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

[Kwatsu]

I admit, I enjoyed the first arc or so of the comic. Back then, it honestly felt like it had the potential to be something different. A grouchy seer trying to make a living around people who don't understand his gift is a good idea. And silly (or occasionally offensive) as some of it was, it had a little tinge of cynicism and self-awareness that kept it from being too saccharine.

Then somewhere along the way, Mookie's reach exceeded his grasp. He started trying to tell stories that just didn't work with those characters as originally conceived, and so they ended up being warped beyond all recognition. The Storm of Souls should have been as far as Dominic's power level went. If Mookie'd wanted to continue in that world, it would have made sense for Dominic to actually die or Mysteriously Disappear in that arc. Have another character like Greg take over for the stuff that came after that--maybe hanging up Dominic's "oracle for hire" shingle as a cover, if Mookie wanted the same comic title--and weave Dominic back in if need be.

And when you get down to it, Mookie's biggest problem is that he creates a good idea and executes it so badly that it just falls apart, but he's so blinded by the concept, he thinks that's what he's making. Even that summary of DD's beginning--"a grouchy seer trying to make a living around people who don't understand his gift"--is never actually what the comic was ever about. But Mookie thought it was, and it's like he couldn't recognise when the comic got so far from its beginnings that the original idea was unrecognisable. He seemed to think he was still writing that sort of story when it turned into (to steal a phrase from Red Letter Media) a symphony of stupid later on.

It's almost enough to make you want to try and write the comic over from its starting premise (which I know some folks have attempted). It's just sad to see the starting strips which, sketchily drawn as they are, have more life and fun in them than the horribly tepid and contrived ones at the other end.

[uncool]

Honestly though, I never understood why mookie seemed to hate the idea of us liking a character other than dom so much. I mean, its actually pretty common for people to love the bad guy more, because they are generally the dramatic over the top nutbar thats so much fun to deal with. Hell, thats why I enjoyed early siggy so much, I couldnt wait to see what triggered his dom ass whup button THIS time. I mean good lord, he caused more harm to the deegans than king dj!

Mookie seems to have forgotten the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrbKuOaVF3k

[The Troubadour]

Bumping the thread.
The horror that was Dominic Deegan must never be forgotten. :-P

[Mx.Silver]

So this delightfully terrible webcomic actually ended, huh? I sort of knew it had to a some point - although to be honest I'd hadn't thought about it in years. Which is odd, considering it was these threads that got me to join this forum in the first place. In the end though, it just got a bit too much and, what with various things going on with my personal life at the time, I dropped out shortly after the eternal torment that was the Maltak Arc (I think anyway, I may have read a bit further but I don't really remember anything beyond that). I haven't really been back to it since.

I'd like to think it didn't get worse, but since 'getting worse long after what should have been rock bottom' was the one thing the comic excelled at, I'm pretty sure it did.

[Doompuppy]

So this delightfully terrible webcomic actually ended, huh? I sort of knew it had to a some point - although to be honest I'd hadn't thought about it in years. Which is odd, considering it was these threads that got me to join this forum in the first place. In the end though, it just got a bit too much and, what with various things going on with my personal life at the time, I dropped out shortly after the eternal torment that was the Maltak Arc (I think anyway, I may have read a bit further but I don't really remember anything beyond that). I haven't really been back to it since.

I'd like to think it didn't get worse, but since 'getting worse long after what should have been rock bottom' was the one thing the comic excelled at, I'm pretty sure it did.

Oh, don't worry. It managed to get worse to the bitter end...

[Traab]

Oh, don't worry. It managed to get worse to the bitter end...

Literally. Im pretty sure the very last comic left us saying, "BWAH?!?!" Over at least a half dozen points.

[Mx.Silver]

Oh, don't worry. It managed to get worse to the bitter end...

Literally. Im pretty sure the very last comic left us saying, "BWAH?!?!" Over at least a half dozen points.

You know, I'm almost tempted to catch-up on this now, if only to see how terrible it got.
Hmm....


Now that I think about it, that might work. Assuming no one minds, I could post my own reactions/breakdowns of the arcs as I go through them - just for old times' sake if nothing else. Anyone have any objections?

[Traab]

You know, I'm almost tempted to catch-up on this now, if only to see how terrible it got.
Hmm....


Now that I think about it, that might work. Assuming no one minds, I could post my own reactions/breakdowns of the arcs as I go through them - just for old times' sake if nothing else. Anyone have any objections?

Nah, its always fun to see.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

You know, I'm almost tempted to catch-up on this now, if only to see how terrible it got.
Hmm....


Now that I think about it, that might work. Assuming no one minds, I could post my own reactions/breakdowns of the arcs as I go through them - just for old times' sake if nothing else. Anyone have any objections?

Go for it. I would but I got literally no time. Except for now apparently.

[Mx.Silver]

Alright then, let's get this train wrecked.

Previously On Dominic Deegan... (over three years now) The Maltak Arc.
In which we learned:

• Who Huk Thak was and why he wanted to kill Melna (Spoiler: it was stupid)
• Flat, largely featureless terrain is very good for sneaking up on people
• Death is not zombies
• Luna can have ultra-mega-messianic-magic Sue-powers too, at the cost of getting magically sterilised by a dragon (because Mookie)

So now we return with a short one to ease the way back in: The Beast, Part 1

First page, and I am immediately reminded of how terrible Mookie's art was/is. The 'city-view' the king is looking out on looks more like a picture of lego bricks propped on on one end, while Celesto's hair manages to change length and style over the course of the two whole panels he has in this strip (let's not talk about the position of his head/neck in the last panel). Oh yeah, we actually see the King. The only real parts of his appearance we get are his back and that he has a beard. We don't see much of his face, but if I had to guess I'd imagine he looks like everybody else in this comic.

