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

[Nerd-o-rama]

It's a compromise between dressy and casual, as the name implies. More comfortable than, say, a coat and tie, but not as informal as "whatever's comfortable." For mean, it generally means a long-sleeved button-down shirt, long pants (no jeans; khakis and the like are common), dark shoes with matching socks, and a belt.

Damn, and I've been wearing polos for the last three years.

EDIT: Actually wait, that's because my office is business-casual, my bad.

[The Troubadour]

I have a complaint about your review curly. You seem to have this tendency to superimpose the real world onto the comic and declare things ridiculous because thats not how they work/ed in england or america or whatever.

Far be it from me to put words in anyone's mouth, but I think the issue is that in real life, things work the way they do because of a reason - even if said reason is nonsensical to your sociocultural or personal viewpoint. In DD, there seems to be no reason behind things, not even implied ones.

[Traab]

Far be it from me to put words in anyone's mouth, but I think the issue is that in real life, things work the way they do because of a reason - even if said reason is nonsensical to your sociocultural or personal viewpoint. In DD, there seems to be no reason behind things, not even implied ones.

That may be true, but that isnt the point (this time) its that in DD these actions ARE considered ok. The world building in this comic is so overall crappy that pretty much nothing is ever really fully explained. What we DO know though, is that death duels can be fully legal under the right circumstances, including signed contracts with all the stipulations included. So its not like our world where it wouldnt matter if I had a signed and notarized contract stating its ok with this guy if he dies fighting me, I still go to jail for murder, in callan, its perfectly legal. And considering this is a school all about fencing and dueling and sword fighting, it makes sense to hire the guy you know for a fact is really REALLY good at sword fighting. Especially since he didnt do anything wrong. In all reality, the one breaking laws was pretty much entirely amelia and celesto, and him was more accessory than direct for the most part. Szark was as much of a dupe as the guys who signed their lives away after she mind controlled them.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

When it comes to a match where a man with a claymore is up against someone with a fencing foil and it's not a fencing match I'm betting on the claymore because it's got a longer reach.

Ah yes. The Rob Roy Gambit. Great movie, by the by.

I won't add to the "American Holiday/History" lecture, even though I want to wax philosophic on that sort of thing. I got the same problem with language as Vaarsuvius: I talk too much.

But seriously, how do you not M'urika? You some sort of furenner?

Wonderful review again!

[Neoriceisgood]

Are you guys gonna keep the DD thread alive forever?

[Traab]

Until we run out of things to say about it, yes.

[The Troubadour]

So its not like our world where it wouldnt matter if I had a signed and notarized contract stating its ok with this guy if he dies fighting me, I still go to jail for murder, in callan, its perfectly legal.

But why is it perfectly legal in Callan? This is the sort of question that should have been posed and answered by the story. As it is, the only reason we can surmise is "because that's the only way the author's story can work".

Especially since he didnt do anything wrong. In all reality, the one breaking laws was pretty much entirely amelia and celesto, and him was more accessory than direct for the most part. Szark was as much of a dupe as the guys who signed their lives away after she mind controlled them.

True, but how much does the general public know about that? And wouldn't he be tainted by association? Things are too convenient, too consequence-free in DD.

[Welf]

Are you guys gonna keep the DD thread alive forever?

There are still 2 years left for Curly's reviews. I think then we can get closure.

[Traab]

But why is it perfectly legal in Callan? This is the sort of question that should have been posed and answered by the story. As it is, the only reason we can surmise is "because that's the only way the author's story can work".



True, but how much does the general public know about that? And wouldn't he be tainted by association? Things are too convenient, too consequence-free in DD.

I dunno, why are werewolves allowed to roam callan without collars? You cant expect him to go into a full on treatise on the history of callanian law to justify everything we are told. We are told, "If you do this, its legal" We dont need to read the 40 year case law series that lead to the eventual proclamation that you can have a legal duel to the death so long as you sign contracts with witnesses.

[CurlyKitGirl]

Five things:

As a fencer, loved it and you nailed it (minus the call on Snotty Brat's epee - I see no quillon and he couldn't hold an Italian that way anyway due to the rings. It's likely just a standard French grip that he's holding very poorly).

Oh? So I was okay on the poses/moves that Szark did then? I really only 'learnt' fencing from Wikipedia and fiction books, but the ones that look physically impossible/implausible or were . . . Hollywood fencing did stand out. Probably was overreaching picking over the grips. Well, I say probably; I mean definitely.
Given that you're a fencer you must have enjoyed and/or been frustrated by an arc centred on fencing.

Ah, but it's the Masters Wing because it's named for Snotty Brat's parents (the Masters family), so it's really no different from being the Smith Wing, the Dali Wing, or the Santos Wing. It's not a genitive in any way, really.

I suppose I failed to get my point across. Dom should have known from the lack of the apostrophe that it wasn't the wing where the masters are given he talks about how much of a genius he is.
Saying that, apostrophes can be tricky/easy to transpose.

We also get that (we call it Veterans' Day). I honestly think Memorial Day is so we can get two soldier-related holidays six months apart, because it's really important to some people that we never be more than three months from a day off celebrating the military. Honestly, the amount of holidays hanging around at that time of year annoys me.

Perhaps it's to make up for your lack of bank holidays? Unless you get them too? Maybe you just like holidays?

RE: slacks - the term comes from early 19th century military usage, due to them being loose trousers. On pumps, etymonline (wonderful resource) has this: '"low shoe without fasteners," 1550s, of unknown origin, perhaps echoic of the sound made when walking in them, or perhaps from Dutch pampoesje, from Javanese pampoes, of Arabic origin.'

I love etymoline. Recently I told Little Sister about the site because she's getting into diachronic change properly for the next year of her studies. If she gets in. And thanks for that.

And lastly, Mookie had the comic uploading on weekdays, so five days a week. 40 panels a week. No improvement, only stagnation and, amazingly enough, a decline in quality.

I forget that he dropped his updates down to three. Kind of awkward that the extra time lead to a drop in quality.

