, Dominic makes this discovery offscreen because the important thing is that he seemed smart to the reader, not that there be an interesting plot to follow. Love that look of betrayal and Dominic's face though



This point that Luna didn't "help" in in the research is really annoying to see brought up in multiple strips. It's one thing about Mookie's writing that I can't stand, incidental little emotional beats have to be really hammered in to the reader's face. So so Mookie repeats the same ideas over and over. Just gets tedious.

Also, I love Jacob monologue in like a true comic book villain.



Does this really make sense? No. But I don't really mind it I like that he stuck to his guns almost it seems to deliberately spite Dominic. Dominic specifically called him out on not doing this so Jacob goes out of its way to incorporate Dominic's distraction into his sick experiments. Now that is a fun antagonist.



This nothing burger the plot gets resolved in the laziest way possible. Also, given how events played out, it really does seem the Dominic deliberately sabotaged Runcible's candidacy by telling him the truth the way he did. Also, I like that Miranda calls out the loss of the food, as if the entire food drive would not be pointless given how no one had planned how to donate the food at all.

Love that pose from Cassafinn though in that 8th panel. Boobs first always in a magic fight, gals.



I even know what this is supposed to be about. Just more fun in our Dominic and I guess some sort of joke about gossip? I hate how much Prento loves Dominic. It's not even really characterization it's just an excuse for Mookie to have a character fawn all over his self insert.



More Magibabble. Though I do find it funny that in this case it seems like Dominic the white colonizer is going to explain to the orcs have their own magic works. Like these revelations only work if you assume that the orcs don't understand the magic themselves, or if this information was inaccessible to Dominic, which would be strange given how much of an orc nerd he is and how his father is some sort of orc hero. There's a smarmy us with Dominic's intelligence and the way he discovers things that I can't stand. It's the loan Savin to working away in his study, the singular genius who is the only one who can come together with these new revelations. They have an entire medical research division but it's Dominic working alone that makes these leaps and bounds forward, with his equally wunderkind brother. It's a very specific vision of intelligence and academia, that reeks of a sort of assumed innate superiority.

The type of superiority that would lead someone to, I don't know, assume they can understand the nakta that better than the nakta practitioners



See, Dominic is going to be presented as having been wrong to try to initiate this contact, but not because he's being presumptuous and sticking his nose where it doesn't belong. It's gonna be because he should have known that this into a were irrationally prejudiced, and he should not even have bothered talking to them.

FILLER ART TIME



Like I said, get ready. And whatever you think it's about, get ready for summing stupider



Don't worry, we never find out why he wants to kill Melna. Mookie never bothered doing this story



Even at this point, he decided that Jaden was going to be a filthy, filthy whore. I mean he's drawing her naked



Stupid puns! And again, Dominic is clearly the bigger jerk here for not recognizing how inappropriate is deliberate meddling is. But....



See? I told you! The reason that Dominic is humbled is not that his motivation was incorrect, but that he should have known that this into a would remain "irrational xenophobes". At the risk going on another polisci rant here, but rereading this arc it's struck me that every one of Mookie's stories has featured some sort of oppressed group being shown as being in the wrong for expressing anger, or wanting vengeance, or not being forgiving saints. You have the Shintula here, you'll have the purple elves in Star Power, and you're going to have whatever the Sektu Muat turn out to be in Legacy. And each time, they're framed as villains. It's incredibly cringing as a topic to write about even once as a white person, especially a white American. But Mookie keeps coming back to it and it's so weird, it's like he has an axe to grind about when some indigenous protest group told him to gently caress off or something.

I don't even think it's impossible to explore a story like this in a nuanced way, but it is a specific framing of irrationality and the sort of both-siding of the morality that is awful. I mean, the orcs literally had their land poisoned to "death" by Dominic's country's demonic army, but mistrusting Callanians is just xenophobia, and not entirely justified response to recent history. As long as the colonizers bring charitable donations, everything is fine and you should trust them completely.


I don't even know what the word play is supposed to be at the end. I don't know what the joke with "hyporcrite" is supposed to be

Part 8

We finally come to the end of this meandering and pointless arc. This last section is really just about Dominic and Luna having sex.



I don't even understand how geopolitics works and Deeganland. Why would Dominic expect "the kingdom" to help the orcs at all? I know people can get to into world building, like you saw the TV tropes mock threads, but having no definition of how nations relate to each other at all is I think worse than having too much detail in the background.

So yes anyway, Domenic and Luna finally get to screw. And I do mean finally, because...



It's going to be their first time together!



