El Goonish Shive X: Please Don't Feel Bad

[Gez]

A shower? A screen in case she needs to change when somebody's over?

Obviously, she needs none of these, as today's page makes clear. So, just like a video game character, all she needs in her home is bed, storage, and crafting station.

[Radar]

Obviously, she needs none of these, as today's page makes clear. So, just like a video game character, all she needs in her home is bed, storage, and crafting station.

And no flower pots - they never last long.

[Kish]

And so, the person Pandora gleefully thought she might be screwing over is quite happy with his magic, and the one she went "meh" at--is thoroughly screwed over by his.

[Errorname]

Debating whether this evil business guy is another comically evil guy who exists to get taken out by new antagonists to show that they're serious without having them kill a character the audience might feel bad about, or if these three are about to piss off a more threatening bad guy.

I think I'm leaning towards the former. This feels like an unnecessary amount of setup for a throwaway but this comic has never been afraid of running long on exposition, and it does make sense to establish his powers if these guys are going to swipe them.

[Radar]

Debating whether this evil business guy is another comically evil guy who exists to get taken out by new antagonists to show that they're serious without having them kill a character the audience might feel bad about, or if these three are about to piss off a more threatening bad guy.

I think I'm leaning towards the former. This feels like an unnecessary amount of setup for a throwaway but this comic has never been afraid of running long on exposition, and it does make sense to establish his powers if these guys are going to swipe them.

The purpose of this discussion is to explore the new antagonists (if it is the right term here): their motivations, relations with each other, reasoning and what means are they willing to use in order to achieve their goals. The discussed bad guy is mostly irrelevant and very well could be dealt with offscreen.

[Kish]

I will be very surprised if the other-side-of-world people kill a human. Under any circumstances.

[Errorname]

The purpose of this discussion is to explore the new antagonists (if it is the right term here): their motivations, relations with each other, reasoning and what means are they willing to use in order to achieve their goals. The discussed bad guy is mostly irrelevant and very well could be dealt with offscreen.

I think it's likely that these characters will end up being more complex than simple bad guys, but I do think they're pretty clearly in an antagonistic role for the moment.

[Reboot]

I will be very surprised if the other-side-of-world people kill a human. Under any circumstances.

I doubt they'll kill them, but the staff's probably going to work, and they're either going to go after either Mr Verres or Shorty-McPuppy-Girl (Rhoda, if you will), Nanase already having had a depowerment arc. Narratively, Verres Sr. is probably the "better" option - he already got shunted upstairs at the magic FBI so that he couldn't help the main cast too much any more, and with Ms. "We're the Good Guys (evilface)" Bishop being primed for Arthur's role, shunting him further out of the way could have a point.

[halfeye]

Debating whether this evil business guy is another comically evil guy who exists to get taken out by new antagonists to show that they're serious without having them kill a character the audience might feel bad about, or if these three are about to piss off a more threatening bad guy.

They aren't necessarily talking about a bad guy at all. They haven't said what he's done, and they have very alien morals.

[Anonymouswizard]

They aren't necessarily talking about a bad guy at all. They haven't said what he's done, and they have very alien morals.

Yeah, for all we know his affinity for mind control magic manifests as a wide area stress relief spell.

[Beelzebub1111]

Also for all we know he doesn't know he's actually using it.

Another thing worth noting. If by "the internet' do they mean news articles that could be compromised by politicians and special interests? Do they mean social media where people just make up things and dogpile on their target of the week for clout? They don't have the cultural context to filter out biases. Hell, most people on earth don't.

[Radar]

Also for all we know he doesn't know he's actually using it.

Another thing worth noting. If by "the internet' do they mean news articles that could be compromised by politicians and special interests? Do they mean social media where people just make up things and dogpile on their target of the week for clout? They don't have the cultural context to filter out biases. Hell, most people on earth don't.

At least they try to do some research first. How reliable results they will get is a different question.

[Beelzebub1111]

At least they try to do some research first. How reliable results they will get is a different question.

My point is more that the court of public opinion is seldom just. Only actual evidence of wrongdoing and a crime being committed deserves punishment.

[Celestia]

My point is more that the court of public opinion is seldom just. Only actual evidence of wrongdoing and a crime being committed deserves punishment.

Sure, but he's a capitalist. He can't be a good guy.

[Beelzebub1111]

Sure, but he's a capitalist. He can't be a good guy.

That's not a crime. Offering money for services to create product to sell for money is not evil as long as the contract is entered willingly.

If he is mind controlling his employees to enter his labor force under duress that is a crime and unethical practice.

