GrrlPower III: Crisis Of Infinite Filler Comics

[-D-]

Can we please end this arc now and go do almost anything else that doesn't involve Deus?

Granted. The comic now consist of nothing but lame gags made by Sydney while she undergoes more basic training.

[Keltest]

Granted. The comic now consist of nothing but lame gags made by Sydney while she undergoes more basic training.

I for one liked the slice of life elements of the comic. Seeing the characters bounce off each other was, to me, much more entertaining than the drama. Which isn't to say I hate the drama either, but as was noted way back when, that's already a crowded genre.

[Onyavar]

So this was the big reveal.





:hugesigh:

No, really: How did Sydney spot this scenery from the position where she and the team are standing? And how did Dabbler's wind spell move the thick clouds all the way to the horizon? And why didn't Sciona check for something unusual like this, herself, before starting her "I won" rant? Was the Alari hometown all smell and smoke, even before?

And then I don't like the smug expression on Sydney's face. Those burning buildings are indicators that this is a recent attack. Very recent, in fact, as most buildings don't burn and explode for more than a month after you light them on fire. They surely didn't burn for decades, right? (...unless we see the Alari equivalent of oil fields that fuel their fires for a long time.)
Long story short; if the attack is recent, there may be survivors around. Or the attackers. Or both. In any case, it's not good news for the team, but more bad news (they shouldn't have bothered with anything but dealing with their runaway wormhole portal).

Actually, I can think of some twists:
- Maybe this wasn't the apocalypse, but whoever was bombed just fled for somewhere else on the planet, not bothering to rebuild? So maybe life is still going on elsewhere on the planet?
- The other way around: This is merely a planetoid and in the splash panel we see most of it.
- Sciona caused all this destruction with her portal. Her spell wiped out her entire race?

[Dragonus45]

So that went just about as planned, but it also looks uncomfortably recent. Did she just blow up home world or did they arrive right in the middle of all the fires getting started?

[Rogar Demonblud]

I'm wondering if this has something to do with that demon from Dabbler's flashback.

[Storyteller_Arc]

... Huh.

You know. I thought the people who were part of these threads were meant to be fans of the webcomic in question...?

Because from my brief read of the last couple of pages. I really don't feel like that's the case.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Dave's burned a lot of good will with this arc.

If you want real bad, look through some of the Erfworld threads.

[Storyteller_Arc]

I really don't see what people are complaining out.

Sure, this arc hasn't been perfect. But I've found it to be very entertaining and for the most part, well-paced and with strong developments towards the overall story.

Funnily enough, I just came away from that thread.

[lord_khaine]

Well he did burn some of it at least. Honestly mostly with Sydney being.. Sydney..
And with wasting to much time on Deus.

[Storyteller_Arc]

... I mean. Syndey is the main character, and her characterization is established pretty damn quickly. I really don't see the point about complaining bout her.

As for Dues... well, maybe a little too much focus. But it's important that you set up your primary antagonist well, and to me at least, Dues is a fascinating character.

[Ibrinar]

... Huh.

You know. I thought the people who were part of these threads were meant to be fans of the webcomic in question...?

Because from my brief read of the last couple of pages. I really don't feel like that's the case.

Nah it is for readers of the webcomic in question or rather for people who want to talk about it. That can often mean fan because those are usually more inclined to read it and then talk about it. So topics tend to be somewhat positive towards a comic, but discussing the failings of something can fill quite a few pages too.

[Onyavar]

... Huh.

You know. I thought the people who were part of these threads were meant to be fans of the webcomic in question...?

Because from my brief read of the last couple of pages. I really don't feel like that's the case.

Have you seen the threads about Mookies infamous webcomics, Star power and Dominik Deegan? There you will find an anti fanbase who leave out no opportunity.to mock the comic in question.

I started as a fan into this current thread, not wanting to believe there could be anything wrong with the comic, ready to excuse excentric dialogue and bad pacing. I still really dislike the idea that fans decide which comics are fillers. Every page tells a story.

But it has piled up now. Grrlpower is well drawn, mostly funny, imaginative and with unique ideas - but it focusses on dirty jokes, overplays character quirks. The pacing got worse, as did the plot in general, in my opinion: Planning ahead how many pages are filled with which content - that is not an art, but logistics. David Barrack claims to gain more experience in this stuff in the comments below each comic; and he also admits art errors and "botched" comics there, from which he learned to do better in future... but from a readers perspective, I feel he's becoming worse, not better.

