Monday, November 10, 2008

Quest Giver

Ah yes, the week of a WoW expansion. I'm hoping for a few strips covering this sucker, personally.

Today's comic is actually really good. I love the reactions in the last panel, especially Jade's indignation. Today's writing is everything that's right with gaming comics as far as I'm concerned.

Also, while I'm all for the rule of cool, I don't think there's that much of a difference, art wise, between a question mark and an exclamation point. That said, it doesn't ruin the joke either.

Late breaking technicality: Rep Grinder NPCs have blue question marks. You win this round, Kurtz.

11 comments:

R.W.McGee said...

Yay, a good topical comic! I knew if my review of the Panda joke was scathing enough Kurtz would please me! Somebody, quick, pat me on the back! =P

Anonymous said...

If you were a type nerd there would be a huge difference

Jai said...

Strange. Don't repeatable quest NPCs still start out with the exclamation marks? I haven't played WoW in quite a few years, but this clearly isn't a repeatable quest so that whole point is a little bit moot. Funny strip, though.

rdy said...

Overtime is always repeatable... :(

Ben Sunshine-Hill said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ben Sunshine-Hill said...

This one.... eeeh. It did not do it for me (and yes, I got all the jokes).

Maybe it's just that it's badly introduced. Here's the sequence of thoughts I had reading it:

"Oh, it's Kurtz talking to the readers."

"No, that's a speech bubble. I guess it's Cole breaking the fourth wall."

"Looks like Brent and Jade are in on the wall-breaking too."

"Or... wait. Maybe he's talking to them."

Seriously, it's badly done. Look at panel one: The speech bubble is BEHIND Brent and Jade's heads! They're barely visible. There is nothing to clearly indicate that Cole's talking to them, and plenty to indicate that he isn't.

Adding a panel 0 would have really helped here. B&J react to Cole's hat with confusion. That recasts the current panel 1 as comically blossoming into the WoW dialog window, rather than its current "is this action or narration" weirdness.

Anonymous said...

The thing about that is, the scroll-looking speech bubble is imitating the scroll that comes up in WoW, which dominates the screen. So it's supposed to be in the foreground.

Unknown said...

Hehe, I e-mailed Kurtz and let him know he was correct on accident with the "?"

Ben Sunshine-Hill said...

@anonymous: Sure, because the quest-giver is talking to the player. That isn't the case here, although it sure appears to be.

Brett Schiller (Sage) said...

I liked this comic because the Brent/Jade vs. Cole dynamic was very good and reminds me of the comic where they yelled at Cole for not getting them into the Diablo 3 beta. This is in Kurtz's wheelhouse so I expect a good weak.

I like the art as the idea of Cole wearing a question mark "hat" was funny and not just a random video game element appearing in the PVP world. Plus it lends GREATER emphasis on Cole's nerdery which I enjoy :).

R.W.McGee said...

Whoa, quick course correction from WoW today. I am so stunned by how terrible the Veteran's Day comic is that I really don't have words.

Putting aside the subject matter, it's just an ugly looking comic...something you don't see from Kurtz all that much. The newspaper bubbles are poorly conceived, the art on the faces, tie, and lighting in the third panel is execrable, and the fourth panel is similar, but adds in an extremely strange rendering of Cole's arm.

(I'm leaving aside the subject matter, and that Cole has OFTEN participated in similar types of games...making him once again a self-righteous prick.)

Blog Archive