09 April 2018: Time to die.... Again.

[thinkslogically]

I agree. This is just a pacing change that will likely work better when this part of the story can be read in context (i.e. as a full story arc) rather than on it's own as the Latest Page.

[kesgarion]

It's quite normal in many media for an establishing shot to be slow paced without driving the story forward significantly and just be banter between characters, enhancing the feeling of "getting to know" the characters or seeing them behave in a normal environment. I thought this page went a little at least towards reinforcing the carefree attitude of Idle. You might not like it and that is your prerogative but it certainly wasn't filler in any reasonable sense of the word.

Precisely what was my sentiment. I like getting to know characters better, just like I like getting to know real people better by sometimes having pointless banter or even pointless activities with them. This is called establishing the character, the practice of making the character more relatable to the audience/improving their understanding of them.

As Mines said, many movies/shows and even comics have establishing shots that are sometimes just scenery. Which is just there to give a sense of environment or sometimes just to look pretty (It is scenery after all). Or pointless moments like in a drama where a mom drops her daughter off to school and they just say meaningless stuff like "You're my little angel," "I love you too", they don't really drive the story forward but they do establish both the characters and their relationships.

In this week's page, I'd argue that we're establishing three things:

1) Obviously, Idle's curse is being established.
2) Idle and Forgath's relationship is being further established through interaction between them.
3) Idle's character is being established by seeing what kind of actions/decisions she makes in her flashback. In this case, we now understand that Idle isn't the type to shrink down because of her curse, but rather embraces her circumstance and tries to even make it more exciting for herself.

Calling this content filler is also a little demeaning to the people who actually like doing things like looking at the details in panel 1's scenery, taking mental note of the mountain's current state, and trying to draw conclusions from what details they find. Or someone who likes to imagine what the rest of the mountain might look like now and what might be in store for the characters.

It's almost like saying that the comic must be enjoyed only by enjoying the plot, and if anyone else enjoys it for some other reason then they are enjoying filler.

[AXIS]

It's not filler.

It's exposition, which for some people is hard to get through for many reasons that are similar to filler.

But sometimes exposition is necessary.

What we don't see yet is the pay off, which will come eventually. Where there will be a sweet action scene which we enjoy more because stuff doesn't need to be explained during the fight because we got all that out of the way.


Unfortunately does make for a reasonably dull update, but that's story telling. It's ups and downs.

[Krulle]

Well, I don't like "action filled fight scenes", because they also not forward the story.
Can I consider them to be filler?
No, because they advance the characters, and the fight simply is part of the action.

I like this, and remember once this may all be converted to dead tree versions, and there something like this will work very well.
I just wonder how the paper version will take the different colouring styles. This book 5 had simply many of them, and that may be more problematic consistency wise.

Still looking forward to ordering the whole batch. If it wasn't for the tremendous shipping costs to Europe.

[Matney X]

Well, I don't like "action filled fight scenes", because they also not forward the story.
Can I consider them to be filler?
No, because they advance the characters, and the fight simply is part of the action.

I like this, and remember once this may all be converted to dead tree versions, and there something like this will work very well.
I just wonder how the paper version will take the different colouring styles. This book 5 had simply many of them, and that may be more problematic consistency wise.

Still looking forward to ordering the whole batch. If it wasn't for the tremendous shipping costs to Europe.

I dislike full pages of one round of combat because of the slow update schedule, and it doesn't allow us to talk about much besides "what do you interpret is happening in Panel 3? Is Kore doing his bullshit turtle flip thing again?"

[WearsHats]

I expect this page is also setting up a callback. But we'll have to see. Only Thunt knows the true significance.

[Mereneth]

Does Bowst have rings? I may be misremembering, but I want to say he has a cursed ring or two.

[speakslittle]

Does Bowst have rings? I may be misremembering, but I want to say he has a cursed ring or two.

It is possible, but he wears those mittens, so I don't know that we have confirmation. Ward, in taunting Forgath, made a LOTR joke about a cursed ring that gave icecream and backrubs. That may be where the Cursed Ring association comes from.

[BuildsLegos]

Mereneth is almost certainly attempting an alternate interpretation of the "Bowstrings break" part of Fumbles' prophesy-vom. Which I find doubtful, but the mittens make it impossible to know for sure.

[crow76308]

It's an interesting interpretation. Doubtful, but who knows?