I have a complaint about your review curly. You seem to have this tendency to superimpose the real world onto the comic and declare things ridiculous because that's not how they work/ed in england or america or whatever. Take the very start where you go on a rant about how duels are dubious legally speaking at best and outright illegal in most nations. That's true here on earth, but apparently that's not the case in callan where you can actually sign contracts that are legally binding saying, "Hey, we are having a duel to the death, winner takes all." You can call it ethically dubious, but legally speaking, he was doing nothing wrong with that. (I dont think he knew she was hypnotizing people into accepting) And personally, considering this is a professional school for teaching people to fight with swords, having the guy well known for being virtually unstoppable with a blade teach would be a good thing.

Addressing the real world thing down below. The problem with the duelling people to death in Callan is the Szark was pretty smug about it being a loophole, because Dom was pretty shocked about it - and this is back when Dom had aspirations towards morality! - and certain terms of phrase that lead me to think he was partially aware that something was up. I mean, a guy known for killing people for sleeping with his wife isn't the kind of man I'd dare cross.
As for the the idea of having a guy good at killing teach people how to use a blade, I agree. What I don't like about Szark teaching is being a recovered murder addict; the shadiness of everything about his years in Erossus, and the fact that he was framed for murder about an in-universe year ago, and he still has that jewel that considers him at a risk of relapse.
Where relapse means killing someone.

As for the whole pleasure princess thing, I sort of agree, sort of dont. Its hard to be sure, but I get the distinct feeling that errosus has a far more powerful version of, "what happens in vegas, stays in vegas" when it comes to behavior. In other words, its ok there, just dont bring it out here with you. But thats a shaky justification, so I will at least concede that part of your point. Being married to the queen whore of whore town should leave a small stain on your reputation. (you cant see my body language here, just read that small part as a sarcastically delivered word implying it should be massive instead)

I don't think I would have found Szark's Errosus connection so much of a problem if it wasn't for Amelia. If she wasn't so well known I might have let it slide - so many prostitutes, who's going to know all of them? - just as a 'what happens in Vegas . . . ' moment, although still mentioned it; but she is from a noble house, running the premier whore house of Erossus. That kind of person is kind of a big deal.

As for alternative means of scrying, you bring harry potter into this? Dominus has no idea who harry potter is. In the comic he is admitting that these books that cover all the different methods of scrying, including tea leaves and such are really basic, thats the whole point. He was hoping for something obscure and all he got was old and well known, if less used methods.

Quick reading and an inability to convey things properly. It just seems implausible (admittedly from a real world point of view) that crystal balls are such a default method that tea leaves and tarot cards are less commonly used. Those three are so well-known (in this world) that it's pretty much a disconnect for me as a reader for two of them to be even referred to in the same sentence as 'lesser known' techniques.

And I think Mme. fem!Mookie used tarot cards? Or am I hallucinating?

Other than the tendency to bring the real world into the comic though, I really like your reviews. I look forward to seeing more of them.

Mmmm, I do tend to consider the comic on real world/real world fictional terms, but to some extent I can't help it. It's one of the ways I relate to what I read: if you use real world terms, items and phrases people are going to expect there to be approximations of the same definitions there. In a real world duel of honour there is always an option, even when both sides agree to no quarter, for quarter to be given anyway.
I'm not asking for there to be massive exposition dumps about why x is normal in Callan when it isn't in RW, and I concede to forgetting about Inigo Scarletti's Magical Maiming Sword, but you say these are all fencing masters, learning, teaching and practising fencing and this is something people can look up and read about! I'm more willing to suspend my disbelief about duels to the death being fairly common (or at least very legal) if you didn't have people react uncertainly to the mention of them happening when, as far as I can tell, RW!fencing more or less equals Callan!fencing. Also, as with most things, if you enjoy something you're more willing to cut it some slack, and the less you like it . . .

I'll try to cut back on it though, as I should be treating Callan on Callan's merits.

So that is why all those useless bolding showed up. I think that is worse than just being clueless about how to use bolding.

At least the letter would show he was trying. What I believe it what's happening just shows inattention and laziness on a large scale. If it was only a few times that would be excusable - maybe you were called away when you were working on the lettering of your final draft and your deadline meant you couldn't redo it so there wasn't such an obvious excess of ink partway through. But we see random bolding pretty much every page.

Your sentences are okay with me. For my mother tongue they have normal length. And since a significant portion of this forum consists of people with higher degrees, we are used to long and complicated sentences with many technical terms. It's much easier too read than, say, a review of statistical papers about tax evading in international enterprises.

So German then? And everything's easier than reading statistical papers. I made better headway reading the exams of someone sitting their final undergrad Physics exams than I did reading one question about stats from a mathematician's final exam paper.

I can't wait to see when you get to the really interesting part of the arc

This fills me with dread, especially seeing as I predicted a few trite ways the plot could play out.

Far be it from me to put words in anyone's mouth, but I think the issue is that in real life, things work the way they do because of a reason - even if said reason is nonsensical to your sociocultural or personal viewpoint. In DD, there seems to be no reason behind things, not even implied ones.

And that's where values dissonance comes in. No matter how much you try to treat Cultural Practice One on its own terms in Culture One you'll still be feeling things about it in reaction to your own upbringing.
A little more world building would help reduce reactions based on RW!Culture because there would actually be Callanian culture.
This webcomic has been going nine years (for me) and despite the fact that I've done fairly extensive reviews on it I can't really tell you much about it. Oh, I can give you anecdotes, but I can't really tell you much about the culture. I don't even know the currency of Callan! What kind of nonsense is this that after two and a half thousand pages I can't even tell you its currency. Maybe it was mentioned once or twice, but I don't know it. I don't know its geography; I know very little of its class system; religions; society; people; practices. I don't even know its climate. WHAT IS CALLAN LIKE!?

That may be true, but that isnt the point (this time) its that in DD these actions ARE considered ok. The world building in this comic is so overall crappy that pretty much nothing is ever really fully explained. What we DO know though, is that death duels can be fully legal under the right circumstances, including signed contracts with all the stipulations included. So it's not like our world where it wouldn't matter if I had a signed and notarized contract stating it's ok with this guy if he dies fighting me, I still go to jail for murder, in callan, its perfectly legal. And considering this is a school all about fencing and dueling and sword fighting, it makes sense to hire the guy you know for a fact is really REALLY good at sword fighting. Especially since he didn't do anything wrong. In all reality, the one breaking laws was pretty much entirely amelia and celesto, and him was more accessory than direct for the most part. Szark was as much of a dupe as the guys who signed their lives away after she mind controlled them.

