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a cartoon duck posted:are we at the "pretending to be even more illiterate than the author to get mad at things" part of the hate-reading cycle now? tall beardless orc says to meet at the library. snout meets a tall beardless orc in the library. is this the small orc? is this the bearded orc? it's impossible to tell! The confusion is between What's-his-face's assistant Veth and the orcling who delivered the message. Not that it's too confusing, since Veth has longer hair and two tusks while the messenger had shorter hair and one.
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Jul 1, 2021 13:38
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Captain Kosmos posted:
finally a book worth reading
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Jul 1, 2021 13:45
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SupSuper posted:Daxethar and Veth are these two: all these characters just kind of flow together when no one talks and nothing happens
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Jul 1, 2021 14:00
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The comic is so boring that it's impossible to remember any of the characters and gently caress you if you think I'm rereading it to find out.
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Jul 1, 2021 14:00
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I think what makes Veth so forgettable is that he not only looks somewhat similar to the otherwise plot-unimportant servants, but that his role so far seems so redundant. Why introduce a character to have him arrange to meet them in the place they were already trying to get to? Why go to a library to meet that character so he can give them a book? Why not just have them find the book in the course of their own research? Why not have him tell them to look it up while they were there?
Emrikol fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Jul 1, 2021 |
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Jul 1, 2021 14:59
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I didn't recognize Veth at first either, besides the outfit change he's spent every page up til now looking frantic and disheveled. Now he's making the same dead faced doe eyes at Snout that everyone else does. That and we were told he was running late, so I just kind of assumed there'd be a week's worth of pages between then and his arrival. Instead he showed up two pages (and sequentially just two panels) later, making the entire "Veth is running late" arc pointless.
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Jul 1, 2021 16:47
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Also, when he got there, he just tapped Snout on the shoulder and handed him a book, which Snout immediately opened and began reading. It's kind of a weird sequence, really. I assume Veth's going to stick around for a bit, because otherwise why not just have the messenger deliver the book? Again, it's strange to my thinking to have this weird little jag about meeting someone and being given a book at the library the characters were going to anyway.
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Jul 1, 2021 17:08
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Veth apparently got a haircut on the way to the library. Wait, no. He apparently got a haircut in the middle of the vegan exorcism of corpsewife:    He goes from a below-the-shoulders David-St-Hubbins feathered mullet kind of thing to a shorter Live-From-Las-Vegas-it's-Rod-Stewart kind of thing. Which appears to be generic orc haircut #7. The transformation apparently occurs in the middle of jotting down a note. I think the above is literally every panel he appears in before the most recent comic. Maybe he's a hair warlock (capillomancer)?
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Jul 1, 2021 19:43
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I'm not trying to comically misinterpret/not recognize characters here, I genuinely could not tell that that was a character we were supposed to recognize. Edit: Okay, looking at the post above me, that was definitely a mistake on my end lol. Happy Landfill fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Jul 1, 2021 |
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Jul 1, 2021 19:48
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Thanks for the avatar, it's really something. No more wondering what to get.
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Jul 1, 2021 20:22
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The edit's funny to me on a different level, because I thought about how there could have been an amusing callback to the inexplicable lone non-pornographic book in the Mongreltown porn shop in having them go to the library and find smut.
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Jul 1, 2021 20:47
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Yeah this is not a face blindness issue it's just that the character design is unmemorable and it's easy to mistake him for Random Orc Extra #5. Also this entire scene is a weird non-sequitir since what the gently caress does Orcish poetry about the decline of oral tradition have to do with the Legacy of Dominic Deegan
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Jul 1, 2021 21:43
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Exactly as much as everything else that happens in this comic.