Like the worst Bioware Lovers Cut Scene



So, here is another place where I'm going to say that in another comic I would probably be okay with this, but coming from Mookie I find it creepy. Both Dominic and Luna have been acknowledged to have had active sexual pasts. They are both adults, and they have been living together for several months as an explicit romantic couple. It is creepy that they have not had sex yet, that they have been "waiting for the right time". Again, it feels like a fetishize age and of Luna's damaged innocence, especially given the earlier framing of her trying to sex it up to cheer Dominic up. I do think that this represents an infantile understanding of sexuality, in keeping with these weird Madonna/whore complex that we see everywhere in the comic.

He didn't even need to call out, he could have just left it that this was the first time we saw them have sex, without implying some sort of virgin purity packed.



And then you get the cliché super happy postcoital mood swings. Also the mandatory condom statement, despite them being an exclusive romantic couple. Also, again Greg, an adult, who has had sex, acts like a 10-year-old boy in wanting the dirty details before running away in terror.

Don't talk your brother about his sex life Greg, that's weird



None of this matters at all, I don't think the runcible/Cassafin thing ever comes up again actually.



Nielen just disappeared, he didn't die, so everything is fine lol. I I guess he did quit, so no one's gonna go and check up on him.

Also lol, "Melna's worked through her problems". A, why is Dominic even commenting on that and B, I don't think she's really solve her I'm in love with my abuser because he reminds me of my father problem. That feels more like a problem that the therapist would take decades to solve.


Coming soon, Snowsong, I already have the strip saved into anger so to happen fairly quickly.

I'm really excited about it

Trapezium Dave
Oct 22, 2012

I recall Jacob was based on one of Mookie's evil RPG characters, which explains why he can get away with so much more when compared to similar villains such as Celesto.

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!


SNOW SONG SOON?? YAY!!!

super sweet best pal
Nov 18, 2009

Jacob was the only halfway compelling villain because he was the only one to no-sell Dominic's Mary Sue bullshit.

Twelve by Pies
May 4, 2012

Again a very likpatous story

Beelzebufo posted:



Even at this point, he decided that Jaden was going to be a filthy, filthy whore. I mean he's drawing her naked

Oh I've got it, her secret is that she has no right leg, at least according to that picture.

I'm also not sure why the hell Cassafin got in trouble for trying to do charity work. Okay so the food cart got blown up. So? If she didn't go do the charity work the food would have gone to waste anyway. Also isn't "I'm going to help people even if it's dangerous" a good quality to have?

Ah right, I forgot, none of that matters because her actual sin was "Disobeyed a Deegan."

catlord
Mar 22, 2009

What's on your mind, Axa?
God, this is so loving dumb, and I'm horrified by all the talk of Snowsong. I feel the icy hand of dread.

Trapezium Dave
Oct 22, 2012

The more horrifying thing is that a) we're now past the point where every chapter is a downward slide from the previous and b) we're only at chapter 18 of 45.

Snowsong (next chapter) technically falls in the "better" half of Dominic Deegan.

Twelve by Pies
May 4, 2012

Again a very likpatous story
Also while trying to use google to find the old DD mock threads (which was unsuccessful and I wouldn't have been able to read them anyway most likely) I found the GitP thread on Legacy and read the first few pages and wow. One dude talking about how he was a DD fan for the whole comic's run and thought it remained good even through the end, and one guy who thought Legacy was legitimately a well written and fantastic comic to the point that he said "This comic is like double entertainment, the comic itself is entertaining and then coming here to see people grasping at straws to try and claim Mookie is bad is entertaining."

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!


Twelve by Pies posted:

Also while trying to use google to find the old DD mock threads (which was unsuccessful and I wouldn't have been able to read them anyway most likely) I found the GitP thread on Legacy and read the first few pages and wow. One dude talking about how he was a DD fan for the whole comic's run and thought it remained good even through the end, and one guy who thought Legacy was legitimately a well written and fantastic comic to the point that he said "This comic is like double entertainment, the comic itself is entertaining and then coming here to see people grasping at straws to try and claim Mookie is bad is entertaining."

here u go

Tesseraction posted:

Comically enough I grepped IRC logs for "Dominic Deegan" after a URL and the result I picked linked to one of your posts in the final thread!

