The Stick Awards II: Second Edition (#0841 - #0850)

[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 841 through 850.

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 June 3rd, 4pm EDT. Any votes made after that will NOT count toward the totals.

Last time, 833 Villainy Afoot finally got off its duff and proceeded with its plan to win this tournament instead of sitting around playing at Diplomacy like it had been for so long. It was last seen porting off to the Best of the Hundred tournament. Time will tell how long it will stick around there.

And so closes the book on a major story arc of that these votes have covered. Probably means that we're in for a slow ramp up onto the next arc. Probably won't be much to discuss in this round of voting as things might take a while to ripen. Indeed, I suspect there won't be much to cause us all to drop dead in shock.

...

But in unlikely case there is, why not take the time to vote in...

.THE STICK AWARDS II: 0841 - 0850

841 Lunchtime
842 All in the Family
843 Lack of Foresight
844 Case In Point
845 The Last Laugh
846 No Bone Unturned
847 Dropping the Ball
848 Acid Redux
849 Suspicious Agreement
850 not-thog

[AvatarVecna]

Ooh, tough choice. 841 reveals a room full of mysteriously dead Gate defenders; 842 reveals that they weren't so mysteriously killed, in a way that serves as good Nightmare Fuel (Elan would've died if that whole revenge business had taken a week longer); 845 has one of my favorite jokes yet; 850, meanwhile, is pretty solid throughout and ends on a great action panel. Overall, though, 845 and 850 weren't very impactful on their own when I originally read through, and while 841 left quite an impact, 842 built on it by adding a new twist. So...842.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

This set has a lot of great strips. I am especially fond of 845, a great moment in the field of ass comedy. However, I don't see how I could vote for anything but #842.

[Mordae]

Rough to make me choose between 841 and 842. But I'll go with 841... help

[Bird]

842. While the big reveal isn't quite as visually striking at 841, it packs a greater emotional heft because of how it affects a character we know well.

[thatSeniorGuy]

Easy choice of 842.

Edit: what Bird said.

[ti'esar]

It's really unfortunate that this one pretty much has to come down to 841 or 842, because there's some other good comics in there. But alas.

I'll go with 842, for V's reaction.

[Emperordaniel]

Hrrm, tough choice. On the one hand, #846 was the one up when I first discovered the comic (wow, I've been reading for three years now?? ), but on the other hand, the visceral impact of #841 just takes the cake out of this selection.

[declinator]

There's no way around 842.

[Killer Angel]

The arrival of Tarquin is good, but no way it can beat 842.

[nogall]

OOTS at its best: great art, dialogue, puns, emotional impact and storytelling.

I could go with almost all of the strips, but I have to vote for 841.

[kivzirrum]

This is a TOUGH one. 841 has a big reveal. 842 expands on that big reveal for possibly a more impactful shock. 845 diffuses the tension with some surprisingly funny childish humor. 846 has a panel I just love (the reveal of Girard's corpse) coupled with Haley's wonderful delivery of the line "dry crumbly assbone." 849 has "Thog smashes" and 850 ends on a great panel. So that's more than half of the options that could be the best on their own in any other set. Now I see why Book 5 is my favorite.

Anyway, I guess it comes down to 841 and 842 ultimately. And while I want to vote for 841 because of how awesome that plot reveal is, character comes first, and 842 shows that the death of the Draketooth clan is more than just a plot twist for the sake of a shock. Actions have consequences.

Sorry, V. 842 it is.

[Timy]

841 was the most cliffhanger of all the cliffhangers :p

[littlebum2002]

At least I'm not a hipster like AvatarVecna, voting for 842 before it was cool!

[AvatarVecna]

At least I'm not a hipster like AvatarVecna, voting for 842 before it was cool!

Oh please. Comic 842 was cool long before I voted for it.

EDIT: Also, I just went ahead and peeked at the next 10. And there's some real winners there; 7 comics I'm considering of the 10 that are each pretty impressive in their own right. Gonna be a hard pick...

[Mike Havran]

#850
Magnificent.

[Gift Jeraff]

Many of us figured it was familicide that killed the Draketooth Clan so it wasn't really a huge reveal, but there's something I like about 842 more than 841.