Anyway, an advisor comes in to inform his (alleged) evilness that Maltak is fertile again and also every single other country in the world (presumably including those halflings who live on one not particularly large island somewhere) has sent word that they will go to war on Maltak's behalf. Because there's nothing like immediate threats of direct military action for maintaining a stable geopolitical environment. That's just how international diplomacy works in the Dominion.
The timing of these pieces of information is also a bit odd, considering thatevery other nation would also need to know about Maltak's revival before they issued these declarations. So somehow all these other countries, some of them on the opposite ends of the world, must have found out before the Callanians did despite Callan being Maltak's immediate neighbour and therefore you'd think would be the first to know about developments there and I am spending way too much time on this strip. Need to pick up the pace.

Anyway, also Celesto is in prison, so that's where we're going. Celesto spends the next strip recapping who he is (why?) and the last fight with the tentacle beast thing (which is nowhere near as Lovecraftian as Mookie seems to think it is) which he's aparrently mind-fighting now. As everyone knows, Mindfights take place on the psycho-planes which don't need your primitive 'sensible panel layouts'. Celesto's psychic projection grows wings (managing to look ridiculously stupid in the process). Not sure why he needs them given that every scene on the psycho-planes has everyone apparently levitating anyway, but it works somehow and the beastie reteats, over the sound of Celesto's continuous monologue - because why should the fact that one of the two characters in the scene is completely incapable of communication stop the talking heads? Anyway, apparently Callan's magic is weaker now -because of Maltak somehow - so Celesto teleports away from the wall/pillar he's chained to (it varies between panels) with one twitch of his semi-detached looking hands. He leaves us with the ultra badass parting line: "Hee Hee."

End of interlude. 4 pages and a splash image long and it still felt padded. Oh well, could have been worse I suppose.

Next up is: 'A Nimmel House'
So back to werewolf country. I can't wait.

[T-O-E]

We never actually found out why Huk Thak wanted to kill Melna.

[Mx.Silver]

We never actually found out why Huk Thak wanted to kill Melna.

Wasn't it because she'd killed the Crone (who was still alive, but nevermind) and Hukthak (which was actually the name of his weapon, but nevermind) was angry about it?

[MReav]

Wasn't it because she'd killed the Crone (who was still alive, but nevermind) and Hukthak (which was actually the name of his weapon, but nevermind) was angry about it?

The Crone cannot die, only the actorcs who play her! Oh yeah!

[Oracle_Hunter]

Wasn't it because she'd killed the Crone (who was still alive, but nevermind) and Hukthak (which was actually the name of his weapon, but nevermind) was angry about it?

Hukthak never actually learned that Melna had killed any Crone, nor that she was supposed(?) to kill the New Crone who was Hukthak's girlfriend.

[Mx.Silver]

On with the show.

A Nimmel House

Well, back to Winter Archipelago we go and we all know what the means: werewolf boobs! Drawn with the same care and detail Mookie shows all other forms of anatomy.
But yeah, this is about half of what this arc involves. And yes, of course they're drawn in that weird inconsistent Mookie way that makes the look (and behave) like a pair of balloons glued to someone's chest. Smooth, featureless and never actually responding to gravity (unless they're in wolf form, in which case they're... exactly the same but furry).

We begin with Miranda receiving a letter from Nimmel, since this entire arc is framed as a letter from Nimmel because Mookie wanted to try using a framing device. Special commendation goes to panel 6 of the first strip, where Nimmel is very holding his quill pen in a way no pen should be held. I know I shouldn't be surprised by Mookie's 'artwork' but this is mind-boggling. He uses a pen every day, he has to know that isn't how you hold a pen. Wait, does he actually hold his pens like that? Is that why all he draws looks terrible? No, surely not.

Anyway, Nimmel is getting dogpiled by other werewolf students and uses the bigs text boxes of narration to tell us that werewolves are highly competitive - which is why they're jumping on him because Nimmel is supposedly 'a big deal'. This is later described as being a result of the wolves wnating to appear 'Alpha' - just like real wolves don't, but I don't expect Mookie to have bothered actually reading up on wolves. Nimmel also tells us that werewolves are "very, very loyal". The text boxes then disappear, to be replaced the by the old standby of talking heads, this time by Nimmel's friend who is apparently called Nikolai (he's so unmemorable I don't recall if he was introduced before or not).
Nikolai's main job seems to be trying to convince the reader that Nimmel is 'the big dog' and generally impressive and cool - a task which is doomed to failure as soon as it begins because, well, it's Nimmel - the most boring of the First Caste. Nikolai then immediate shoves Nimmel to atract the attention of some breasts that are walking past because werewolves are, and I'm quoting here, "very, very loyal". Because apparently Nikolai's other trait is that he really likes boobs.
Now, you might well wonder why that is, considering that Nikolai has grown in up in a society where female toplessness is a norm. But Nikolai screaming his love for mammary glands gives Mookie the giggles so there we have it.

