Dominic Deegan, Mk. L: The Snark(ie) Alive - Death Actually Is Zombies

[Hyaskus]

Has anyone else noticed that in the Deeganverse being Blonde is the cause of most diseases such as Racism, Hedonism, And being generally Third/Fourth caste? Oh and almost all of them are now dead?

Brett Taggerty: Dead
Celesto: (The highlights) Dead
Szark Sturtz: Started as third Caste
TIM: No need for an explanation.
Serk Brakkis: Dead
King Chin-Strap The Vague: We do not see any colored pictures of him so we must assume he is Blonde because he is evil.
Stunt: Third Caste now Second.
We cannot assume the Travorias as their hair color is more of an Auburn.

Except Travoria Sister 2. She has blonde hair.

[CurlyKitGirl]

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, help yourself to some popcorn, and welcome to the next episode of

Analysing Dominus Deegan

The Archive

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The Golden Age*

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A Frail Hope of Adequate Enjoyment
21/05/2002 - 17/07/2002 Arcs covered: Oracle for Hire, The Curse
The First Signs of Serious Psychological Issues Appear
18/07/2002 - 4/12/2002 Arcs covered: The Curse, Luna, Into the Woods
In Which Teh Great Dominus Indulges in Torture and Terrifies Me
5/12/2002 - 21/02/2003 Arcs covered: Into the Woods, Couch Forts and Crying
Dominatrix Luna. Oh, and The Dominus is More Feared Than A Necromancer
22/01/2003 - 11/03/2003 Arcs covered: Makeover!, Mob Mentality
Thing Are Looking Up
12/03/2003 - 30/04/2003 Arcs covered: Visions of Doom Parts One and Two
Siggy Is Iesus. Make of That What You Will
01/05/2003 -23/06/2003 Arcs covered: Visions of Doom Parts Three and Four
The Great Dominus Is Officially A Marty Stue an It's THRILLER! THRILLER NIGHT!
24/06/2003 - 19/08/2003 Arcs covered: Visions of Doom Parts Five and Six
Character Development! And We Conclude an Arc
20/08/2003 - 10/09/2003 Arcs covered: Visions of Doom Parts Seven and Eight
Short Arc Is Short
11/09/2003 - 21/10/2003 Arcs covered: The Party

The Tarnished Age

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Hell Is Meaningless Filler
23/10/2003 - 20/11/2003 Arcs covered: The Ecstasy and the Evil Part One
Kink + Dominus Deegan = Eye and Brain Bleach
11/11/2003 - 16/12/2003 Arcs covered: The Ecstasy and the Evil Parts Two and Three
Inflatable Boobs and Sex! Occasional Plotting Is Permitted
17/12/2003 - 30/01/2004 Arcs covered: The Ecstasy and the Evil Parts Four and Five
Enter: Deus Ex Machina! And Boobs.
31/01/2005 - 19/04/2004 Arcs covered: The Ecstasy and the Evil Parts Six and Seven
Mookie Reveals More of His Sexual Fantasies. And Noone Ever Suffers From Any Effects of A Near-Rape. Ever!
20/04/2004 -26/05/2004 Arcs covered: TEatE Parts Eight and Nine

The Silver Age

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The Corruption of Sister Pam. Iocks Are Misogynistic Idiots.
27/05/2004 - 27/08/2004 Arcs covered: Hello Nurse
All Hands On Deck! Swirly Thing Alert!
06/09/2004 - 22/10/2004 Arcs covered: The Storm of Souls Parts One and Two
Darlings, Can't You Hear My SoS?
25/010/2004 - 28/11/2004 Arcs covered: The Storm of Souls Parts Three and Four
Attack of the Pointless Sub-Plots!
29/11/2004 - 06/01/2005 Arcs covered: The Storm of Souls Parts Five and Six
Is It A Bird? Is It A Plane? No! It's SuperGreg!
07/01/2005 - 24/02/2005 Arcs covered: TSoS Parts Seven and Eight
Analysing Dominus Deegan The Musical
25/02/2005 - 31/03/2005 Arcs covered: TSoS Parts Nine and Ten
Venus Gets Angry, and the Dominus Doesn't Have A Leg To Stand On
01/04/2005 - 05/06/2005 Arcs covered: TSoS Parts Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen

The Bronze Age

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CURSE YOU RUNCIBLE SPOON! I Have Flashbacks to WoT
13/06/2005 - 09/07/2005 Arcs covered: My First Day and Interlude Versions One and Two
Contrived Coincidences and Rape Have Broken Me
11/07/2005 - 25/10/2005 Arcs covered: The Battle For Barthis Part One
A Hug Makes Me Furious
26/10/2005 - 09/01/2006 Arcs covered: The Battle For Barthis Parts Two and Three
A Melna Special: The Explanation
01/01/2006 - 27/01/2006 Arcs covered: The War In Hell Part One
This Episode Erupts With Kittens! Well, It Should
30/01/2006 - 06/03/2006 Arcs covered: The War In Hell Parts Two and Three
I Dwell on the Paradox That Is Mookie
07/03/2006 - 20/03/2006 Arcs covered: The War In Hell Parts Four and Five
Time To 'Save' Szark!
21/03/2006 - 28/05/2006 Arcs covered: The War In Hell Parts Six and Seven[
Assassination and Moustaches
30/05/2006 - 11/07/2006 Arcs covered: The War In Hell Parts Eight and Nine
R.I.P. Siggy
12/07/2006 - 01/09/2006 Arcs covered: The War In Hell Parts Ten and Eleven and Interlude: The Best of Dominic Deegan

The Iron Age

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This Comic Is NOT Shakespeare
04/09/2006 - 16/09/2006 Arcs covered: Two Thief Or Not To Thief? Part One
If I Want Mafia, I'll Watch Bugsy Malone
17/09/2009 - 14/10/2009 Arcs covered: Two Thief Or Not Two Thief? Parts Two and Three
Time To Take the Offensive
15/10/2006 - 18/11/2006 Arcs covered: Two Thief Or Not Two Thief? Parts Four and Five
The Break Up
19/11/2006 - 10/12/2006 Arcs covered Two Thief Or Not Two Thief? Parts Six and Seven

The Ice Age

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Boobs. Nothing More. BOOBS!!
11/12/2006 - 15/01/2007 Arcs covered: Wrapped Up and Returned, Class Action Part One
Melna. Loves. Her. Rapist.
16/01/2007 - 18/03/2007 Arcs covered: Class Action Parts Two and Three
Oh. Geography.
19/03/2007 - 23/05/2007 Arcs covered: Class Action Parts Four, Five, Six, Seven and Eight
It's Worse Than I Imagined
24/05/2007 - 21/08/2007 Arcs covered: Snowsong
I Drank Too Much
22/08/2007 - 06/12/2007 Arcs covered: Shadow of Siegfried
Short, But Not Sweet
07/12/2007 - 23/122007 Arcs covered: Endings and Annoyances
My Counters Explode. So do I. Part One and Part Two
01/01/2008 - 24/04/2008 Arcs covered: The Oracle Hunter

The Dragon Age

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. . . Meh.
25/04/2008 - 25/05/2008 Arcs covered: Oh, Snap
Dull.
26/05/2008 - 29/06/2008 Arcs covered: Around the World Airship to Nagastrali
Best. Panel. Ever.
30/06/2008 - 20/10/2008 Arcs covered: Around the World Olde Tucklebruck Island to end.
The Unstoppable Airman - Sorry, Wrong Comic.
21/10/2008 - 21/12/2008 Arcs covered: Built to Resist

Orc (Outr)Age

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The Maltak Marathon
05/01/2009 - 05/02/2010 Arcs covered: THE ENTIRE BLOODY THING IN ONE NIGHT!
This link goes to the collected archive for this particular arc.