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Jul 1, 2021 21:50
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Chapter 19: Snowsong Part 3 despite everything I don't hate this character beat. Having the villain regret their actions for a moment before being compelled to fight again by the protagonists, could be interesting in a better story. If Rachel had not clobbered snowsong maybe the fight could've ended here. The only problem is that that's never addressed as a possibility so this again and again a tiny piece of DD in isolation that is good that is wasted in the greater story. Also going back to D&D/videogame magic, I'm annoyed that you can just manifest the ice without touch or anything. We really still have no idea what the scope of her powers are.  Again stupid pratfall jokes in the middle of serious battles. Also when you think about it, doesn't want to know some just didn't make magic resistance much more precarious than it seemed previously. "The fireball isn't heating you up it's heating the air around you to the point of burning you", for example.  Hard to read this anything other than again mocking women for their sexuality. I mean Rachel is ridiculous as a character, and thinking about it now must've been some over-the-top version of an anime character Mookie liked. But Mookie can't ever give up a chance to directly call out in narrative women dressing in sexually provocative ways, and using it as the butt of jokes or as directed insults. At least Rachel, unlike every other wilting violet female character in the comic, defends herself and owns it .  Looks like somehow Dex and and Rachel got involved in this without being explained all what snowsong's motivations were or why she was doing what she was doing. Keep this in mind because again, the reveal is going to be that Dominic set all of this up, so both Dex and Rachel are actually put into very real danger of dying because of Dominic's thoughtless manipulative bullshit. "Verified by his brother" lol. Everyone in the comic just treats Dominic like the supreme authority on truth. It is funny how direct Snowsong's vengeance calculation is. It's not that Gregory Deegan defeated the chosen, it's only specifically that he was the source of the giant magical explosion that killed them all that is her problem. I don't know, if I was writing a character like this I wouldn't have them fixate so much on the specifics, more on the humiliating defeat in general.  If a woman is dying, her breasts must be directly front and centre. I'm pretty sure that's part of the comic code. Snowsong is probably one of the most effective villains that has appeared in the comic so far though. Like that's pretty good super villain talk right there. Then all of a sudden...  I can only figure that Mookie was looking through the monster manual something, because that's obviously a Drider. Or at least a lumpy un-detailed version of one. Having it made out of ice was the way Mookie got around not being able to draw something that complex I don't know why that's supposed to be more intimidating than just the all-powerful ice mage. It feels kinda lazy and derivative actually  I do like how apparently she's operating it like a puppet though. And of course even though Rachel was not facing that way when we saw her last, and we don't see her get her hit by the dry spider, we still get this great gratuitous buttshot of the dying lady. So I guess the field that they met in was actually quite a ways away from the town, based on that reaction panel from Dex. It's weird because at the very least you would assume that the field would be where she confronted Greg last time, or where the original battle with the chosen happened, but those locations were both in town. This is Mookie not planning the geography of any of his stories. Here's where the story jumps into stupid overdrive.  So Greg is just having fun with his witty banter, even though as know some points out, people are dying. If it had been implied that Greg couldn't use his white fire, then maybe there would be some tension here. But since his deactivating his powers was voluntary, and it's been implied that he's been playing along largely due to some fantasy in rich or playing out, even without the Dominic twist at the end, this is still Greg irresponsibly putting his friends in danger  Penis joke! So some at least keeps up the Batman villain, with a perfect retort to Greg's bullshit. I find it hilarious that in the same comic where it's implied that ice magic can kill you by slowly freezing your blood and stopping your heart, the understood logic is still that if you are frozen in a block of ice you will come out frozen-caveman style and be okay. Again, what is the danger level here!?!  Here it is, here it comes! Incidentally, Abrakaboom is terrible, it's garbage. It's not clever, and I hate you Mookie for coming up with it. Realize of course that Greg could have done this at any time  Yes, here he is in all his audience ruining glory! The one and only SuperGreg! A character whose presence in the comic is so wildly out of place that it turn people against Mookie en masse. I mean, how are people supposed to take anything that happened in the comic seriously after this point. Like I said previously, the biggest thing about this superhero inclusion that is the problem is that is not actually an attempt to put a superhero type character into a medieval setting, but having a character cosplay is superhero in a setting that logically should not have them as a cultural touchstone. Mookie will introduce later that there are in fact things called action books in this world, but logically given the magical patterns already seen, these would be more analogous to comics about call of duty characters or military people in general, rather than fantastic figures like they are with us. It's the laziness which would Mookie attempts to just insert this passing random thought into his world that pissed people off. This isn't an author writing a story, it's a kid playing with action figures. If you had any sort of investment in the narrative to this point, this was basically spitting in your face. Dex representing the audience here. Rachel making the "my hero" face is the worst.  