There are no fillers in the last 4 pages, but Scionas monologue and Sydneys explanation are drawn out badly. Even when reading the entire book in one rush, I'm sure readers can rightful argue that the "gust-of-wind" page was wasted, and I'm still not sure if the logic problems I pointed out earlier will ever be addressed. This thread is great for readers to compare notes - some things that don't bother me, greatly bother other readers, and vice versa.

[Forum Explorer]

Well he did burn some of it at least. Honestly mostly with Sydney being.. Sydney..
And with wasting to much time on Deus.

Eh, Sydney has been mostly alright, barring the one absolutely awful joke when the portal opened. And that was more a matter of timing then actual bad humor.


Deus was awful though. I don't mind the time spent on him, but he's coming off as a Mary Sue, and his basically bribing Sciona into sex was disgusting to me.

[lord_khaine]

Deus was awful though. I don't mind the time spent on him, but he's coming off as a Mary Sue, and his basically bribing Sciona into sex was disgusting to me.

It had been saved though if Sciona had just gone "mmh.. not bad Deus.. now give me the Brane ripper"
or something like that. I dont mind awful people doing bad stuff to each other.

And i kinda found Vale's motivation hilarious. Its mainly the Mary Sue stuff that annoyes me.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Like any spice, a villain should be used sparingly. I'm not even sure if Deus is supposed to be a villain or if we're just opposed to a guy who ticks pretty much every box on the sociopath checklist.

[Storyteller_Arc]

Have you seen the threads about Mookies infamous webcomics, Star power and Dominik Deegan? There you will find an anti fanbase who leave out no opportunity.to mock the comic in question.

I... have heard about the Dominik Deegan Snarkdom, yes. Makes me shake my heard worst than some of the most toxic fans out there.

I still really dislike the idea that fans decide which comics are fillers. Every page tells a story.

Agreed. So very, very agreed.

but it focusses on dirty jokes, overplays character quirks.

The jokes have been on the raunchy side, every since we defeated Vehemence, I have to agree there.

Planning ahead how many pages are filled with which content - that is not an art, but logistics.

When you making a persist, consistently updating story. Logistics is just as important as the art is. At least that's my two bits.

David Barrack claims to gain more experience in this stuff in the comments below each comic; and he also admits art errors and "botched" comics there, from which he learned to do better in future... but from a readers perspective, I feel he's becoming worse, not better.

I disagree in all honestly, but even then. Writers/artists have their peaks and their trough's, though, so I wouldn't write them off just because their second major arc hasn't been entirely as well done in than their first.

There are no fillers in the last 4 pages, but Scionas monologue and Sydneys explanation are drawn out badly. Even when reading the entire book in one rush, I'm sure readers can rightfully argue that the "gust-of-wind" page was wasted, and I'm still not sure if the logic problems I pointed out earlier will ever be addressed.

What logic problems?

And eh. It was a bit eyebrow-raising, but personally I chalk it up to the unusual nature of the webcomic. Its pacing is different than the normal, doesn't make it bad.

This thread is great for readers to compare notes - some things that don't bother me, greatly bother other readers, and vice versa.

*Looks up at everything I just said*... Yep.

Deus was awful though. I don't mind the time spent on him, but he's coming off as a Mary Sue

Please explain?

and his basically bribing Sciona into sex was disgusting to me.

That's... kinda the point?

Like any spice, a villain should be used sparingly. I'm not even sure if Deus is supposed to be a villain or if we're just opposed to a guy who ticks pretty much every box on the sociopath checklist.

... Cannot say I agree with you there.

[AvatarVecna]

There are two sequences in my mind that are a representation of what I don't like about the comic: the first is the whole thing about Deus' bed record, and the second is Sydney's introduction with the council.

With the former, it runs hard into a brick wall of "show, don't tell", and the author's apparent tone-deafness about how the readership just isn't interested in hearing how awesome Deus' penis is for weeks on end didn't help make that process any more bearable. I would argue this entire section would've been better if there was a smash-cut from the offer being mentioned by the eldritch-lady to a scene like "Sciona and Deus are getting dressed, he mentions he doesn't have the McGuffin but points her in the right direction, she flies off, and he smugly checks off her race in his bang-book; that so much time was spent talking up the peen makes it seem like the reality is that the peen needs to be talked up to be appreciated, and that impression doesn't mesh with what the conversation afterwards implies. Deus is a smooth mother****er oozing confidence, this kind of IC/OOC enthusiasm about bragging about his bed prowess felt so unneeded, and did more to undermine my faith in Deus' ability to bat 1000 with his trousersnake.