The Lost Age

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Boobs, Wonderful Boobs, Marvellous Boobs, Glorious Boobs! Yeah.
08/02/2010 - 29/03/2010 Arcs covered: The Beast, Part One and A Nimmel House
Com On Feel The Noize Just Random Noize!
30/03/2010 - 11/06/2010 Arcs covered: The Beast, Part Two and B.Y.O.B.
A Lack of Information
14/06/2010 - 21/06/2010 Arcs covered: The Beast, Part Three
Crunch Crunch Stunt.
21/06/2010 - 27/08/2010 Arcs covered: Walk the Wild Edge
Flowers And A Minor Meltdown
30/08/2010 - 06/09/2010 Arcs covered: THE BEAST! Part Four
They Just Lit A Rocket. Rockets Explode!
09/06/2010 - 10/12/2010 Arcs covered: The Court of Karnak
It Is A Tale . . . Full of Repetitive Exposition and Non-Jokes, Signifying Nothing
13/12/2010 - 27/12/2010 Arcs covered: THE BEAST! Part Five

The Death of the Age of Innocence

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The Aborted Recap
03/01/2011 - 04/02/2011 Arcs covered: Altered States
Curly's Beef Or, That's A Lot of Pictures
03/01/2011 - 11/01/2011 Arcs covered: Altered States ('part one').
Rage
12/01/2011 - 04/02/2011 Arcs covered: Altered States
Lovecraftian Horror: Surprisingly Dull
07/02/2011 - 24/02/2011 Arcs covered: Symphony of Destruction
Academic Elitism
28/02/2011 - 18/03/2011 Arcs covered: Face-to-Facebath
Lobsters
21/03/2011 - 25/04/2011 Arcs covered: Revelation
35 Dominicke, Acte ^the Firste
26/04/2011 - 13/05/2011 Arcs covered: The Search For Celesto: Crystal Bubbles

Let the experiment proceed!**

The Thirty-Fif^th Parte of Dominicke Ye Mercenary Oracle: Ye Search For Celesto, A Most Lamentable Comedie, In Foure Actes, Containing Thereinn Bubbles, & Y^e Introduction of Y^e Kinge's Mighty Men and Thick-Witted Welding of Histories
26/04/2011 - 13/05/2011 Arcs covered: The Search For Celesto: Crystal Bubbles

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Commentary: //like so//

//Geddit because Crystal Bubbles sounds like crystal baubles and crystal balls; and we all know Quiltlock Holmes likes smoking his bubble pipe. See, it's funny because it's a pun. That said, for this comic it's a pretty good pun.

//Also, how did it not occur to me that the less chapter involved the Dominus getting mind-raped by an air elemental who is somehow an air elemental even though the equalising spell should have made it(?) solid matter like the other Archmagi? Subconscious suppression of the fact due to wanting the Dominus to experience how much it hurts to have someone violently attack your mind without your consent or knowledge. (Now I have to go find my Mind Rape Counter)

//Well, guess the Archmagi are snarkers then seeing as they mind-raped the Dominus quite casually and then sent Mama Machina to her death. I do like the Archmagi even if nothing about them makes sense.//

Actus Primus

Scoena Prima, Enter Luna, sorcereſs, & Quilt, a being of diverſ fleshe outſide the town of Barthis
Luna: 'Come away, servant, come. I am ready now.
Approach, my [Quilt], come.'

Quilt: 'All hail, great master! grave [lady], hail! I come
To answer thy best pleasure; [...] to thy strong bidding task
[Quilt] and all his quality.' (The Tempest, I, ii, l. 304 - 11)

Luna: We must seek out the '[c]elestial visages' of - (Paradise Lost, X, l. 24)

Quilt: Ah! 'Pray God my news be worth a welcome,' (1 Henry IV, i, l. 78)
For Celesto hath -

Luna:Nay, '[you] will search impossible places' (Merry Wives of Windsor, III, v, l. 131)
For news of the sky-named oracle.
Lift up thy wav'ring sight to seek him out
'Giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel,
That goddess blind,
That stands upon the rolling restless stone' (Henry V, III, iii, l. 27 - 29)
Shall lead us to our old and errant foe.

//Because an erratic diviner fares better than a true oracle when trying to find something supposedly obscured from the Sight. What nonsense is this?//

Quilt: Aside 'This world frowns, and [Gerald]'s sun is clouded.' (3 Henry VI, II, iii, 7)

//The world can always use more Gerald//

Scoena Secunda, a room in Quilt's house

Chorus: Aside [Audience], 'I swear I use no art at all
That [Mookie]'s mad, 'tis true, 'tis true 'tis pity,
And pity 'tis 'tis true—a foolish figure,
But farewell it, for I will use no art' (Hamlet, II, ii, l. 96 - 9) //more to explain this scene. I predicted this. And all the STGF from Luna. Would it not be most difficult to view all at once all those images?//

Luna: 'Go, clear thy crystals' (Henry V, II, iii, l. 44) and begin anew!

