The Stick Awards II: Second Edition (#0481 - #0490)

[Porthos]

Welcome to The Stick Awards II: Second Edition!

The Stick Awards are handed out to the best strips of all time as chosen by our fellow Playgrounders.

This week we are covering the comic strips 481 through 490.

For full details about the Stick Awards, please check out the main thread here.

To read more about the original Stick Awards, created by Nazzo, the 102nd, please read his thread here.

To vote in this thread, simply state which comic of the ten listed is your favorite. Bolding the number of the comic (Like this) helps it stand out.

Voting for this week will close on July 9th, 4pm EDT. Any votes made after that will NOT count toward the totals.

Last week, 475 Crashing the Party faced down a pair of ne'er-do-wells that tried to steal its beloved Stick Award! And without even saying please!!

Well it set them straight soon enough, I have to tell you. In so doing it punched its ticket to the next level of challenges, called the Best of the Hundred Tournament.

*pause*

<whispers>
Secretly it hopes it has something to do with eating a hundred different dishes of stew.
</whispers>

Well, I won't be the one to tell it about the nature of said contest. But perhaps one of these fellows might be up to the task. Let's nominate one of them to be the bearer of bad news. Or, if it for some reason it deigns not to receive that honor, it could always choose to be the winner of.....

.THE STICK AWARDS II: 0481 - 0490

481 Cutting the Cord
482 Leaving Azure City
483 Broken Stick
484 At the End of the Day
485 Hey! You! Get Off of My Cloud!
486 Next on "As the Plane Turns"...
487 Their Concierge Service is Heavenly
488 This is Your Life
489 Keepin' the Little Man Down
490 Final Review

[Sylian]

490: Final Review - I enjoyed the whole "evaluation" scene, and this one seemed to have the most content, while raising some interesting questions. 489 is really strong too.

[Gift Jeraff]

484 has a great last panel, but 485 has more Roy and Eugene overall.

[Angelalex242]

490

It is Rich's most definitive and in depth analysis of what it means to be Lawful Good, what it means to fight the good fight, and what it means to keep on pushing in the face of adversity, even if you don't always succeed.

"Even when you mess up, you get back up there and keep trying. That's what's important. To us, anyway."

[Emanick]

I'm going to have to go with 490: Final Review as well. It's thoughtful, profound, plot-significant and somewhat funny (though not in any way that tickles my particular funny bone).

[nogall]

490 is the best one, and I also have to mention one of the great jokes of the batch: "wait a minute, I had a 22!"

but I'll go with 484, which is also quite good as closure for the previous arc, setup for the next and the exact last one when I started reading. Good times...

[Bird]

I'm tempted by 484--the panel composition is quite nice. The zoom up from the city to heaven (and Eugene's sarcasm) is perfectly timed.

I'll take 488, though. Is it a bit heavy-handed of the author to use the deva's judgement as a mechanism for discussing Roy's character development over the course of OotS? Perhaps, but it's clever, and it works. I appreciate the call-back to his behavior RE: Elan in the bandit arc.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

The ends of 482 and 484 always make me laugh, but not quite enough to win here. The ending of 483 I have always found interesting, but again it's not enough. The next series of strips are among my favorite. I absolutely love the afterlife scenes, especially Eugene. I think it is #490 that deserves to win.

[Emperordaniel]

#484: At the End of the Day, for wrapping up War and XPs, and providing foreshadowing for what is to come in the following books.

[thatSeniorGuy]

Hmm, 490 is tempting, but I think I'll go with 484 for being a brilliant cliffhanger for a great book.

[Meph]

489 or 490? I'm really struggling about it, my inner writer point out that 490 is much of philosophical worth and triumph. But my inner fan stands for Belkar when he can, and 489 too is not just a one-joke thing.
Let's say 490.

[NobodyWasTaken]

484 is delicious.

[declinator]

Ow, that's a tough one... 484 or 490 - or 485 for the father-son banter? I think I'll go with 484 - closure, foreshadowing, and a shot of the afterlife...

[Killer Angel]

I was going for 484, but then I saw 490...
I feel guilty.

[ChristianSt]

Really nice strips there.

I'm going for 490 - Final Review: The deva's speech is another beautiful piece about being lawful good. I really like the heaven sequence anyway, and that is just a really strong strip. Even while delivering such a serious speech about alignment it still delivers a great punchline!

[martianmister]

484, but 483 is a close one.

[Tris]

490. Although, 484 is a great ending to the book, and I like Elan in 482. So many good ones in this section!

[137beth]

At the end of 484 you're another day older
And that's all you can say in the life of a fighter
It's a struggle, it's a war
And there's nothing your father is giving
One more day, standing on clouds, what is it for?


While 484: At the End of the Day was good, and introduced Cloister, and I really liked 486's callback to the Ultimate Duel Between Clerics, I think ultimately I'm going to have to go with 490.

[LadyEowyn]

Very close between 484, which ends the arc effectively and sets up the next book, and 490, which gives an excellent explanation of what alignment means in the OOTS-verse.

I think I'll have to go with 490.

[Mike Havran]

#484, a great ending of the book.

[YoshiBoy13]

490.
Because the look on Greenhilt Snr.'s face was, as it turns out, put on a picture and turned into a statue.

[DaggerPen]

490: Final Review for me.

[David Argall]

Can't say any really appeals, but I'll opt for 485

[Codex]

490, because it shows that being Lawful Good is more than just "defend the good and helpless!"

[Torrasque]

483 for the last panel with Belkar

[TavernCharacter]

I like 484 and 490 but if it comes down to choosing I'll pick 490. The 50 foot statue line is great.

[Porthos]

In a hurry, will make this brief. Lots of deserving strips not getting love this time around (revolving door afterlife, kilonazis, etc) but I think I will go with the herd and vote for 490.

And with that....

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED!

490 Final Review is the winner this week. It now moves on to the Best of the Hundred tournament.

Full Results are as follows

........THE STICK AWARDS II: 0481 - 0490

	Comic Number	Votes Received	Vote Percentage
	481	0	0.99
	482	0	0.00
	483	1	3.85
	484	7	26.92
	485	2	7.69
	486	0	0.00
	487	0	0.00
	488	1	3.85
	489	0	0.00
	490	15	57.69

Please join us for the next round of voting for Strips #491 - #500 which can be found here.