Nimmel then meets up with Katya, who is a 'runt' (I don't really remember what this entails but I suspect Mookie will beat us over the head with anything relevant should it come up). They talk about nothing of significance and some other werewolves see them. Oh noes?

Oh noes is right, during a massive wall of text talking about the conversation he just had, Nimmel and Nikolai find that Nimmel's door has been graffitied. So apparently we can add 'intolerance' to the list of werewolf traits. Nikolai suggests Nimmel cut ties with Katya to which Nimmel asks what happened to werewolf loyalty, but doesn't get an answer because of a passing pair of tits. Hilarious.

Speaking of tits, during the next talking heads segment with Katya, Nimmel complains that the sheer ubiquity of topless women in Mookie's fetish land Winter Archipelago has desensitised him to breasts. This is meant to be a bad thing, apparently, at least according to Mookie's author comments (where he also admits to having forgotten about Nimmel's scar for these few strips - because Nimmel is so dull even his creator can't remember him).
So yeah, Nimmel is used to causual nudity after a few months, but Nikolai who has grown up in this culture, is still reduced to drooling over every pair of tits that's in eye-shot. Because that's how socialisation works.

Nimmel and Katya continue to waffle on about First Caste problems for a while. Then we are introduced to Olena, our requisite Fourth Caste for the arc, and attached to the first pair of tits Nikolai was distracted by. She's a bitch and has boobs. That's about all there is to her. Basically Nikolai invites Nimmal and her to a party, but Olena doesn't want to Nimmel go since she hates him due to {reason missing} so she uses her power of boobs to make Nikolai uninvite Nimmel (a scene which shouldn't be here because Nimmel doesn't know about it, but apparently that whole 'framing device' thing isn't in effect at the moment). Because werewolves are very, very loyal, Nikolai agrees, but doesn't have to because now Nimmel can't go anyway because he's going to meet Milov so it's all going to work out fine.

Spoiler

Show

Or is it?!

This is all in one strip, by the way. It's exactly as disjointed and awkwardly paced as it sounds.

But oh noes! Katya, who also lives in Milov's estate - which raises the question of why everyone's picking on her given she's related to the ruler but nevermind - is having a berserk episode because that's what runts do, so the door-guy can't let Nimmel in. Not because he's in danger, mind you but because Katya wouldn't want Nimmel to see her like that.
Milov can't just, I don't know, go outside and talk to him there because {reason missing}.
So it looks like Nimmel's going to go to that party after all. Who could have seen that coming? Especially after it was awkwardly and hamfistedly established not 2 strips previously?

Nimmel decides to show up at the party just as Nikolai is looking at Olena's boobs. Then almost immediately finds out that Olena didn't want him there and true to every instance of this stupid 'misunderstanding/hurt feelings' cliche Nimmel gets upset and leaves. Of course, First Caste > boobs so Nikolai has to go after him and shoves Olena away which makes her really angry. She shifts and attacks Nikolai in one of the most confusingly drawn two panel sequences I've seen in a while. She bites Nikolai's arm, which seems to drag him back (as you'd expect) then suddenly Nikolai landing in the snow next to Nimmel, despite being between Nimmel and Olena to begin with. Apparently it's implied that she then stops biting him and then punches/throws him? I dunno. Next thing she's facing down with Nimmel.

Then this happens.

Right. Let's break this down a bit.
First up, the narration boxes are back which means that yes, this is still meant to be the contents of Nimmel's lettter. In which case this looks to have been a very long one, if he was transcribing the walls of text earlier. It also raises the questions of how he's able to include conversations between Nikolai and Olena that he wasn't present for. Maybe Nikolai told him later?

More importantly though we have the contents of those boxes. Aside from being nowhere near as baddass as Mookie likely thinks, we now learn that Nimmel is actually in Winter Archipelago because he wants to beat up a lot of easy opponents to make himself feel big. I'd ask if Mookie realises what this actually means, but we all know he doesn't (as will become hilariously obvious later). Because is pretty much the sort of thing that would make Olena's dislike of him perfectly justified. But nope, definitely nothing troubling or questionable about this sort of motivation: he just wants to beat up a bunch of people who have no real way of defending themselves.

So that's what he does. He makes some big explosion and Olena gets launched skyward, as does another mystery shifted werewolf. I don't think it's Nikolai, since when we next see him he's still in human form and he never mentions this (plus First Castes don't generally attack their own sycophants). So Explosion Wolf will remain a mystery.
Olena then uses her Evil Feminine Wiles to get all the rest of the werewolves to attack Nimmael, who proceeds to trivially crush them (including freezing them solid) without much effort.

Olena then, surprisingly, calls Nimmel out on this 'beat up a bunch of people who are completely incapable of defending against him' behaviour, especially given Nimmel's backstory. Of course, she's Fourth Caste so immediately everyone else immediately turns on her and becomes really supportive of Nimmel. Or maybe this is just because of what he's demonstrated he's capable of doing to people who stand against him. Yeah, the First Caste is strong in Nimmel. Lord Dominus would be proud.


Nonetheless, Nimmel does actually seem to demonstrate some self-awareness about this and that Olena kind of had a point. Not to worry, Nikolai and some random Fifth Castes are here to placate their new violent overlord play the apologist. See werewolves heal fast, so no harm done. Now, whether or not they actually knew that they'd heal fast from being, say, completely encased in solid ice (Asphyxiation? Never heard of it, guv) at the time is of course completely beside the point. Also, pretty sure 'healing fast' isn't related to how much pain you'd feel at the time of injury but never mind that.