//I sincerely doubt this would work. Would it not be more akin to having a great multitude of eyes peering down upon the subject at once, making discovery more likely?//

Enter Pamela, in a bubble, scantily clad

Quilt: 'But, soft! what light through yonder [bubble] breaks?
It is the east, and [Pam'la] is the sun. [...]
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were! [...]
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!' (Romeo and Juliet, II, ii, l. 2 - 25)

Chorus: Aside 'Presumptuous [author], are you not ashamed
With this immodest clamorous outrage
To trouble and disturb [...] us?' (1 Henry VI, IV, i, l. 125 - 127)

//Seriously, stop with the objectification of women! And it's not funny that your comedic relief as a Peeping Tom is a running gag. It's unnerving and disturbing and wrong. And not only does Mayor Pam look drunk in that scene, from that angle you should be able to see her nipple. Also, finally, I have proof that Callan doesn't seem to believe in bras. No wonder half the woman suffer from back pain. Not to mention that with the size of breasts in Callan you'd need a bra to prevent serious jiggling and getting smacked in the face with your boobs when you need to run//

Luna: Madam Pamela!
Aside 'Here is her picture: let me see; I think,
If I had such a tire*, this face of mine *tiara
Were full as lovely as is this of hers:
And yet the painter flatter'd her a little,
Unless I flatter with myself too much.
Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow:
If that be all the difference in his love,
I'll get me such a colour'd periwig.
Her eyes are grey as glass, and so are mine:
Ay, but her forehead's low, and mine's as high.
What should it be that he respects in her
But I can make respective in myself,
If this fond Love were not a blinded god?' (Two Gentlemen of Verona, IV, iv, l. 167 - 179)
To Quilt Thy visions are 'an ever-fixed mark
That looks on [Pam'la] and is never shaken' (Sonnet 116, l. 5 - 6)

//Yeah, I went there: Mayor Pam/Quilt. They're two of the nicest people in the entire comic. Shame about the whole necrophilia thing, but that's okay, maybe the Blue Fairy (or a Deegan, but same thing) can make him a real boy. And the {{puns}} in the previous strip indicate that he proud of this. As if being a Peeping Tom is harmless. It is not.

//I also find it strange that Quilt undergoes such a transformation between those two strips. He goes from not minding that he's watching a friend(?) undress to feeling mortified by it (as he rightly should), yet in the previous page he was more than content to watch it as opposed to, I don't know, looking away. Consistency: what's that? And look how Luna has a neckline until p. 2 and then it goes away. If he can't maintain that detail, why expect anything else from him?//

Luna: 'Man stands amaz'd to see his deformity
In any other creature but himself.[...]
And though continually we bear about us
A rotten and dead body, we delight
To hide it in rich tissue*; all our fear, *expensive clothes
Nay all our terror, is, lest our physician
Should put us in the ground, to be made sweet*.' *a treat for worms (The Duchess of Malfi, II, i, l. 54 - 64)
Thusly, thy pieced flesh shall be our key
To divining where our foe hides himself.
Come, sweet Quilt, to our great Lord Dominus

Quilt: But -

Luna:’Take [h]im before in all thy governance*, *rulings/doings
[A]nd on [h]im traist and call* [...] *And call and trust in him
Unto thy purpose sone [h]e sall the lede*.' *He will lead you to your purpose soon (The Kingis Quair, l. 904 - 10)

Quilt: But -

//So, in the Deeganverse the soul and the flesh are tied together? Otherwise the flesh retaining some aspect of the personality they once had wouldn't work. I have no actual quibble with using Quilt's flesh to scry on Venus as it's based off an actual magical practice. I'm pretty sure it's sympathetic magic "Get hold of something like someone's nail clipping and you've get 'em under your control. That's real old magic. Dawn of time stuff." (The Hogfather) However what I do object to is how they intend to use it. Sympathetic magic uses a part of/image of a person to affect that person. Given that Quilt's components are all dead, the only other possible person Quilt should be able to connect to is Jacob because he built him and infused much of his magic into him.//

Scoena tertia, the house of Lord Dominus

//Why aren't you concerned that one of your friends is being a pervert and spying on another of your friends as she changes? You're not concerned? I understand that Mayor Pam told you off once, but - oh what am I saying, your father fetishised your girlfriend's recently murdered sister. What's wrong with condoning your little brother's ex-girlfriend to being someone else's fetish fuel?//

Lord Dominus: Thy flesh recalls the lost, sunken mem'ries
Spun by the 'quele, that [...] so wele has quhirlit [thee]'* (The Kingis Quair, l. 1323) *wheel that has so well whirled thee
A 'froth of fleeting joy[s]' and sorrows all (The Rape of Lucrece, l. 263)
Intermix'd to form a wondering child
Now look, sweet one, and for thine own eyes:
'A dream of what thou wert, a breath, a bubble,' (Richard III , IV, iv, l 90)
Forms to shine bright light 'pon our dilemmas;
Thy past shall help save all our tomorrows.

Chorus: Aside Lord, '[y]ou sign your place and calling, in full seeming,
With meekness and humility; but your heart
Is cramm'd with arrogancy, spleen, and pride.' (Henry VIII, II, iv, l. 118 - 20)

//Not related to the strip in question, but if that doesn't fit the Dominus (and half the cast) then I'm a monkey's uncle. You have no idea how long it took me to figure out the source. Since about 2011 I had 'th'art full of arrogance and spleen' floating in my head, but I knew it was wrong, and it took me years to find that. Years and hours. //

Scoena quarta, the ether
Luna: These bubbles with passing ease anon.
We two 'observer[s] doth thy history
Fully unfold' as 'twere a great river (Measure For Measure, I, i, 29 - 30)
A roaring pard* down mountains and great plains *lion
Luminescent with aether's high glories
Here! and here! And more, here! The past's secrets
Are unspool'd silken threads. Ours a treasure
To see the truth. Not that thy thoughts are truth,
Knave, reflect thy chaotic history.

//Where was Jacob in those flashbacks? Doesn't your inception as a free-willed being count as a momentous moment? Oh right, it wouldn't because then we'd know that your magics were founded on necromancy. Without necromancy you would fall to pieces!

//Wait. Is that it? That tiny little bit of hair there, hidden by the bubble? Is Mookie trying to make us forget one of the best (and more interesting) characters in the webcomic? Because you know what Mookie, Jacob is one of the few antagonists who retain any amount of dignity. //

Enter Royal Battlecasters darkly garbed

Quilt: O! what masked fellows -

Luna: Battlecasters
Royal in colour favoured patents
In array like a 'dragon wing of night' (Troilus and Cressida, V, viii, l. 17)
Why search they for our delinquent Seer?
They do scry our actions to find Venus!

//Scryception! BRRMMMM! And why do Battlecasters wear masks? You're going to run into the obvious problem//

Quilt: We are found!

Venus: Hush my sweet fellow, 'tis I.
Here, hunted, lost, 'we are all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,[...]
We are such stuff || As dreams are made on' (The Tempest, IV, i, l. 149 - 157)
And fleeting dart amongst Morpheus' gifts
Though the paths be witch'd by obstructing fogs.

Gestures to Royal Battlecasters

Venus: '[Their] eyes are made the fools [by] th'other senses' (Macbeth, II, i, l. 24)
Sensible only to my creations
They see 'no[t] light, but [...] darkness visible'. (Paradise Lost, I, l. 63)
Tarry not, lest we be soon revealed,
Here: Take you this simple cipher. Farewell.

//At least here they didn't successfully scry Venus' location, he found them. Because, remember, if you've been touched by Snugglythulumon, you can't be found by the second sight!

