The Stick Awards II: Second Edition (#0041 - #0050)

[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 41 through 50.

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 22nd, 4pm EDT. Any votes made after that will NOT count toward the totals.

Last week, it was 38 Spontaneous Artistic Expression who turned out to be the winner. Which will it be this week? Only you can decide that.

Now it's time for the cream to rise to the top as we vote for....

.THE STICK AWARDS II: 0041 - 0050

41 Just Take the AoO
42 Belkar Unleashed
43 What's Behind Door #2?
44 Meet the Linear Guild
45 Strength in Numbers
46 Deep Thoughts
47 But is it High Definition?
48 Stab of Opportunity
49 Collect the Whole Set
50 The Semi-Secret Origin of Elan & Nale

[Ellye]

#42.

Not a lot of particular good ones in those, unfortunately. I didn't enjoyed the first appearance of the Linear Guild. There were a few funny DnD-related jokes, though.

[apenpaap]

I vote for 50 for the origin-story of Elan and Nale, Tarquin's first appearance, the little 'baby on board' sign on his chariot, the first appearance of Nale's love for overly complex stuff, and the dwarves playing cards during the exposition. Though 47 is a close second for me for Xykon's picture-in-picture scrying.

[NobodyWasTaken]

Eh... not many stand-out strips here, but 48 is nice I guess.

[Ebon_Drake]

Hmm, tough pick again thanks to all the LG fun. I think I'll have to go for #50. Plot! Jokes! Tarquin! The first extra-long strip!


Fun fact: #44 was the first OOTS strip I ever read, I think the comic was only at around #50ish at the time. Someone posted a link to it from a Baldur's Gate modding forum in a thread about cliché characters (ie Zz'dtri) and I've been hooked ever since.

[ChristianSt]

I'm in for 41 Just Take the AoO

[137beth]

I'm gonna go with 49. Overall, a sorta weak round.

[mythmonster2]

I say 44, mainly because of the dark elf gag.

[nogall]

Many classics, very strong selection. Both 41 and 45 are great, but I'll go with 50 (by the way, just noticed the note saying "our 50th strip..." on top... )

[Gift Jeraff]

#44. Thog's first words! And I really like the last 2 panels.

[Hogwarts9876]

50 was awesome.

[Bird]

I'll make mine 50 thanks to the gratuitous baby-on-baby violence!

[David Argall]

Not the strongest group, but I will go for 45, with 50 in 2nd if we need any sort of tie break.

[SaintRidley]

50. Baby Nale and his little baby beard make the strip.

[white lancer]

This contest has made me reformulate my thoughts on the rise in quality of the comic. Surprisingly enough, the first 30 or so were mostly pretty solid strips, but this point seems to be the real 'Dark Ages' of the strip before it became what it is today. Still some highlights, but these are mostly on the weak end.

This time, unlike last time, I do really appreciate the front-runner and would probably put it in second or maybe even first for this round. Third place...I guess would be 45, but it's not a particularly great strip. My vote is going toward #47: But is it High Definition? because picturing Belkar and the kobold yelling in Spanish just kills me. #50 is at least as good and possibly better, but I don't want #47 to get shut out.

[Mike Havran]

50

[Killer Angel]

I'm torn between 41 and 50.
I'll go for 41, 'cause a wizard casting an area spell, that includes also one companion, is a classic.

[Ninja Dragon]

Funny backstory gives the win to 50. Also we got one hell of a foreshadowing here with Tarquin.

Altough I have to agree none of these strips were really special, so it was a tough pick...

This contest has made me reformulate my thoughts on the rise in quality of the comic. Surprisingly enough, the first 30 or so were mostly pretty solid strips, but this point seems to be the real 'Dark Ages' of the strip before it became what it is today. Still some highlights, but these are mostly on the weak end.

This time, unlike last time, I do really appreciate the front-runner and would probably put it in second or maybe even first for this round. Third place...I guess would be 45, but it's not a particularly great strip. My vote is going toward #47: But is it High Definition? because picturing Belkar and the kobold yelling in Spanish just kills me. #50 is at least as good and possibly better, but I don't want #47 to get shut out.

I think the next set is much better.

[pearl jam]

I was ready to vote for 47 for Xykon's picture-in-picture scrying, but the "randomized spell booster packs" was a favorite of mine when I read it the first time, so 49 gets my vote.

[martianmister]

50

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

[Ellye]

This contest has made me reformulate my thoughts on the rise in quality of the comic. Surprisingly enough, the first 30 or so were mostly pretty solid strips, but this point seems to be the real 'Dark Ages' of the strip before it became what it is today. Still some highlights, but these are mostly on the weak end.

I imagine this to be a common issue with most "gag-a-day" strips - they start strong, but it's hard to keep coming up with funny gags every other day (even more when the strip subject is relatively limited), so they tend to decline in quality after the first few good jokes have been used up.
Thankfully, at this point, OotS started to slowly shift towards an actual story, with interesting characters and plot. But this batch of strips happened to be just in a point where the gag-a-day format was in decline, and the story/character-driven format was still in infancy.

[Torrasque]

49 The booster pack joke is pretty good, and makes this the most memorable of the strips for me, along with the nice V banter (though 50 of course has more exposition and has been reread more times :P)

[nyjastul69]

49….......

[thatSeniorGuy]

Damn, a lot of good ones in this set. I think I'll have to go with 41.

[Flame of Anor]

I suppose 46

[quasit]

tough choice...I'll go for 50 just a few strips later we get to see him

[Belkar<3]

#42 is one of my personal favorites.

[Old RuneQuester]

I have to say 41.

Accident... yes. Of course. By accident.

[Kurald Galain]

41! 41! 41! 41! 41!

[Sir_Leorik]

Hmm, this a tough one. I like some of the backstory in #50, but in the end my vote has to go to:

44

Introduction of the Linear Guild!

thog talks!

And of course the attempt to explain Zz'dtri!
"They're standard issue."