Except for the being implicated in a murder later on, and being possessed by a Demon Lord. And whatever the duel in Barthis was actually about. We'll have to agree to disagree about the precise legality of duels to the death as the subtext at least is that it's at least a little dubious.

Ah yes. The Rob Roy Gambit. Great movie, by the by.

Oh, look at all that flynning. Rob Roy looks eerily like Braveheart though.

I won't add to the "American Holiday/History" lecture, even though I want to wax philosophic on that sort of thing. I got the same problem with language as Vaarsuvius: I talk too much.

But seriously, how do you not M'urika? You some sort of furenner?

Oh. But what if I like people waxing philosophical. And dear, you have read my reviews and posts here right? I talk a mile a minute. A short post for me is still about three times as long as most people's short posts.
And there was that one time in RB where I got talking medieval history, theology, philosophy etc. with DragonPrime where our posts were so long we broke the sidebar for a good few hours.
I suppose I don't M'urika mostly because the shows I do watch tend to be British, and the books I read aren't usually set in modern America. A fair few films I watch are set in modern America, but there the cultural stuff tends to get a pass for the plot and action.
I do read fanfiction, and a lot of that is written by Americans (it seems); and so the Americanisms just stand out a lot more. If you'll pardon an anecdote (and I was so trying to make this particular response short) I read a fair bit of Harry Potter fanfic because I have no real connection to the series, and it's quite funny seeing Americans 'trying to be British' and then referring to Surrey as a town a fifteen minute drive away from London. Some of these writers claim to be big Potter fans and members of all these sites, and then boom! obvious (and easily researchable) error. I/British readers aren't expecting people to know everything, and I have fairly low standards for Britishisms/Americanisms/etc. but if you can Google Surrey and find out that it is neither a town nor on the coast . . .
And who the Hell drives into London when they have opportunities not to!?
That wasn't even related to what I was trying to say. Maybe about how jarring it is?

But back to the original question, most of the American stuff that airs on the channels I have access to are police procedurals, not-so-good sitcoms (in my opinion) and some appalling cartoons. And so, since I don't watch much telly anyway, and have nothing making me want to watch telly outside of things like Top Gear, QI, a few other panel shows and Doctor Who . . .
That and while British telly is becoming more and more popular in America, I can't get a feel for most of the things airing over here. I mean, I desperately want to watch A Game of Thrones, but we don't get it, and why buy it when the parents have already suggested getting it for me for Christmas?
That said, I've recently discovered the appallingly cheesy (and disgusting) show Kitchen Nightmares US which is just addictive. Train wreck after train wreck with all the hallmarks of a typical American schmaltzy show.

Wonderful review again!

Thank you!

But why is it perfectly legal in Callan? This is the sort of question that should have been posed and answered by the story. As it is, the only reason we can surmise is "because that's the only way the author's story can work".

Actually, explaining that outside of a courtroom, someone not native to Callan or someone who doesn't know the rules around duels would be obvious exposition. If anything, the general brutality of Callanians should explain it perfectly. If it wasn't for the fact that the Deegans and their closest associates decry it all as wrong and illegal and immoral and unjust and so on.

True, but how much does the general public know about that? And wouldn't he be tainted by association? Things are too convenient, too consequence-free in DD.

Maybe reading through Battle For Barthis again would supply answers to the questions, but it would necessitate reading through Battle For Barthis again, and while it wasn't awful it wasn't very good either.

[Traab]

Except for the being implicated in a murder later on, and being possessed by a Demon Lord. And whatever the duel in Barthis was actually about. We'll have to agree to disagree about the precise legality of duels to the death as the subtext at least is that it's at least a little dubious.

I have to concede the murder thing, if only because im not sure which death you are talking about. I pretty much refuse to reread the entire arc and my memory is a bit fuzzy. When was he possessed by a demon lord though? I know he had some sort of cursed wound from karnak that only stopped hurting if he killed, but wasnt that whole inner self see the truth stupidity basically like a darker version of szark, the one who enjoys what he was doing? Even if it wasnt, who was going to inform the world of what Dom found inside szarks head?

The duel in barthis, ugh. It was clearly "legal" in as much as the royal knights were not only witnessing it, they were refereeing it. The fact that they were bought and paid for by braxis makes things a bit murkier, im honestly unsure of the actual rules, though I believe honor duels like the one they fought are actually legal, serk just paid the knights to help him cheat for the win, which clearly pissed off scarletti. And even with the cheating, szark not only kicked ass and won, he did it without killing despite being tempted. So honestly, that would count as a good character reference as well as a talent reference, as scarletti was a pretty famous duelist and szark beat him with a handicap.

And honestly, im unsure how the callan justice system works when it comes to things like extenuating circumstances. He had a demonically corrupted wound that drove him to kill, a mind controlling sorceress prostitute egging him on, and I cant help but think these factors would all be included in any sort of trial he might face. One final question, wasnt the war in hell over before szark got hired? Meaning his cursed wound was gone, healed over finally. So that right there removes one of the biggest potential stumbling blocks. The thing that had a large part in driving him to kill is now gone. The mind controlling lady of the night is dead, so most of the reasons for not hiring szark are negated.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Oh, look at all that flynning. Rob Roy looks eerily like Braveheart though.

At least Liam has an accent from the right Hemisphere.

I suppose I don't M'urika mostly because the shows I do watch tend to be British, and the books I read aren't usually set in modern America. A fair few films I watch are set in modern America, but there the cultural stuff tends to get a pass for the plot and action.

But our cultural stuff is action. Well, explosions. And giant robots. And more explosions. Have I mentioned how sorry we all are for Micheal Bay?

I do read fanfiction

Well now that wasn't very smart, was it?

