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That's Coyote's theory, and it is definitely an interesting one. Jones appears to be skeptical, or at least assumes it might be one possible explanation out of many but not the definitive truth. I already gave my opinion on the whole "favorite chapter" thing mentioning the funny chapters I liked, but I kinda forgot to mention one of the most touching ones for me, the chapter with the psychopomps and the burned kid. Out of the "serious" chapters it has to be one of my favorites because of how emotional it is. I'm not one to weep or laugh out loud out of reading webcomics but that one came close to making me tear up a little, no kidding.
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Aug 20, 2013 03:28
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isasphere posted:Going back to this, this is how I feel about the early chapters too. They were very unpolished and tentative compared to what the comic has become now, but the way Tom did the curious character design, the kind of simple backgrounds but very atmospheric angles and the careful choice of color palettes he used were what caught my attention at first and kept me reading until the story actually got rolling properly. Yes, that was exactly what I was trying to hint at. Of course, the transitions away from childhood are masterfully done and I admire that as well, but that's not the point here. I just feel that in the course of perfecting his technique, Tom has sacrificed some of his more playful, rough and unpolished creativity. It's just something to notice, not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps he gets to experiment in other ways now. I just get annoyed when people call the old head designs footballs and whatnot. I liked them just fine back then. I like to regard the early art as Annie's perspective on the Court. Jagged, dark, unrefined. As she adjusts and grows, more light shines upon her world. Edges become smoother, teachers become persons and not caricatures, people become more than just shadows. Sure, that's me reading into it, but it fits.
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Aug 20, 2013 04:35
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Rasselas posted:I like to regard the early art as Annie's perspective on the Court. Jagged, dark, unrefined. As she adjusts and grows, more light shines upon her world. Edges become smoother, teachers become persons and not caricatures, people become more than just shadows. Sure, that's me reading into it, but it fits. This is a very cool reading. Also, I agree with you about getting annoyed when people talk about how bad the art was at first. I also thought the art was fine. I just really disagree with you about him sacrificing any kind of creativity. Can you specify what kinds of things you think were lost? I looked and compared similar chapters from the two periods (Divine to Power Station, Red Gets a Name to Red Returns, Great Secret to Coyote Stories), and all the things that strike me as creative and Gunnerkriggy are present in both. (Extremely expressive faces, color use, panel use) I'm not trolling or anything. I am genuinely curious about why more recent Gunnerkrigg hits you as less creative.
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Aug 20, 2013 06:43
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Wittgen posted:I'm not trolling or anything. I am genuinely curious about why more recent Gunnerkrigg hits you as less creative. Boxbot's design is pretty terrible.
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Aug 20, 2013 08:33
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I wouldn't say that the early art is bad--it's unpolished, which has its benefits and drawbacks. What really appeals to me about the later art and bugged me about the early art is just the amount of work and thought that goes into every panel. On the (DANGER: GUNNERKRIGG LINK) first page, the first panel is really cool and atmospheric. The third is, well, strange and off-putting to me. The perspective makes no sense. The same thing happens to the study hall on the next page. The giant, plain-font text sign in particular feels not like an artistic choice, but a rush to get to the next panel. Contrasted with the most recent pages, every panel is interesting, detailed, and stands on its own. As for the thing that was lost as the art developed, there's a kind of spooky quality to the early art that's enhanced by these less strictly realistic scenes, that makes things just feel somewhat askew of reality. Lots of shadows, lots of dramatic angles, lots of empty spaces. The Court just overall feels more foreboding. I suppose this also makes sense in terms of younger Annie's psyche. There are obvious reasons for why perspective is improved and Tom puts more time and polish into each panel nowadays. Just giving my reasoning against the early style.
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Aug 20, 2013 10:35
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I think it does fit Annie's psyche and perception of the Court then. As she grows taller, the corridors seem less vast and less empty. As she grows more confident, the court seems less spooky. (Ever visited back a house you used to go to when you were a little kid, but haven't seen since? How everything is shrunk dramatically? I remember my grandparents' house this way: a large park with a forest turned into a small garden with four or five trees, a long corridor you could run a marathon into turned out to be maybe ten steps to walk down, a dozen guest bedrooms ended up being just three, and Ali Baba's cavern turned out to be just a small attic full of dusty old crates and bags containing magazines and broken toys.)
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Aug 20, 2013 11:17
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Has Ysengrin always had one ear?
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Aug 20, 2013 13:27
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Abiggoat posted:Has Ysengrin always had one ear? Since his first appearance here, yes. Since his origin...
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Aug 20, 2013 13:32
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AE-35 Unit posted:That panel is super menacing. Especially because those stars look an awful lot like Ysengrin's memory-extracts...
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Aug 20, 2013 13:59
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Parahexavoctal posted:Since his first appearance here, yes. Since his origin... Know that he once had all of Scotland hanging from his ear!