And I'm starting to think Quilt's presience doesn't manifest itself through scrying but through some sort of auto-suggestion. Hasn't Gerald been used to solve things before? Makes sense that a chaotic, necromantic being would divine things through using the souls of dead trees.

Also: why was Venus scrying on Quilt's bedroom/house? Anyone? Magic?//

Luna: Reads from letter Gerald? Does Celesto seek to maze us?
My servant, what thinkest thou - Quilt? Hie* here! *hurry

Scoena quintam, Gerald's room, Quilt's house

Dominus: 'Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;
And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.' (As You Like It, III, v, l. 16 - 17)

//Because sometimes even I can't resist.//

Unsmiling, Gerald does not die, but instead casts a reproachful look

Dominus: Alas. goes to kill Gerald

Alarum

Quilt: Cease my lord, cease! I pray thee, cease!

Quilt and Lord Dominus fight. Quilt triumphant, grasps Gerald in relief.

Scoena sexta, the living room

Quilt: Venus, bright-eyed shall watch Szark, a duellist,
One of long acquaintance, one most intricate for
'Love is a familiar; Love is a devil:
there is no evil angel but Love. Yet was [Venus] so
tempted, and he had an excellent strength; yet was
[Young Szark] so seduced, and he had a very good wit.
Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club;
and therefore too much odds for a [Seer]'s rapier.' (Love's Labours Lost, I, ii, l. 133 - 8(ish - my reference had no line numbers))

//Because even I can't resist suggesting that Szark might be gay. And because Shakespeare is flithy.//

Quilt: And here: such a clear reference to Lovecraft that my author has permitted me to break into her modern idiom to proclaim that '[t]hat is not dead which eternal lie, and with strange aeons, even death may die'!
And this pageant, 'tis found Erossus,
That bawdy capital, like Sodom,
City of decadent debaucheries.
Venus shall attend this festival also.

//Arc wielding. Seriously. When was the last time we went to Erossus? 2004? And I thought I'd seen the last of that Hellhole. And yeah, obvious Lovecraft is obvious. And we'll get to see Mookie's version of Lovecraftian fanart. I'm pretty sure I should be dreading this, but I have an ice lolly and a can of fizzy pop, so I'm blasé. And my brain has melted.//

Lord Dominus: Aye, passing likely they both are targets
But both are held on the Day of the Maenad* *women both mad and sex-crazed who held drug-crazed frenzies in honour of Pan
Which shall our wayward companion attend?

//Dude, as Quilt said - fine, implied - he's a Seer, Champion of Chaos and someone who's spent months fighting (and training to fight) an eldritch abomination you keep ignoring. I'm pretty sure astral projection and even teleportation are skills he's mastered.

Not to mention that given how little we know about Callanian geography I can just handwave this away like so: Lynne's Brook, Barthis, Quirrel, Erossus and Prontus (wherever that is) are all within twenty miles of one another. And given that it's canon for Venus the bird to fly, there's no problem here.//

Chorus: Aside 'Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;' (As You Like It, II, vii, l. 165 - 167)

//This pretty much sums up my thoughts on this arc, although there's a bit more below. And given that I'm the Chorus here, I think this means I just wrote DD self-insertion fanfiction snark. Or snarkfiction. Is that a thing?//

Overall thoughts?

Fun fact: every word not //bounded thusly// is found either in the Shakespeare Concordance wherever possible or quoted from another work.

I put way too much effort into this. Certainly far more than Mookie did.

I'm more than bored of dynamic panel layouts; Venus is clearly dying for someone to give him a hand saving the world after waiting for about nine in-comic months, so no wonder he flat-out found our Two Bozos. I also refuse to believe that ROYAL BATTLECASTERS (people trained to fight against both magical and physical attacks) cannot find an incompetent Seer and his . . . guide(?) even with an unorthodox method of scrying.

This is clearly a plot orchestrated by the Blind King. He can't scry on Venus, so he'll get other people to find him, scry on those people, and then re-arrest Venus once he's been found. Easy.

And as for the arc-wielding, I'm just glad that Interchangeable Travoria Sister Number One is long gone. If I had to have another fetishy Erotic in Erossus (geddit, because it sounds like erotic! Oh, I slay me) arc with her I'd do something drastic like make a strip slay. Another plus side: no more uncomfortable sexualisation of dead women. This should not be a thing I have to complain about.

I know I shouldn't ask this, but could I have some feedback on the flow of the piece? I haven't written anything in the style of an Elizabethan/Jacobean theatre piece for ages, and never using so many disparate quotes before. Probably wasn't any good, but fun. Hope you could read it (and that my little glosses helped).

Next up: Szark (who might be gay) discusses the importance of restraint whilst talking to some adolescent boys. Nothing wrong 'bout that.

*Ages as defined by Trazoi here. Remember, all dates use the dd/mm/yyyy format!
**Avvie designed by ninja_penguin, many thanks for letting me use it.

Well. That was a thing that happened.

[Acanous]

What in the lemon-scented foop did I just read?

Well, it's better than the normal dialogue.

[SaintRidley]

That was a wonderful thing that happened.

I rather enjoyed the quote play, and it seemed appropriate here.

[Landis963]

You had a lot of fun with that one, I can tell.

[CurlyKitGirl]

What in the lemon-scented foop did I just read?

It arose from a comment I made a page or two ago wherein I was trying to describe how bad DD was, only to realise that the only way to describe DD in all its glory was to describe DD.
So I ended up adapting a few lines from Anthony and Cleopatra (it's a thing thing that is shap'd like itself) in an effort to describe DD as a self-demonstrating example of ineptness.

Then I started wondering if I could do an entire review like that. And I did. Because I have odd ideas.

And I think it was in part inspired by Vinyaden's Eliot-inspired strip slays as I just think those are amazing.

It's actually rather hard to read each strip in isolation and think of appropriate quotations for them. So extra props to him/her(?).

Well, it's better than the normal dialogue.

Well the bar's hardly set very high is it? And when you're quoting Shakespeare, Milton and John Webster, and James I of Scotland (the author of The Kingis Quair (a very lovely early-C15^th dream poem written in the Scots dialect)) who had certain standards to follow, you naturally have to up your game.

That was a wonderful thing that happened.

I rather enjoyed the quote play, and it seemed appropriate here.

Thanks.

I was tempted to quote Chaucer, Langland and some of the older poets/ones who wrote on more obscure dialects (Layamon's Brut, what are you?) and languages, but I decided that C15^th Scots was pushing it as it was.
That said, I still would have liked to work "Mesure* is medicine" (size=1]moderation[/size] in there somewhere as an actual character saying it, but I couldn't find how.
That and quoting Piers Plowman is so frustrating.