I love how unnaturally snowsong is posed, there just no way for Mookie to draw these characters without the boobs firmly out and proud.  Again this is all stupid, but I'm going to point out that Greg uses his magic to physically break snowsong's ice spider thing. That is white fire affecting the physical world in a destructive way. The entire argument as to why Greg could not have been the murderer that snows on thinks he is is based on the fact that white magic isn't supposed to be able to be destructive. I just bring this up because this is exactly the same thing that we see with Starpower. Somehow despite these being all sensual energy beams are capable of exerting force Mookie always finds a way to contrive it so that when his protagonists are just blasting them everywhere, there is zero chance that they will kill anyone. It's such a childish understanding of power. Even if you want to believe in the superhero ideal, the idea of there being a responsibility that comes with these abilities because you could hurt others is inherent to the concept. But Mookie's childish morality system doesn't allow him to even consider the possibility of his main characters ever doing anything bad. He doesn't even want to bring it up. But this is juxtaposed with again, Mookie's need to viciously punish his villains in bloody and torturous ways.  For example here, the plot and dialogue is going out of its way to underline that Greg would never kill anyone. And that's correct, but like I am explored previously in this readthrough, the narrative will always find a way to immediately punish the people that the protagonists have magnanimously spared. In a normal story, one that was constantly written, Greg would be arguing that he tried his best not to hurt anyone and that Caylin made it impossible. In this story the argument has to be that it was entirely the villain's fault and that Greg nonviolently solve the issue with his extreme magical powers and white fire laser beams. The destructive magic all came from the villains! So all the chosen get to die and go to hell, but not because of the protagonists, just because the plot ended up that way! It's really extremely uncompelling writing, because it really isn't a conflict to speak of with the protagonists. It's just this misguided lady smashing her fists ineffectually against the Mary Sue.  And I do mean ineffectually! See, if Gregory had chosen to walk in he could have prevented everything that happened. Rachel did not need to be in danger of dying at all. Greg was never in any danger, and has from prolonging all this purely for his own stupid enjoyment. Also I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, that line in panel five. "I'm a murdered? You tried to kill four people today". Nothing the Deegans do can ever be done without the self-righteous superiority complex rearing its head. Again Mookie thinks he is so clever to have this reversal moment where Greg calls out the free spirit snowsong for actually being an oppressor. This is the climax of the story! This is what Mookie thought was what needed telling! I don't even know what sort of moral or theme you're supposed to read into this!  The stupidest version of "stare not into the abyss, lest it stare back at you" ever. Of course, now that's no song is gone from being a villain to a heroine, having converted to the Deegan cult, she must now become a sadsack insecure loser and immediately attempt suicide  See, wasn't joking about that, I like how Mookie gets around having to draw a hand other than a closed ice fist, by just giving the golem a big stupid claw for no reason. How funked up this story is when you step out of it for sick. Like if a comic book did this, people would call it out for being cringy with regards to the gender politics. Having your female super villain asking for the male hero to literally shatter her and murder her is super fuked up. I mean maybe I'm playing in to the "vulnerable woman" stereotypes in my brain right now, but I can't even look at this strip without feeling weird. There's just something so fundamentally wrong this turn for Snowsong's character, this gross helplessness that I find it repulsive.  Especially given that it actually does not lead to any sort of moral conundrum on Greg's part. There isn't even a buildup of tension! Just literally white fire plot solvent applied liberally, combined with what Mookie thinks is a clever solution, but without set up is just him pulling things out of his rear end.  See, we can question why it is that the weight spell apparently allows you to withstand extreme impacts without harm, and whether or not there should be something that they would remember for the future, but really who cares, we all know that that was going to happen. The important thing is that we now know that there were multiple way his friend could've solved all of this.  Thankfully a gigantic ice golem breaking apart of the town apparently harms no one, and Greg and Dominic can sit back and smug self-satisfaction about how they saved everyone yet again.  Haha, I give this woman a concussion by slamming her into an ice golem headfirst! I know that this is cartoon logic, I just find it funny that apparently Greg didn't protect no song enough when he cast those spells. Pam of course has the correct response to the situation, given the actual stakes and potential for harm. Like Honestly, how could anyone read this and not think that Greg and Dominic were incredibly negligent and iresponsible, to the point of being the real villains of this arc. The fact that Mookie didn't realize how unlikable these actions were speaks volumes.
