November 6, 2015: You'd Be Cursing Too

[Aegis J Hyena]

http://www.goblinscomic.org/11062015-2/

Don't go losing your head there over everything, Idle...

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[Edit by nikohl a second time: Even more shading has been added, here's a link to the shaded image for now: http://www.goblinscomic.org/comics/20151108.jpg]

[nikohl]

Worst pun ever, Aegis

Someone has a crush on Forgath!

Hell of a curse, though. Be graphically and apparently very painfully beheaded by your buddy all the time or diiiiie. I assume that whatever cursed them had the good graces to tell them the conditions of the curse, too. That's not one you can accidentally find out about when it goes off for the first time. (I can't remember whether we saw what cursed them yet, or whether it was just stated to be ~the chasm~ so far...)

[Xavier78]

WTF did I just read? I'm not trying to start anything I swear, but that? That was too much. I can't be the only one...

[nikohl]

Specifics, man! What's too much? "Be more constructive with your feedback!" </flight of the conchords>

(The random graphic ladybeheading was a bit "???" for me, but... Curses aren't fun, I guess? That could easily have been Bowst's curse and then I'd have felt less weird about it though, in fairness.)

Now I gotta go watch some Flight of the Conchords. I blame you for getting it stuck in my head, Xavier.

[Xavier78]

Specifics, man! What's too much? "Be more constructive with your feedback!" </flight of the conchords>

(The random graphic ladybeheading was a bit "???" for me, but... Curses aren't fun, I guess? That could easily have been Bowst's curse and then I'd have felt less weird about it though, in fairness.)

Now I gotta go watch Flight of the Conchords. I blame you for getting it stuck in my head, Xavier.

Sorry, yeah the "friendly" beheading was a bit much and completely pointless in my eyes. I don't mind gore to a point (or obviously I wouldn't be here), but gore for gores sake isn't my bag.

Also, I've never seen Flight of the Conchords so i'm not sure if I should be sorry for that

*EDIT to add* I want to reiterate that I am not trying to cause trouble. With some of the resent events I feel I have to make that clear. I was a huge Goblins fan and to a point I still really am. That said, I promise I in no way want to cause any trouble. Just stating my feelings is all.

[nikohl]

Oh, you have to go watch. I edited a link to the sentence I quoted into my post, but it's in the middle of a song. One of their more famous ones. That's completely off topic though.

[RocketScientist]

I am vaguely confused by the weirdness of the curse.

[Xavier78]

Oh, you have to go watch. I edited a link to the sentence I quoted into my post, but it's in the middle of a song. One of their more famous ones. That's completely off topic though.

I'll check it out. Sorry, last post about that. Don't wanna derail the thread.

[nikohl]

S'ok. You can blame me on this occasion! And as for causing trouble, it looks like you're not alone so far in not really feeling this page.

I'm glad we're catching up with Forgath and co, although I know it means it'll be a while before we see the GAMP again - hopefully Dies and Fox are next on the rotation.

I do want to see this page fully finished. Not for the gore, of course - I can always do without the blood effects for my personal tastes - but the firelight while they're settled down to sleep, Idle's resurrection-aura, the rocky scenery etc. It should look quite nice! Just a shame someone'll be all dead in the middle of it.

[Lurks_In_Shadows]

That would be a particularly nasty curse to inflict on a player character. Particularly if you had a paladin like Ears in the group. (Just how flexible can your morals be, sir knight?)

[Arch Lich Burns]

Well that was a bit disturbing. Notice her tatoos donet come back after she died, maybe significant??

[BlueAmaranth]

That would be a particularly nasty curse to inflict on a player character. Particularly if you had a paladin like Ears in the group. (Just how flexible can your morals be, sir knight?)

A free rez every day? I'd love to be cursed with that.

[Zathyr]

I'd hold off on reading too much into art details until the finished version is up.

And yeah I agree that's a "curse" with a pretty big plus column for a typical D&D adventurer. Would be super horrible for anyone who died from a painful illness, though.

[Aegis J Hyena]

Wouldn't that curse technically make her immortal?

*dies of old age* *is raised* *dies again the next day*

[Zathyr]

It could be that with something like illness or organ failure or whatever, dying/reviving doesn't actually do anything to prevent the person from immediately dying again a moment later. Second death would stick. No immortality.

But maybe there are other mechanisms beyond what little we know. The possibilities are possibly possible!

[Raza]

That curse could be extremely useful if properly exploited. If I were an adventurer, I'd pay for an ability like that. Hell, I'd pay for it IRL. Imagine what you could achieve by harvesting organs or volunteering to be practiced on with dangerous experimental surgeries alone. Dying painlessly or in some other fashion consistent with your preferences shouldn't be too hard, with experience.

Also liking the guro fan service! <3

Wouldn't that curse technically make her immortal?