As for the appropriateness, I suppose it would make sense to have a different language used in the metaphysical/etherial/whatever place they were. You know, as a verbal shorthand.
Which honestly, would work very well seeing as Mookie almost never bothers to supply backgrounds or details or anything like that to his comic.

You had a lot of fun with that one, I can tell.

Yep! It's the challenge of trying to think of good quotes that match the visuals/'plot' without picking massive speeches and using manipulative editing to create what I want.

That said, I'd have liked to get more Paradise Lost in there, but Milton's dense, reference heavy poetry is to Shakespeare what Shakespeare is to Mookie. What I wanted to describe the Royal Battlecaster's was either a description about the arrays of the Host and the Legion in their raiment facing one another across Heaven's expanse or one of the demons garbing themselves in elaborate finery to mimic the glories they'd lost in the Fall.

Alas. I didn't have time to read the full three book flashback about the War in Heaven, or Book One in its entirety with the attention the book needs when reading for the purposes of quoting.

It also makes me feel smug because I put more effort into a relatively comedic/'academic' review of a sucky webcomic.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Curly, as a fan of the Bard, and an English graduate, I love you.

In another world, you wrote DD yourself using such quotes entire, and it was Magnificent. The multiverse demands it so!

[The Troubadour]

Absolutely loved it the "playnalysis", Curly!

[Trazoi]

This is all getting too cultural for Dominic Deegan.

As well as the great quotes, I like that you're posting your expectations for where the comic is going. I'm keen to see what you make of 2011 once you've finished reading it.

[AMX]

I noticed some of the links in The Archive are broken - they have handed quotes instead of straight quotes, so the URLs end up with some mangled UTF-8 where there should be a simple "http:"

So I went through the whole thing and fixed them.

Spoiler

Show

The Golden Age*

Spoiler

Show

A Frail Hope of Adequate Enjoyment
21/05/2002 - 17/07/2002 Arcs covered: Oracle for Hire, The Curse
The First Signs of Serious Psychological Issues Appear
18/07/2002 - 4/12/2002 Arcs covered: The Curse, Luna, Into the Woods
In Which Teh Great Dominus Indulges in Torture and Terrifies Me
5/12/2002 - 21/02/2003 Arcs covered: Into the Woods, Couch Forts and Crying
Dominatrix Luna. Oh, and The Dominus is More Feared Than A Necromancer
22/01/2003 - 11/03/2003 Arcs covered: Makeover!, Mob Mentality
Thing Are Looking Up
12/03/2003 - 30/04/2003 Arcs covered: Visions of Doom Parts One and Two
Siggy Is Iesus. Make of That What You Will
01/05/2003 -23/06/2003 Arcs covered: Visions of Doom Parts Three and Four
The Great Dominus Is Officially A Marty Stue an It's THRILLER! THRILLER NIGHT!
24/06/2003 - 19/08/2003 Arcs covered: Visions of Doom Parts Five and Six
Character Development! And We Conclude an Arc
20/08/2003 - 10/09/2003 Arcs covered: Visions of Doom Parts Seven and Eight
Short Arc Is Short
11/09/2003 - 21/10/2003 Arcs covered: The Party

The Tarnished Age

Spoiler

Show

Hell Is Meaningless Filler
23/10/2003 - 20/11/2003 Arcs covered: The Ecstasy and the Evil Part One
Kink + Dominus Deegan = Eye and Brain Bleach
11/11/2003 - 16/12/2003 Arcs covered: The Ecstasy and the Evil Parts Two and Three
Inflatable Boobs and Sex! Occasional Plotting Is Permitted
17/12/2003 - 30/01/2004 Arcs covered: The Ecstasy and the Evil Parts Four and Five
Enter: Deus Ex Machina! And Boobs.
31/01/2005 - 19/04/2004 Arcs covered: The Ecstasy and the Evil Parts Six and Seven
Mookie Reveals More of His Sexual Fantasies. And Noone Ever Suffers From Any Effects of A Near-Rape. Ever!
20/04/2004 -26/05/2004 Arcs covered: TEatE Parts Eight and Nine

The Silver Age

Spoiler

Show

The Corruption of Sister Pam. Iocks Are Misogynistic Idiots.
27/05/2004 - 27/08/2004 Arcs covered: Hello Nurse
All Hands On Deck! Swirly Thing Alert!
06/09/2004 - 22/10/2004 Arcs covered: The Storm of Souls Parts One and Two
Darlings, Can't You Hear My SoS?
25/010/2004 - 28/11/2004 Arcs covered: The Storm of Souls Parts Three and Four
Attack of the Pointless Sub-Plots!
29/11/2004 - 06/01/2005 Arcs covered: The Storm of Souls Parts Five and Six
Is It A Bird? Is It A Plane? No! It's SuperGreg!
07/01/2005 - 24/02/2005 Arcs covered: TSoS Parts Seven and Eight
Analysing Dominus Deegan The Musical
25/02/2005 - 31/03/2005 Arcs covered: TSoS Parts Nine and Ten
Venus Gets Angry, and the Dominus Doesn't Have A Leg To Stand On
01/04/2005 - 05/06/2005 Arcs covered: TSoS Parts Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen

The Bronze Age

Spoiler

Show

CURSE YOU RUNCIBLE SPOON! I Have Flashbacks to WoT
13/06/2005 - 09/07/2005 Arcs covered: My First Day and Interlude Versions One and Two
Contrived Coincidences and Rape Have Broken Me
11/07/2005 - 25/10/2005 Arcs covered: The Battle For Barthis Part One
A Hug Makes Me Furious
26/10/2005 - 09/01/2006 Arcs covered: The Battle For Barthis Parts Two and Three
A Melna Special: The Explanation
01/01/2006 - 27/01/2006 Arcs covered: The War In Hell Part One
This Episode Erupts With Kittens! Well, It Should
30/01/2006 - 06/03/2006 Arcs covered: The War In Hell Parts Two and Three
I Dwell on the Paradox That Is Mookie
07/03/2006 - 20/03/2006 Arcs covered: The War In Hell Parts Four and Five
Time To 'Save' Szark!
21/03/2006 - 28/05/2006 Arcs covered: The War In Hell Parts Six and Seven[
Assassination and Moustaches
30/05/2006 - 11/07/2006 Arcs covered: The War In Hell Parts Eight and Nine
R.I.P. Siggy
12/07/2006 - 01/09/2006 Arcs covered: The War In Hell Parts Ten and Eleven and Interlude: The Best of Dominic Deegan

The Iron Age

Spoiler

Show

This Comic Is NOT Shakespeare
04/09/2006 - 16/09/2006 Arcs covered: Two Thief Or Not To Thief? Part One
If I Want Mafia, I'll Watch Bugsy Malone
17/09/2009 - 14/10/2009 Arcs covered: Two Thief Or Not Two Thief? Parts Two and Three
Time To Take the Offensive
15/10/2006 - 18/11/2006 Arcs covered: Two Thief Or Not Two Thief? Parts Four and Five
The Break Up
19/11/2006 - 10/12/2006 Arcs covered Two Thief Or Not Two Thief? Parts Six and Seven

