The Stick Awards II: Second Edition (#0501 - #0510)

[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 501 through 510.

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 August 7th, 4pm EDT. Any votes made after that will NOT count toward the totals.

Last week, 464 - Not for Everyone finally found out its final destination after what seemed like months of waiting. That destination? The Best of the Thousand tournament of course, where it will have its final exam.

But that test is a long ways away. For now, the clock resets, and the challenges begin anew for a set of strips that seem to be riven with uncertainty and disunity. Let's try to help them sort out their destinies by voting in......

.THE STICK AWARDS II: 0501 - 0510

501 No Cure for the Wedding Bell Blues
502 And I-I-I-I Will Always Love You
503 Surreptitious Admirer
504 That's a Surprisingly Common Reaction
505 ...Or We Will All Stick Separately
506 Flanking Crush
507 Fantasy Troll-Playing Game
508 Sure Beats Flatware
509 It Has Flowers, Hearts, and a DC 30 Lock
510 Killer View

[Jasdoif]

Geez...501, 504, 505, 508 and 510 all have gags I love. Well, as a fellow appreciator of good plot exposition, I'm going to back up Elan in 501.

[Angelalex242]

508

Cause we haven't seen that level up DING in quite some time.

[Emanick]

Man, all of these strips are essentially on the same level. That makes for some difficult voting.

I suppose I'll go for 505: ...Or We Will All Stick Separately. It has a good combination of drama and humor, better than most of the others.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I think I will go with #509 because I enjoy the interaction between the antagonists. There are some other pretty funny ones here as well, but I enjoy this strip the most. I don't think this batch is as strong, but that's probably because we just spent 15 days on some of the best strips of the past 100.

[Gift Jeraff]

---

#509 for the valedictorian gag. #'s 505, 507, and 510 are also pretty good.

[Killer Angel]

I'm torn between:
503 (Therkla's introduction)
504 (we see the begins of V.'s path toward the soul splice)
507 ("we dumped them overboard")

Let's say 503

[Emperordaniel]

508: Sure Beats Flatware, because we find out there that the wedding didn't turn out so badly after all. I always like it when weddings end happily.

[Bird]

I know that the Giant has said that OotS has an intentionally generic setting (or something to that effect), but, like many D&D fans, I love worldbuilding. And my favorite parts of campaign settings are often the "unexplored continents" -- something about these colossal question marks placed across the sea from well-trod ground like Faerun is so appealing.

So, I really love the tiny hint we get of various Asian/Pacific-inspired nations in 501. Hey, look! An elephantfolk!

(It occurs to me that this is the dorkiest reason I've had for voting on a strip.)

Plus, like Jasdoif, I enjoyed Elan weeping over plot exposition.

[137beth]

A lot of strong ones this time. 501 does a great job explaining what has happened since the previous book (so much that Elan cries!) 503 makes it clear what role Kabuto will play in this book, and introduces Therkla and Qarr. 504 forshadows V's fall. 505 seems much better now, as Elan's behavior when he runs under the deck to get V contrasts with how he got V's help in 950. 509 establishes the relation between Therkla and Qarr.
Ultimately I think I'll go with 505. It shows so clearly how this half of the group is working without Roy or Haley, and how much further V and Elan still have to go.

[NobodyWasTaken]

505 is pretty good. Yeah, sure.

[zinycor]

508! welcome to sixth level honey

[FLHerne]

I've never enjoyed Therkla's arc, it's a contrived dilemma around a rather unconvincing character. So I won't be voting for 503/6/9.

504 is funny, and much more than the gag strip it looks like on first glance.
501 has good enough exposition to make Elan cry.

But 507 "What did you guys do with the trolls' corpses anyway?" is great, so I'll go with that.

[Timy]

505 : "was I supposed to mention his first" win it for me :D

[declinator]

"We threw them overboard" - 507 takes it out of a very well balanced set.

[Sylian]

505 - A strip showing the growing rifts between the party. 504 runner up.

[littlebum2002]

507

So what did you do with those corpses, anyway?

[nogall]

Meh, after the pretty awesome last batches, this one feels very average. Also, I particularly didn't care much for Therkla's story, so... Well, I'll go with one of the best punchlines: 504
[also could have gone with 501]

[thatSeniorGuy]

505 I think.

[Cartographer7]

509 "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE MYSTERIES OF MY HEART!"

[oppyu]

507

Because they dumped them over.

[LadyEowyn]

Hmm. I'm fairly ambivalent on the next few groups of ten, and then I've got a group where I want practically all the strips to win (the Redcloak and O-Chul sequence).

Think I'll vote for 504 as we see the beginning of Vaarsuvius' breakdown.

[ChristianSt]

I'm in for 504 - That's a Surprisingly Common Reaction. The 404 there is just too hilarious

[Meph]

Let's go classical: 507.

[Ailowynn]

My vote is 505.

[Porthos]

Hmmmm. Introductory type strips are introductory. Nothing really stands out over the others. That's not to say they're bad, but there are few instant classics in here.

I love the 404 error jab, and the Epic Inside satire. But not enough to vote for them. 505 is nice, but not really one of my favs. So, between 507 and 509 for me, I think. I think I will go for 507 over 509 since it is a tad stronger. Plus while the 'salutorian no more' one line is comedy gold, there are better Kubota/Qarr/Therkla strips coming up. This one started strong but falters a bit in the middle for me.

Besides, the bit about the Sea Trolls is Classic OotS Comedy gold. Hard for me to pass that up.

And with that....

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED!

505 ...Or We Will All Stick Separately 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: 0501 - 0510

	Comic Number	Votes Received	Vote Percentage
	501	2	8.00
	502	0	0.00
	503	1	4.00
	504	3	12.00
	505	7	28.00
	506	0	0.00
	507	6	24.00
	508	3	12.00
	509	3	12.00
	510	0	0.00

Please join us for the next round of voting for Strips #511 - #520 which can be found here.