The Stick Awards II: Second Edition (BotH [#0801-#0900]) [Semi #1]

[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.

Over the next few days, we're taking a bit of a break and entering The Best of the Hundred Tournament for Comics #801 - #900 as we take the time to decide which of the strips really are the best of best.

For full details about the Stick Awards, and any questions about them, 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 five listed is your favorite. Bolding the number of the comic (Like this) helps it stand out.

Voting, which only lasts five days during the Best of the Hundred Tournament will close on July 13th, 4pm EDT. Any votes made after that will NOT count toward the totals.

The winner of this semi-final will go on to the finals which will be held after the second semi-final is done. The two strips that get the most votes during the semis that DIDN'T win, will also reach the finals. So voting is extra special important this time around, as it will determine who the 'Wild Card' entrants are.

Last week, 896 Two Paths tried to sound the alarm that its fellow participants were about to make a monumental error in judgement during the voting. Before it could complete its warning, however, the judges stepped in and, not to give a spoiler here, whisked it away to the Best of the Hundred tournament.

Speaking of which, said tournament is now finally upon us. So sit back, crack open a refreshing beverage of one's choice. and help us decide which of the following strips is worthy move on by voting in.....

................THE STICK AWARDS II:
BEST OF THE HUNDRED TOURNAMENT (801-900)
..............(Semi-Final #1)

808 Five Rows Down, Three Columns Over
819 Parental Insight
830 Tidying Up
833 Villainy Afoot
842 All in the Family

[Jaxzan Proditor]

Oh man, there are so many good ones here. I wish I could cast two votes, but I think in the end I'll vote for #842 and hope that 830 gets a wildcard!

[littlebum2002]

830 for the win!

(OK, I'm not gonna lie, 830 for the wild card)

[Mordae]

Dang.

I mean, dang!

Two climactic showdowns, two reveals (of widely varying magnitudes), and a tense standoff. I think I can safely eliminate 819, followed by 833, leaving three of my favorites to decide from. And as much as I love Roy... and V...

830 takes the cake. Tsukiko learns the hard way that Team Evil plays for keeps.

[Bird]

I'm also torn between 830 and 842. Let's say 842, which I voted for the first time 'round.

[Gift Jeraff]

#808

[martianmister]

819 Parental Insight

Someone has to!

[Emperordaniel]

Calling it right now: 842 All In The Family will win this Best of the Hundred.

[thatSeniorGuy]

Eek, sem-finals and finals are always so tough. I was tossing up between Redcloak's epic-ness in 830 and V's realisation in 842, but in the end the revelation of familycide wins out. 842 it is.

[Elenna]

So many decisions...

842, I guess, because Familicide arc.

[Euclidodese]

#830 Go Little Red Biding Cloak!

[Laurana]

Definitely 842, All In The Family.

809 was an awesome strip, and 830 is just fantastic (even though I feel bad for Tsukiko, as evil and crazy as she was), but 842 is head and shoulders above the rest.

[Emanick]

#842 is great, but it's great because it relies mainly on shock value. #830 is great because of a sustained and deeply moving, complex interaction between two fascinating characters. I find the latter much more impressive, so I'm going to go with 830: Tidying Up.

[ti'esar]

#842 is great, but it's great because it relies mainly on shock value. #830 is great because of a sustained and deeply moving, complex interaction between two fascinating characters. I find the latter much more impressive, so I'm going to go with 830: Tidying Up.

Good argument, and I think I agree with it. 830 for me as well.

[declinator]

The evil-vs-evil showdown (at least for Tsukiko) wins it for me: 830 to the final!

[LadyEowyn]

A strong set, but I have to go with Redcloak's victory in 830. It's magnificently done, and it tells us (or those of us, like me, who don't own Start of Darkness) so much about Redcloak's long-term plans.

[Sylian]

830. This one provides so much insight into Redcloak's character, especially for people who haven't read Start of Darkness yet.

[Killer Angel]

Oh man, there are so many good ones here. I wish I could cast two votes, but I think in the end I'll vote for #842 and hope that 830 gets a wildcard!

For me it's the inverse.
I vote for 830, hoping in the wildcard for 842.

[ChristianSt]

Imo the only choice here is between 830 and 842, both featuring heave reveals (though 830 was no real surprise for anyone that read SoD - though Tsukiko's death is still memorable).

I'm voting for 830 - Tidying Up which also showcases Redcloak's evolution and leads to speculation when/if Team Evil will attack each other.

[GuySmiley1970]

830 for me as well. Powerful strip. Poor Tsukiko

[Xihirli]

830. Never underestimate Arrghcloak.

[AvatarVecna]

In the semi-finals and final rounds, I generally have three criteria, in this order of importance: "Is it important to the story/plot/characterization?", "Is it particularly memorable?", and "Is it funny?"

808 is a pretty important moment: it ends the long-standing "rivalry" between Roy and Thog by showing off why Roy's Intelligence makes him a superior warrior (showing that a smart player running a sub-optimal character is better than an optimized build played poorly any day of the week); it also advances the general "Linear Guild" and "Tarkin's Empire" plotlines. It's also a pretty memorable moment, just because it's one of the biggest one-on-one climactic fights in the entire comic. Sadly though, there's not a lot of real comedy here, although the way Roy taunts Thog did manage to get a nostalgic chuckle out of me.

