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Unlucky7 posted:So today’s Back is giving me serious Roger Rabbit vibes The returning crunch really sells this moment for me.
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Jul 16, 2020 01:51
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Schlock Mercenary had entered the epilogue. I feel like this last storyline was missing a few beats, but I've always felt that Howard wraps up his stories kinda fast do he can focus on the overlong build-up to the next one.
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Jul 16, 2020 08:58
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schlock mercenary ending, dominic deagan is back we're in the end game now
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Jul 16, 2020 09:20
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nimby posted:Schlock Mercenary had entered the epilogue. I feel like this last storyline was missing a few beats, but I've always felt that Howard wraps up his stories kinda fast do he can focus on the overlong build-up to the next one. It feels like it's happening even more-so with the end of the actual comic in sight. I get the impression he might be a bit eager to get things finally wrapped up...because there is a lot of stuff that felt like it got skipped over or happened way too easy or conveniently. Like, the double-punch of Ennesby taking out the andromeda long-gun and schlock becoming an umbral entity felt like it was something that might finally allow the milky way to stop playing defensively and actually become a contender in the fight...it felt like the actual beginning of the real confrontation. Then...suddenly the confrontation is over with the conquering of the two generators seen in a single flashback panel for andromeda and completely off-panel for the milky way (heck, they haven't even explained how they came under schlock's direct control).
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Jul 16, 2020 09:29
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oriongates posted:Then...suddenly the confrontation is over with the conquering of the two generators seen in a single flashback panel for andromeda and completely off-panel for the milky way (heck, they haven't even explained how they came under schlock's direct control). Yeah, these last few years Taylor has shied away from action scenes, preferring to just have talking heads do a post-hoc narration of stuff that happened. I guess he's burnt out but too stubborn about his work ethic and update record to just go on a hiatus until his motivation recharges, so he goes for low-effort conversation panels after low-effort conversation panels. Like the only important event he actually drew this past week was the trigger to the exogalactic returning to the galaxy -- and that trigger was a conversation. Also Marble Gate has resumed updates and Sleepless Domain has published its gayest page yet.
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Jul 16, 2020 09:51
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Cat Mattress posted:Yeah, these last few years Taylor has shied away from action scenes, preferring to just have talking heads do a post-hoc narration of stuff that happened. I guess he's burnt out but too stubborn about his work ethic and update record to just go on a hiatus until his motivation recharges, so he goes for low-effort conversation panels after low-effort conversation panels. It probably doesn't help that the scope of things has changed so much that almost all the action takes place on the scale of spaceships and involves such huge forces that a single hit is an instant kill for either side so it tends to be anticlimatic. Even when things do zoom into the personal scale, the individual characters are dwarfed by their own equipment with armor that basically does all the fighting for them. Kind of an inherent problem where the comic wants to move to a galaxy-threatening scale of warfare, while also maintaining a focus on a small-scale mercenary unit of *and* also trying to be relatively grounded in reality at the same time. It's had to jump through more and more hoops to keep the mercs front and center and even then it just can't get around the fact that there isn't much that anyone other than their AI that can take part in conflict anymore, with the human characters mostly relegated to diplomacy or Taylor's trademark "the dumb character says something that makes the vastly more intelligent character make this face" 
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Jul 16, 2020 10:16
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Well, that's a hell of a Sleepless Domain update.
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Jul 17, 2020 08:59
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Dogwood Fleet posted:Well, that's a hell of a Sleepless Domain update. Yeah, I wasn't expecting it to go there for at least a few more chapters
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Jul 17, 2020 11:23
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The small scale mercenary unit having a big impact is kind of the point of Schlock. Hijacking the dark matter body gear on the ship let them engage the bad guys in a novel way they hadn't even considered possible and in a way that Schlock was very experienced at, and their Andromeda side operation was just more of what the Toughs were already good at - hitting a small important target, taking it over, and using it to do something big. They won because the Paan'uri were pretty smart, but weren't really that good at warfare. One of them panicked and logged into the compromised network with admin credentials and that was that.
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Jul 17, 2020 15:13
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Willo567 posted:Yeah, I wasn't expecting it to go there for at least a few more chapters SD has a thread now, if you'd prefer!
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Jul 17, 2020 15:15
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My issue with the Schlock ending isn’t the plotting, it’s that it feels like the final wrap up is happening way too quickly and leaving a lot of things in the lurch; I feel like the wrap sequences for other major story arcs have been a lot more effective. They often have a bit of a montage of retiring characters, and that’s what I think this most needs, because the Toughs ought to be retired out of mercenary service with the victorious end of a cosmic war. Also did the dark matter beings decide to go with ‘we exist solely in simulations now’? There’s so much that needs to be cleared up in more elegant ways than exposition.