The Ice Age

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Show

Boobs. Nothing More. BOOBS!!
11/12/2006 - 15/01/2007 Arcs covered: Wrapped Up and Returned, Class Action Part One
Melna. Loves. Her. Rapist.
16/01/2007 - 18/03/2007 Arcs covered: Class Action Parts Two and Three
Oh. Geography.
19/03/2007 - 23/05/2007 Arcs covered: Class Action Parts Four, Five, Six, Seven and Eight
It's Worse Than I Imagined
24/05/2007 - 21/08/2007 Arcs covered: Snowsong
I Drank Too Much
22/08/2007 - 06/12/2007 Arcs covered: Shadow of Siegfried
Short, But Not Sweet
07/12/2007 - 23/122007 Arcs covered: Endings and Annoyances
My Counters Explode. So do I. Part One and Part Two
01/01/2008 - 24/04/2008 Arcs covered: The Oracle Hunter

The Dragon Age

Spoiler

Show

. . . Meh.
25/04/2008 - 25/05/2008 Arcs covered: Oh, Snap
Dull.
26/05/2008 - 29/06/2008 Arcs covered: Around the World Airship to Nagastrali
Best. Panel. Ever.
30/06/2008 - 20/10/2008 Arcs covered: Around the World Olde Tucklebruck Island to end.
The Unstoppable Airman - Sorry, Wrong Comic.
21/10/2008 - 21/12/2008 Arcs covered: Built to Resist

Orc (Outr)Age

Spoiler

Show

The Maltak Marathon
05/01/2009 - 05/02/2010 Arcs covered: THE ENTIRE BLOODY THING IN ONE NIGHT!
This link goes to the collected archive for this particular arc.

The Lost Age

Spoiler

Show

Boobs, Wonderful Boobs, Marvellous Boobs, Glorious Boobs! Yeah.
08/02/2010 - 29/03/2010 Arcs covered: The Beast, Part One and A Nimmel House
Com On Feel The Noize Just Random Noize!
30/03/2010 - 11/06/2010 Arcs covered: The Beast, Part Two and B.Y.O.B.
A Lack of Information
14/06/2010 - 21/06/2010 Arcs covered: The Beast, Part Three
Crunch Crunch Stunt.
21/06/2010 - 27/08/2010 Arcs covered: Walk the Wild Edge
Flowers And A Minor Meltdown
30/08/2010 - 06/09/2010 Arcs covered: THE BEAST! Part Four
They Just Lit A Rocket. Rockets Explode!
09/06/2010 - 10/12/2010 Arcs covered: The Court of Karnak
It Is A Tale . . . Full of Repetitive Exposition and Non-Jokes, Signifying Nothing
13/12/2010 - 27/12/2010 Arcs covered: THE BEAST! Part Five

The Death of the Age of Innocence

Spoiler

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The Aborted Recap
03/01/2011 - 04/02/2011 Arcs covered: Altered States
Curly's Beef Or, That's A Lot of Pictures
03/01/2011 - 11/01/2011 Arcs covered: Altered States ('part one').
Rage
12/01/2011 - 04/02/2011 Arcs covered: Altered States
Lovecraftian Horror: Surprisingly Dull
07/02/2011 - 24/02/2011 Arcs covered: Symphony of Destruction
Academic Elitism
28/02/2011 - 18/03/2011 Arcs covered: Face-to-Facebath
Lobsters
21/03/2011 - 25/04/2011 Arcs covered: Revelation
35 Dominicke, Acte ^the Firste
26/04/2011 - 13/05/2011 Arcs covered: The Search For Celesto: Crystal Bubbles

[Welf]

Ah. Sociological and cultural taboos. Always good for humour.

Eyup. Because, what else are those good for? (Aside from keeping society going on)

Dinner and a show. Next review will be heavy on the show, less on the review.

That was a lot of show. I even had my sandwich. Pity I'm not a native speaker.

[Hyaskus]

May I remind everyone that this was a thing? http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2004-12-23

Imagine how better DD could have been if this had been the norm?

[Landis963]

May I remind everyone that this was a thing? http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2004-12-23

Imagine how better DD could have been if this had been the norm?

...Not actually seeing anything better about it except the coloring. And that's not exactly Mookie's department, if the acknowledgements line on the bottom is any indication.

[Zaq]

So that was like a strip slay, only instead of pulling panels from different DD comics, you pulled quotes from the entire body of Shakespeare (and then some).

Curly, you make me feel inadequate. Like, just in general.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

May I remind everyone that this was a thing? http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2004-12-23

Imagine how better DD could have been if this had been the norm?

Dominus dating his gender-bent clone?

I guess no one really is good enough for a Deegan than a Deegan...

[Hyaskus]

Dominus dating his gender-bent clone?

I guess no one really is good enough for a Deegan than a Deegan...

Exactly. That way when Dominique gets stabbed with the Huk-Thak rather than non-deegan Luna then it would be all the more meaningful! Not to mention the whole Urban Eddie thing....

[Hyaskus]

So I was doing an Archive binge (Don't ask why) When I found that Mookie tends to recycle names http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2007-01-03 http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2006-10-14

Lazy Mookie, or possible storyline in which Domini-me finds he has a long lost father in possession of the only dog in the Dominion?

[SaintRidley]

Eh, Mookie never was good at creating a world that ran on anything resembling logic. If he did, that could be explained by Fallin being a common surname in Callan. As is, though, it's probably Mookie completely forgetting he had already used it.

[Hyaskus]

Either way that is literally the only dog in the Dominion. (Were-wolves don't count) And now that I think about it Spark is the only cat as well...

[Wraith]

Are you suggesting that Spark is some kind of devious Master of Disguise, living out several parallel lives as several 'only' members of otherwise non-existent species while under the care - or, perhaps, while silently observing - the poor rubes that he takes on as 'owners'?

....Because the extra sources of external nutrition would, at least, explain how he lives to be over six-hundred cat-years old without ever being fed by the Deegans....

Either that or he is at least 2 of the Doctors....

[Hyaskus]

"Are you suggesting that Spark is some kind of devious Master of Disguise, living out several parallel lives as several 'only' members of otherwise non-existent species while under the care - or, perhaps, while silently observing - the poor rubes that he takes on as 'owners'"

Exactly. He also has the power to duplicate himself as evidence to when he took the shape of the only Horse in the Dominion despite appear in the back with Dominus and Luna, And that very same horse is what we see when Rrrrrreinholdt and Cassafin return to Callan from Maltak. Alas, throughout the years Spark had grown quite insane without having any of his kind to speak to. In his mad plea for companion ship he created the only squirrel in the Dominion but not even that could aid Spark. Some even go as far as saying that Spark's unholy madness created a conduit for his power: The Dominus himself. If true then this can prove that Spark is the real mastermind, evident by the Mookreators love for
cats.