If you'll pardon an anecdote (and I was so trying to make this particular response short) I read a fair bit of Harry Potter fanfic because I have no real connection to the series, and it's quite funny seeing Americans 'trying to be British' and then referring to Surrey as a town a fifteen minute drive away from London. Some of these writers claim to be big Potter fans and members of all these sites, and then boom! obvious (and easily researchable) error. I/British readers aren't expecting people to know everything, and I have fairly low standards for Britishisms/Americanisms/etc. but if you can Google Surrey and find out that it is neither a town nor on the coast . . .
And who the Hell drives into London when they have opportunities not to!?

All I know about London is that James May keeps losing races in it.

Actually, I know a little bit more. I know that Chaucer loved fart jokes, the guys at the Tower of London are called Beefeaters (why??????), the food is terrible (by tradition), the weather is worse...

And no one cares about Cardiff. I guess it's the New Jersey of England. Well. Except for Actual Jersey, but whatever. My only other exposure to British stuff is Harry Potter, your television and Mr Pratchett. Although whenever I watch something like Doctor Who I can't help but cringe at the fake American accents, I suppose no less that you did when Mel Gibson did Braveheart (apologies again!).

Actually I absolutely loved a video on youtube where the cast of Harry Potter embarrassed themselves trying to do American accents (and failing!). Though the interesting bit for me was the actual instruction on what an "American" accent sounded like. It was weird, again like you probably do when Americans all do the same fake British accent and pretend that there's only the one.

But back to the original question, most of the American stuff that airs on the channels I have access to are police procedurals, not-so-good sitcoms (in my opinion) and some appalling cartoons. And so, since I don't watch much telly anyway, and have nothing making me want to watch telly outside of things like Top Gear, QI, a few other panel shows and Doctor Who . . .
That and while British telly is becoming more and more popular in America, I can't get a feel for most of the things airing over here. I mean, I desperately want to watch A Game of Thrones, but we don't get it, and why buy it when the parents have already suggested getting it for me for Christmas?
That said, I've recently discovered the appallingly cheesy (and disgusting) show Kitchen Nightmares US which is just addictive. Train wreck after train wreck with all the hallmarks of a typical American schmaltzy show.

Have I mentioned how sorry we all are about our television (wait, what's wrong with our cartoons?)? There's a reason Doctor Who is extremely popular over here. Now if BBC America would stop jerking its viewers around with weird schedule nonsense (I swear the last Tennant Christmas special got to us after Easter!) I might watch it more beyond Top Gear, Doctor Who and Copper.

I'm not sure if there's a truly American tv show, if only because it's a big country, and I doubt any one thing encapsulates everything. But let me try: Watch Last of the Mohicans (I guess? it's got you lot in it, and not just racist stereotypes mostly kind of), the movie version of the play 1776 (my god our founders were odd old perverts!), Gangs of New York (I would go gay for Daniel-Day), either read The Civil War by the magnificent Shelby Foote or watch the miniseries based on it by Ken Burns*, anything Clint Eastwood's been in (Outlaw Jose Wales is a must), Saving Private Ryan is good and takes less time than the superior Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Copper's pretty darn close to how things were in NY, though still somewhat sanitized.

Um...Sons of Anarchy?

* This more than anything. The Civil War was the American Iliad/Odyssey, and this show, more than anything in the world, perfectly realizes how important that time was.**

** Now that I think about it, how much American history do non-Americans get exposed to? I can rattle off a fair bit of British history myself, despite the abysmal hole that it the American educational system, but whenever I meet someone outside the states they tend to have no clue about it except that we're obnoxious as tourists (but apparently very nice as hosts, what), we eat too much, and Lincoln freed the slaves. Oh and we helped out with WW2. A little.

[Doompuppy]

This webcomic has been going nine years (for me) and despite the fact that I've done fairly extensive reviews on it I can't really tell you much about it. Oh, I can give you anecdotes, but I can't really tell you much about the culture. I don't even know the currency of Callan! What kind of nonsense is this that after two and a half thousand pages I can't even tell you its currency. Maybe it was mentioned once or twice, but I don't know it.

Can't find the one or two strips where coins actually changed hands, but I'm fairly sure that the currency of Callan is "gold". So yeah, you've now officially thought more about it than Mookie ever did.

[Welf]

At least the letter would show he was trying. What I believe it what's happening just shows inattention and laziness on a large scale. If it was only a few times that would be excusable - maybe you were called away when you were working on the lettering of your final draft and your deadline meant you couldn't redo it so there wasn't such an obvious excess of ink partway through. But we see random bolding pretty much every page.

It's depressing. I'm sloppy, too, but at least I try to get better sometimes.

So German then? And everything's easier than reading statistical papers. I made better headway reading the exams of someone sitting their final undergrad Physics exams than I did reading one question about stats from a mathematician's final exam paper.

Eyup. Clauses'R'Us.
And true that.But it also means standards are high here.

This fills me with dread, especially seeing as I predicted a few trite ways the plot could play out.

I read your predictions. It will be interesting.

Actually, I know a little bit more. I know that Chaucer loved fart jokes, the guys at the Tower of London are called Beefeaters (why??????), the food is terrible (by tradition), the weather is worse...

Fun fact: there is actually a good economic reason for the terrible English food. London grew faster then transportation means, so they had to convert everything into food and use inferior means of food conversation. After a while they got used to it and called it tradition, even when they could get better food. But I heard it English food got better in recent years.

[Kwatsu]

I've been doing a re-read of the old snark threads lately (I'm about halfway through Maltak, help me!) and a few interesting things show up in them. So in between Curly's excellent analyses--best wishes to your family, BTW--I was going to offer a thought that's sort of on topic to the thread. Well, the thread title, anyway. It centres around Dominic's visions.

One thing that's been relatively consistent about his visions, as opposed to every other damn element of the magic system, is that Dominic never knew where they came from. Even when his second sight merged with the Heart of Magic or ascended or whatever, I never got the impression that they actually came from the HoM: that was just what allowed him to get them.

Only, we do know where some of them came from: Jacob. He proved in the Visions of Doom arc that he was able to implant visions in Dominic's mind, either to manipulate him or just squick him out.

Was there ever an explanation for how Jacob was able to do that without Dominic blocking him out, or is it just a "necromancers do wacky crap" kind of thing? Rilian was pretty good at messing with Dominic's head, too, but Dom's visions were always held up as being some sort of "higher message pay attention to this" deal. If Jacob's able to implant them, I guess the response to "nobody knows why some people get visions and nobody ever does" should be "have you tried asking Jacob how he does it"?