They get drunk to chemically subdue the overlord make him feel better. Hijinks ensue. Katya and Nimmal chat about the aforementioned hijinks (also how being berserk runt is really bad) then Nimmel punches a snowman of TIM -complete with cheekmouth - and this immediately clears up all those (entirely warranted) doubts about himself as well as most of his emotional baggage. Because that's all it takes in Dominion.
To signify his newfound rebirth and sense of inner worth, Nimmel gets a haircut. This displays his scar for everyone to see, and for Mookie to fail to draw consistently, which of course he manages to start doing in the same strip.

Olena comes back and has a cheekmouth filled shouting match (during which her outfit changes, because Mookie and consistent artwork do not mix). Since Olena is Fourth Caste, and therefore not allowed to have valid points about things, she's now ranting about runts and packs and other vague stuff. Also she says 'do it' a lot because she doesn't know that's a euphemism. Never mind that her and Nimmel are speaking the same language and that said language should be Olena's mother tongue so this shouldn't actually happen, it gives Mookie the giggles.

Nikolai resolves not to be so obsessed with breasts, thus concluding his character arc. Yes really. With the 'boobs' subplot now done, we can now spend the next few strips on being beaten over the head with how super-special awesome Nimmel is.
Even the teachers want him to teach them his magic (possibly so they can resist should he decided he wants to be 'the big dog' again). Nimmel protests that he isn't qualified (which he isn't) but then Milov shows up to tell him that he is.


Milov then proceeds to lay out a massive spiel about how amazing Nimmel is (gotta keep hyping the first castes). This would be really dull, were it not for how obvious it is that Mookie's had no real awareness of what's happened in this arc.
Milov reveals that the reason Nimmel was accepted was because all the other (bad, wicked, evil) Callanians who'd applied just wanted to hold themselves above the werewolves and use them as stepping stone to personal ambition. But Nimmel's different. Or he would be, had he not earlier revealed that he came here to be 'the big dog' and beat up a whole bunch of werewolves. Because living above is one thing, but violently beating your way into a position of dominance? That's fine.
Milov then commends him on using his power to stop a fight. Which Nimmel did, through the use of overwhelming - some might say excessive - force that likely would have seriously injured anyone without a healing factor. So yes, the very epitome of restraint (incidentally, when have werewolves ever shown restraint in this comic?
Nimmel is also to be congratulated on staying loyal to Katya, rather than seeking power or prestige. You know, the sort of prestige and power one might get by, say, becoming 'the big dog'. Which is, after all, why Nimmel came here in the first place.

This is easily the funniest strip in the arc, and it's one Mookie likely though was entirely serious.


Final strip, more boobs, complete with obligatory nipple censorship. This time it's Katya's chest balloons which Nimmel feels very 'affected' by. He includes this in his letter, because apparently Miranda needs to know this But oh noes, Katya thinks of him as 'just a friend'. Poor diddums. Also according Mookie's comments, Nimmel has a nosebleed in the last panel - also we can add nosebleeds to the list of things Mookie can't draw.





And that concludes A Nimmel House. It was stupid and boring and stupid, yet still managed to generate that amount of text. Probably a side-effect for writing these 'raw', as it were.
It wasn't as rage inducing as Shadow of Siegfried, but then that's probably because it doesn't feature any characters that were ever worth feeling anything for to begin with. Also by this point there were no expectations for anything set in Winter Archipelago, so there's only so far below them they can go.


Up Next: 'The Beast, Part 2'.

Hukthak never actually learned that Melna had killed any Crone, nor that she was supposed(?) to kill the New Crone who was Hukthak's girlfriend.

Huh, I'd forgotten that. Guess we never did learn why he wanted to kill Melna then. Seems I was giving the Maltak arc too much credit.

[Liliet]

I'm going to read EVERYTHING in these threads, but first I want to get out of my system my present feelings about this comic.

I love the main character. The idea of a seer as a protagonist as opposed to questgiver/minor side character is awesome, and I loved the first story arcs... er... chapters.

The first bells rang when the Prophecy of Doom turned out to all be Jacob's plot. Actually that was not bad at all on its own, everything was logical: of course Dominic would get a vision of it because it's connected to his family.
However, it was the first story arc to feature "and the Deegan/Travoria family&friends was behind all this all the time!!!" twist.

Then Szark's story arc came, and horrible really kicked in. The fact that of course Dominic's childhood friend was married to Luna's sister is fairly excusable, but when the plot stopped midway and changed to demons... WTF was that? We were in the middle of seeing Dominic Deegan prove once again that you are really ill-advised to try and outsmart the seer... and then Dominic's parents come, turn out to be so awesome that Dominic continuing with the job he hated made no sense at all, and punish all the bad guys. And then DEMONS come. It's the worst ever case of Deus ex Machina and Diabolus ex Nihilo combined together.

More detailed about Dominic's job - in the first arcs he works as a seer, and he HATES it. He seems to only be doing this for money. He has to pay for food for himself and the cat somehow, after all, and there aren't many non-customer service employment opportunities for seers, are there?
But wait! There are! His mother has been a head of a magic university all along! And he got his dream job there as soon as he goddamn asked! Whether he got it because he actually is this good or because his mother likes hiring relatives, it's not like he aquired some significant qualification since the start of the comic so that NOW he can works there, and earlier he could not. He could all along. Why didn't he? Well, that's because his mother didn't really exist until this story arc and while getting retconned into existance did not change the early chapters...