819 is not particularly important to the comic as a whole: while it shows that Tarkin is dangerously genre savvy, there's other comics that have done that better; it gives us some insight into Nale's character, but it's not exactly groundbreaking insight (oh, he's got a strong ego, good reason to eavesdrop, and need to rebuild his team? What a shocker...); the only important plot point it brings up is that it brings Tarkin and Nale together and sets up that scene. It's certainly important to the story, but not on the same level that some of these others are. Beyond that, it's not a very memorable comic: when I opened the tab to 808, I immediately recognized what was going on. It took me a minute to remember what was going on here, and that's mostly because the most memorable part of this comic is the punchline in the last two panels. And to be fair, it's a wonderful joke with excellent build up; IMO it's the best joke in any of these 5 comics...but that's not enough to win this for me.

830 is wonderful. This comic is the big reminder from the Giant to the audience that, no matter how much of a sympathetic villain Redcloak is, he's still a villain. It showed us just how diabolical he is...and how far he's willing to go to conceal his manipulation of Xykon. 808 is pretty memorable, but this comic is seared into my memory. There's no comedy, but that's the least important of the three criteria. It took Tsukiko, who spends basically the entire comic with her Witch Bitch lever in the full upright position, and made her into a sympathetic victim of the Big Bad Redcloak. Wonderful.

833 has Redcloak talking his way out of killing Tsukiko, and has Recloak (maybe) getting another one over Xykon besides that; it also shows us Xkyon's official "secret lair" demiplane. It's overall pretty important to the plot, but it's not particularly memorable or funny, so it gets tossed as well.

842 is also pretty impressive: it gets in some wonderful characterization for most of the order, before dropping one of the biggest reveals the comic has ever had. Even at the time of Familicide being cast, I didn't consider all the ramifications of casting that spell, but...well, there's somebody in the 3.5 subforum with a sigged quote that's something like this: "Dragon blood in a family tree is kind of like tomato paste in the hands of a toddler; namely, it gets everywhere." This comic not only shows that the Draketooth family in particular has been struck down by this curse, it lets the audience know that other families were likely equally slaughtered; the sheer level of these consequences is staggering, and it puts this reveal right up there with seeing the world in the rift, and seeing that Durkon isn't in control of his vampire body. Something that occurred to me: if V had waited another week or so to leave the ship, all the same events would've occurred, but because they happened about a week later, Tarkin would've married that woman that was related to the Draketooth family; if that had happened, if V had taken that extra week, she would've died (as she did), Tarkin would've died (for their marital bond), and Elan and Nale (and Anel?) would've died for being Tarkin's children. There's no comedy here (it's a room full of dead bodies), but the emotions are running nice and strong in this scene.

To me, it's a close race between 830 and 842, but 830 is just that much better, because it not only is important enough to be one of the defining moments in any plot summary of the entire comic, it shows the motivations and actions of two important characters who aren't the main focus of the comic (Redcloak's one of the main villains, but the strip's called "The Order of the Stick" for a reason, and it usually follows them). 842 should definitely be a wild card, though, at least IMO.

[Porthos]

Gotta say, sometimes the outcomes here surprise me. Not often, as I can usually get a pulse of things early. But this is one of those times. 842 and 830 looked to be in a tight match, with 842 eking out a win. Then the last TEN votes (before mine) went to 830, making this a runaway win.

Really surprised, I have to admit. Sure, there was a lot of hemming and hawing over the voting of 830 and 842. Still, ten straight is a remarkable run.

Shame I'm gonna be the combo-breaker though.

830 is good, yes. The most defining moment for Redcloak since 451. But I actually think I like 808 a pip more than it. Dunno. Call it appreciation of success over watching a character further sink into the depths. Still, as much as I like 808 and 830 neither one compete with the sheer OMFG!!! of 842. I really have no other vote I can possibly give right now than that one.

...

That and the fact that there was a danger of 842 not making it to the finals right now, since it only had six votes before mine. While Qaar might find that absolutely hilarious, I think it would be more than a bit of a shame. Thus, if I needed it, a slight edge there.

And with that.....

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED!

830 - Tidying Up is the winner of this semi-final! It now moves on to the finals for the Best of the Hundred tournament (801-900).

842 - All in the Family is currently holding down Wild Card spot #1 with 7 votes and 808 - Five Rows Down, Three Columns Over and 819 Parental Insight jointly holding down Wild Card spot #2 with 1 vote each.

Full Results are as follows:

.............THE STICK AWARDS II:
..BEST OF THE HUNDRED TOURNAMENT
......... (801-900 | Semi-Final #1)

	Comic Number	Votes Received	Vote Percentage
	808	1	4.55
	819	1	4.55
	830	13	59.09
	833	0	0.00
	842	7	31.82

Please join us as we continue this Best of the Hundred tournament, in this thread here.