I dunno, it's just something that interested me. And if there was anywhere to necro old topics...

[Thufir]

And no one cares about Cardiff. I guess it's the New Jersey of England.

Since Curly just mentioned the thing about people not doing their very easy google research, I feel compelled to point out that Cardiff is in Wales.

[The Troubadour]

Oh, look at all that flynning. Rob Roy looks eerily like Braveheart though.

I think Liam Neeson's "Rob Roy" is a very good movie, but I still have a soft spot for Disney's old version.

Actually, explaining that outside of a courtroom, someone not native to Callan or someone who doesn't know the rules around duels would be obvious exposition.

Ah, not all exposition needs to be obvious and/or inelegant. But that was just an example; I'm actually not bothered by the issue of the legality of duels to the death in Callan (the Norsemen had legal duels to the death, for instance). But I am bothered by the lack of a coherent setting to serve as a background for the story.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Only, we do know where some of them came from: Jacob. He proved in the Visions of Doom arc that he was able to implant visions in Dominic's mind, either to manipulate him or just squick him out.

Was there ever an explanation for how Jacob was able to do that without Dominic blocking him out, or is it just a "necromancers do wacky crap" kind of thing? Rilian was pretty good at messing with Dominic's head, too, but Dom's visions were always held up as being some sort of "higher message pay attention to this" deal. If Jacob's able to implant them, I guess the response to "nobody knows why some people get visions and nobody ever does" should be "have you tried asking Jacob how he does it"?

I dunno, it's just something that interested me. And if there was anywhere to necro old topics...

Nope, it was never explained.

Like most of Mookie's early Arcs it is best labeled as Early Installment Weirdness with the footnote that Mookie ceased his attempts to make Dominic less than all-powerful around the end of Storm of Souls. Before then you had false visions, crazy anti-Seer magitek and Dominic actually being wrong about things. While these issues would pop up almost as sidebars later on (e.g. the ring in Battle of Barthis) they were never central to the conflict at hand or didn't keep Dominic from getting exactly what he wanted.

[SaintRidley]

Yeah, false visions wound up becoming one of those things that just got dropped. A shame, too, because that would have made a much more interesting story out of the mess.

Since Curly just mentioned the thing about people not doing their very easy google research, I feel compelled to point out that Cardiff is in Wales.

And don't we wish New Jersey was too.

[t209]

Just being curious, Is CurlyKitGirl Mookie?

[Doompuppy]

I think it's safe to say no, considering Curly's awesomeness and solid understanding of most of the areas where Mookie fails miserably in his comics-crafting.

[T-O-E]

Since Curly just mentioned the thing about people not doing their very easy google research, I feel compelled to point out that Cardiff is in Wales.

And this from someone who could 'rattle off a fair bit of British history myself'.

[Mewtarthio]

Just being curious, Is CurlyKitGirl Mookie?

Curly has an intimate understanding of all Mookie's failures that he refuses to acknowledge. Therefore, I must conclude that Curly is Mookie's Shadow.

[CurlyKitGirl]

@Traab: The murder was in Oracle Hunter, and yeah, the next page is the one where Szark says he "do[es] a lot of things from behind". And he was actually cleared of it pretty quickly; so quickly I forgot he was cleared near instantaneously. However, this arc was definitively a long time after the War in Hell, so that he still has a medi-alert-for-other-people bracelet after all that time at least suggests Prontus is wary enough of him to have a constant tracer (and they did immediately accuse him). I'm also fairly sure this was after he was employed at the Duelling Academy too.
And, somehow I don't think we'll be able to untangle Szark and his legal status.
Might as well throw our hands up in the air and give up.
The demonic possession was declared openly in Erossuss, to a room full of people, so I think that should be fairly well known. Then again, I just can't tell from that particular strip whether he's talking in Szark's mind or out loud.
Yeah. Me, giving up.

At least Liam has an accent from the right Hemisphere.

He's only a couple hundred miles off. Hollywood demonstrating that to them, there is no Scotland, there is no Ireland; only Scotireland.

But our cultural stuff is action. Well, explosions. And giant robots. And more explosions. Have I mentioned how sorry we all are for Micheal Bay?

Ah! But without American culture there wouldn't be any American Gods. Point to me. And without Hollywood there wouldn't be the MCU. And sometimes explosions and giant robots are okay.
You don't have to apologise for Michael Bay though, everyone else seems to.

Well now that wasn't very smart, was it?

Some of it's pretty good, some of it's the literary equivalent of junk food, a lot of it's pretty bad and avoidable, some of it's so bad it's bile fascination. Very, very rarely, it's amazing.

All I know about London is that James May keeps losing races in it.

James May loses races no matter where he is.

Actually, I know a little bit more. I know that Chaucer loved fart jokes, the guys at the Tower of London are called Beefeaters (why??????), the food is terrible (by tradition), the weather is worse...

Chaucer was a dirty old man; they're called that because they were permitted to eat as much beef as they wanted from the king's table (at at least, that's the best guess anyone can make), difficulty travelling lead to difficulty preserving foodstuffs, so simple basic food. The food here's fairly good (but not exactly complicated), so it's mostly tradition to call food bad. That and compared to some of our European neighbours our food really isn't that good. And the weather is British weather. It'd be worse if Ireland wasn't in between (most) of the UK and the Atlantic.

And no one cares about Cardiff. I guess it's the New Jersey of England. Well. Except for Actual Jersey, but whatever. My only other exposure to British stuff is Harry Potter, your television and Mr Pratchett. Although whenever I watch something like Doctor Who I can't help but cringe at the fake American accents, I suppose no less that you did when Mel Gibson did Braveheart (apologies again!).

Wales. Cardiff is the capital of Wales. And it's mostly a joke. Don't worry though, we cringe (sometimes) at the fake American accents on our shows too. And Braveheart . . . well. Let's just say that we're used to being the villains in every other Hollywood film.

Actually I absolutely loved a video on youtube where the cast of Harry Potter embarrassed themselves trying to do American accents (and failing!). Though the interesting bit for me was the actual instruction on what an "American" accent sounded like. It was weird, again like you probably do when Americans all do the same fake British accent and pretend that there's only the one.