This storyline was also the first to really display the "small world" syndrome. The last time a significant character with no previous Travoria&Deegan-related experience was introduced was... yeah, that chapter when Gregory was introduced. That was last time we met new characters. After that... oh well, there was also Klo Tark. He was the last one, unless I forgot and he also had some ties with Deegan family.

I mean, the Chaotic cult tries to take over the world? Why, of course they would select as their champion the lover of Luna's sister! Who was also a crappy seer given how he didn't know **** about the girl. But of course he's the most suitable candidate for the post - he knows Dominic already!

An epic war breaks out in hell? Of course the one to win is Dominic's mother's old friend who's also desperately in love with her!

An evil financist tries to extort money from Gregory? The sheer idiocy of the idea (how did he NOT run a background check on the victim?) is overshadowed by the fact that this evil financist is a) Luna's sister's lover; b) other Luna's sister's former lover who was also behind the whole previous arc; c) Luna herself's former lover who was behind the arc of her suicide attempt way back. What the hell was THAT?

A guy who raped Melna way back appears on-screen? Why, of course he is Dominic's old friend! How can ANYONE significant in this comic NOT have previous connection with Deegan&Travoria family&friends?

There was an epic war with orcs where one human warlord shined with racism and cruelty? Why, of course he's the father of Dominic's "friend" Siegfried! And the reason for the war was already mentioned Dominic's parents' old friend!

The orc land has to be saved from mysterious plague? Why, of course the Chosen One is Luna! Who else? It's not like a new character could be introduced specifically for this role, after all. Oh, and another one chosen to kill the old orc witch is Melna, because this role is also too important to be given to a new character. All new characters can do is stand in awe of those we already know and subscribe to their wholesome modern values.



And the most egregious example: Dominic and Luna go on a world tour? Meet new people and make new friends? THEY HAVE ALL BEEN HIRED BY HIS MOTHER'S OLD FRIEND TO TEST THEM. Except the mongrelman, who is the only halfway decent character in the arc. This is where the world becomes so small as to barely accomodate for all characters already introduced. Maybe all the insignificant unnamed background NPCs we met were actually related? Who knows! It's not like in this world there are any real people who are not connected to Deegan family, after all.


And the last arc. Oh god, the last arc. It was a perfect example of ALL horrible tendencies of the comic and introduced a few new ones. New, previously unseen level of epicness? Check! Dominic and his crew all take a dozen new levels in badass (gone are the days when Dominic was almost beated by a small band of chaos cultists)? Check! The supervillain is Dominic's mother's mentor? Check!

And the ending was... that was probably a world record of nonsensical ending.

1) Death of two major characters we liked. Was their death foreshadowed or narratively inevitable? No, it was out of the left field. Is it normal for this comic to kill off major characters for real? No, it's the first time anyone was killed at all (Siegfried technically went to hell but it's not like he stopped being a major character). Was there any reason to kill them off? Yeah, the author had no other ways to show DRAMA to the readers.

2) What happened to Katya after all? Did she go blind for reals or was it just seer's shroud again? Was she over her crush on her lord? Did she fall in love with her friend or did they just remain friends?

3) Dominic's leg. It seemed like after all transformations and teleportation he got it back again. I mean, the body he was in in Elmecca was previously his mental image of himself, and he had both legs in that mental image. There was no moment to lose the leg again. Let's leave the question of why he could not use that method before aside, maybe it was too dangerous or did not really depend on his will as opposed to mega-epic forces of the universe.

So why did we never see on-screen whether his leg was back? Was that unimportant? No, we even got a retconned into existance dance skill just to empathise how horrible the loss of the leg was. Now that Dominic lost his second sight, can he dance again? WHY DON'T WE KNOW????

4) Kids. A lot of drama was milked out of Luna's sterility. They could not have kids. It was a price they had to pay for saving the orcs. It was tragic. It was dramatic. And then, suddenly, they have kids, without any explanation. Were the kids adopted? Did they find a method to restore both Luna's and Dominic's fertility? Nah, that's not important. The drama was needed for that particular episode and after that was safely ret-conned out of existance.


5) WHY THE HELL DID DOMINIC LOSE HIS SECOND SIGHT?!?!?!?!!?!

I can understand that the comic came to an end. There was SUDDENLY an over-arching plot (there actually wasn't, but I'll let it slide) that came to an end, the author got tired of the world and characters...

But what was the necessity to cut the whole story off like that? Nothing apart from what we saw on-screen can ever happen to the Oracle for Hire because he's not Oracle anymore and anyway we've seen him venerable. No more stories. No sequels, no fanon. That's all, folks. This parade of horrible plots and contrived drama which lasted in-universe what, for about a year? was all that ever happened to Dominic.

Because people can only have adventures for a short period in their life and after that break down like dolls and can never be interesting again.


What. The. Hell. Was. That.


I could understand if there was a narrative reason for that. Say, if it were the end of the era story (LotR-style) and all seers lost their powers at the end. Or if it was a coming of age story for Dominic and letting go of superpowers was an important stepping stone in his development. Or if he knew from the very start that if he chose to involve himself with these powers he'd have to give up his gift but chose to go on regardless, and paid the price in the end. Or... anything, really.