Here's a slight tangent for you: have any of you read the extremely NSFW comic "The Dragonborn Cometh" by markydaysaid? If you don't feel like reading through literal porn to understand why I'm bringing it up, the basic reason is that the entire conflict of that comic is "the Dragonborn has been grinding a very particular quest for awhile - a quest to sleep with one member of every race in Tamriel. From the very first comic of it, the Dragonborn is established as a kinda callous misogynistic jerk, a childish man with no regard for the feelings of those he beds beyond how they will advance his quest progress, and Lydia's purpose in the comic is more or less calling him out on this bull**** while also giving an excuse for him to go flashbacking down his checklist of babes banged. He's either the protagonist or the deuterotagonist to Lydia (depending on how you look at the story), but the author doesn't make excuses for the Dragonborn's behavior or idolize him for his sexual prowess in managing to complete his quest, because it's very obviously an extremely childish approach to a very mature topic, as a limited kinda commentary about the gamer approach to questlines - because if this was a quest in Skyrim, that's almost certainly how the vast majority of gamers would approach it, "sleep with all the women as quickly as possible, saying whatever you have to". I don't know why I thought to bring this up, I just thought it was interesting.

With the latter (that is, Sydney's introduction to the council) it feels like the author is trying to pack in a lot of new characters really quickly to make up for the fact that he hasn't gotten to build up the council's presence over the course of a few books. This means that either the characters that came up during the council section are largely unimportant and only exist to pad out the worldbuilding, or they're decidedly unsubtle Chekov's Guns waiting to eventually go off. But honestly that's not what really bothered me in this whole sequence. What bothered me is that Sydney's normally kinda-quirky-but-still-reasonable spazzy outbursts and interjected comments got much thicker in this section; at first, I thought this was just the writing getting sloppier, until Sydney was eventually so annoying she got thrown out of the meeting to wander alone until by complete and pure coincidence and luck in-universe she happened to both be out of the way of the kill-golems (where they couldn't see her or try to kill her yet) and be able to see that they were weird even by her newly updated standards, and the reason for her annoyance getting turned up to 11 became clear: Sydney getting thrown out of the meeting was a necessary plotpoint, but with how much people like Maxima had already put up with from her, he really needed to ramp things up to make that reaction believable. This, to me, seems like a very...the best way I can think to put it is "high Int, low Wis" approach to writing; Dave understood that "Sydney gets thrown out of the meeting for derailing things" would be a difficult sell because she basically temporarily derails every conversation she takes part in, so he knew he needed to crank things up to make it make sense...but he didn't realize that characters cranking up the annoyance on in-universe characters also often has the unintended consequence of cranking up the audience's annoyance.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Good points. Deus by the end of that mini-arc has hit every stop for sociopath besides 'lack of empathy', and I wonder if we'll get that one the first time he has a chance to show empathy. The closest thing to a loss the heel has taken is that he couldn't find a way to make Maxima submit to his sexual advances.

And I still think there was no reason to have Sydney at the council meeting at all. If things are supposed to be above her clearance level, don't bring her. Of course, this is also the writer who decided that an ultra-classified briefing should be held behind an unlocked door (and one that doesn't even have a lock--I looked at the art).

[lord_khaine]

With the former, it runs hard into a brick wall of "show, don't tell", and the author's apparent tone-deafness about how the readership just isn't interested in hearing how awesome Deus' penis is for weeks on end didn't help make that process any more bearable. I would argue this entire section would've been better if there was a smash-cut from the offer being mentioned by the eldritch-lady to a scene like "Sciona and Deus are getting dressed, he mentions he doesn't have the McGuffin but points her in the right direction, she flies off, and he smugly checks off her race in his bang-book; that so much time was spent talking up the peen makes it seem like the reality is that the peen needs to be talked up to be appreciated, and that impression doesn't mesh with what the conversation afterwards implies. Deus is a smooth mother****er oozing confidence, this kind of IC/OOC enthusiasm about bragging about his bed prowess felt so unneeded, and did more to undermine my faith in Deus' ability to bat 1000 with his trousersnake.

And I still think there was no reason to have Sydney at the council meeting at all. If things are supposed to be above her clearance level, don't bring her. Of course, this is also the writer who decided that an ultra-classified briefing should be held behind an unlocked door (and one that doesn't even have a lock--I looked at the art).

This and this are the only relevant annoyances i have with the comic myself.
Deus is being hyped a little to much for the comic. And Sydney really should have been kept out of important meetings.