[FrankLuke]

Name: FrankLuke
Started reading: In 2012 with an archive binge.
Joined GitP thread: Lurked for months before posting this.
Starting disposition: I actually liked the first archive binge sessions in those early arcs.
Time to convert: Battle for Barthis sealed the deal.
Current stance: Contempt for all things Mookie.

It's over. I've lurked here for months but signed up just so I could comment in this thread.

I found DD sometime last year, not long before he announced it was going to end. As with other webcomics, I started an archive binge. My first thought was, "the art is shaky but he'll get better. After all, there are years of this comic!" I actually liked it at first. The jokes were okay, and I like the occasional groaner. My wife says that my definition of occasional is still too frequent for her tastes.

I thought there was room for improvement, but hey, he was just starting and pursuing his dream. I can get behind both of those. Then things started to slip. I don't remember exactly where I started saying, "this should have gotten better by now," but I said it. For some reason, like watching a train wreck, I couldn't stop the archive binge. I held out a fragile hope it would improve. The Battle for Barthis smashed that hope into a billion pieces which could never be put back together.

Stonewater. Melna. I will say no more. I hated that very concept, and then the way Mookie didn't handle it was even worse. And it got worse. Luna made a joke speaking with Melna that destroyed any respect I would ever have for Luna. Then I did Maltak in a single binge session. Gawk! The pacing issues don't go away when you are speeding through it!

There are so many problems with the story. You guys know them, and I won't even begin to list them because I'll forget something.

I'm reading Curly's review archive and hope to see that finished. In the final months of the comic, I only went to the website a few times to see if anything had really happened. I would wait weeks between visits and almost nothing had changed in the situation.

I kept up with the comic mainly because of the snark threads and found therapy in you guys giving it the MST3K treatment in the slays and your analysis of the comic. And now we have Star Power to fill our snarking needs.

Snark on and slay out!

[random11]

While we are waiting for the next Curly review, might as well write what really annoyed me about the bubble scry arc.

In the teacher arc, we were told along with the students that scrying and seer powers are useless without understanding of the world around to help interpret the visions.

I can't say that this arc is when the idea died since it was never really alive in the first place, but this is where it was obvious that things are never going to develop without pure magic.

The hero of this arc was Quilt. The only character who had the sense to look for Celesto by tracking his contacts.
Not only his work is not appreciated, it is ignored, ridiculed, and the main hero even wanted to throw it all without even a glance.

Worst thing, he was right! The answer WAS in the articles he collected.
Our main hero wanted to toss out the only clue about Celesto, and somehow Quilt is the one that is seen as a comic relief.

[CurlyKitGirl]

Curly, as a fan of the Bard, and an English graduate, I love you.

English grad high five!
*high fives*
That said, while I do like Shakespeare he's not my favourite playwright. And plays aren't my favourite area of study/reading either, my focus was probably rather unusual. But still!

In another world, you wrote DD yourself using such quotes entire, and it was Magnificent. The multiverse demands it so!

In another world I might have made a small amount of money writing a Shakespeare-influenced webcomic with an actual plot and artwork that improved over time.
If I were to rewrite DD from scratch with play dialogue it would be substantially shorter. And better plotted. And would require a re-draw. At which point I'd just give up and write my own webcomic.

That said, thank you very much for the compliments/

Absolutely loved it the "playnalysis", Curly!

Thanks! It was rather fun to do, although it rather saturated my memory and speech so that I spent about a week speaking in Elizabethan/Jacobean theatrical dialogue (and pseudo the same) on and off. And I never really noticed just how easy some of the shorter quotations stick in your head.
Even after a fortnight of less intense reading I still found myself quoting Shakespeare.
True story: I was at the Chinese Saturday running an errand for a neighbour and while waiting for my order I played peekaboo with a toddler. When her family had the order she slipped off the bench and tripped over. I picked her up and my very first thought was "Clear thy crystals", fortunately I didn't say that and just passed her off to her mum.

This is all getting too cultural for Dominic Deegan.

Monty Python is too cultural for Dominic Deegan.

As well as the great quotes, I like that you're posting your expectations for where the comic is going. I'm keen to see what you make of 2011 once you've finished reading it.

2011: A Year In Review? Couldn't hurt. And as I see it, my expectations were just the commentary of a less-than-academically mind academian. The Informal Annotations. A series designed to encourage people to read footnotes/endnotes of a work of fiction in order to facilitate their understanding of now obscure or strange references made by the author, as well as explanatory notes and explaining how certain ideas motifs are recurrent throughout the work.
I seriously love footnotes and annotations, and when you focus on medieval stuff (and older), you can be in a situation where there's commentary on the commentary (rather like House of Leaves, before it became 'surreal'). See, commentaries were a valid -
oh right. Might not be interesting to people. If people are interested I can elucidate though.

I noticed some of the links in The Archive are broken - they have handed quotes instead of straight quotes, so the URLs end up with some mangled UTF-8 where there should be a simple "http:"

So I went through the whole thing and fixed them.

Spoiler

Show

*snips*

Thanks for that. I'll use this for the rest of the reviews.

Eyup. Because, what else are those good for? (Aside from keeping society going on)

Social commentary and fodder for comedians and satirists?]

That was a lot of show. I even had my sandwich. Pity I'm not a native speaker.

Well, I hope you enjoyed as much of it as possible; it really is hard to translate Shakespeare into foreign languages isn't it?

May I remind everyone that this was a thing? http://www.dominic-deegan.com/view.php?date=2004-12-23

Imagine how better DD could have been if this had been the norm?

Ah, fem!Dom, I think that's where Mookie got the model for the actual fem!Dom drama queen.

So that was like a strip slay, only instead of pulling panels from different DD comics, you pulled quotes from the entire body of Shakespeare (and then some).

Curly, you make me feel inadequate. Like, just in general.

Thanks. Quoteslays are fun, but a part of me still thinks I could have made a better one if I'd assigned a Shakespeare character (or character type (or play type)) to each DD character and then went a-quoting that way. Because Heaven knows it wasn't hard enough. That said, I'm rather proud of my work.

I guess no one really is good enough for a Deegan than a Deegan...

Alas, Mama Deegan didn't birth any females, and the one chance of there being a female Deegan-by-birth turned out to be a Travoria. Think of that what you will.

