Webcomics

I warned you that once I got going with the OOTS posts, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

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(From The Order of the Stick. Click for full-sized surrender.)

So it turns out I was wrong, and the title of my last OOTS post was incorrect. He did manage to stop Kubota from getting away.

Couple of points of interest, though. Kubota seems awfully confident. Is it because he sees Elan’s reaction coming, or does he have another plan up his sleeve? Does he plan on killing Hinjo himself once he’s in custody, or does he just feel confident he can beat the magistrate?

(Or… heaven forbid… has he paid off the magistrate?)

Second, Elan actually seems to be slightly upset that Kubota turned himself in, and ultimately gives in to his temptation to punch him in the face.

There’s something to be said about that, something about how close Elan has really gotten to Therkla after really only knowing her for a smattering of strips, something about Elan’s current maturity level and control over his emotions, but it took me too long to write even these words and I don’t know if I had anything to say about it anyway.

Only six more strips until the big 600th episode!

The worst part? He failed at both options.

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(From The Order of the Stick. Click for full-sized Oscar bait.)
If you read OOTS, either run far, far away from this page right now, or click the thumbnail to read the strip before continuing. A spoiler warning is in effect any time I talk OOTS, but it goes double here.

Well, it appears we now know exactly to what extent Therkla’s role in the strip is/was intended to be.

My personal interpretation of events in OOTS is that everything Rich throws in there is there for a reason. That’s why it’s likely Durkon’s one-time flame Hilgya is bound to come back at some point, literally or metaphorically; that’s why I’m half-convinced there has to be some sort of fallout from the Order’s encounter with bandits. And that’s why I have a feeling Kubota’s plots are about to develop in such a way that Elan will find himself really, really wishing he still had Therkla around. I don’t see them burning any sort of resurrection spell on her, given her last wish, and especially with this death scene.

(Well, and given she’d just turned good.)

Well, that or Elan’s encounter with Therkla will lead him to grow distant with Haley if, as appears likely, their reunion is imminent. But I do know there are quite a few people who were awaiting a potential Therkla-Haley catfight who are probably going to be rather disappointed now.

(There is a third option, embodied in the title of the top thread in the OOTS forum just as it went into database backup mode when I checked: “Therkla and Roy?” But the reasons why that’s just wrong are about a mile high… although we could see Haley die and turn out to have the same alignment as Therkla and get into a catfight after all… I’m not honestly suggesting that of course!)

(And then there’s the fourth option that Kubota just left his “fingerprints” on Therkla’s death and left Elan, Kazumi, and Daigo as witnesses… but he doesn’t come across to me as being that dumb, and it would be a kind of tax-evasiony charge to bring Kubota in on, especially as Elan is really the only one who cares about her.)

Two Darths and Droids posts a week apart? What is the world coming to?

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(From Darths and Droids. Click for full-sized self-inflicted breakdown in negotiations.)
When Qui-Gon was caught saying, “Jar Jar, you’re a genius!” it spread through the Internet like wildfire, with more than a little nudging from the Comic Irregulars themselves.

Regardless of whatever the circumstances of the original movie may be, I’m somewhat shocked they didn’t try it again with “Help us, Jar-Jar Binks. You’re our only hope.”

But then I guess you can only do the same trick so many times before people say, “We get it. Now go away.”

(If there were a Darths and Droids drinking game, at this point Pete drinking at whatever fantasy story/RPG cliche happens to happen is worth at least two drinks.)

You know the drill. OOTS fawning ahead. Here there be spoilers.

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(From The Order of the Stick. Click for full-sized planning ahead.)

I found a recent comment from Robert Howard that stated that Tangents would take a couple of months to come back in full. Which means I can put up all my other OOTS thoughts while I wait. I’ve added yet another one to the stack, and neither one of the two I was thinking of is the one I want to look at today.

This one concerns the very structure of OOTS that has sprung up recently. At the end of the last book, Rich Burlew split the Order in twain after killing off their fearless leader, and since about #500 the strip has largely consisted of shuttling between the two groups: Vaarsuvius, Elan, and Durkon on the one hand, and Haley, Belkar, and non-member Celia on the other. (Roy’s ghost has popped in once or twice with the latter, though the Oracle of Sunken Valley has been the only living being to see or hear him so far, and we also shuttled over to Team Evil for a spell, and their captive paladin O-Chul.)