[Dragonus45]

Deus was awful though. I don't mind the time spent on him, but he's coming off as a Mary Sue, and his basically bribing Sciona into sex was disgusting to me.

To be fair there isn’t anything wrong with the exchange of goods or services for sex, and he didn’t force her into anything, it wasn’t even the only payment option. Heck she was the one that broke into his office and attacked him, so he could have been in the right to tell her to leave and not even give her either offer and leave her evil plans twisting in the wind. It also did a good job setting up the idea that Deus’ motivations have moved beyond pure profit and that he is actively working to seek new experiences that money can’t cost effectively buy which could be important for understand his actions later in the story. Also implying the entire heist of major artifacts from a vault of doom was to have a bunch of things he could use to get powerful supernatural beings who would otherwise never give him the time to day to talk to him long enough to hit on them which is actually a funny joke. The problem there is that we just hit the exact same “Deus is good in bed” joke with Harem literally a couple pages before hand and Deus is super annoying and you could tell he had been wanting to make that joke with Harem in a meeting for ages now and wasn’t willing to just cut it out for pacing.

[lord_khaine]

Yeah.. as mentioned it is a funny joke that a large potion of Deus's motivation center around bedding as many different exotic womans as humanly possible.
It is also a good point that he gave her the alternative option of paying him a lot of money for it.

[lord_khaine]

GrrlPower IV:Character Growth in the ashes of the Alari

Because holy heroism. That was actually a good comic.
We got just a little bit of Sydney starting to act grown up. We go a bit of interesting world knowledge added in a swift and concrete fashion.
And we got something interesting brewing for monday.

All the same i guess the Sciona situation is resolved more or less.
While they can drag her back to get executed by the council, then i guess leaving her in the ashes of her civilisation is already quite a bit of punishment.

[Ibrinar]

Though I wonder what makes them think global genocide, destruction and no people = warzone not extinction. Well here it will be exposition of course and absolutely correct, but logically I mean.

[Keltest]

Though I wonder what makes them think global genocide, destruction and no people = warzone not extinction. Well here it will be exposition of course and absolutely correct, but logically I mean.

In fairness, I cant really imagine an intragalactic conflict that made it to the homeworld of one of the participants not being a global conflict at that point.

[Ibrinar]

It could be a local conflict just as easily. War if it is not a one government world. Or civil war. Hell the level of damage they can actually see can happen in a nasty super fight (unless that is a human only thing). Or it might even be a global conflict against another species that doesn't mean it is over and they are destroyed because one location was. Their alien teammate might have knowledge to make it a more reasonable guess, for Maxima it is pretty extreme extrapolation.

[halfeye]

In fairness, I cant really imagine an intergalactic conflict that made it to the homeworld of one of the participants not being a global conflict at that point.

Intergalactic? There's another galaxy involved?

As for Dues... well, maybe a little too much focus. But it's important that you set up your primary antagonist well, and to me at least, Dues is a fascinating character.

I was thinking about Wapsi Square, and there was a comment about someone shagging anything that moved, and the thought occurred, maybe in this comic, Deus isn't his name, it's his title. The rest all seems to fit too, is he going to be revealed one day as Zeus?

[Keltest]

Intergalactic? There's another galaxy involved?

Meant to type "intragalactic", but I guess muscle memory took over. I don't say intra-anything that often.

[lord_khaine]

Though I wonder what makes them think global genocide, destruction and no people = warzone not extinction. Well here it will be exposition of course and absolutely correct, but logically I mean.

It is a possibility. And it did seem to fit its purpose of making Sydney shut up and think for a moment.

[Adaon Nightwind]

Just stumbled over this a couple hours ago, and read the webcomic. A story with a lot of potential, and interesting characters! Well, and some interesting baddies. (You really do not want to end up on Deus' list..)

I am looking forward to the further development. Of course, i do guess i'll have to wait a bit now for the events to unfold instead of just reading through them ^^

[Rogar Demonblud]

GrrlPower IV:Character Growth in the ashes of the Alari

Because holy heroism. That was actually a good comic.
We got just a little bit of Sydney starting to act grown up. We go a bit of interesting world knowledge added in a swift and concrete fashion.
And we got something interesting brewing for monday.

All the same i guess the Sciona situation is resolved more or less.
While they can drag her back to get executed by the council, then i guess leaving her in the ashes of her civilisation is already quite a bit of punishment.

Oh yeah. When Dave is on, it's excellent. Focused, informative and pathos, all in one page.