"Are you suggesting that Spark is some kind of devious Master of Disguise, living out several parallel lives as several 'only' members of otherwise non-existent species while under the care - or, perhaps, while silently observing - the poor rubes that he takes on as 'owners'"

Exactly. He also has the power to duplicate himself as evidence to when he took the shape of the only Horse in the Dominion despite appear in the back with Dominus and Luna, And that very same horse is what we see when Rrrrrreinholdt and Cassafin return to Callan from Maltak. Alas, throughout the years Spark had grown quite insane without having any of his kind to speak to. In his mad plea for companion ship he created the only squirrel in the Dominion but not even that could aid Spark. Some even go as far as saying that Spark's unholy madness created a conduit for his power: The Dominus himself. If true then this can prove that Spark is the real mastermind, evident by the Mookreators love for cats.

This is a theory which I wholeheartedly support. Spark is a shapeshifter and is actually every single animal seen in the comic.

Name: FrankLuke
Started reading: In 2012 with an archive binge.
Joined GitP thread: Lurked for months before posting this.
Starting disposition: I actually liked the first archive binge sessions in those early arcs.
Time to convert: Battle for Barthis sealed the deal.
Current stance: Contempt for all things Mookie.

It's over. I've lurked here for months but signed up just so I could comment in this thread.

[...]

I'm reading Curly's review archive and hope to see that finished. In the final months of the comic, I only went to the website a few times to see if anything had really happened. I would wait weeks between visits and almost nothing had changed in the situation.

I kept up with the comic mainly because of the snark threads and found therapy in you guys giving it the MST3K treatment in the slays and your analysis of the comic. And now we have Star Power to fill our snarking needs.

Snark on and slay out!

The reviews will be finished soon (hopefully), and I'm glad you're enjoying them and the snark threads in general.

While we are waiting for the next Curly review, might as well write what really annoyed me about the bubble scry arc.

In the teacher arc, we were told along with the students that scrying and seer powers are useless without understanding of the world around to help interpret the visions.

I can't say that this arc is when the idea died since it was never really alive in the first place, but this is where it was obvious that things are never going to develop without pure magic.

The hero of this arc was Quilt. The only character who had the sense to look for Celesto by tracking his contacts.
Not only his work is not appreciated, it is ignored, ridiculed, and the main hero even wanted to throw it all without even a glance.

Worst thing, he was right! The answer WAS in the articles he collected.
Our main hero wanted to toss out the only clue about Celesto, and somehow Quilt is the one that is seen as a comic relief.

Ha! Continuity. Such a strange and wonderful concept. This comic can't even keep art continuity within the same damn strip. That teaching arc was back when there was some vague hope left within our hearts. I mean, who even explains those rules only to completely discard them for absolutely no reason and, in fact, forgets they even established them in the first place?!
(Doctor Who (sometimes))
Avoiding such a complex issue as basic continuity I will simply point out that, for the most part, the most likeable/interesting/sympathetic (or even genuinely likeable/interesting/sympathetic) characters in this comic are almost always those who are or once were enemies of the Deegans at some point.
StuntnBumper, Jacob, Rilian, Siggy, Warlord Moustache, Quilt . . . Oh wait. Runcible Spoon has never, to my recollection, been an enemy of a Deegan, and Elanovan (aka Donovan) is actually a Deegan.

EDIT:

Expect Whatever This Arc's Called pt 2 up before the weekend. I'm actually a bit ill, so I'll suffer more while I snark.

[Cavelcade]

Monty Python is too cultural for Dominic Deegan.

I don't like what you're implying about Monty Python nearly as much as I like what you say about DD!!

[SaintRidley]

This weekend? Excellent. I'm putting together a paper, so your analysis will be my reward for making it through my first draft.

[CurlyKitGirl]

I don't like what you're implying about Monty Python nearly as much as I like what you say about DD!!

Why? I genuinely believe it. After all, when five-sixths of the troupe is Oxbridge and their sketches quite literally swing between elaborate jokes based varying schools of philosophy to Hell's Grannies to beating people up with a fish.
It's one of those shows that combines crude humour and violence with something based upon something very intellectual, and everything in between.
Take The Holy Grail: in about ninety minutes it satirises and parodies most medieval Arthurian literature, romances, musicals and so on and so forth. You can from jokes about mud, filth and faeces, to a joke based around flagellating monks (where a big punchline is in Latin) to mocking entire character traits.
Monty Python sketches and films are legitimate sources for academic papers and texts.
So yes, Monty Python is infinitely more cultural than DD not just in its sources, but in its treatment of them, and its own influence on modern day culture.

What has DD actually contributed to culture (including internet culture)? It has lead a culture of snarkers that have taken many ideas and concepts from the comic and created a far more coherent and intelligent snark!culture and fanbase than it has for its own canon universe.

@SaintRidley: Yay! My stuff is a reward. May I ask about the topic of your paper or is it a secret? [/devious academic machinations]
Because seriously, I've known undergrads who were more possessive about their weekly essay topic ideas than PhD students with potential publishing deals.

[SaintRidley]

I think Cavelcade was pointing out that by putting Monty Python next to Dominic Deegan, it implies that Monty Python has minimal amounts of culture to it (what with that being all that's necessary to pass Dominic Deegan).

Perhaps Barney and Friends, or the weird baby pony version of My Little Pony, or Fox News would make a good comparison point instead.

As for my paper, I'm working on visual representation of Jews in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, with an eye toward why Old Testament Hebrews are basically depicted like they're Anglo-Saxons.

[Cavelcade]

I think Cavelcade was pointing out that by putting Monty Python next to Dominic Deegan, it implies that Monty Python has minimal amounts of culture to it (what with that being all that's necessary to pass Dominic Deegan).

This is pretty much it - because of all that you said. Monty Python is incredibly cultural in it's own way, DD is incredibly...nothing in it's own way.

[CurlyKitGirl]

I think Cavelcade was pointing out that by putting Monty Python next to Dominic Deegan, it implies that Monty Python has minimal amounts of culture to it (what with that being all that's necessary to pass Dominic Deegan).

Perhaps Barney and Friends, or the weird baby pony version of My Little Pony, or Fox News would make a good comparison point instead.

Probably, but my brain isn't working - that Chinese place I mentioned earlier? Mild case of food poisoning. Also, I honestly don't know anything about those three other than:
the Barney song burns in all the fires of Hell forever.
MLP: FiM's pretty cool, but that's literally all I've ever been exposed to in that franchise.
Fox is the go-to news station for bashing.

As for my paper, I'm working on visual representation of Jews in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, with an eye toward why Old Testament Hebrews are basically depicted like they're Anglo-Saxons.

Ooooh, that sounds so interesting. Have you looked at the Junius manuscript at all? I've not really looked at many Old English illuminated manuscripts aside from that and a very little bit of the OE Hexateuch - and I think that was to illustrate a point (hahahahaha) in a literature/theology crossover lecture series than anything in depth.