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Jul 1, 2021 22:03
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I just wanna point out that this entire arc steals heavily from Spiderman 1
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Jul 1, 2021 22:21
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7/18/07 Are you loving kidding me?? by NevrMore on Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:14 pm posted:
by Warde on Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:19 pm posted:
by Taylon on Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:28 pm posted:
by Necris Omega on Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:29 pm posted:
by legendary on Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:31 pm posted:
by Helleshin on Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:34 pm posted:
by Janika on Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:46 pm posted:
by Silvsilvchan on Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:47 pm posted:
by NevrMore on Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:48 pm posted:
by Taylon on Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:52 pm posted:You know, for the longest time I was supporting the comic. I still do. I've met Mookie in person on numerous occasions at Conventions, as some people here might have as well. Had a nice twenty minute discussion and what not almost every time. Also expressing how much I do enjoy reading the comic and his works. But... by Merry on Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:59 pm posted:
by NW on Wed Jul 18, 2007 1:02 am posted:
by Thy Brilliance on Wed Jul 18, 2007 1:03 am posted:
by Hinoarashi on Wed Jul 18, 2007 1:14 am posted:
That's all from page 1 of 10.
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Jul 1, 2021 22:36
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"Oh man it'd be so funny if Rachel was saying something but got cut off by Snowsong" "You know what'd be funny? If Rachel was saying something but got cut off" "Aw man I've got a great idea for a joke, what if Rachel was saying something..."
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Jul 1, 2021 23:20
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Rotten Red Rod posted:7/18/07 Are you loving kidding me?? Even as someone who destroyed their liver for content, this is the content I've never known Amazing..
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Jul 2, 2021 00:52
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It is interesting to see the reactions of those for whom this was the last straw. Because on the one hand, yeah this strip was never really *good* except by the low standards of early webcomics where one will make you laugh now and again. You wonder how someone who put up with the Storm of Souls, Stonewater, boring fantasy mafia, and even this arc's insipid law/chaos material draws the line at Supergreg. But also I kinda get it? The execution is just such a strong, determined slap in the face. Like gently caress you, comic book superheroes are a thing in the universe now, people know about the concept, Snowsong even partly says Superman for gently caress's fake. There is clearly no effort involved in making this fit into the setting. He is Supergreg now, gently caress you. Like I don't want to get into "writing a hypothetical good version" with this strip because my God where do you start, but like, I can imagine a fantasy story taking place in a very high-magic world having a story where someone with magic puts on a costume to hide their identity and fights bad guys under an alias which is some flashy persona and you're drawing on tropes going back to the Scarlet Pimpernel and beyond, etc. All the stuff that came before Superman, mix it together differently and you have something that reads as a superhero but emerges from the setting. This is a lot of storytelling, you take familiar things but you put them together differently. Mookie doesn't wanna do the effort. And it's notable that some of the defenses are from people who still look at this like it's the gag strip it started out as, sure they do dumb jokes right? (And I do wonder how many of these people who thought the reveal was a one-off gag where turned off by the subsequent strips where no, he's a superhero now.) Like they don't understand context, but the strip has already made clear it doesn't really believe in tonal consistency. Also I like how Snowsong presents Greg with a dilemma that's all philosophical ("You must kill me to save others!"), but rather than his solution being something that demonstrates a better philosophy, it's presented more as a cheap stunt.
