El Goonish Shive

@25675 I mean, it certainly gets across that we should note Asshole Victim, sure, but it also has the side effect of me not being able to take this new threat that seriously. I'm not sure that's what Shive is shooting for... or if it is, if that's a good idea.

^_^ I feel like there must have been, somewhere, a comic book vigilante who has uncontrolled mental powers that make people around him commit stupidly egregious crimes while narrating their evilness, thus justifying the beatdown.

This is Shive's queasiness around darkness at work. By his own admission in the blurb, he wanted to introduce this new monster by showing off exactly how dangerous it is, which means letting it do its thing to a person. But he's worried about it influencing the tone, so he made the victim a comically over-the-top evil person so that no one has to feel bad about him getting eaten.

Also, part eighteen?! Shive's going a little bit overboard with the segmenting here. I just went back and checked some of the other parts to see what, exactly, constitutes a "part".

For reference, Part 9: Traffic Freeze.

• http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2306
• http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2307
• http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2308

That is all.

edited 21st Aug '17 12:12:41 PM by TobiasDrake

Yeah, unfortunately by trying to make us not feel bad about the monster he's kind of taken all the focus and impact away from the monster.

Kind of wondering where this sentiment was with that butler earlier.

Yeah, Sirleck is unrepentingly dark, he's almost like a throwback.

It turns out the monster is a vigilante.

NP 659

Why? *headslap* Here's why.

How long is this tangent going to be? I thought there were shenanigans to get to.

Shive is starting to regress into walls of text and add to his pile of characters, someone stop him!

in more seriousness this is pretty interesting backstory, but it's also beginning to look like the last NP that had serious character development.

I just want to hurry up and get to the weird transformations already. We know it's coming, but I'd rather we not have to slog through Shive spending a month on fleshing out this one shot character's backstory and motivations first. Just cut to the chase and turn Susan into a balloon animal or whatever.

You're being optimistic if you think Hanma's a oneshot character. Shive doesn't know the meaning of the phrase.

I'm not sure we'll ever actually dip back into Painted Black-levels of grim. I just don't think Shive is really interested in that anymore.

I think EGS is at its best when the tension is less about violence and more about interpersonal drama and life disruption. Shive will never consider killing one of the ever-expanding list of protagonists, so death is never really going to have tension. The aberrations are a violent, death-dealing threat, and thus it would be nearly impossible for him to make them menacing.

I like Sirleck, but I'm not particularly worried about him doing lasting damage to the cast. Magus, maybe. But not anyone the reader is meant to care about.

I mean, it's not a bad thing to not be willing to kill off one of your characters. Many writers aren't, and yet still manage to inject tension through violence via the illusion of threat. Even though you know, deep down, that some random Monster of the Week will never actually be allowed to kill the Hero, you're still meant to be emotionally invested in the idea that it could.

Suspension of Doylist metaknowledge goes hand in hand with suspension of disbelief. When properly immersed, you can put aside the knowledge that no, they are not going to kill Hero Man off in a random altercation with a relative nobody during the 17th episode of a 24 episode season.

The problem isn't that Shive's unwilling to kill his characters. It's that his attempts to introduce threats like this clash tonally with the story he actually wants to tell, and that conflict is felt whenever they're onscreen. In many other series, these kinds of characters would be Knights of Cerebus, darkening the story whenever they're present. But Shive's tone is ironclad, and so instead, the story has to bend and contort itself to make them less scary.

It's always palpable when this happens, and it shatters the sense of immersion. It's not so much Like You Would Really Do It and more like the writer constantly injecting assurances of "Don't worry, everyone, I wouldn't really do it."

Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum...

Comic 2389

Critique.

I'm kinda wondering what form the payment is in. Sure, "money" is the easiest and most obvious answer, but it's hardly the only possibility.

The way Shive is being vague makes me think it's souls or people or something.

It might also be a combination - one abomination gets cash, another gets souls, a third gets a little of both.

This could just be an unsubtle attempt at Undisclosed Funds.

Agree with above, probably just 'several briefcases of money'. Sirleck did mention having to ditch his host's wealth.

Comic 2390

Blue Oni, Red Oni

Oh, and Dan has acknowledged his Only Six Faces problem. First step to recovery, that is.

edited 25th Aug '17 1:16:06 AM by Elfive

I really like Dan's art style, but I must admit I would be incapable of telling the difference between most characters if they all had the same hair.

Abominations of multiple shapes and sizes I see. The lack of subtlety tells me that Sirleck is counting on not having to pay any survivors.

NP 660

What could go wrong?