But it was like "Ok, we're done reading this book, now I'm going to rip it to shreds and burn in in the furnace. Why not?"



P.S. And the title. The title. When was the last time Dominic did any oracling for money? That day Luna and Gregory went shopping together with Rachel. You know, back when Gregory was first intoduced. During the last halfway decent arc of this comic. And you know what, in my headcanon this was the last arc that happened. After that, Dominic settled down in another town and kept being an Oracle for Hire. Without demons, chosen ones and mega-uber-epic parents. Those never happened.

[Liliet]

All right, I can't read all threads. I give up. They are too full of hate.

And no, I'm not ashamed of double post. Not here. I mean, these posts are so big that the space I take up with my extra signature is made up for by increased comprehensibility. If anyone ever reads this, of course.

I don't wanna read all threads. They are evil. They are full of hate. They are full of contradictory hate, because the comic is inconsistent and has contradictory elements, and different people hate different elements, and in the end EVERYTHING is hated.

What I liked about the comic was the title character. Or rather, what he was like until the introduction of his parents.
Or maybe, how I understood what he was like.
Anyway, Curly's analysis here inspired me to write down my own interpretation of DD's character. Behold!

So, Dominic is a seer of about twenty years old. He's pretty well-educated, competent and generally book smart. Problem is, he's not sociable. He doesn't like interacting with people he barely knows, he hates interacting with strangers, and even interaction with people he knows well and likes drains energy from him. In other words, he's an extreme introvert.

With his level of genuine competence he could easily get a post of assistant or something like that to someone rich and powerful, and live prosperously and happily for the time being. But that would require *gasp* being social, networking, meeting new people, making impressions, and that's something Dominic can't do. He just can't. He's scared, he doesn't know how to start, he hates the very idea of the first steps to take. His world doesn't have an equivalent of Internet freelancer sites, and even if it does, Dominic doesn't know. He doesn't have anyone in the family who could help, none of his relatives are successful, well-educated, have powerful friends or something like that. (he does not, and I don't care what the actual comic says, it's too horrible to get a say here) Except maybe his necromancer brother Jacob, but Dominic would rather burn in Hell than ask him for help, for understandable reasons.

So, the only job Dominic can get without violating his nature is the post of town seer. It doesn't need much qualification, it's pretty easy to apply and get the job. Normally this is the position held by people who are badly-educated, perhaps barely literate, not averse to cheating, and are not even always genuine seers. You can guess what sort of customers with what sort of problems they normally get.

For Dominic, any customer service job would be torture, but this one is doubly so. It's technically his specialty, but he's way overcompetent for that. He doesn't need a crystal ball to see a person's immediate future or past, but he has to pretend to so that people trust him. He's physically incapable of being personable, presenting pleasant (as opposed to qualitative) service, so his customer base doesn't exactly grow, and the problem is locked in a loop.

Dominic is basically a pretty decent person, capable of compassion and love. He's just insensitive (doesn't easily read other people's facial expressions, intonation and body language) and is not good at expressing himself, either. His success is almost inversely proportional to his actual talent and capabilities, rendering him pretty pessimistic. He can be a hero when he sees that he is needed, but the rest of the time he's grumpy and grim.

He feels that he's above most of people surrounding him, no wonder given that he is normally surrounded by his customer base. Even if some of them are genuinely smart people, they are not at their best when they come to Dominic's.

He loves showing off and displaying his real abilities. I don't think I need to explain why, given all the above.


That's exactly what Dominic has been up until the arc when his abilities inexplicably became MOST POWERFUL EVAH COOLER THAN THE DEMONS' and his reasons for working like he did and disliking people dissolved in the air - he suddenly has always had influential friends, family and lots of job opportunities that he needed only to look at. Grrrr.

I mean, it's not even inconsistent that he became a lot more sociable, open and optimistic in the later arcs. Almost all of his grumpiness came from the contrast of what he could be and what he actually was. Oh, and all that made his character interesting came from there, too. Oops.


Of all the other characters I'd only like to mention his cat Spark. He's brilliantly written. He's a talking cat, no more, no less - a normal cat given speech. Maybe he's a stereotyped cat... okay, he's a walking cliche, but compared to the other characters in this comic he's a surprisingly consistent and likable cliche, whose characterisation has not even once been shattered to pieces and trumpled upon.

[Vinyadan]

and in the end EVERYTHING is hated.

Good synopsis

On a more serious note, what you say is totally true: the comic started out well, but then went downhill. And the constant recycle of characters, together with the Wondrous Deegan Family, didn't help at all.
To me, the point of descent is the moment in which Dominic leaves the village. Everything that follows - the Academy, the multiplication of the Travorias, the stupidity when trying to portray controversial issues, Supergreg - could have been avoided, if he had just looked for another village where to make his work, and kept living in a nondescript countryside of a fantasy world, with maybe some later call to arms.
What Mookie tried to do - an Oracle who ceases to be a side character - is a pretty new concept, and a likable one, but he screwed it up so badly, that I can't even tell if he kept trying at it or just forgot about it. Also, don't forget the uncountable plot holes.