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Aug 20, 2013 15:04
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Fecha posted:(DANGER: GUNNERKRIGG LINK) first page Oh, come on! I had...nothing else to do and was planning on rereading all of GKC soon anyway, so thanks for that. I haven't read all of this comic in one sitting before, and doing so now has lead to some interesting...observations I guess? The first thing I noticed was that the chapters actually feel kinda short when you're reading them straight through. They're complete affairs, or at least complete enough and tie up enough loose ends, but they just felt short for me. There's also tons of little hooks spread throughout the comic that raise a lot of questions. Not necessarily questions important to the story that Tom is telling, but questions about the world and how things and people work in it. Finally, and most interesting for me, was the feeling of dread I felt as I was reading. Sure, there's some light-hearted moments, like almost all of Residential and Mort Fun Time, but aside from the obvious chapters and moments, there's a lot of little cues here and there that just felt really important in a way we don't know about yet, and not always in a good way. Things like this page in Blinking where both Annie and Renard take notice of Anja's necklace. Annie I can see why, she's good at noticing little things like that as long as she isn't distracted by something she thinks is more important. Renard though I'm not so sure. I suppose he is aware that that's the symbol Anja uses to bind him and protect against his possession, and that's going to cause at least a little curiosity. Anja still doesn't trust him, understandably so, and goes to a more private place before talking about how it's a link to her etheric computer and some of what that allows her to do. But then, of his own free will he doesn't try to eavesdrop on the conversation when it probably wouldn't be too hard for him to try if he wanted to. It feels like we're supposed to trust Renard, and there's a lot of words and actions on his part to back it up, recently and in the past, but there's just enough small things that make me question that trust. Not in a way that Renard is intentionally lying to Annie or falsely building people's trust right now, but in a way that Renard will, without thinking, react in an incredibly stupid and emotional way to some event in the future, kinda like what Annie did in Fire Spike. It's things like this that make me hate following something as it comes out. Webcomics, TV shows, book series; anything that comes out in some form of episodic fashion makes me want to wait until it's finished so I can devour it all at once. Of course, I usually immediately regret finishing something the moment I'm done. I once read the second set of trilogies (Journey to Wudang by Kylie Chan) in just over 18 hours straight and, even though I had been up for almost 36 hours by that point I just couldn't get to sleep and wanted more. (Of course, going to her site I now see that she's published the first of the next(final?) trilogy to the series in Aus/NZ.  To wait for the whole set to be out in the US, or to import them one by one as they get published in Australia...)I get too wound up by stories, good or bad I just love hearing about them. 
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Aug 20, 2013 16:24
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Ya know rereading some of the chapters, it occurs to me that Ysingrin probably had his memory wiped by Coyote after he found the tik-tok. The story presents itself as if he's lying about finding the tik-tok months after Annie had fallen down there. But perhaps Coyote took away his memory afterwards and made Ysingrin think that the tik-tok had been there for so long. Of course this goes against Coyote's whole thing where he doesn't lie, but I'm sure there's some way of wording it to get around that
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Aug 20, 2013 16:53
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Where Coyote would be lying, here, exactly? He never says anything about that, and we know that he very much lies by omission if he needs to. Everything is told by Ysengrin, and if he lies or get it wrong, well, how can Coyote be at fault?
Iceclaw fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Aug 20, 2013 |
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Aug 20, 2013 17:00
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Macaluso posted:Of course this goes against Coyote's whole thing where he doesn't lie, but I'm sure there's some way of wording it to get around that "Who knows how long it's been there?! It looks like it's been months!"
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Aug 20, 2013 17:01
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Blackheart posted:Yyyyeah, she's not random at all. I know goons in general tend to shun things like "anime" and "lolrandom" on principle, but at least the second can be funny on occasion, when it's done well. But that's not here nor there since Red wouldn't qualify for "lolrandom" humor. That was pretty much my problem with The Stone, yeah. It was simply too much backtracking for my liking coupled with too little going on in the scenes being shown. A lot of the art was nice, sure, but being slowly drip fed like that for over two months was murder. My problem with Divine was with the over-use of symbolism once Zimmy showed up. It was like The Lord of the Flies, but somehow even more obnoxious. Sorry for the late reply, by the way. I've been gearing up to head back to college so I haven't been on much.
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Aug 20, 2013 17:16
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Rasamune posted:"Who knows how long it's been there?! It looks like it's been months!" Very weaselly. A rhetorical question does not affirm anything, so it is not a lie. The second sentence is a statement on the appearance, not on the actual duration, so it is not a lie either. It's misleading of course, but that's to be expected.