Oh no, Americans think there are only two British accents: RP and Cockney. As for being taught an American accent, maybe they were being taught just that: an American accent (probably the most common one seen on TV/in films). I mean, it'd be hypocritical of us to talk about there being one American accent when our wee tiny country has so many. Not that we don't pretend there's only one American accent for the sake of comedy.
Somewhat relatedly, was watching an episode of Kitchen Nightmares US last night and one of the restaurant owners was such a moron that he believe this lie told to him by his brother:
"He's British; 'busy idiot' is a compliment to them. Don't get angry because he's from British and they don't speak proper English over there."
HE BELIEVED IT and for the rest of the episode kept talking about sending Gordon Ramsey back to 'British' for being an idiot who didn't know how to speak English or cook.

Have I mentioned how sorry we all are about our television (wait, what's wrong with our cartoons?)? There's a reason Doctor Who is extremely popular over here. Now if BBC America would stop jerking its viewers around with weird schedule nonsense (I swear the last Tennant Christmas special got to us after Easter!) I might watch it more beyond Top Gear, Doctor Who and Copper.

American Dad, Family Guy, The Simpsons. The latter is okay, but we only seem to have one batch of cartoons from about eight years ago that gets cycled through endlessly. Oh, and Futurama's pretty good. Avatar: the Legend of Aang/TLA was good too, but it doesn't air any more.
To be honest, I just think most telly's not very good at all, but the few things I do watch are British. Can't wait for Sherlock to be back. And I have noticed that there are a lot of Anglophiles in America, and the recent(ish) proliferation of very good British films/shows/books/actors probably incited interest in a lot more people.

I'm not sure if there's a truly American tv show, if only because it's a big country, and I doubt any one thing encapsulates everything. But let me try: Watch Last of the Mohicans (I guess? it's got you lot in it, and not just racist stereotypes mostly kind of), the movie version of the play 1776 (my god our founders were odd old perverts!), Gangs of New York (I would go gay for Daniel-Day), either read The Civil War by the magnificent Shelby Foote or watch the miniseries based on it by Ken Burns*, anything Clint Eastwood's been in (Outlaw Jose Wales is a must), Saving Private Ryan is good and takes less time than the superior Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Copper's pretty darn close to how things were in NY, though still somewhat sanitized.

Um...Sons of Anarchy?

* This more than anything. The Civil War was the American Iliad/Odyssey, and this show, more than anything in the world, perfectly realizes how important that time was.**

Sounds interesting, especially 1776, I may hunt them down.

** Now that I think about it, how much American history do non-Americans get exposed to? I can rattle off a fair bit of British history myself, despite the abysmal hole that it the American educational system, but whenever I meet someone outside the states they tend to have no clue about it except that we're obnoxious as tourists (but apparently very nice as hosts, what), we eat too much, and Lincoln freed the slaves. Oh and we helped out with WW2. A little.

Well, I went to a state school, a fairly average one, so I'll tell you my experience, and add a caveat that there are different exam boards and different areas of the UK have different lessons.
In Y8 I did a bit over a term (roughly twelve weeks to a term) on . . . I don't know what it's properly called, the American expansion into Indian territories; we also touched a bit on the American Revolution. I think it was then (because in Y7 we did the Greeks, Romans and a bit on the Normans) that we did a little on Columbus and the colonisation of America. I remember this specifically because I had to correct the teacher about aspects of Columbus and his history.
Y9/Y10 (I forget which) was the American Civil War, seguing into American Civil Rights; and in GCSEs it was the Great Depression, other units by their very nature (WWI (in various aspects) and the interbellum) involved America.
By the time my sister did GCSE History there was a unit on Vietnam.
For A Levels my college offered Medieval History and Modern History. If you took Modern History you did the Vietnam War, the Cold War and a few other
things.
Then when you get to degree level you can specialise in American History, specific eras of History, or take Special Interest/Special Option papers on pretty much anything.
Outside of actual history . . . we did some American poets for both GCSE Englishes and that carried over into A Levels and beyond, including discussing the differences between American and British English; I did a bit of American Geography at some point in school.
So mostly I know American History from say 1800 to 1945, with other bits from general reading and current events.

Can't find the one or two strips where coins actually changed hands, but I'm fairly sure that the currency of Callan is "gold". So yeah, you've now officially thought more about it than Mookie ever did.

I think officially we've all thought more about Callan and the world of DD than Mookie ever did. It really is baffling though, it takes all of three seconds to think of a name for currency; if nothing else he could have just called it Gil a la Final Fantasy.

It's depressing. I'm sloppy, too, but at least I try to get better sometimes.

Even worse: someone lazier, and sloppier than you is a fairly famous author and writer of a webcomic. People are fans of him.

Eyup. Clauses'R'Us.
And true that.But it also means standards are high here.

Yay! I guessed someone's native language from writing style and small comments. Go me. *half hearted boogie*
My uni was pretty good, I'm just not very good at science. Or mathematics. Seriously, I used to be good at mathematics, but then Y10 (aged fifteen) happened and poof! all my mathematical skills went down the drain.

I read your predictions. It will be interesting.

Oh dear.

Fun fact: there is actually a good economic reason for the terrible English food. London grew faster then transportation means, so they had to convert everything into food and use inferior means of food conversation. After a while they got used to it and called it tradition, even when they could get better food. But I heard it English food got better in recent years.

Pretty much. By the by, did you mean conservation up there, not conversation? Really, I think the Brits perpetuate the joke about their terrible food; I mean it's not bad, it's just you know, okay.

I've been doing a re-read of the old snark threads lately (I'm about halfway through Maltak, help me!) and a few interesting things show up in them. So in between Curly's excellent analyses--best wishes to your family, BTW--I was going to offer a thought that's sort of on topic to the thread. Well, the thread title, anyway. It centres around Dominic's visions.

One thing that's been relatively consistent about his visions, as opposed to every other damn element of the magic system, is that Dominic never knew where they came from. Even when his second sight merged with the Heart of Magic or ascended or whatever, I never got the impression that they actually came from the HoM: that was just what allowed him to get them.