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Jul 2, 2021 01:59
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Another note, after reading through all 10 pages of the thread (don't bother by the way, it becomes a banal slapfight by page 3 or so), I think Mookie might have come up with the " Edit: lol I actually legitimately typed Mookie instead of Dominic by accident, I'm leaving that in
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Jul 2, 2021 02:19
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Oh god I remember this now. And it turns out that Greg's inspiration is a comic book hero named Super Mage. His amazing super power is using magic. In a world where magic is commonplace and mundane.
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Jul 2, 2021 02:32
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There were references to comic book heroes earlier on in the comic; it was in the part where Original Personality Greg refused to take part in Rachel's dress ups: It just hasn't been front and centre as the main focus of the story before, and the reveal of SuperGreg is the point where the reader realises that all that Buzz Beardman stuff wasn't just a nod and a wink at comics - it was the entire point. I also think it would have gone over a lot better if this was Greg organically becoming a superhero within the setting and not Greg play acting a superhero (despite actually have the requisite powers). Totally agree with the feeling of Mookie smashing his action figures together here. edit: I will add this though, Snowsong is still miles better than where the comic currently is because at least stuff was happening back then.
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Jul 2, 2021 02:35
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Maxwell Lord posted:Like I don't want to get into "writing a hypothetical good version" with this strip because my God where do you start, but like, I can imagine a fantasy story taking place in a very high-magic world having a story where someone with magic puts on a costume to hide their identity and fights bad guys under an alias. It's 100% possible to do it well or at least okay. Zuko and Katara both do it A:TLA, there's a Pathfinder AP where a fighter/rogue rich guy in the city is basically Batman. Exalted has Mirror Flag. Mookie is just Mookie, and uh, he wrote this.
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Jul 2, 2021 03:14
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Yeah, there's plenty of decent ways to mix superheroics and traditional fantasy but... uh... this ain't it. So far I've found this more embarrassing and tedious than anything, but I am finding that I am dreading the next story arc based on what people have mentioned and based on that break-up post.
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Jul 2, 2021 03:44
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Supergreg is truly incredible. Nobody else could have written this arc. And that's why I will never stop reading and I hope mookie never stops creating. There stands a legend.
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Jul 2, 2021 03:44
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GreenMetalSun posted:It's 100% possible to do it well or at least okay. Zuko and Katara both do it A:TLA, there's a Pathfinder AP where a fighter/rogue rich guy in the city is basically Batman. Exalted has Mirror Flag. Hell, Zuko’s whole deal was pretending to just be a badass ninja in a world where supernatural powers are somewhat common, and fans went nuts for it.
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Jul 2, 2021 04:04
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Fister Roboto posted:Oh god I remember this now. And it turns out that Greg's inspiration is a comic book hero named Super Mage. His amazing super power is using magic. In a world where magic is commonplace and mundane. That's fine. It's like a super martial artist or super runner etc.
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Jul 2, 2021 06:57
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  lol @ the text on that help desk I have no idea what this poem might mean or who J. Deegan might be but some of the finer Deegan scholars can probably figure it out.
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Jul 2, 2021 06:57
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this poetry sucks
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Jul 2, 2021 07:01
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J Deegan, or Jregory
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Jul 2, 2021 07:01
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SupSuper posted:Daxethar and Veth are these two: Wait hold on, but like... Veth is basically his servant, right? Veth just takes note for him. You don't get title credit for transcribing for your boss.
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Jul 2, 2021 07:35
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I feel like Snout has genuinely forgotten why he wanted to come to this library in the first place.