[Gez]

In the real world, there are websites that are made specifically for employees to talk about what it's like to work at their job -- in other words, complaining about bad management, toxic office culture, etc. Do these characters know about this kind of resources? Does Dan know? I dunno.

If it's just the general court of public opinion, then I dunno. I think a businessman with actual literal mind control magic would have overall a very positive image, perhaps even a cult of personality, so...

[Manga Shoggoth]

I don't know if it is deliberate, but the view of Potestas (?) in the last frame looks very like Edward Verres. I think it's the glasses.

It's certainly not the flask of Sake and bottle of Aspall's Cider that I had with my 60th birthday meal 'cause I saw the resembelence yesterday. The combination of the two just buggered up my typing, meaning that I've proof-read this thing six times and I bet I've still missed something...

[Errorname]

I don't know if it is deliberate, but the view of Potestas (?) in the last frame looks very like Edward Verres. I think it's the glasses

Glasses guy is the other one. Saou, I think.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Glasses guy is the other one. Saou, I think.

Flask of Sake and bottle of Aspall's Cider. Thinking is definitely off the table at the moment...

[Lord Raziere]

My point is more that the court of public opinion is seldom just.

Neither is the court of the law. Just because its legal doesn't mean its right or should be allowed.

[Fyraltari]

That's not a crime. Offering money for services to create product to sell for money is not evil as long as the contract is entered willingly.

If he is mind controlling his employees to enter his labor force under duress that is a crime and unethical practice.

Is exploiting other people's labor for your own profit?

Also, that "willingly" is doing a lot of work there. Most people don't dream of working menial jobs 8 hours a day or being an underpaid food delivery person, but have to take that job to keep a roof over their head. Is that willing?

But this is all mostly irrelevant since, according to Mist, the guy was gloating about causing "accidents", so it sounds like he's actually murdered people.

[Errorname]

Flask of Sake and bottle of Aspall's Cider. Thinking is definitely off the table at the moment...

For what it's worth aside from Mist I'm also struggling to remember their names

[Anonymouswizard]

For what it's worth aside from Mist I'm also struggling to remember their names

Honestly I forget Mist's name as well, I just remember him as the Unicorn Noah.

...when are we seeing Noah again? Does he have an animal form? Will he join Grace's polycule? Why are you saying these questions won't be answered until 2055?

[Celestia]

Honestly I forget Mist's name as well, I just remember him as the Unicorn Noah.

...when are we seeing Noah again? Does he have an animal form? Will he join Grace's polycule? Why are you saying these questions won't be answered until 2055?

Noah is in Dan's list of characters that he totally definitely didn't forget about, promise, but they haven't appeared or been referenced in five years or more.

[Errorname]

Noah is in Dan's list of characters that he totally definitely didn't forget about, promise, but they haven't appeared or been referenced in five years or more.

Literally less than a year ago.

[Kish]

I super do not get the "this webcomic writer hasn't mentioned that character in a while (as the plotlines deal with other characters), clearly they forgot that they exist" thing.

[Reboot]

I super do not get the "this webcomic writer hasn't mentioned that character in a while (as the plotlines deal with other characters), clearly they forgot that they exist" thing.

To some extent, it's a sign of a potentially-bloated cast for the page count available to work with per [time period].

Right now, EGS appears to have a core cast of ten (Tedd, Grace, Elliot, Ellen, Nanase, Justin, Sarah, Susan, Diane, Ashley), and an recurring cast of varying levels of significance which includes Hope (Pandora), Mr. Verres, Lavender, Kevin, Raven, Noah, Catalina, Rhoda, Luke, Lucy, Sam, Jay, Liz, Zeus (Jerry), Voltaire, George, Larry, Rich, Tensaided, Rhea, Arthur, Bishop, Wolf, Vladia, Abraham, Tara, Andrea, Liam, Mist, Potestas, Saou, and more.

That's a lot of characters.

[Kish]

Considering the consistency with which I've seen that line for every webcomic except for extremely basic gag-a-day comics, I do not believe it is a sign of anything negative about the webcomic in question.

(I can think of one webcomic I've read which never got the "s/he clearly forgot that character" line: Ctrl-Alt-Delete, which I would put on the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of quality.)

[Errorname]

Characters being absent for long stretches of time is an insanely common part of webcomic pacing. These things are slow to make and tend to have pretty big casts, so it feels a lot more noticeable when a character is absent for an arc, even though in a TV show nobody would question it.

[Celestia]

There is a big difference between a minor character who hasn't appeared in a while and a character who was specifically built up as being important to the story and has been completely irrelevant for years after. You'll note that no one is joking/complaining that Dan forgot Rhea.

Also, trying to defend bad writing by pointing out that other amateur writers do the same thing is not the convincing argument you seem to think it is.