Only, we do know where some of them came from: Jacob. He proved in the Visions of Doom arc that he was able to implant visions in Dominic's mind, either to manipulate him or just squick him out.

Was there ever an explanation for how Jacob was able to do that without Dominic blocking him out, or is it just a "necromancers do wacky crap" kind of thing? Rilian was pretty good at messing with Dominic's head, too, but Dom's visions were always held up as being some sort of "higher message pay attention to this" deal. If Jacob's able to implant them, I guess the response to "nobody knows why some people get visions and nobody ever does" should be "have you tried asking Jacob how he does it"?

I dunno, it's just something that interested me. And if there was anywhere to necro old topics...

Easy: Mookie forgot that could happen. Everything is explained with that OR someone else was more popular than Dom.
Remember when Dom had actual flaws and a personality and actually seemed like a normal human being who actually had a character arc?
Mookie doesn't!
Remember when Jacob was a badass and everyone loved him? Mookie did, so he nerfed him.
Remember when Siggy had significant character development and was one of the more developed people in the story? Mookie did! So he . . . yeah.

Ah, not all exposition needs to be obvious and/or inelegant. But that was just an example; I'm actually not bothered by the issue of the legality of duels to the death in Callan (the Norsemen had legal duels to the death, for instance). But I am bothered by the lack of a coherent setting to serve as a background for the story.

Everyone's bothered by the lack of a coherent setting. Back when I was regularly posting my reviews there was an effort to create some form of cohesive geography for Callan. Didn't work. I did some maths in one when I was frustrated with the lack of anything about Callan and hacked out a somewhat plausible geography for at least part of Callan.
Then Mookie went on the world building arc because he forgot that world building meant 'Fill in the Holes About Your World' not 'Give Your World More Holes Than A Sieve'.

Nope, it was never explained.

Like most of Mookie's early Arcs it is best labeled as Early Installment Weirdness with the footnote that Mookie ceased his attempts to make Dominic less than all-powerful around the end of Storm of Souls. Before then you had false visions, crazy anti-Seer magitek and Dominic actually being wrong about things. While these issues would pop up almost as sidebars later on (e.g. the ring in Battle of Barthis) they were never central to the conflict at hand or didn't keep Dominic from getting exactly what he wanted.

Isn't it odd that a lot of the things Mookie had in the comic before Storm of Souls would actually be very plausible justifications for later events in the comic? If he hadn't gotten rid of them, I mean.
Oh noes, we can't find the Oracle Hunter - s/he must have anti-Seer wards cast on her person and a Ring of Obscuration. Oh noes, we can't find Celesto - anti-Seer wards!
Oh noes - Dom is going to suffer mind break. And one of the first symptoms could have been false visions, just like how certain real world illnesses can screw with your body and give you seizures and allergic reactions and whatever. Wouldn't that have been amazing? Dom has multiple visions over the course of a few chapters, all of impending doom/bad things that, when followed up on/acted upon serve only to hurt people and/or reveal nothing has happened. Dom becomes worried because his scrying is becoming more and more fallible, weak, indecisive and uncertain.
In his rage he tracks down Jacob/someone he thinks is Jacob and beats them almost to death with magic, causing serious permanent damage. His friends and family find out and are repulsed, thinking he's gone straight up evil/insane, and cast sedative spells or something.
However, a few of them (here we'll fudge it so mindbreak is something Seers Do Not Talk About) know something is wrong, Dom wouldn't do this, there must be a reason, and then Rilian shows up. Maybe he actually talks to Jacob about what his actions have done, and that because he used to torment Dom with false visions, the fact he's suffering from a Mind Break has gone unnoticed and if he doesn't figure out how to cure Dom the world will end.
Cue a somewhat-redemptive arc, Dom gets cured etc. etc.
Certainly better than what we actually get. We could even work Punchy McStonefist into my Mind Break arc!
And that was fifteen minutes of writing and planning.

Yeah, false visions wound up becoming one of those things that just got dropped. A shame, too, because that would have made a much more interesting story out of the mess.

See above.
But even if we didn't lump the mind break and false visions together . . . why hasn't Celesto ever sent Dom a false vision? Or Snugglythulumon? Or the Oracle Hunter. Employ a corrupt mage to send a false vision to a Seer/multiple ones, wait for them there and orchestrate a 'terrible accident'.

Just being curious, Is CurlyKitGirl Mookie?

. . .
. . .
lolwut
Why would you think that? Out of sincere curiosity and a need to know.

I think it's safe to say no, considering Curly's awesomeness and solid understanding of most of the areas where Mookie fails miserably in his comics-crafting.

I think it's safe to say no, considering I've been on these forums for seven years and people who have met me can see that I'm a female from the UK.
Also what you said.
I'm definitely not a good artist, but I certainly hope I'm a better writer and creator of characters than Mookie.

Anyway, new review being worked on. Someone is being logical in DD. This is almost a miracle.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Crap. I knew Cardiff was in Wales. I knew because of that Doctor Who episode where the Slitheen lady complains about it.

It just...slipped my mind.

@Curly: I can safely say you know more about American history than most Americans. Kudos!

[Traab]

@Traab: The murder was in Oracle Hunter, and yeah, the next page is the one where Szark says he "do[es] a lot of things from behind". And he was actually cleared of it pretty quickly; so quickly I forgot he was cleared near instantaneously. However, this arc was definitively a long time after the War in Hell, so that he still has a medi-alert-for-other-people bracelet after all that time at least suggests Prontus is wary enough of him to have a constant tracer (and they did immediately accuse him). I'm also fairly sure this was after he was employed at the Duelling Academy too.
And, somehow I don't think we'll be able to untangle Szark and his legal status.
Might as well throw our hands up in the air and give up.
The demonic possession was declared openly in Erossuss, to a room full of people, so I think that should be fairly well known. Then again, I just can't tell from that particular strip whether he's talking in Szark's mind or out loud.
Yeah. Me, giving up.

Ah, I had totally forgotten about that part of the arc. And too be fair, they quickly jumped to that conclusion for many very good reasons. For one, he activated a necklace meant to be used if he, you know, went off the deep end and killed someone. Also, he was standing there blade in hand with a dead seer and a dying one lying on the ground. And there wasnt anyone else there. Also, like you said, he was cleared so fast I think it took about 4 panels total to go from accusation to, "Never mind, you are free to go" No wonder it didnt stick in my mind.