Nominally, both branches of the Order have been concerned with reuniting, resurrecting Roy, and continuing their quest to stop Xykon’s evil plot. The former, and thus the latter two as well, has been restricted by a magical spell surrounding Haley and Belkar that only they and Celia know about, coupled with the fact that the only members of the group able to make magical contact with them, or resurrect Roy, are with the other group (while Roy remains with Haley and Belkar).

Haley, Celia, and Belkar have remained largely focused on their goal, although the group dynamics between them have been, in large part, the focus, and the last time we saw them Haley’s past looked to be catching up to her. However, Elan and Durkon, powerless to do anything about the situation, have found themselves distracted by the travails of their hosts, Hinjo and the in-exile government of Azure City, especially the plot against Hinjo by the rogue noble (possibly with otherworldly backing) Kubota. (V has been just the opposite, so focused on trying to find Haley and Belkar it’s caused him/her to do the elvish equivalent of “lose sleep” and grow distant from the rest of the group.)

As a result, the story of this half of the Order has little to do with the overall superplot of the strip at all, and has been, essentially, a self-contained story of its own. It is, essentially, Elan’s story, which is why I was hoping to link the Tangents-derived post to this stage of the story, even though recent strips have cross-cut between the tribulation in the strip above and the battle with a massive demon. Kubota’s top minion, Therkla, has been distracted from her “kill-Hinjo” mission by her growing “feelings” for Elan, which until recently Elan was mostly oblivious to, and Kubota was barely oblivious to. Now that plotline has been building to a climax worthy of a Bond movie, which makes it all the more appropriate that Elan would be at the center of it – and which, especially coupled with the renewed promise the last time we looked at Haley, Celia, and Belkar, pretty strongly suggests the group will reunite at or around #600.

Interestingly, it’s not clear exactly what role Therkla plays in this story. At first glance, she’d appear to be a classic femme fatale, especially since Elan has been an item with Haley since just before the battle over Azure City. However, Elan has never been at risk of turning to the side of evil, or even really being distracted from whatever he needed to do. When Therkla suggested just being together until Haley returned, Elan rejected even that without a second thought (although it’s unclear just how much he’s willing to stick to that position). If anything, it’s been Therkla who seems to have genuinely been drawn, if not exactly to the side of good, at least away from the side of evil, with Elan being the unwitting “femme fatale” in this case – a point driven home when Kubota initially put Therkla in the “him or me” position instead of Elan. In fact, it’s been suggested that Therkla has never even really been evil, but has only been loyal to Kubota for giving her a place where she can fit in. (Therkla’s a half-orc and there’s a long tradition in science fiction and fantasy of half-breeds being rejected by both sides of their lineage.)

This is not the first time Burlew has brought us a story quite this divorced from the overall superplot, which hasn’t really advanced that much since the battle of Azure City. The lengthy bandit episode had little to do with the superplot, as did the starmetal quest that it took up the bulk of. The only real time we had a story quite this divorced from the superplot, at least since the effective start of it, has probably been the last encounter with the Linear Guild, which by and large, Elan also stood at the center of. The foreshadowing of that story, incidentially, started at the very beginning of the starmetal quest and wasn’t resolved until right before #400, a delay of over 250 strips – suggesting it may be a long wait indeed for anything quite so momentous to befall the one thing there’s any real foreshadowing of at the moment, which ironically, would be the next advancement of the superplot. In a sense, it’s stories like these that keep the strip from going “mad”, as it were, with focusing on a single plot it advances above all else, and allows it to keep a little bit of the magic from the Original 42.

But then she’ll get counter-revenge when the feds show up at his house.

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(From Irregular Webcomic! Click for full-sized revenge.)

Saw an ad on Sandsday that made me wonder, “I wonder what’s up with IWC these days.” Head over there.

First thought: I don’t get it. Is this just a collection of random xkcd references being used as parody?

Second thought: Okay, I get it now. Rather… interesting, but more coherent than first thought.

