El Goonish Shive

The comic is just proving that White Hat Guys are actually all assholes on the inside. :p

And the NP is 2 dots and a line short of outright porn.

Shive being comfortable drawing naked women as long as they're furry has been a thing since Grace.

@21120 Well, possibly. That said, Shive could have been talking about any number of situations where people will avoid a work because of the odious opinions or actions of who is involved in it. I know some people avoid Tom Cruise movies because of his... ahem... full-throated support of the tenets of... ahem... the Church of Happyology. As mentioned before, some avoided the film version of Ender's Game because of Orson Scott Card's homophobic views. I personally avoid Brave because of what Pixar did to Brenda Chapman.

Shive's taking the rosier view - at least support the good people behind it. I'm much more of a cynic, one that views things under the wine/sewage problem. Namely, if you pour a teaspoon of wine into a gallon of sewage, you get sewage. If you pour a teaspoon of sewage into a gallon of wine, you also get sewage. Look, I might not count for much in the grand scheme of things, but at least I'm trying.

Oh, for the main comic... well, for one, The Rant kind of ruins some of the effect. Yes, Shive, we get the allusion to the Cheshire Cat; you don't need to point it out.

That said, there were plenty of other ways for the vanishing Man In White to make his point, some much more subtle. He wanted to show off to Ashley. The question is, why?

He's basically fine with whatever as long as he doesn't draw nipples or genitalia. Which, to be fair, is kind of the norm for comics.

So weird.

I found it weird that the iris and pupil stayed, but the sclera disappeared. Then again, it is magic, so I guess that is a nitpick.

I found that part particularly effective for the creepy factor.

Ashley is bemused and Elliot has no idea how to fight and fly at the same time.

And Shive admits that recent transformations have been gratuitous.

To be fair, Elliot is very much thinking like a martial artist... and for obvious reasons, katas to be done while flying under your own propulsion are in really short supply in most martial arts. Even Sensei Greg apparently didn't have many of them.

What Elliot ideally needs is an area that's spread out but with low ceilings. Flight is actually a hinderance to Elliot right now - his opponent understands flight much better than he does, so eliminating that aspect is perhaps his best move. Once things are grounded, he needs to take advantage of the fact that bipeds have much better lateral movement than quadrupeds, plus take advantage of the fact that both of the component creatures for a griffon are built more for rapid energy expenditure while humans are built more for endurance.

Particularly since Elliot probably doesn't want to kill the griffon, that would present his best chance at playing defense. Of course, the big problem there is that it's quite possible that finding such an environment in the mall is difficult. If he can lure the griffon into a hotel conference room, though, he's got a shot.

Well, Elliot has levitating flight. He doesn't have to worry about aerodynamics, so he's much more versatile and apparently mobile. If he could get the crazy lesbian griffin in the air and clip her wings, he'd be at a big advantage.

Martial arts are also designed to combat other humans, not quadrupedal predators. Very few martial arts teach you to punch out bears, lions, wolves, etc.

Fighting a quadruped is a very different experience from fighting a person and requires a completely different skillset. To Elliot's advantage, I'm not sure Shive is aware of how quadrupeds fight as the griffon seems so far to be merely trying to punch Elliot with her magic talon rather than overwhelming him with its physical superiority and surplus of deadly pointy bits.

A lot of writers are really bad at writing quadrupeds, I've noticed.

edited 11th Sep '15 10:14:51 AM by TobiasDrake

Oh my!

Bears actually make it a bit easier because they tend to rear up on two legs to fight.

"easier"

It doesn't matter how high you drop from, down is down.

Two legs is easier.

A quadrupedal predator can throw its entire body into the fight. They have more - and deadlier - weapons than a biped and their bodies are designed to grapple with their full weight.

It's easier to block a punch or claw swipe than a lunge with both claws outstretched and an open jaw filled with deadly teeth designed to tear flesh from bone.

edited 11th Sep '15 10:52:52 AM by TobiasDrake

@21135 The problem isn't that Elliot's method of flight is inferior (if the griffon's flight is purely mechanical, Elliot's method is quite superior; though if the wings are purely a mechanical assist to magical flight, that's a different story), it's that Elliot just doesn't know how to fly as well. Purely in terms of flight, he's Unskilled, but Strong, and it's not clear whether that strength could compensate enough for the griffon's skill advantage.

@21136 That is true; that said, martial arts for fighting bipeds is still better than no training at all. You go with what you've got, not necessarily what you want.

Though for how the griffon is attacking, the single swipe makes sense. The griffon is able to see that the Cheerleadra form (which, so far as she knows, is the sum total of Elliot's offense and defense) is powerful but also magical. Rather than just trying to overwhelm Elliot from the outset, she's got enough logical thought going on that she sees that dispelling the Cheerleadra form would be much more efficient than trying to chew Elliot up while in that form. Presumably, there's an in-story reason (as opposed to "it just looks cool") for why the griffon can't just enchant all her pointy bits that way.

That said, yeah, Shive probably doesn't understand how quadrupeds fight in a general sense, or how big cats or raptors specifically fight.

@21138 Well... bears are never an easy fight, even if you remember what you're supposed to do against them. Polar bears are the worst, though I imagine the rare grolar (grizzy-polar hybrid) bear is worse. But even though black bears are generally easy to handle if you know what you're doing, I wouldn't want to mess with one.

Interesting to note that Nanase, by contrast, is quite skilled in flight-based combat, even in tiny fairy form.

Random thought: What if Susan learned how to fight using fairies? She can summon multiple fairies at a time, and it doesn't leave her body vulnerable...

Blugh. Why do artists get uncomfortable with drawing what they are interested in?

Catholic Guilt?

edited 13th Sep '15 8:03:50 AM by TheyCallMeTomu

It's true. Whenever I try to draw motorcycle swordfights I get an unshakeable urge to go to Confession.

"And I'M not even CATHOLIC!"

Sorry, that line needed to be added.

Ninety is actually Catholic though.

Clearly it's guilt brought in from a predominately Christian society (because it does not make any sense to say it's Catholic guilt if the person in question isn't Catholic)

You people RUIN THE JOKE. ALL JOKES EVER!

"Sounds Catholic to me!"

No, no, that's not okay. That's discrimination. Like saying that the Germans are an inherently unfunny people.