Friday, May 30, 2008

Open Thread: Inquisition

It's the weekend folks. I continue to like the new Francis and Marci, but I'm out of here.

Link!

15 comments:

R.W.McGee said...

Those who haven't checked out the D&D podcast mentioned on the PvP and PA sites should definitely do so.

Even if you know or care nothing for D&D the running banter between the guys is pretty funny, especially as the DM is doing his utter best to maintain a 'serious role-playing mood'

The single problem with the podcast is the DM guys incredibly annoying usage of the phrase: 'And then your characters would be, like, why wouldn't the villagers mention that castle?' (Like, totally)

Several times I almost expected him to break his DM character and start talking Valley Girl. It was odd.


(oh, right, today's comic. Good stuff.)

Anonymous said...

Looks like I was right about Scott changing the character designs. I was also right about him changing to a 5 day week.

My next prediction is Scott and Angela are going to try for a baby. Followed by Brent and Jade.*

* - between 2008 and 2012

Anonymous said...

The shading of Brent and Cole in the first panel is sort of like a silhouette, which is good, yet I can't help but feel that a proper silhouette could have been used with greater impact at some point.

Anonymous said...

R.W. McGee: Used as a filler word, "like" is so mainstay in my part of the country (Southern California), that I didn't notice it at all. I can only assume he works and lives around this area as well. I'm sorry it bothers you, but be assured there are plenty of vocal inflections that bother us too :)

Aquisition Inc: The Dungeon Master, Chris Perkins, skips over the introductions for Keep on the Shadowfell, avoiding the town and meeting people bit in lieu of a "Kick down the door" style of play. I didn't see someone like Gabe being able to grasp the ideas of Jim speaking to the mayor, the bar owner, the general store keeper, etc with any inch of seriousness. He's a learner, so I think it was a wise choice.

But let's get to the art! I think Scott did an excellent job portraying his character, and the scene in general, in the artwork he had up on the Wizard's site as well as the small clip on his blog post. Hopefully he will draw more of this character and we'll see him in some published D&D products, as Chris Perkins hinted at.

Inquisition: Seems like a wise choice. The whole "Hmm, you seem different" thing was good, and I would have been a bit upset if he -hadn't- blurted out the fact that they had sex. How this all ends is really up to Kurtz as a writer. Does he go the Juno route and deal with the, in my opinion, "meh" subject of teen pregnancy, or will it be met with stern condemnation dolled out by the adults?

Remember: how the characters accept the teens having sex wont so much be a reflection of Kurtz' view on underage sex, but more along the lines of how his characters do. That's hard for an artist to do, I'm feeling, especially when the characters haven't really put their foot down as far as these sorts of things are concerned. Will Brent offer a high-five, or a "Dude, I hope you used protection." line?

anonymous: Kurtz loves to do this lately... I enjoy it, but I wonder if it's one of those things that you either need to use all the time or only for rare occasions, or else it doesn't fit well.

R.W.McGee said...

My best friend went to college at USC and lives in LA, I don't think 'like' is a mainstay in SoCal, I think it's a mainstay amongst valley girls and people who talk faster than they think.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I was an English Major, and thus by default an asshole =)

Anonymous said...

Cole looks like a monkey in the first panel.
All of the panels look really cramped.

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

Caren I'll make a prediction too, we'll all die and the strip will stop

*-between 2008 and 2099

Its not a prediction when Scott has mentioned both changing his art and his schedule, its reiterating a point

Anonymous said...

Not so fast, R.W. McGee. It's also a mainstay of people who think faster than they talk and then need to mentally backtrack.

Jim Cowling said...

Looks like Tim Buckley couldn't handle someone else getting all the accolades for an issues-based storyline, the tool.

R.W.McGee said...

Buckley trying to compete with Kurtz is like the CW trying to compete with NBC. I mean, you can try, sure...but one has lots of viewers and generally consists of quality programming...and the other is rarely watched garbage that occasionally stumbles on to a Veronica Mars, and then idiotically cancels it.

Also, Kurtz put up the new strip, once again, pretty solid...although I'm a bit surprised that Marci is so ambivalent about Francis blurting out that they had sex. I thought it would be clever if in the background as Cole and Brent were talking, she were punching him in the arm or something. (In annoyance, not anger.)

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

Yeah Scott called this one right on the button, and Buckley's long post confirmed that he never really intended it to be a long term change. The interesting thing though is that Tim says that he is writing from personal experience, so he is not totally talking out of his ass, and that saved me from dropping CAD all together from my viewing as I want to see where he goes.

However, for all the crap I gave Scott for the paintball arc, CAD has been weak for a while as his "night before christmas" spoof was mediocre and his choose your own adventure has average at best. Plus the fact it seemed like he stuck them in the middle of his pregnancy arc to extend it.

I think Scott is the strongest writer and artist of both and he is improving his game with both along with his schedule. Scott proposed calling the comparison between PVP and CAD "Quiznos vs/ Subway" as we all know the better of that comparison and it gets most appropriate as time goes along.

With today's comic was solid, but Cole saying "shushies" make me chuckle and I will be using it.

Tim M said...

CAD has been weak since it BEGAN. I wouldn't go as far as to say there's never been a good CAD strip, but there's definitely never been a good RUN of CAD strips.

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

Btw interesting twitter post for TFSM.

http://twitter.com/pvponline/statuses/767411300

Seems like we redeemed ourselvse (or TFSM) to get him to keep checking us out

Anonymous said...

I don't get why people are dissing cad. It makes me laugh far more then pvp does.

Anonymous said...

What's all this about CAD? I thought Scott and Tim were good friends?

Blog Archive