Thursday, September 4, 2008

My beard itches.

As a former D&D player (in junior high -- was never very good) and as an old-school Magic the Gathering player (well, I started playing during the Fallen Empires expansion. I guess you could call that the Silver Age of Magic), I like where this is going. I also hope we get a few more strips in this story.

I do agree with a commenter that it seems counter-intuitive that Francis is the purist here. I'm not saying it's bad, it just seems like an odd choice.

I see what people are saying about Francis' hair -- and it didn't bother me until someone mentioned it. It seems to be moving out of bedhead territory into something new and wonderful.

I miss Francis' old hair (the up-swept version).

18 comments:

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

Yeah I can understand the weirdness of the younger player being the purist, especially yesterday where he was "making up" a rule about the cover bonus. Both runs counterintuitive.

But i guess this is where an anonymus poster goes, "Lighten up its a free comic"

Another Whiner said...

No, Sage, this is where an anon comment says, "Scott Kurtz, you're not fooling anyone." It's all the rage in anon commenting these days.

Anonymous said...

Scott Kurtz, your analysis of your own comic is just silly.

Anonymous said...

Maybe it's because Francis is supposed to hate cardgames, and his geekery does not allow for game media intergration. The problem with that is that I don't think there is any previous evidence of Francis not liking cardgames.

If Francis becomes anymore like Shaggy, I will expect Scott to dress Marcy up like Velma (she's got the glasses), Miranda like Daphne, Brent and Cole fight over who gets to be Fred and throw Scratch in to play Scooby.

Anonymous said...

What about Kirby? He can talk...sort of. I think.

Anonymous said...

I don't know. With the continuity train crash that was 'Scratch - Skull = No Talking' (or whatever was finally decided), I guess if Scratch can't talk now, neither can Kirby.

Anonymous said...

Clearly, Kirby can talk whenever it is plot-relevant. Kurtz just has to invoke the Rule of Funny.

Anonymous said...

Rule of Funny? I think he lost that one a long time ago... or dropped it and now it makes an odd rattling sound if you shake it.

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

Good call Julia

Anonymous said...

I know we're mostly past the Kurtz = FSM thing, but I would like to point out that the thread I started on HalfPixel about it has been deleted, with no say on the matter.

Whether it's a joke or whatever, they're taking it fairly far.

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

Doomdragon, welcome to my world :)Once the bois like JCM and others rabblerouse someone there notices, even though you don't really break any of there rules.

Anonymous said...

@ Anon 7:02: Yes, well, just because WE don't think the Rule of Funny applies doesn't mean KURTZ thinks it doesn't apply. Mileage, apparently, may vary.

Iii...have spent entirely too much time on tvtropes.org today.

R.W.McGee said...

This whole FSM = Kurtz thing took place at about a CAD level of funny.

Or as the PA crew would say:

VIDEO GAMES!!! Hur hur hur.

Anonymous said...

Come on, people. Kurtz doesn't have the intelligence or writing skill to have maintained this page for so long before being discovered. I seriously doubt Scott Kurtz is behind this. I mean, Kurtz probably spends half his days hanging out and conversing at Gymborees for strip material -- he doesn't have the time to maintain this as well.

Anonymous said...

Seriously? You can't see it? as drama addicted as Kurtz is? It's the perfect cover and it provides an outlet for all his self-criticism and self flagellation. He "took the advice" of FSM and the peeps here? oh no no no, He showed us early the direction he was thinking about going and looked for validation. It's a ruse, and a damned clever one.
Clark Kent, Supes with glasses, I'm telling ya.

Anonymous said...

Okay, let me say this: if Kurtz IS FSM, how come FSM's posts aren't littered with spelling and grammar errors, yet Kurtz lets his strips go out with all of those intact?

Now if I was Ku

Anonymous said...

"That’s all he can stands…" - Nice enough strip (arc ahoy!) but three little things slightly mar it.

Shifty Scratch - is he on the leftmost side of the window or the rightmost? Panels 1 and 2 suggest both but they also suggest the window is wider than it looks in the alternate panel, an impression that isn't discarded by the angle. (also sloppyness showing in the disappearing window edge from frame one that vanishes in frames three and four).

Shrinking Snout - Kirby's noses seems to scamper up his face when he's perturbed, if the third frame is to believed. Again, his face isn't turned at such an extreme angle to explain why his face has shortened so much.

Under-crotch - the black background in the last frame is very effective but forgetting to fill in the area beneath Scratch is a bit sloppy.

Joe said...

It's not entirely off-base. I largely skipped 3rd ed. and 3.5 because I was playing other systems (even though I liked most of the stuff Wizards had done with 3rd). But I picked up 4th ed. and thought it was one of the best contructed systems ever. It doesn't work for every style of campaign I'd like to play, but for hack and loot games, it's fantastic.

Meanwhile, my younger associates, for whom 3 and 3.5 are the totality of their D&D experience (never having had to slag through 1st and 2nd, durn kids!), tend to think 4th ed. is a piece of crap.

Actually, I find teenagers more likely to conform to the "rules" of their respective cliques, but once you get into your 20s, you're able to engage in diverse behaviour without the same social stigma.

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