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Jul 17, 2020 16:19
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There's a sci-fi power creep when you assume that technology will always advance and scale with no limits where all of a sudden any and all understandable real-life experience becomes arbitrary and meaningless, and at that point some people get really fascinated, but for the most part it's just really boring. Schlock Mercenary managed to write a story where ground infantry were still relevant for a long while, as opposed to some sci-fi writers (and American generals in Vietnam) who believe that once you have full orbital capability, all warfare can be solved in a series of bombing runs. But then AI became more capable than living creatures in every way shape and form, and everything scaled up and even most of the interpersonal relationships started to fade from relevance under the crushing tide of abstract philosophical musing about incomprehensible scales that's just really not my thing.
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Jul 17, 2020 18:49
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oriongates posted:It feels like it's happening even more-so with the end of the actual comic in sight. I get the impression he might be a bit eager to get things finally wrapped up...because there is a lot of stuff that felt like it got skipped over or happened way too easy or conveniently. that whole scene was written to be literally invisible lol
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Jul 17, 2020 19:36
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SlothfulCobra posted:There's a sci-fi power creep when you assume that technology will always advance and scale with no limits where all of a sudden any and all understandable real-life experience becomes arbitrary and meaningless, and at that point some people get really fascinated, but for the most part it's just really boring. It really seemed like the story was going to become "A small team of people, cut off from everything else, are going to be what really matters" but the way they ended up mattering was 'Schlock inexplicably becomes a god' and like, it was fun, it had fun scenes. Ennesby getting the long gun to shoot itself was also good. But the staging of it keeps getting too, I think, tangled up in Howard's sense of 'look at this awesome cosmic thing I have created' about the whole afterlives and exogalactics stuff, the scale problems you noted, as opposed to actual visual spectacle over the ragtag heroes. He became enamored with big numbers and 'AI does everything' instead of the kind of goofy semi-amoral heroic space fights model that he's good at.
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Jul 17, 2020 19:39
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Real Life Comics ended the "Epiphany" arc on Friday, and it was a very moving ending. But the overall arc is still going on, and now comes the difficult part 
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Jul 20, 2020 09:30
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Today's Skin Horse contains a very profound philosophical statement.
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Jul 20, 2020 10:39
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Over on Dumbing of Age the worst arc is finally over and the comic returns to dopey melodrama and Joyce-adjacent religious troubles. Bene.
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Jul 21, 2020 09:17
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Galvanik posted:Over on Dumbing of Age the worst arc is finally over and the comic returns to dopey melodrama and Joyce-adjacent religious troubles. Bene. I'm sure it won't be long until the next worst arc starts.
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Jul 21, 2020 09:55
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We still need to see if Mike will actually die or not. (He won't, unfortunately)
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Jul 21, 2020 13:55
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No, but given that the strip's covered 2 months at the most in its entire run so far he might be hospitalized forever! It's very unlikely but there's an outside chance!
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Jul 21, 2020 14:25
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Mercury Hat posted:No, but given that the strip's covered 2 months at the most in its entire run so far he might be hospitalized forever! If you want a vision of the future, picture the same six characters, stomping into a comic strip, forever
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Jul 21, 2020 14:31
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Awful as he is Mike is a known quantity that I've been ignoring since It's Walky! Usually he's only in two or three strips before Willis' ADD shifts the story to one of the other character plots. So he's alot more bearable to me than a multi-month long saga that cranks to 11 one of the worst parts of Dumbing of Age, that stupid vigilante stuff, and involves practically the entire cast. Hopefully this is the nail in the coffin of that nonsense it wont be What I expect is the next really atrocious arc is gonna be Robin's election campaign coinciding with whatever goes on in the real world in October and November.
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Jul 21, 2020 20:15
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Wilde Life: it was less terrifying dealing with the old woman who turned into a spider
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Jul 22, 2020 14:06
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Straight White Shark posted:Wilde Life: it was less terrifying dealing with the old woman who turned into a spider Growing up as an abuse victim in a broken home, I don't think I can read the comic for a while. Cliff's face in the last panel is all too familiar to me, and it hurts like a bitch
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Jul 22, 2020 15:07
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Straight White Shark posted:Wilde Life: it was less terrifying dealing with the old woman who turned into a spider OK, so the witch can't entomb the spider monster in magic tree because it will disrupt the balance or whatever. But could she please gently caress up the abusive bastard?
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Jul 22, 2020 15:48
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Meanwhile, in A Girl and Her Fed, I think it's reasonable for the president and his wife to be annoyed that the person in charge of her security detail was attending an orgy in a White House supply cupboard instead of doing their job, but a) the wife in question clearly wants to evade her security detail and b) it seems kind of lovely to get mad at one person for attending the orgy when this kind of thing is clearly going on in your administration all the time.
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Jul 22, 2020 16:30
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I can't imagine anyone wanting to work at the White House if you can't have perks such as cupboard orgies.