First thread: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3279023

Second thread: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3386525

Third (and final) thread: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3459522

the mocking started in the old CAD threads i think??? but here's the actual deeganthreads

a cartoon duck
Sep 5, 2011

the thing that always continues to weird me out the most about terraciano's writing is his need administer the worst possible punishments to antagonists, but only when it's for relatively minor crimes. in his narratives it's not enough if someone gets publicly humiliated and loses their job, they MUST be tortured to near-death for karmic justice to be done. but only by an unrelated second antagonist so the moral purity of his protagonists remains untouched. this leads to an extremely weird-rear end moral framework in his stories where workplace harrassment is good, but breaking up relationships is bad, but torture and murder are good?

like you look at the list of characters that get violently murdered and tortured by unrelated third parties, and it's usually people that try to interfere with heteronormative relationships: sex town mayor, evil sportsball player, orc infernomancer, college flirt, siegfried again to show why he's double irredeemable, sheriff sportsball player. obviously some of them are rapists and that's one of the worst crimes possible in reality, but in the comic rape seems to be only bad if it interferes with a relationship, but not when it somehow becomes the foundation of one. meanwhile "cool, bad-rear end" villains like celesto, jacob and the infernomancer get to live through most of the comic doing their thing, while one of them gets a straight-up redemption arc and lives, and another is constantly on the edge of redemption, even though all three of them are literal serial killers.

it gives off these really uncomfortable incel-adjacent vibes when a comic repeatedly portrays the cool crime of murder but then also needs to rain down swift karmic justice on characters interfering with the sanctity of two nerds wanting to have sex

Dalris Othaine
Oct 14, 2013

I think, therefore I am inevitable.

Beelzebufo posted:

I don't even know what the word play is supposed to be at the end. I don't know what the joke with "hyporcrite" is supposed to be

Hyp-orc-rite. A hypocrite about orcs.

The fact that you missed this means your brain still loves you.

E: Dominic Deegan: really uncomfortable incel-adjacent vibes

ScienceSeagull
May 17, 2021

Figure 1 Smart birds.
I see what he's going for but that pun just looks like a typo.

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!


get ready for some torsos

Bismuth
Jun 11, 2010

by Azathoth
Hell Gem
I dont think mookie gets enough credit for how badly he draws clothes

Roleplaying Larry
Dec 5, 2008
I cannot get over this stupid motherfucker in his infant overalls with a big “DEAF” on the front gawking at strangers

Cloacamazing!
Apr 18, 2018

Too cute to be evil

Mx. posted:

get ready for some torsos



Pictured: Arudak's farming twin brother (accompanied by his wife giving him bedroom eyes tm), that jerk orc who was mean to Snout and has shaved his sideburns off as a sign of remorse, a faceless woman with more cleavage than clothing and Tyrion Lannister in a wifebeater.

I swear I've seen that pirate in the second panel too somewhere, but can't put my finger on it.

Mordja
Apr 26, 2014

Hell Gem
They can be vegetarian all they want, but something about an Orc holding a thing of baguettes is just inherently stupid to me.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

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

I love how apparently being “civilized” now means they all just wear the same poo poo Callanians wore a century ago, and nothing with any aesthetics related to their old traditional clothes.

PoptartsNinja
May 9, 2008

He is still almost definitely not a spy


Soiled Meat
Oh, good, apparently the Orclings are a servant class. :yikes:

EthanSteele
Nov 18, 2007

I can hear you
Completely unable to draw someone walking along with an umbrella. Dominic had a cane for approximately 1000000 strips.

YF-23
Feb 17, 2011

My god, it's full of cat!


Mors Rattus posted:

I love how apparently being “civilized” now means they all just wear the same poo poo Callanians wore a century ago, and nothing with any aesthetics related to their old traditional clothes.

With this sentence you gave the cultural implications and implied worldbuilding of the clothing infinitely more thought than mookie did. Somewhere between setting the start of the comic in the wild edge and now he's probably forgotten Callan is a thing.

Midnight Voyager
Jul 2, 2008

Lipstick Apathy

YF-23 posted:

With this sentence you gave the cultural implications and implied worldbuilding of the clothing infinitely more thought than mookie did. Somewhere between setting the start of the comic in the wild edge and now he's probably forgotten Callan is a thing.

I think it's simpler than that. He's literally got a "villains from Pocahontas" idea of civilization. "We're civilized, so if they are more like us, they are more civilized" And Callan is his "us".

Happy Landfill
Feb 26, 2011

I don't understand but I've also heard much worse

Roleplaying Larry posted:

I cannot get over this stupid motherfucker in his infant overalls with a big “DEAF” on the front gawking at strangers

It's the infantile outfit/tag combo combined with the very adult amount of chest and arm hair growth that does it for me.

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Billy Gnosis
May 18, 2006

Now is the time for us to gather together and celebrate those things that we like and think are fun.
I'm predicting a "humans are the uncivilized ones now" twist. But no analyzing of the implications or what he is saying about race etc

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