I love this comic!

I'm always amazed when I come to this forum, it always seems to have some psuedo-critical comment or negative statement disguised as a question.

This comic is the only reason I come to GITP, now. I used to come for oots, but now I check every day to see if there's a new erfworld.

The art is unique and stylized, but the writing is what makes it interesting to me. It is a 'now' experience. This is true art, the kind that isn't attempting to last forever. It has no pretentions whatsoever. There is no moral lesson. If it is teaching something, it is doing so gently, allowing the reader to do all of the thinking. It is not calculated to appeal to anyone in particular, lowest common denominator or not. The writer isn't disrespectful, but at the same time, he doesn't care if you 'get it.'

You never get the impression that the writer has an ulterior motive, some personal detail that he is trying to express in a subtle way. In a comic like OOTS, the 'joking' foibles of the main characters are not really foibles at all, (it seems to me) but rather a specific reflection of what the writer believes is right. In erfworld you are merely observing a story, and the characters are flawed in the most sincere sense.

I feel as though no matter which side wins the coming conflict, that event will merely occur to advance the story, and not because the outcome is what the writer 'believes is right.' If the 'good' guys win, then Stanley probably had it coming. If the bad guys win, then the good guys obviously weren't good enough.

The fact that so little is explained or framed makes it into a pure experience, where each new comic has the potential to go in a direction you aren't expecting.

The fact that it borrows so heavily from the virtual culture of gaming is just plain fun. I love quantifying power, (what nerd doesn't) and to see personal interaction in such a controlled framework is almost like what you're really trying to get from these kinds of games.

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(I think Wanda and the blonde chick are sisters...)

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Originally Posted by Zeku

[...] I check every day to see if there's a new erfworld.

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In case you didn't know, there are at least two ways to find out about Erfworld updates. One is RSS, which is a multi-purpose tool for tracking intermittently-updated Internet content in general.

I use Piperka instead. It's a website dedicated to tracking webcomic updates. I've read over two hundred webcomics from start to current. (I'm simultaneously proud of and disturbed by that. It raises the possibility that I'm a major slacker.) I find it really nice to have (almost) all of their updates tracked in one place.

Not to diss the rest of your post, I just don't have anything to say about it right now.

Its gotten better, to my surprise. Whenever it first started out, it looked like it was getting worse with the turns in all. But then after a while of uncertainty it was wrapped up in a plot twist that made sense but led on to the real plot that you could actually follow, whereas when it first started I was a bit lost with all the new concepts of a turn-based webcomic.

The latest has actually gotten me to post. I'm pretty impressed, it caught me offguard. I was in the mindset of Lord Hamster, thinking Lord Stanley was evil and was wondering how it would work out. It was a pretty nice turn of events a bit eye-opening, a bit strange for most webcomics to do. And now this last one reveals that in open light, and I find now the story is developed and we're on for a ride.

Oh, and on a side note, Vinnie is now my favorite character.

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Originally Posted by Zeku

You never get the impression that the writer has an ulterior motive, some personal detail that he is trying to express in a subtle way. In a comic like OOTS, the 'joking' foibles of the main characters are not really foibles at all, (it seems to me) but rather a specific reflection of what the writer believes is right. In erfworld you are merely observing a story, and the characters are flawed in the most sincere sense.

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Wait... Not to derail the thread here, but I don't get that impression from OOTS at all... How do you mean?

I think I get what he means. It's the difference between a comic that constantly breaks the 4th wall and parodies known mechanics and a comic that has a million references for people to "get" and yet has unique humor not really based on them.

An example would be V asking for an 8-hour timeout, which is a joke based on the wizards' spell memorizing system. It's a great joke and we all get it. We've yet to see something like that in Erfworld, where the 4th wall is still intact. References are present, but the story won't suffer if you ignore them completely.

PS: Your signature is 400 pixels high, man. That's just... wrong.

It's interesting how they do everything normal comics do by breaking the fourth wall but don't actually break the fourth wall. The characters know their world has mechanics but they don't consider the fact that there's anything odd about it or that they might be in a game. Not even Parson Gotti really breaks the fourth wall since he doesn't know he's in a webcomic even though he knows they exist.

Erfworld does sometimes pick the easy references rather than being original though.

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Originally Posted by Maurog

I think I get what he means. It's the difference between a comic that constantly breaks the 4th wall and parodies known mechanics and a comic that has a million references for people to "get" and yet has unique humor not really based on them.

An example would be V asking for an 8-hour timeout, which is a joke based on the wizards' spell memorizing system. It's a great joke and we all get it. We've yet to see something like that in Erfworld, where the 4th wall is still intact. References are present, but the story won't suffer if you ignore them completely.

PS: Your signature is 400 pixels high, man. That's just... wrong.

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I don't think that's what he means though...

And I guess I do need to resize that thing. Sorry, I changed it recently and I suppose it created some unnecessary gaps...