[kivzirrum]

Many of us figured it was familicide that killed the Draketooth Clan so it wasn't really a huge reveal, but there's something I like about 842 more than 841.

Oh, really? Then I'm glad that was during one of my "forget about the forums" phases, because it came as a pretty big surprise to me!

[Emanick]

Man, there have been lots of lopsided batches recently. And for some reason, the best strips always seem to be at the beginning or the end of the series. Maybe I'm just imagining things.

Anyway, this is really a two-way contest between 841 and 842; the dual revelations are too good to be proper competition for the merely solid-to-excellent strips following them. I tend to think that the Familicide strip is more shocking, so I'm going to go with 842: All in the Family.

[LadyEowyn]

While I'm sure that 841 or 842 will win, I'm voting for 843. Vaarsuvius' breakdown is probably the most emotionally powerful strip in the whole comic so far.

[Elenna]

Wow. This set (and the next hundred or so that follow) pretty much demonstrate why Book 5 is my favorite. A hard choice. Not begrudging 842 its inevitable victory, but I'll go with 843 because I personally felt V's reaction was even more powerful than the actual reveal.

[D.One]

Yeah, hard choice this time. 843 is fantastic, and shows V facing his(her) actions, but my vote goes for #842 - All in the Family. I remember going all "OH MY GOD!!!" when I first read it, it was so powerfully wrapped, that we didn't need the explanation V gives later to understand the situation.

[Sylian]

843 gets my vote.

[137beth]

Tough one. 842 is probably the most emotionally charged...but it seems likely to win anyways, so I'll cast a pity vote for 852, due to how much I laughed at the 'nope' joke.

[Porthos]

Tough one. 842 is probably the most emotionally charged...but it seems likely to win anyways, so I'll cast a pity vote for 852, due to how much I laughed at the 'nope' joke.

852 isn't up yet.

[ChristianSt]

I kinda want to vote for 841+842. Both are extremely shocking in completely different ways and yet relating to the same event.

If I would solely would vote for the visual shock, this would go clearly go to Lunchtime. That last panel is really beautiful in a gross way.
But the horror of the realization that this massacre was done by V has such a deep impact - both personally for V hir/himself and to the overall plot - makes it an rather easy vote for 842 - All in the Family.

(though it feels kinda weird to not vote 841...)

[Porthos]

....

*looks at clock*
*remembers what day it is*

D'OH!

Better make this quick then. While in any other case I'd want to make sure that Rich's contributions to "ass-comedy" were duly noted, it is sadly not to be (though, seriously, no votes of either 845 or 846 is a travesty). But, yeah, one of the first three. Think I'll give my love to 841 simply because the WTFness and completely out of the blue (for this poster) reveal was stunning. There has been a couple of crazy theories about Draketooth being hit by Familicide, but it was far from a settled notion.

When 841 went live, there was a raging debate between Illusion or Familicide. So, yeah, it deserves love from me. 842, while fantastic, isn't as good without the setup. And still probably the most shocking moment of the entire strip so far.

Which says something, IMO.

Still, 842 is more than a worthy winner. And I suspect a strip that will land in the Finals for this set of a Hundred.

And with that....

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED!

842 All in the Family 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: 0841 - 0850

	Comic Number	Votes Received	Vote Percentage
	841	5	21.74
	842	13	56.52
	843	4	17.39
	844	0	0.00
	845	0	0.00
	846	0	0.00
	847	0	0.00
	848	0	0.00
	849	0	0.00
	850	1	4.35

Please join us for the next round of voting for Strips #851 - #860 which can be found here.

[Haley14859]

Definitely #842 without a doubt. That's when V's horror begins. I think its ironic that his friends are all questioning who would have killed the people and V's just staring at the hieroglyphs.

[Killer Angel]

Definitely #842 without a doubt. That's when V's horror begins. I think its ironic that his friends are all questioning who would have killed the people and V's just staring at the hieroglyphs.

...are you aware that the voting for these ten was already closed?

now there's a new voting.
edit: nevermind, you already know.