June 4, 2016: Okay, that was weird...

[WearsHats]

The axe broke because it was already weakened, and then Ears used it to (unknowingly) seriously injure a member of the GAP. Party member, friend, clanmate, innocent. That's a very evil act. That he didn't recognize him is irrelevant.

Pointing at the door? They couldn't communicate verbally. It was the only way to explain things to their past selves. Now they're trying to figure out how to proceed, but they don't really know what to do.

We're not even sure the GAP has players. But, aside from referencing the rules and a few odd jokes, Thunt likes to keep things in-universe.

They should indeed try to fix the situation with the axe if they can, but I don't know that it's possible.

Past GAP thought they saw monsters, and sensed a huge amount of evil. (Because Future Ears was carrying the broken axe, so, in a sense, it was already too late.) They attacked, which broke the axe.

Future GAP saw more monsters, and rushed to attack. By the time they figured it out, it was too late. The axe was broken. In fact, it was the axe breaking that tipped Ears off in the midst of battle.

As far as we've seen, the room doesn't let them go back in time. If they had figured it out sooner, they could have altered their Future actions, which might have changed Past events. But it was too late.

To help clarify matters: Thunt says they're not actually traveling in time. They're fighting magical simulacra of their past and future selves. Copies with similar (though not exact) properties, distorted by illusion. There weren't two axes or two copies of Oblivious. There was Oblivious and a magical "echo" (Thunt's word) of it. What we've seen is their linear timeline as they encountered echoes of themselves.

Also, if you change your future actions, then the new actions are what your past selves see, which might change things... But, in the end, you only see the final version. Because the changes happen immediately. So, again, it was already too late.

Besides, it would be pretty cheap, story-wise, to have an event as significant as breaking the axe and then immediately undo it.

As for running the encounter... I don't see how it's possible. The DM would have to know their future actions before the party knows what's going on. We can speculate about what it looked like, but shouldn't consider it as part of the story, which takes place in-universe.

[SuperVaderMan]

The axe broke because it was already weakened, and then Ears used it to (unknowingly) seriously injure a member of the GAP. Party member, friend, clanmate, innocent. That's a very evil act. That he didn't recognize him is irrelevant.

So it's a rule of this universe that acts can be good or evil, regardless of the person's intent? I guess in a DnD universe where good and evil can be and has to be quantified, the universe has to pick a school of philosophy and stick with it.

Pointing at the door? They couldn't communicate verbally. It was the only way to explain things to their past selves. Now they're trying to figure out how to proceed, but they don't really know what to do.

Explain what? What are they trying to convey to their past selves? "Go through here," obviously, but why would they do that?

We're not even sure the GAP has players. But, aside from referencing the rules and a few odd jokes, Thunt likes to keep things in-universe.

So the characters are just stupid then? OK.

They should indeed try to fix the situation with the axe if they can, but I don't know that it's possible.

The point is they didn't even attempt to fix the situation.

Past GAP thought they saw monsters, and sensed a huge amount of evil. (Because Future Ears was carrying the broken axe, so, in a sense, it was already too late.) They attacked, which broke the axe.

Future GAP saw more monsters, and rushed to attack. By the time they figured it out, it was too late. The axe was broken. In fact, it was the axe breaking that tipped Ears off in the midst of battle.

As far as we've seen, the room doesn't let them go back in time. If they had figured it out sooner, they could have altered their Future actions, which might have changed Past events. But it was too late.

None of this accounts for the simple non-action of not pointing at the door. The group actively decided to do that for no reason other than to complete the time loop. If they had not done that then the time loop would have broken.

To help clarify matters: Thunt says they're not actually traveling in time. They're fighting magical simulacra of their past and future selves. Copies with similar (though not exact) properties, distorted by illusion. There weren't two axes or two copies of Oblivious. There was Oblivious and a magical "echo" (Thunt's word) of it. What we've seen is their linear timeline as they encountered echoes of themselves.

Regardless of what the true nature of the two rooms are, it's irrelevant. The characters themselves believe they are in some kind-of time loop, so them pointing at the door to complete the 'time loop' makes no sense.

Also, if you change your future actions, then the new actions are what your past selves see, which might change things... But, in the end, you only see the final version. Because the changes happen immediately. So, again, it was already too late.

So again, why did they point at the door?

Besides, it would be pretty cheap, story-wise, to have an event as significant as breaking the axe and then immediately undo it.

It was a cheap way to break the axe in the first place. Again, the point is is that the group didn't even try to resolve anything with the axe when they discovered the weird time loop thing. If they had tried and failed, that would have been better than pointing at the door for no reason to ensure the time loop completes itself.

As for running the encounter... I don't see how it's possible. The DM would have to know their future actions before the party knows what's going on. We can speculate about what it looked like, but shouldn't consider it as part of the story, which takes place in-universe.

