The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent
vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums
here.
We now return to our regularly scheduled PA Forums. Please let me (Hahnsoo1) know if something isn't working. The Holiday Forum will remain up until January 10, 2025.
The New Comic Thread for Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Posts
So you were completely happy with that first comic the first day and were so happy that it made sense? Or were you fully expecting that the entire thing would make no sense until the 2nd to last panel of the last comic?
It's shitty webcomics and you said as much in your rebuke. If they write a fucking book, so be it, that's fine. But the fact remains, it's shitty webcomics. G&T wouldn't have done it badly and Tycho is a damn genius when it comes to writing.
"Oh what a day, what a LOVELY DAY!"
"Oh what a day, what a LOVELY DAY!"
I was happy to wait and see how the series would unveil itself because I have apparently greater patience than you. What we saw when Gabe and Tycho did the one-sheet was just a tiny piece of the story, yet everyone clamored over themselves (myself included) to suck their dicks about how great it was, even if it was just a single part of an unfinished potential whole. However, when a guest artist and writer do the same in a style you don't like you throw your hands up and write the whole thing off as an awful failure.
EDIT: I would agree with Munkus though, that the story does feel rushed and a bit jumbled. Overall, however, I enjoyed the story we were given, even if I had to fill in a few blanks on my own.
"Oh what a day, what a LOVELY DAY!"
Isn't G&T looking to expand Lookouts and automata at a later date? in that case it could have been a little ambiguity left to give G&T some room to make up the rest of the story as they see it.
The setup for the first two pages was "tough love, you boys need to learn the hard way", so when he holds back, there is no reason to think conspiracy, just that this is how it works.
"I'm sorry boys" doesn't have enough context to be admission of conspiracy either, particularly since the next frame has him getting smacked in the head by the thing he's supposed to be in cahoots with.
Getting smacked in the back of the head by something he can't look at without dying is no conflict with his alleged snow-leopard-like skillz.
My main complaint is that the elders come out of nowhere. No foreshadowing at all. No mention of a threat to the village, nothing. It could equally have been aliens, or the kid wakes up and it's all a dream, and it would have been just as unsatisfying as a conclusion.
There is no instance where he helps out just one child, so that line confused me as well.
It really feels like the writer thought he would have more room at first and then ran out as the project came to a close.
I agree, the fact that a fantasy society is run by elders is hella out of left field, where do they get this stuff? Introducing them so late in the game was a shock to my system. Definitely could've just as equally been aliens.
Also lots of times stories may introduce something or have a piece of dialogue like "I'm sorry" that's meant to be ambiguous and make you wonder what exactly he's talking about, only for it to be revealed later. But that's terrible, it's a lot easier to pretend it's just bad writing that doesn't make sense.
The only new thought I have since the first comic is that, plotwise, I don't think I would have liked it very much if it was from G&T either. It just doesn't seem like a very interesting story, but that may be because there's only 3 panels in comics 2-5 that expand the universe in any way. After this run, I'm less interested in Lookouts than I was after the first page.
don't get me wrong, I totally dug the first comic done by Mike and Jerry
it was lovely
but it just vaguely hinted at the world, leaving much open to interpretation
and yet you're insisting that this story somehow ruined the world they'd built in one strip
For the sake of humanity I really hope the "I don't get it explain it to me the writing are dumb" people are trolling, because otherwise we're in deep shit.
Back on topic, I'm not crazy about the harsh colors and sometimes a character's body language doesn't match up with their dialogue. But these are very minor things and overall the story was great. The epilogue really made a difference.
Because in my mind it did?
Gabe and tycho made a fucking world in one strip. So much so that Gabe posted alternate drawings and shit on the main post. Then it was shit on. At least that's MY opinion and since this is a forum, I'm expressing that.
All I've been reading in this thread is people shitting on anyone who didn't like the comic as some sort of retarded person with no intelligence and I'm saying otherwise. Note people are now entering this thread and expressing their opinion - and it's not a unanimous "fuck yeah!". It was sub-par work. But I also don't necessarily hold it against the writer because it's not his forte, but the art is not good and that IS my opinion.
"Oh what a day, what a LOVELY DAY!"
Thank you thank you thank you, Dru. I actually made this exact same point in D&D.
People just seem to have come up with elaborate backstories for the whole setting based on the original strip and now they're angry that the backstories they created were ignored even though they were only using the original strip as only a rough base because, honestly, that's all it was.
Your mind is defective.
This is exactly what is going to make Automata absolutely hilarious if it strays at all from the twisted vision people create for it.
That might be your opinion but your opinion is certifiably retarded and you deserve to be mocked for it because your defense of said opinion is making it painfully obvious that you're just a petulant child who's getting all up in a huff because you got an Xbox instead of a Playstation for Christmas.
So you're allowed to have a subjective opinion that the art in this is bad but someone else is not allowed to have the subjective opinion that you are stupid or that your taste is bad?
I just want to follow along here.
Just because ti is an 'opinion' does not mean that we can point how silly or stupid that opinion is.
I doubt that'll happen. There'll be fewer people dismissing it outright just because it won't be a guest strip.
Were the expectations themselves reasonable or justified? That's another story entirely, though none of those I've seen were particularly left-field; they've all been pretty consistent with the content of the original strip.
And it is probably the case that some of the people who minded the content would have minded less (if at all) had the execution been better.
This thing has no wings, therefore: basilisk.
I'm sure someone will still complain about the scientific inconsistencies in the story.
EDIT: why do people care about the difference between a cockatrice and a basilisk?
In your opinion.
You can certainly dislike something because it didn't go in the direction you wanted it to, but what we've constantly been seeing this past week or so is people bitching about how it didn't go how they thought it should and how dare anyone deviate from the glorious thing they had envisioned, how dare anyone sully the GLORIOUS MAGNIFICENCE that was their idea and fuck whatever the people actually involved with the creation might think since they're not important.
THAT is what people are getting upset about. The rampant and completely misplaced sense of entitlement most of the comics' detractors seem to exhibit.
You imagined something pretty great out of the first strip. All that strip gave was a basic premise to a story. A story which could have gone in innumerable directions, however people beleived that it would go somewhere good.
When we were given a guest strip people realized that their version of the story could no longer be realized by G&T and have become closed minded.
At least thats how i've been seeing these 'it could have been something great' arguments.
Kinda like how people seem to assume that's what I'm thinking when it's not at all? I don't give a FUCK about the story that they wrote. I didn't have any "preconceived" story as it panned out. It was just sub par writing and art. In retrospect, I guess you're right in a way, I had a preconceived notion that the comic wouldn't SUCK and that was wrong.
"Oh what a day, what a LOVELY DAY!"
neck
beard
Honestly, it bothers me too sometimes.