Lost characters, unresolved plot points & such things

1. The Berserker
2. Dex's daughter
3. Luna's father
4. The students' parents
5. The orcification of the Knight
6. Where do Elemeccas come from?
7. Hey Dominic, it's me! Your old pal Mosley!
8. What the hell happened to Siegfried? He ate his dad, screamed in agony off camera and then.... nothing. Did he re-die? Transform into something else? What?
9. Similarly, Karnak. He's the King of Hell, yeah, but he knows that Loxo, Siegfried and (as far as he's aware) the Beast are still hanging around in the wings, waiting to stab him in the back. What is he going to do about it?
10. Dex's face and ex-wife. The guy was horribly maimed saving a town from an Eldritch Abomination - Isn't anyone going to say or do anything along the lines of "Thanks for being a hero, we're very grateful" and try to reward him, or are we not going to mention it ever again? And he somehow stayed alive after being almost eviscerated through sheer force of will. How? Why? Was it to try and win back Danika? To spite her? Is he going to get better? Is there anything between him and Pamela after she nursed him back to health?
11. Jacob Deegan. Is he immortal now? Fully undead? Something else? How? Why? What does this mean for the rest of the world now that we know Necromancy not to just be 'evil'?
12. I hate to even mention it, but we never did find out what will come of Luna's super special magical eggs. We also don't know how the recipients were chosen, or who they were.
13. What were those protection dolls and why didn't they use them again? (Seriously, I am never going to get over how baffled by these things I am.)
14. Well, Dominic's prediction that the Beast will crash the wedding and murder everyone has yet to come true
15. Who is Huk-Thak, and why does he want to kill Melna?
16. Who is Ethelia?
17. What happened to Barnet is unresolved. Was she in Aberthast and killed when the cathedral was attacked? Is her trial over yet? Has it even started?
18. Who is the unlikely visitor?
19. What's up with Klo Tark?
20. Why did the limitation spell on Miranda expire?

[Liliet]

Good synopsis

On a more serious note, what you say is totally true: the comic started out well, but then went downhill. And the constant recycle of characters, together with the Wondrous Deegan Family, didn't help at all.
To me, the point of descent is the moment in which Dominic leaves the village. Everything that follows - the Academy, the multiplication of the Travorias, the stupidity when trying to portray controversial issues, Supergreg - could have been avoided, if he had just looked for another village where to make his work, and kept living in a nondescript countryside of a fantasy world, with maybe some later call to arms.
What Mookie tried to do - an Oracle who ceases to be a side character - is a pretty new concept, and a likable one, but he screwed it up so badly, that I can't even tell if he kept trying at it or just forgot about it. Also, don't forget the uncountable plot holes.

Well, Klo Tark is dead and an angel. That's been stated pretty clearly.

Also, I like MY plot holes (pointed out in the first post) better. That's something I care about. I WANT TO SEE DOMINIC DANCE.


When he left his village was when he went to save everyone in the Prophecy of Doom, and I liked that arc. Could see more of that. If only he agreed to stay in that town...

I feel like this comic had a lot of wish fulfillment in it from the start. A hopeless nerd gets to save people and be a hero through application of his nerdy abilities, outsmart powerful enemies, save a pretty girl who's just as nerdy as him and direly in need of his love and support... And at some (pretty well-defined) point this got out of hand and destroyed the whole concept.

I wish I could write an alternate continuity fic, but I seem to be physically incapable of writing flawed characters )= all right, maybe I'm exaggerating, and maybe I can write Dominic, at least not worse than his actual author did... maybe. I dunno.

As for the wondrous Deegan family, apart from invalidating the whole character concept of Dominic, I don't have much of a problem with that. I mean, I liked Pankeeva, and she had that across three worlds.

But here it was downright creepy. It's like the characters are living in a cage where no-one who has not passed a thorough background check is allowed. Luna and Dominic want to get out of this cage, get a rest from all this madness and go meet new people? Wishful thinking! Big Brother Rilian will see to it that they don't meet anyone unapproved. The same goes for Stunt and his Wild Edge adventures: the two friends he gained were the already introduced mongrelman and that priest girl. What the hell? He's a secondary character for ****'s sake, LET HIM OUT!!!

It's really, really scary. And gives that dark, grim, hopeless feel of an antiutopia. Seriously, I felt all that when the truth beyond their "vacation" was revealed.

And the ending only made it worse. If it was just that "A Chosen One is a job for life" and they were chosen pretty harshly, it would be more tolerable, but they were only under strict surveillance during the short period of time when they were allowed to do the cool things. Or maybe they were still under surveillance after that too, despite not being able to do cool things anymore. Ugh...


Also, I LOVED the Academy. For one, it featured a bunch of characters who were not Deegans and Travorias and had their own stories. For another, it was a short break to a mundane pace, where there are no real dangers for someone of the heroes' level but rather a lot of minor annoyances that should be dealt with in a mature fashion. As opposed to "MIND SMASH!!!" that Dominic's powers seemed to turn into towards the end.

The one thing I didn't like there was the treatment of the elemental shapeshifter. Of course the one guy who's bullied in a very cruel manner by everyone for no apparent reason turns out to have been evil all along, why do you ask? They have mind powers that let them know he's a jerk and deserved it. Oh wait, no, only Dominic did, and the shapeshifter successfully fooled the rest. Then what the hell was that?!

[Vinyadan]

Well, Klo Tark is dead and an angel. That's been stated pretty clearly.