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Aug 20, 2013 19:03
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Wittgen posted:This is a very cool reading. Also, I agree with you about getting annoyed when people talk about how bad the art was at first. I also thought the art was fine. Partly, I may have exaggerated to get the point across. The other part is that I miss the creepy, weird feeling of unpolished art. It's like listening to a live performance of a song compared to a highly overproduced studio recording. Early Gunnerkrigg Court could have gone in different directions. It could've gone for the aesthetic and creepiness of Salad Fingers, or who knows where else! Rough art is when you're still discovering a style and anything is possible. Once you've discovered it, you can start polishing. I just find the rough discovery more potent, it doesn't mean that the polish is bad. There's discovery in so many other aspects of the comic, in how the plot is developed, the characters, how color is used, a whole bunch of other aspects that are highly creative. So I wouldn't say that Tom has sacrificed creativity, just that it's shifted to other things, once he found his style and voice. I can still be nostalgic for that raw phase where it could've gone anywhere. Saying that GC is less creative nowadays would be pretty dumb. This is more of an observation of the shifts in the creative process.
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Aug 20, 2013 19:09
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So I noticed a thing: http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=529 http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=789 That symbol appears like a crown on Annie's head. Maybe its the symbol for fire elementals?
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Aug 21, 2013 03:43
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Super Waffle posted:So I noticed a thing: http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1040 It's a recurring thing at least.
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Aug 21, 2013 03:59
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That was the symbol that appeared with the fire elemental in Fire Spike. Pretty sure it's just a thing that's associated with
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Aug 21, 2013 04:10
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Super Waffle posted:So I noticed a thing: Haha, now the ball is in the court of the one who has spent way too much time reading about alchemy in years past! That crown is most likely this symbol;  The symbol of native antimony ("Régule d'Antimoine" in French). Native metal is metal found either pure or as an alloy rather than as an ore, in other words not requiring any purification to work.
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Aug 21, 2013 04:16
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Ayo Tom Siddell when you gonna put more poo poo for sale? Stay dope.
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Aug 21, 2013 04:21
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Maybe it's my poor reading comprehension, but was there any specific tip-off to Annie that Ysengrin is losing his memory? He is being very non-chalant despite what happened previously, but he's had outbursts before that the characters no longer bring up.
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Aug 21, 2013 04:40
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azurite posted:Maybe it's my poor reading comprehension, but was there any specific tip-off to Annie that Ysengrin is losing his memory? He is being very non-chalant despite what happened previously, but he's had outbursts before that the characters no longer bring up. Poor reaching comprehension considering Coyote quite literally removed his memory of attacking Annie. e: Speaking of poor reading comprehension, I poorly read your message. I imagine Annie would be concerned by him being non-chalant after trying to eat her.
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Aug 21, 2013 04:43
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The crown thing seems to be a very subtle, alchemy related way for Tom to tell us "this is Annie's true form", or that in the ether you are seen for what you really are. Pretty nifty.
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Aug 21, 2013 04:45
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The crown shows up when coyote is talking about Antimony's ancestors too: http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=820 E. WHY AM I STILL READING I NEED TO SLEEP. Dr. Despair fucked around with this message at 07:25 on Aug 21, 2013 |
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Aug 21, 2013 06:24
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e: nevermind, poor reading comprehension
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Aug 21, 2013 08:02
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Poor Ysen 
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Aug 21, 2013 08:05
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The saddest thing.
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Aug 21, 2013 08:07
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This last panel makes me think Ysengrin doesn't even remember how he lost his ear. 
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Aug 21, 2013 08:11
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Oh good I read so long that a new page showed up.
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Aug 21, 2013 08:12
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Gunnerkrigg is a certified  to converter now.
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Aug 21, 2013 08:14
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I think he lost the ear to Coyote's memory-theft.
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Aug 21, 2013 08:17
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Aww. The last pannel looks so sad. Coyote is a big jerk. I really enjoy these backgrounds. This one is way prettier than the last chapter.
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Aug 21, 2013 08:18
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Tom's comment is the best. 
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Aug 21, 2013 08:26
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I really like how direct this is. I thought there would be more beating around the bush and misunderstandings then this before Annie finds out the memory loss thing. Also everything about Ys is ten times sadder because really when I look at his face I just see a big fluffy sad dog.
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Aug 21, 2013 08:27
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I just can't see how this serves Coyote to be honest. Just a means of controlling the guy who is super loyal to him? Maybe he would be less loyal with his memories I guess.
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Aug 21, 2013 08:32
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Laser Cow posted:I just can't see how this serves Coyote to be honest. Just a means of controlling the guy who is super loyal to him? Maybe he would be less loyal with his memories I guess. Gods must feed upon the choicest of morsels. 
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Aug 21, 2013 08:55
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Dumb-rear end prediction caused from lack of no sleep: This isn't actually Ysengrin, it's Coyote. 
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Aug 21, 2013 09:00
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Jetamo posted:Dumb-rear end prediction caused from lack of no sleep: This isn't actually Ysengrin, it's Coyote. That's what people say every chapter.
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Aug 21, 2013 09:02
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