El Goonish Shive

That actually could make for a hilarious one-off Batman story, actually. Just page after page of Batman getting things ready, then, like, two pages of the actual fight, and then a couple pages of Batman collecting all his things.

I want this to happen now.

Comic!

The mystery continues...

NP!

Letter writing campaign continues.

Aw shoot. Shive has Mario Maker.

Expect lots of comic delays and sudden appearances of Writers Block "Moo."

edited 16th Sep '15 3:14:07 AM by stevebat

Okay, this comic is a clear case of pacing issues. We already know most people are focused on the griffon, thus leaving stores mostly empty. We know Elliot is still running from the griffon. The only thing that was accomplished was to show that Ashley had to buy it, making both the "banner" and "firefighting gear" theories wrong. (My guess now is a whiteboard - she'll use that to write messages in large print so that Elliot can see them.) That really could have been done in many fewer panels.

I don't think "writer's block" appropriately would describe what a distracted Shive would be going through - it'd be more like "oh, crap, I just spent four hours building my Bowser death trap, forgot I owe a comic... eh, I can do Filler, right?" Besides, as someone with Super Mario Maker, I fully predict that Shive will hit a creative stumbling block there, and one of his earlier levels will be the writer's block rendered in Mario elements.

Which is cheesy, but given how many Coursebot levels depict other stuff (like Chain Chomps, Starmen, and other Mario elements), I can't blame anyone but Nintendo for that.

I get the feeling it would be an item from one of the shops already featured... maybe she bought one of the ornamental swords that Tensaided mentioned?

See, this is the same problem I had with the last two panels of last comic.

She's doing a thing. She's clearly doing a thing. We're literally watching her do the entire thing. Yet Dan is going super awkwardly out of his way to make sure we don't know what the thing is.

Like. I guess this is supposed to build dramatic tension, but all it's doing is making me scream "well what even is she doing !@ ! give me anything !!"

This could have been two panels. Her confusedly looking for a person, then her leaving money and racing out the door.

We know that Elliot's fighting the tiger griffon. That entire half of the page is unnecessary.

Yeah, this update was pretty irritating. It could have been so much better paced.

One panel of the Elliot vs Griffin part should have been chibified or something, give it a punchline instead of just screaming to the camera.

I could accept the previous comic as just using dramatic tension - a bit of Cheap Heat, but so many writers do it like that. I can't fault Shive for doing it once in a while. But today's comic, where he arguably quadruple downed on it (had the opportunity to clarify things thrice and didn't bother)? Well, to extend a metaphor a bit, there's a plot thread. Sometimes, it works best if you put some tension into it. But put too much tension into a thread? It snaps, and the frayed thread can't ever recover.

This particular story hasn't gotten quite to that point for me yet, but it's getting there.

Unfortunately I know more than a few writers who will defend that level of stress. And abuse it in horrible ways.

It's not pretty when the thread snaps.

Comic!

Did not see that coming.

NP!

Last letter.

Chekhov's Skill?

I guess this confirms that going airborne is a bad tactic at hitball.

*snort* Regarding the NP, "Help. I am trapped in a fourth-wall letter-writing campaign. Can't stop. The author won't let me."

@21189 Most certainly.

For the choice of a soccer ball... am I the only one thinking that was a really dumb idea? It doesn't communicate at all with Elliot, it doesn't damage or hinder the griffon in any way, and it makes Ashley a target.

Also... since we're on a "complaining about wasted panels" run, this was two panels too long. One would establish that the chase is still going on, and you don't need two panels to show that a soccer ball was kicked and connected on the head. Wednesday's comic and Friday's should have been merged into one.

On a note that isn't a specific knock against Shive... do they still sell soccer balls with the black-pentagon-and-white-hexagon pattern on them? I don't think I've seen one of those balls for sale or in use in ages. Nowadays, it's all about fancy and weird patterns all over, with the appropriate federation shield somewhere on there. I know everyone still uses that pattern to represent soccer in art, but I think drawing is the only place that design is used anymore.

I think this comic is fine, but I'm retroactively even more annoyed at the previous one.

They certainly do in Britain, but obviously football's really popular over here and the design is considered a classic.

Honestly instead of the previous page, I'd rather have Ashley standing in front of a metal box o' balls that you see in malls. Looking all menacing and animé to shit.

The next page is going to be the tiger griffon changing course and ripping apart Ashley with its beak and talons while her mind flashes on all the reasons this was a bad idea unreasonably ceasing its assault and listening to Ashley deliver inhumanly sound, logical exposition about why they should work together and be buddies?

edited 18th Sep '15 7:36:00 AM by TobiasDrake

Seeing how things are going, I suspect the griffon will just get more pissy and go full hostage mode.

@21194 Well, the design is considered classic in the US as well - in pretty much every fictional depiction of soccer I could name, that soccer ball design is used. That said, I just buzzed several online stores, and none of them use that pattern (most use the basic buckyball-style construction, but they use much different patterns).

Next time I'm in England, I may go perusing for the classic soccer ball design, if it is still common there.

I think it's mostly common in cheap ones for kids.

I dunno, it's not like I like sport or anything. If I was American I would know absolutely fuck-all about football.

edited 18th Sep '15 12:29:31 PM by Elfive

Quality footballs tend to have some fancy-schmancy design, but if you walk into a random sports store you'll most definitely see the classic pattern.