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Jul 22, 2020 17:51
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hi, my webcomic A Ghost Story wrapped up its second story-line today so im here to shill it to you guys. that's 2 books each containing 4 chapters of stories about two awful people who are in love and running a unlicensed and underfunded "old-school" paranormal extermination business together. they are not good at it. only some ghosts are pests or a public health danger. some are your friends, neighbor or just some rear end in a top hat you have to work with. in the first story-line they investigate a suspicious number of kid ghosts that pop up all over the city and drop headfirst into something much bigger than they realized they were getting into.  much like many webcomics, the art starts very bad and gets better. i think. i would hope. in the story-line i just wrapped up they deal with...ghost bureaucracy.  the next storyline has already begun on patreon and features the return of an old favorite character of many: lucy. she is...someone who looks like a ghost. behaves like a ghost. has many characteristics of a ghost...but is not a ghost.  it is a comedy story focused on some enormous idiots who make their community worse even if their hearts are in the right place most of the time, which is my favorite kind of story. please read my webcomic. now is a good time, as there are two complete stories to read. thank you goons.
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Jul 22, 2020 20:43
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I'm incredibly behind on AGS but everyone should read it for Lucy, a contender for greatest character ever created.
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Jul 23, 2020 01:41
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AGS has made me laugh more than any other webcomic I've read, give it a shot
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Jul 23, 2020 01:54
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Looks like Schlock Mercenary is officially over. Ending felt really rushed and I can't say I like some of the resolution, but it's still the end of an era and you can't deny Howard's insane work ethic. It'll be interesting to see where he goes next.
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Jul 24, 2020 03:14
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oriongates posted:Looks like Schlock Mercenary is officially over. Ending felt really rushed and I can't say I like some of the resolution, but it's still the end of an era and you can't deny Howard's insane work ethic. It'll be interesting to see where he goes next. Probably a good time to plug Howard's writing podcast, Writing Excuses, which he hosts along with Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, and a slate of seasonal rotating guest hosts. I've personally never read any of Schlock Mercenary, and I doubt I ever will, so I know him from WE and he's consistently the funniest of the hosts and has a lot of great insights for people specifically writing and/or drawing comics even if his fiction advice tends to be hit or miss at times.
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Jul 24, 2020 03:24
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I don't know what I find more unbelievable, that it's over or that I read all of it. Though saying that I don't really remember much of the back half, after everyone in the galaxy became functionally immortal it started feeling really directionless and like it was casting around for something, anything, to be about other than dealing with the implications of that (much like Tagon himself). But by that point I'd already been clicking the bookmark every day for a decade, and that's a hard habit to break.
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Jul 24, 2020 07:41
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It did feel like he could never really decide how to handle the digitization question. A big deal was made over whether or not you could consider digital immortality to be "real" or whether or not it creates a new person entirely. It feels like the comic eventually settled on the idea that there was no such thing as immortality and digital conversion was really death and replacement...but by then it had happened so many times that it wasn't really possible to do anything but not think about the implications too hard. But then you have things like it apparently becoming the solution to dealing with the Pa'anuri, which essentially means that the species has to effectively accept genocide (which...presumably they did, but we never saw it on screen).
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Jul 24, 2020 07:51
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The ending definitely did not do the entire story justice. A lot of stuff just happened because they had to, with no explanation of how and why. Still a feat I'd never pull off though, it's easy to criticize but hard to actually do.
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Jul 24, 2020 08:14
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fun hater posted:hi, my webcomic A Ghost Story wrapped up its second story-line today so im here to shill it to you guys. that's 2 books each containing 4 chapters of stories about two awful people who are in love and running a unlicensed and underfunded "old-school" paranormal extermination business together. they are not good at it. Your ghosts are super goddamn creepy and it’s awesome. Bookmarked this. oriongates posted:Looks like Schlock Mercenary is officially over. Ending felt really rushed and I can't say I like some of the resolution, but it's still the end of an era and you can't deny Howard's insane work ethic. It'll be interesting to see where he goes next. Ending felt ridiculously rushed and disappointing. I think the scope just got out of hand and poo poo got too big to deal with in a way that plays to his strengths. Definitely the end of an era, though. I’ve been reading this one since I found it in 2001. Nineteen loving years of one strip per night, every night without fail. Man has a ridiculous work ethic. Gonna feel weird to move it out of my bookmarks.
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Jul 24, 2020 10:48
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Yeah, any criticism of the ending is kind of faint in comparison to the sheer juggernaut scale of the project. Howard deserves congrats and maybe to rest his drawing hands in an ice bucket for a year or two.
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Jul 24, 2020 10:58
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Wilde Life finished its eleventh chapter, in which the protagonist came within a fractional distance of being killed by a giant spider monster's poison. Despite this, the end of the chapter is easily the worst thing to happen in the entire comic so far. Don't click these if you don't like implications of domestic abuse. Drakyn fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Jul 24, 2020 |
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Jul 24, 2020 14:44
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Drakyn posted:Wilde Life finished its eleventh chapter, in which the protagonist came within a fractional distance of being killed by a giant spider monster's poison. The last page of the chapter is by far the most chilling part of a comic that routinely deals in body horror and existential dread. 
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Jul 24, 2020 14:47
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Straight White Shark posted:The last page of the chapter is by far the most chilling part of a comic that routinely deals in body horror and existential dread. I don't like this at all 
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Jul 24, 2020 15:16
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