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Jul 2, 2021 07:44
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Can you help me, o faceless one?
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Jul 2, 2021 07:48
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Midnight Voyager posted:Wait hold on, but like... Veth is basically his servant, right? Veth just takes note for him. When we know basically nothing about these characters it's kind of silly to call something an inconsistency when it's actually a small piece of coherent character exposition lost in the slurry. Like, him being credited really does suggest that he's NOT just a servant and several pages of wordless note taking doesn't make him also doing other stuff impossible. Like this comic is unbelievably bad and it makes me furious every other page, but I really do feel like people in this thread play dumb about things that are very straightforward. This applies to the "how am I supposed to tell if this is Veth" discussion too.
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Jul 2, 2021 07:50
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 The epic continues.
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Jul 2, 2021 08:29
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Rotten Red Rod posted:finer Deegan scholars
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Jul 2, 2021 09:20
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Riot Bus posted:Like this comic is unbelievably bad and it makes me furious every other page, but I really do feel like people in this thread play dumb about things that are very straightforward. This applies to the "how am I supposed to tell if this is Veth" discussion too. Gentlemen, you can't make fun of Mookie's art in here! This is the Dominic Deegan mock thread! Fister Roboto posted:this poetry sucks It's funny because one of the panels in Snowsong has her teacher telling her that the poems she wrote don't fit the standard form and she has to use iambic pentameter. Ignoring that this was a pretty basic "You didn't do the assignment properly" situation, this whole thing Mookie is doing now is a good example of why these kinds of assignments are given. I think it'd be a little unfair to assume that the Snowsong panel literally happened to Mookie just because he's writing lovely poetry now (though it'd be pretty funny) but given that he is writing lovely poetry now it does feel like it's a look into how he thinks, and a big part of why Dominic Deegan is the way it is. He doesn't understand the value in learning the fundamentals of creation because "Not everything is the same, people have their own personal styles, not everything follows the rules!" At any rate, be it through the art, the plot, the characters, or the poetry, Dominic Deegan is an excellent example of why learning the fundamentals is useful to creating.
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Jul 2, 2021 09:26
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i completely forgot all about that super greg bullshit despite vividly remembering so much of the comic. i guess my mind must've repressed it like a traumatic memory fiction is so full of examples of mysterious avengers, masked swordsmen and martial artists, your Scarlet Pimpernels and Zorros, that it's trivially-easy to make a super hero work in a fantasy setting. the problem is just that terraciano does not care for things like "themes" or "emotional consistency", he just wants to thoughtlessly ape an aesthetic because he happened to enjoy it at the moment. and honestly, the thing is this wouldn't even work in a modern setting because even most schlocky super hero comedies have the awareness to either make the antagonist a caricature or give the protagonist a moment of emotional sincerity and growth during the climax. terraciano is so obsessed with "subverting tropes" that a character' suicide attempt exists just to show off how smart his protagonists are and to make jokes about it. honestly the number of times suicide is either the set-up or the punchline for a joke in dd is just kinda callous
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Jul 2, 2021 13:03
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Twelve by Pies posted:Gentlemen, you can't make fun of Mookie's art in here! This is the Dominic Deegan mock thread! Yeah, because mocking art by purposefully misunderstanding simple information definitely makes you look cool and funny and smarter than Mookie. That's some Cinema Sins level poo poo.
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Jul 2, 2021 14:29
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 19:11 |
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So the first poem Snout read, that seemed to be describing Snout, had nothing to do with why we're here and what actually matters is this poem by Jacob (Why are all the Deegans writing poetry now) that doesn't have ANYTHING to do with Snout or what's going on and is just Veth seeing what bizarre tangent this takes Snout on. So the poem describing Snout, The two page delay from Veth being late, Coming to this Orc Town to visit the library, none of it had anything to do with the plot or really anything at all. Just this dude seeing what a guy thinks about a poem.
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Jul 2, 2021 15:42
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