Third thought: Man, Irregular Webcomic sure seems to have a weird relationship with xkcd. I wonder if David Morgan-Mar and Randall Munroe know each other.

Fourth thought: Man, I should post this before the strip changes overnight.

Fifth thought: Oh, I just caught something! He talks about “the guy with the ball pit in his apartment” and that refers to something that was in xkcd and one of Munroe’s blog posts!

Sixth thought: Wait, Morgan-Mar hasn’t replied to my most recent Darths and Droids post? It’s the apocalypse!

Seventh thought: Man, sometimes Irregular Webcomic! really seems to cry out for me to be a regular reader…

The Angst-O-Meter: Day 2

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(From Ctrl+Alt+Del. Click for full-sized footnotes.)

A couple of notes about today’s Ctrl+Alt+Del.

First, I’m starting to wonder if Tim is starting to send the message that Ethan is not nearly as much of an idiot as he’s long been made out to be, and never has been (pointing to the creation of Zeke). That seemed to be pulled back into focus by the start of this story arc, which this strip calls back to. If Ethan is really a misunderstood genius, it can’t be good for the accusations of Mary Sue-dom that have been leveled at him.

(Man, I’m reeeeeally bummed at Tangents being reduced to a LiveJournal backup at the moment, because this would have been a really nice tie-in to my OOTS post that requires the real Tangents to be up. Stupid lazy Robert A. Howard.)

And yes, I know Ethan originally convinced Lucas to nix the tie, and tells him he should have worn it here.

And all that is related to my other point. We’ve seen Lilah start to go mad, but it’s starting to look like Ethan may be starting to go mad as well, snapping a little at Lucas when he mentions arguably the least of his problems.

And all that means it’s time to bump the Angst-O-Meter up to 62%.

Good day.

Oh, Jim. The game? You just lost it. Sorry.

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(From Darths and Droids. Click for full-sized snacks.)

I’ve mentioned in the past that Darths and Droids has appropriated the Star Wars plot as its own, but has also instituted its own metaplot involving the players of the characters. I’ve also suggested that the introduction of Annie suggested that the epic plot of Star Wars could result in the equally epic expansion of said metaplot.

But as of this strip, we now have a suggestion that the Darths and Droids metaplot may undergo a sort of Cerebus Syndrome without any help from Star Wars at all. Why? The third and fourth panels.

I prefer to believe that Ben was about to say “She doesn’t have a boyfriend”. Which as we all know, can only lead to one thing: Jim getting the hots for her. Possibly expanded into a love triangle with Pete as well.

But I don’t want any spoilers when David Morgan-Mar inevitably comments on this post. In fact, I would have titled this post “Because it’s been too long since we’ve heard from David Morgan-Mar” but I just couldn’t pass up a chance to torment all of you. Again, sorry.

Don’t worry, the webcomic reviews should return to Tuesday after this.

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(From Penny Arcade. Click for full-sized infinite Tigers.)

Because of time constraints, low battery power, and the fact my first attempt at this post got lost partly because of my own stupidity, this post will be an experiment in shorter webcomic reviews.

Penny Arcade is, by almost any measure, the most popular primarily-web-based comic in history. Millions of people peruse it every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and who knows how many of them have tried their own knockoffs of the PA formula. Jerry Krahulik and Mike Holkins often do promotional work for actual big time game companies and their actual games. “Gabe and Tycho” have created more memes than anyone this side of xkcd (Greater Internet F**kwad Theory, anyone?) and managed to channel their many readers’ efforts into their Child’s Play charity. They’ve even started their own gaming convention, the Penny Arcade Expo, on the backs of their wildly successful comic strip, further establishing their bona fides as among the most powerful people in the video game industry.

And for the life of me I can’t figure out why.