Also, many things from behind. . . yeah. Im pretty sure szark only existed so mookie had an excuse to use as many gay jokes as he could think of without being accused of homophobia or something. I take the existence of brett taggerty as more proof of "methinks the mookie doth protest too much" as he was so balls out over the top psychotically bungholeish that his use of frequent homophobic slurs was able to blend in. "See? I dont think these remarks are funny. Thats why this EEEEVIL guy is the only one other than the fruit saying them!"

[CurlyKitGirl]

Crap. I knew Cardiff was in Wales. I knew because of that Doctor Who episode where the Slitheen lady complains about it.

It just...slipped my mind.

It's okay, everyone has a brain fart moment.

@Curly: I can safely say you know more about American history than most Americans. Kudos!

Most of it was a long time ago, I still have the books floating around, but the last six years or so had me focused on European and Levantine medieval history. My American history is sketchy in comparisons.
And I'd actually be sincerely worried if "most Americans" knew less American History than me. Even if you chose to ignore pre-Columbus history that's only six hundred years of history to learn, so surely you can focus more on it along with, say, international C20^th history.
Typically, over here at least, we did our own history from c. 200BC - now, spread out from Y1 in Primary (about seven years old) to GCSE (sixteen years old), and the older you get the more you get international history added in.

Ah, I had totally forgotten about that part of the arc. And too be fair, they quickly jumped to that conclusion for many very good reasons. For one, he activated a necklace meant to be used if he, you know, went off the deep end and killed someone. Also, he was standing there blade in hand with a dead seer and a dying one lying on the ground. And there wasn't anyone else there. Also, like you said, he was cleared so fast I think it took about 4 panels total to go from accusation to, "Never mind, you are free to go" No wonder it didn't stick in my mind.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
You think it actually took panel time. Behold!
Je vous accuse! Vous etes innocent. Time taken: ZERO PANELS
(Also, note the 'f' of 'fine' in the second panel. Perfect example of 'I stopped work mid-speechbubble'.)

You know, in the hands of a good writer, Szark's endlessly questionable legal status (regarding culpability, freak chance (the oracle murder), involvement in shady duels and so on) would be a good plot point. We know the average Callanian varies between [Insert Opinion Here] and Homophobic Racist Jerk Jocks Who Believe Everything They're Told, so what would happen if someone started a smear campaign against Szark?
Right now. When there's a national(?) duelling competition going on, and some of his students are competing.
I'll cop to being a fairly average writer. So: I'm given a man addicted to killing because it makes his physical/spiritual/mental wound painless for a short time; he was possessed by a Demon Lord and (possibly) outed about it to a room full of rich people; his wife was an infamous whore; he's an excellent duellist; he's bisexual, or at least doesn't mind having sex with both genders to spice up his sex life; he has fairly horrible taste in clothing; and seems to be a fairly nice person; determined and dedicated.
First thing I'd do, after asserting how culpable he was in shady duels would simply be to have him up sticks and move; but gossip is fast and so easily twisted. By the time the rumours reach Prontus well . . . let's just say that there's a lynch mob out to get him for very legitimate reasons. However, he perseveres, because at heart he is an honourable person who believes that running away would only worsen his cause. Despite the literally overwhelming urge to kill the people who jeer at him (and directly accuse him of paedophilia - making him lose his job and almost all of his tutoring pool) that sometimes forces him to hurt himself grievously just to physically prevent him from hurting someone else.
Yes . . . someone like Szark in the hands of an average-or-better writer could be an excellent character indeed. Maybe a bit cliche, but damn, could Szark give you opportunities. But nope: straight to Aberthast Cathedral and he's cured and no one cares about beyond calling him homophobic slurs. For the most part.

Whoa. Where did that come from?
I suppose it's yet another missed opportunity because Mookie took the easy way out or didn't see it. :/

Also, many things from behind. . . yeah. I'm pretty sure szark only existed so mookie had an excuse to use as many gay jokes as he could think of without being accused of homophobia or something. I take the existence of brett taggerty as more proof of "methinks the mookie doth protest too much" as he was so balls out over the top psychotically bungholeish that his use of frequent homophobic slurs was able to blend in. "See? I dont think these remarks are funny. That's why this EEEEVIL guy is the only one other than the fruit saying them!"

"Oh but no, I'm not homophobic because my main character has a gay bestie so it's okay!
"And of course only evil people use homophobic slurs because that's how you know they're not very nice. And it's okay for gay people to make homophobic jokes because irony, and the good characters always tell the bad people they're not being very nice."
"Okay, so what about when the good guys make gay jokes?"
"It's okay because it's not mean." ????? Maybe that's his thought process?
Most likely there isn't a thought process beyond 'homophobia is wrong, so this shows people are evil' and 'reclamation (taking a word that has perjorative meanings denigrating a group and making it their own) shows that Szark is comfortable with his sexuality'.
Because everyone knows gay people always make gay jokes. And only ever think about gay things.
Because when a large portion of your readers have a running gag along the lines of 'I don't know about you, but I think Szark may be gay', you're doing characterisation wrong and it's not even funny! See, Jack from Will and Grace was funny as a very camp, effeminate gay person because he was witty and had a lot of funny lines and moments. Also, that show was written in the '90s (I think) so that was actually fair for its time.

Good God, I need to stop thinking about this comic when I'm actually angry.

[MReav]

Curly, what's with your avatar? The cat looks like it's wearing a wig.

[CurlyKitGirl]

Curly, what's with your avatar? The cat looks like it's wearing a wig.

I changed my avvie to one Dr. Bath did for me last decade (just that I can say that . . . ), it was one of the earliest ones he did for me, and I felt a bit retro.
The Demoncat is wearing a laurel wreath.
Now, as for my avvie, I like letting people figure out who or what she's based on. All the clues you need are: the avvie pic, my location, and whatever my sig says on the line Curly! _____ of the Written Word.
She's not always inspired directly by a scene or person, but she is fairly often.

[T-O-E]

Now, as for my avvie, I like letting people figure out who or what she's based on.

Oh god, just do it.