*dies of old age* *is raised* *dies again the next day*

Well, yes, up until the point where her physiology becomes to crummy that she dies again within less than 24 hours.

Depends on the technicalities of the reset, which in her position I'd be rushing to determine experimentally.

[spiderwrangler]

Well that was a bit disturbing. Notice her tatoos donet come back after she died, maybe significant??

Has anything "missing" on an unfinished page EVER meant anything? Typically it just means that Thunt will add it in the finished page in a few days... but I guess if this is the first time, you called it sir.

[Arch Lich Burns]

I know it could be because it is unfinished but I was hoping for some significance

[Wolfe]

Shouldn't Bowst punch himself in the face when he says "Relax, mr. level four"?

I'm hoping the comic picks up in quality soon. Suffering a mental breakdown is one thing, I get that, but when you only release about 1 or 2 strips per month, it should at least contain more than random filler jokes between Minmax and Fumbles. Also, when it takes such a long time to draw up a strip, it might be better to wait a few days until the strip is actually complete. The way the latest strip is drawn makes it hard to even make out the landscape, and everything seems very empty.

Here's hoping the pace and quality picks up in the future!

[illocust]

Hmmmmm, is it just me or does Idle look guilty in that last couple panels? I'm wondering what Bowst's daily curse is and if it is going to spell bad things for Forgath. Also, I can't figure out where Bowst is lying down that he can get her ears in his face then not be in the panel.

[nikohl]

Shouldn't Bowst punch himself in the face when he says "Relax, mr. level four"?

For clarification, the facepunch curse triggers when he says "what", not "four."

[thesilence]

While we are not fond of excessive gore, Thunt's art style is somewhat...well, simplistic is the wrong word. It's not simple at all, but it does use an economy of lines for each subject it conveys, since it has a lot of subjects to convey in great detail, and thus does not spare any extra details which can be gotten along without. This means it relies to a fair extent on the reader's eye to fill in the missing details - we don't need to see every contour of Minmax's face, because we know what human faces look like, so we only need to be able to see enough that we can tell what emotion he's expressing. But when the subject of the drawing is something unusual and difficult for us to infer, Thunt may be left in a position where he cannot convey information for our benefit, except in a fashion that might be excessively blunt. This happened not too long ago, when Kore was tipped onto his face and activated a mechanism in his armor which flipped him over - it was very difficult to show what was going on in a small number of panels, because it didn't look like anything any of us have seen before, and so he had to draw something which he simply hoped would get the point across. Similarly here, given how complex and bizarre Idle's physical form is, it would be very difficult to make it clear that she'd had her head chopped off, other than by showing the severed neck - so that is what Thunt did, and we believe it was the correct decision, whether it makes us uncomfortable or not.

[RocketScientist]

I'm hoping the comic picks up in quality soon. Suffering a mental breakdown is one thing, I get that, but when you only release about 1 or 2 strips per month, it should at least contain more than random filler jokes between Minmax and Fumbles. Also, when it takes such a long time to draw up a strip, it might be better to wait a few days until the strip is actually complete. The way the latest strip is drawn makes it hard to even make out the landscape, and everything seems very empty.

Here's hoping the pace and quality picks up in the future!

Part of the problem with the slow pace is that he's spending a huge amount of time drawing the cards for the G:AR game. Once that's finished, the pace should pick up.


_
Guys, I am starting to wonder if I am the only one not bothered by the cartoon "gore" here. I mean, I feel like if there was a more pleasant option for Idle, they would have come up with it by now.

[nikohl]

I think tbh part of it for me is a timing issue. This page came right after the most recent sexualising-things-that-probably-don't-want-sexualising-actually debate, further discussion around unintentional but still potentially problematic misogyny in the comic and so on. The graphic and slightly ritualised beheading of one of the only female characters happening to occur in the timeline shortly after that was just an unfortunate schedule coincidence, and probably my brain made links that wouldn't have been there otherwise. I'm sure (or I hope?) it wasn't intentionally sexualised, but I did look at it and go "um..." and the guy who pops up every now and again to oh-so-kindly tell us he's gathering gory girl stuff for his private ...'collection'... apparently noticed it too, which...I would like to forget immediately.

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On an entirely other note... did "You pile of dung!" seem jarringly awkward to anyone else? I could just about forgive "Owie!" as being a characterisation point for Idle as a chirpy and slightly kid-like person, even though it's sure as hell not what I'd say if I was feeling the residual effects of having my damn head chopped off... but "You pile of dung" just seems like "you piece of shit!" ran through a bad D&D Language Translator. It reads suuuper clunky to me, and not on the right scale of emotional outburst for 'seeing someone suddenly execute someone else.' Maybe that's just me though.

[Arch Lich Burns]

Suffocation during sleep? That would be relativly quick and painless way to die.