Now I’ve only read a couple weeks’ worth of strips and almost nothing outside of this year, so maybe the strip has jumped the shark and I just missed all the good strips. But Penny Arcade, in a lot of ways, reminds me of xkcd, in that I don’t know what to make of it. Many strips, like with xkcd, feel like little more than moments in time; Gabe and Tycho famously disdain continuity, and in fact are really the only two recurring characters. Often their strips are like editorial cartoons for the game industry, except they tend to be laden with injokes and sometimes are incomprehensible without the accompanying blog post. I don’t know if I’m in a position to appraise the writing, but the art… isn’t bad, and it’s certainly better than most PA knockoffs (then again, so is Ctrl+Alt+Del‘s art), but it isn’t spectacular either. On the rare occasions when the strip does dip into continuity, they can lack flow even with the blog post. (So, exactly what did happen to Tycho between these two strips?) Some strips feel like they’re missing a panel, or crammed into one panel too few, or fall flat for other reasons.

If you go to the Penny Arcade home page, you’re not taken to the comic but to the daily blog post. I can’t help but wonder if this is the real core of Penny Arcade‘s popularity; if most of the site’s readers come in not for the strip, but for Gabe and Tycho’s various musings on the goings-on of the video game industry, including the occasional video game review. Which makes it odd that Gabe and Tycho are so often held up by webcomic boosters as an example of All That’s Right with webcomics, when their strip may well be mediocre at best and probably isn’t the main draw to the site. Their praise may just encourage PA knockoffs who actually do a better job than they’re often given credit for of aping the PA style and quality, but don’t really get it, and don’t really grasp why PA is so popular, even having perfunctory blogs but letting the strip drive the blog rather than the blog drive the strip.

Of course, on the other hand, the geeknerd core audience of many a webcomic tends to like semi-surreal rule-breaking things. I guess it’s up to people like me to point non-geek webcomic shoppers to strips that are actually doing good things with the form like Order of the Stick.

The Angst-O-Meter: Day 1

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(From Ctrl+Alt+Del. Click for full-sized backhand.)

Time to play the game that’s sweeping the nation: the Ctrl+Alt+Del Angst-O-Meter! I was going to post this yesterday, but Monday Night Football, and other TV-watching pursuits, largely monopolized my time.

In a sense, Ctrl+Alt+Del is becoming the anti-Order of the Stick. Whereas if I were to post every time OOTS prompted me to, I would post with every strip because it’s just that good and entertaining, under normal circumstances if I were to post every time CAD prompted me to, I would post with every strip because CAD seems to want to send its characters even further into a tailspin with every strip. There’s only so many ways you can say “CAD is descending into First and Ten Syndrome, just as people feared during the miscarraige arc” over and over.

Just look at everything Tim Buckley has put his characters through in the past two weeks plus: revealed Kate hanging out with another man, broke up Kate and Lucas almost out of nowhere, sold the store where Ethan works to Lilah’s ex, and now Lucas just punched Zeke’s head clean off. It’s nothing Ethan hasn’t been able to fix before, but this strip is important for more than Zeke’s capitectomy. Lucas is in full-on angst mode here, fully dwelling on just how far down his life has gone in two real-time weeks. Remember when Buckley told readers that he wouldn’t dwell on every moment of Ethan and Lilah’s post-miscarriage anguish? Well, that sort of “woe is me” anguish is already starting to creep into the strip and I don’t know if we like it.

At the same time, there’s still a punchline in today’s strip, and Buckley has put his characters through the wringer before, including once having their house destroyed as a result of a rampaging gone-mad Zeke. So for now, the Angst-O-Meter will start out at 58%. 0 means that every panel is a joke in itself, 100 is no-fun-at-all First and Ten Syndrome. The feature will continue until the Angst-O-Meter reaches 0 or 100, or until I can’t take it anymore.

Ginning up some interest every Tuesday

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Remember last week, when I overhauled my ad model? At the same time, I placed bids for advertising on the Little Gamers and Joe Loves Crappy Movies comics, so at some point people from there should start trickling in to watch the Sandsday boys in action. For all I know bidding could be high enough to shut out my ad entirely, but if my ad ever does show up in the rotation we could get a few loyal fans for the future. At most it’ll cost me about sixty cents earned from previous advertising on Da Blog, and probably much less, but we’ll see if bidding for Sandsday’s ad space (and the every-site ad space) makes up some or all of the difference.

(Hey, this is my first time writing one of these advertising posts. Give me a break.)