The Stick Awards II: Second Edition (#0991 - #1000)

[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 991 through 1000.

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 October 2nd, 4pm EDT. Any votes made after that will NOT count toward the totals.

Last time, 981 Followers Follow had a long over due chat with a life long rival. When it was all said and done, one might say that any ill-feelings that said rival had were melted away. In reward for such a heartfelt way of dealing with its problems, the judges sent 981 on to the Best of the Hundred tournament.

Ninety-nine rounds of voting are done, Ninety-nine rounds are done. One round left.... on the wall. One round left on the wall.

Ninety-nine rounds of voting are done, Ninety-nine rounds are done. Please vote vote vote vote now, one round left in....

.THE STICK AWARDS II: 0991 - 1000

991 A Sergeant and a Sapper
992 Peak Condition
993 Moots and Ladders
994 Invitation Only
995 Welcome to the Church
996 Silencing Descent
997 Plan B
998 Three Sides to Every Story
999 The Vote in Gods' Aye
1000 Hel Polls for Thee

[Emperordaniel]

#1000 Hel Polls for Thee.

[ChillerInstinct]

Heh, sorry about the last one, messed up my timezones. Good to know it wouldn't have affected the outcome anyway XD

Somehow, I get the feeling this vote is going to end up the same way... I don't think there's much room for doubt on this one. As hilarious as Veldrina's dialogue is in 992, and how great some of the jokes are in 993...

There can be only 1000.

[Sylian]

#1000. Nice and even number (and a really great strip).

[137beth]

1000. I'd almost want to vote for 997 or 999, because they were really good, but 1000 overshadowed both of them.

[Bird]

999. For dorky reasons, I really like learning just a little about each god and seeing all the high priests, as well a the shots of the Western and Southern moots.

[Gift Jeraff]

#996 for being less wordy than usual. And there's something both tragic and comedic about how pathetically easy Belkar was.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I will admit that 999 is a pretty sweet strip. However, there is no better way to sum up how far the comic and these awards have gotten than #1000

[Emanick]

Yeah, 1,000: Hel Polls for Thee it is. I almost went for 998, but that last panel in OOTS's first thousand strips is just too great.

[nogall]

998. the giant has a great talent for writing funny and thoughtful speeches in many different styles.

[AvatarVecna]

I like a lot of these, for a lot of different reasons. But there's no way I can vote for anything other than strip #1000. There's just too much awesomeness being squeezed in.

[Dushara]

I'm going to have to buck the trend here and vote for 991. There's some nice humor, a touching moment, background that you know is going to prove important later on, and I'm a sucker for crayons. (Besides, the decimal system is overrated.)

[erictheredd]

998

I'm voting based on humor. The lines in this one are better than any of the others

[thatSeniorGuy]

DURKO- I mean, 1000!

[Killer Angel]

Well, 1000

[Syldar]

100, though 999 is a really close second.

[Mike Havran]

999, for the pantheon introduction.

[martianmister]

996 for Belkar's tragic death. Truly, he was the best of us.

999 The Vote in Gods' Aye

[LadyEowyn]

1000 will likely win, and deservedly, but I'm voting for 999. All Rich's hard work in drawing the different priests and priestesses (and in devising the often-trivial reasons for their votes) warrants recognition; I'm impressed at the variety of appearances, in the Northern Pantheon as well as the long panels for the Southerns and Western pantheons. It's one of the comic's most impressive strips, visually, for that reason.

[Euclidodese]

All 10 of these are brilliant, the least awesome of these is better than the most awesome of the previous 20 IMO.

991: Boom. Sex, crayons, back-story, love. What more do you want.
992: Boom. Non-sequitorious long words.
993: Boom. Cute animals, Belkar getting picked, ladders, ominousnous.
994: Boom. Belkar looking like a Jedi sneaking around the Death Star.
995: Boom. Same, also setting up Belkar vs. Durkon.
996: Boom. The Belkster hopefully not dying.
997: ... I love 997, because it popped me so much, it got me excited, intrigued and desperate for the next strip more-so than any strip in a long time. And the following strips did not let me down, 998 is brilliant, 999 is super-duper brilliant, and so is 1,000...

Very difficult to choose... But 999, for all the awesomeness, 997 wins on first reactions alone, but re-readability puts 999 ahead.

[unbeliever536]

#1000 has some excellent demonstrations of the growth in range and dynamism that came with the shift to the new art style, plus an important moment for Roy, plus some exposition on the world, plus big plot stuff. The best of a great bunch.

[ChristianSt]

It might not be my favourite wallpaper, but still 1000 - Hel Polls for Thee is a darn awesome strip. Honorably mention goes to 993: Blackwing is just adorable funny and a bit 4th wall braking is always nice.

[Nawaki]

#999 it is cool and awesome... and it has the Alien reference in it...
+ I love the different clerics :D

[Domino Quartz]

It's hard to decide which one out of #999 and #1000 to vote for, but I'm going to choose #1000 for that final panel.

[Laurana]

991 was a great strip, with crayons, that loveable dwarven miner-turned-bard, and a very good backstory. 1000 is great too, with an awesome final panel and the reveal of what Hel's plan exactly is, but the panel where Roy says "Why would he think I'd care if he'd swapped religions?" irks me way too much, especially after reading 961, so I won't ever vote for it.

So I'll go with 999: the western and southern pantheons, all those clerics and their gods' votes, "Go Loki! It's your birthday!" and a nice ominous cliffhanger.

[declinator]

I was actively trying to find an alternative to #1000, but neither the heart-wrenching backstory of Durkon's parents (991), nor Belkar's hasty and unplanned exit from the venue (996), nor the fervent but ultimately pointless defense of the world (998), nor the elaborate voting scene (999) hold the punch and character-defining brilliance of 1000. Go

PS: I hope we will not be too much under the influence of recent (in-comic) events when we vote in the BoH or BoT round... It'd be a tad unfair to equally good but more distant strips.

[antipodeF]

Ooh, tough call!.... or it would be, if this spanned 990-999. 994 and 999 are both really cool in their own rights, but there's just no beating number 1000.

[DaggerPen]

A very tough set, and choosing between 999 and 1000 is tough, but ultimately I have to go with #1000 .

[littlebum2002]

I really like 999

[Porthos]

So many great strips this set, it's a shame I can only vote for one. Maybe I should do something about that one day. For now though, there can only be one. I really really REALLY like 991, and I'm tempted to throw a vote to it anyway because its brilliance is being overshadowed here. But, alas, I can't. In the end, the longest comic to date (at five panels in book form) just pips it out. 1000 it is.

Maybe in a future Stick Awards, 1000 won't look quite as good if we know the outcome. But for now it deserves the vote.

And with that....

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED!

1000 Hel Polls for Thee 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: 0991 - 1000

	Comic Number	Votes Received	Vote Percentage
	991	1	3.44
	992	0	0.00
	993	0	0.00
	994	0	0.00
	995	0	0.00
	996	1	3.44
	997	0	0.00
	998	2	6.90
	999	8	27.59
	1000	17	58.62

Please join us as we start to wrap up the Stick Awards II by voting in the last Best of the Hundred tournament which can be found here.