What's strange is that he didn't explode. I actually don't get if he died because of Siggy, or if he just chose not to appear anymore.
Mookie doesn't say much about angels - I think he named archangels one, when he said that they can destroy souls - but Klo Tark is just an angel, and we don't really know why he became one. Will of the Power that Be?

I feel like this comic had a lot of wish fulfillment in it from the start. A hopeless nerd gets to save people and be a hero through application of his nerdy abilities, outsmart powerful enemies, save a pretty girl who's just as nerdy as him and direly in need of his love and support... And at some (pretty well-defined) point this got out of hand and destroyed the whole concept.

I think that's what is enraging about DD: it starts well, then it crushes it all, especially the wish fulfillment. At the same time, there was always something of Mookie's carefree enthusiasm to keep stuff at least readable, if not enjoyable.

It's really, really scary. And gives that dark, grim, hopeless feel of an antiutopia. Seriously, I felt all that when the truth beyond their "vacation" was revealed.

I always dislike the secret council of secret folks secretly controlling the protagonist's life. It's too hard to believe and usually absolutely unnecessary. And the big reveal was a time when Rilian had somehow called together a lot of people from different continents (!) to watch him strip himself zombie-naked and listen to him saying things they already knew. I wonder how much time it took them to get back home, and what they told their wives.

The one thing I didn't like there was the treatment of the elemental shapeshifter. Of course the one guy who's bullied in a very cruel manner by everyone for no apparent reason turns out to have been evil all along, why do you ask? They have mind powers that let them know he's a jerk and deserved it. Oh wait, no, only Dominic did, and the shapeshifter successfully fooled the rest. Then what the hell was that?!

That was really strange, it looked like if he had just jumped out of some other continuity.

[ryuplaneswalker]

So, to keep up with Mr Silver's posts I picked this thing up again..I read it up until...the end of the vacation? god it was so long ago I forget most of it honestly.

I remember the reveal at the end of the vacation arc, and thinking it was rather nifty.

Spoiler

Show

Mostly because I like the idea of a necromancer that is not super special levels of evil, and Ritilan is cool

I am so far up through the end of the Battle for Barthis, which Is still probably my favorite arc in the comic as I love Dominic's father.

[Traab]

I still think the biggest mystery is the existence of the inappropriate wall. Does everyone in DD have a spell to summon a convenient wall when they need to lean against/stand on something? Is the wall stalking the DD cast? Is the wall really Uatu in disguise, recording events as they take place? The world may never know.

Also, I had a theory about the missing limbs. The thing is, in our world, we have managed to seal the limb stealers away in decent sized metal coffins. They can no longer temporarily steal our arms and legs at random times. Instead they have to suffice with devouring our socks. In the DD world, they have yet to seal away this menace, and its only through careful work and a bit of good luck, that people get their randomly vanishing limbs to come back.

[Fawkes]

Also, don't forget the uncountable plot holes.

I never finished the comic. What the heck does 'orcification of the knight' mean?

1) Death of two major characters we liked.

Who died?

Wait, who did we like?

[Oracle_Hunter]

I never finished the comic. What the heck does 'orcification of the knight' mean?

Hansi became "tied to Maltak" and had a torrid affair with an Orc. He's now stuck on the Magical Moving Mountain.

[Fawkes]

Hansi became "tied to Maltak" and had a torrid affair with an Orc. He's now stuck on the Magical Moving Mountain.

Wait, did we really never see Hansi again after that?

Well, that's dumb.

[Mewtarthio]

Wait, did we really never see Hansi again after that?

Well, that's dumb.

Oh, we did see him again during the final battle (rescuing Luna, natch).

He had turned into an orc.

[T-O-E]

Yeah, orc was revealed to be not a race or a culture but an STD.

[Mewtarthio]

So, we can finally make sense of the Tuskmouth epidemic. Outrage Chief wasn't using magic to place his curse. He just slipped into Callan while the army was out genociding and banged all the soldier's moms!

It fits perfectly, seeing as Mookie's grasp of politics is still stuck in junior high.

[Cen]

Wait, did we really never see Hansi again after that?

Well, that's dumb.

Here's Hansi for you.

Also, Bumper and Quilt died. Or Stunt and Bumper. I think.

[Liliet]

What's strange is that he didn't explode. I actually don't get if he died because of Siggy, or if he just chose not to appear anymore.
Mookie doesn't say much about angels - I think he named archangels one, when he said that they can destroy souls - but Klo Tark is just an angel, and we don't really know why he became one. Will of the Power that Be?

Well, to me it was pretty clear. Really good people become angels when they die, and if Klo Tark wasn't good, who was?

I always dislike the secret council of secret folks secretly controlling the protagonist's life. It's too hard to believe and usually absolutely unnecessary. And the big reveal was a time when Rilian had somehow called together a lot of people from different continents (!) to watch him strip himself zombie-naked and listen to him saying things they already knew. I wonder how much time it took them to get back home, and what they told their wives.

I didn't put that much thought in it. It was just creepy, disheartening and killed all my enjoyment of the previous arc )=

And the secrect council of secret folks - I guess I didn't encounter that trope before. Or maybe just don't remember. Doesn't sound likable, anyway.

That was really strange, it looked like if he had just jumped out of some other continuity.

Well, I like the "Hero of Another Story" trope, or what do you mean by "another continuity"? I just didn't like everyone being pointlessly cruel to the guy )=

Who died?

Wait, who did we like?

Dunno about you, but I liked Quilt and Bumper )=