Good. I'll keep this in mind whenever someone does something nonsensical and out-of-character, just in case someone brings up the defense that it somehow makes sense because they're being controlled by real players.

Unfortunately this also means that Big Ears is just dumb and doesn't realize a potential solution to his axe problem when it's staring him right in the face. Same with everyone else and unanimously pointing at the door for no reason.

[YardMeat]

The axe broke because it was already weakened, and then Ears used it to (unknowingly) seriously injure a member of the GAP. Party member, friend, clanmate, innocent. That's a very evil act. That he didn't recognize him is irrelevant.

To help clarify matters: Thunt says they're not actually traveling in time. They're fighting magical simulacra of their past and future selves. Copies with similar (though not exact) properties, distorted by illusion. There weren't two axes or two copies of Oblivious. There was Oblivious and a magical "echo" (Thunt's word) of it. What we've seen is their linear timeline as they encountered echoes of themselves.

I may even be more confused than the party is at this point.

So, the Axe was weakened (From the previous owner? From the fall?), and then Ears used it to indirectly and unknowingly injure Fumbles. But he didn't actually attack Fumbles. He attacked a magic simulacrum of him . . . but why would that be evil? Was it evil because BE attacking a simulacrum of Fumbles would somehow lead to the simulacrum of himself from the future attacking the real Fumbles? That . . . I love this comic, but that would be pretty convoluted.

I really, really enjoy BE as a character -- he may be the best fictionally representation of a paladin I've seen -- and up until now I've been defending how this whole situation could turn out, but I really hope the situation turns out differently from that. I'm starting to feel like the comic no longer stands on its own, but requires watching the live streams in order to understand what's going on

[Morgaln]

So, they were not fighting themselves. They were fighting magical simulacra, that aren't themselves, and don't look like themselves, and aren't even really alive. But still, it is considered an evil act to attack and seriously injure one of those simulacrums, because for the purpose of evil acts, they are considered party members. I don't buy it. Either they are actual party members, or they are unliving constructs. They cannot be both.

Again, pointing at the door was completely senseless. If they were trying to communicate, what were they trying to tell themselves? There was no useful message there. It was pointless, possibly even detrimental to point them at that door. Whether they were actually able to change the breaking of the axe or not doesn't matter. They didn't know whether they could prevent it or not, but they had the opportunity to try. If they wanted to prevent it, their only chance was to change what they did before. Pointing at the door was explicitely not going to accomplish that. All it would do was create the exact situation that they'd encountered already. As I already said, I would understand it if there had been anything helpful on the other side of the door; anything that might aid them later, give them an advantage in the long run, but there was nothing there. They didn't get anything from going through that door. If they wanted to communicate, they should have tried to get across some useful information or some warning, not just tell them to go somewhere just for the heck of it.

[Guus]

It was actually Minmax of the already broken axe party attacking the group with the axe that was intact after he heard himself draw his sword. They were in an active encounter because of that. So if the axe broke because of an evil act, it surely wasn't because he attacked Fumbles-not-Fumbles, as it was self defense. If Fumbles-not-Fumbles was down for the count and BE decided to do a coup de grace, that would be an evil act. Defending your party member from being attacked however is not, no matter how good aligned they might be.

I really hoped Hunt had figured something out that was very much different than what I guessed was happening. Apparently not. This dungeon crawl is a clusterfuck of forced character development and ignored previous character development. And now it is a clusterfuck of forced plot too. Damnit, I like this comic, but it is losing so much that is good about it in this crawl

[WearsHats]

There's a lot going on at once, and a lot that has yet to be explained. We can speculate and discuss, but "I don't understand, therefore there must be no reason, therefore it's stupid" isn't very productive.

My understanding (and I could be wrong, but it seemed obvious to me) is that they're pointing at the door to explain things to themselves. The axe was already broken, fighting wasn't going to work, and there was no way to communicate beyond simple gestures. Sure, maybe there were other things they could have tried, but what good would it do? Too late to prevent the axe from breaking. "Go through there, and it will become clear to you" makes sense to me.

As for the axe... It was close to breaking when Ears got it. And it needs to be actively charged with good and selfless acts because the demon inside is constantly pushing at the prison walls. Ears has done some of that, but not enough to repair the damage, and he's done some less than selfless things, like deliberately letting Minmax get hurt (evil), lying about it (a violation of the paladin code), and then laughing (not exactly selfless and honorable). (Fighting Kore is debatable, as we don't understand what he is. He seems to be an unstoppable killing machine, but he's also demonstrably an active paladin.)

But, yes, by D&D rules, it is black and white, and intent doesn't matter. That is, it's worse if you do it deliberately, but doing it at all is a bad thing. If you hurt an innocent, even accidentally, even if they started it, it's an evil act. Heck, if you were cursed or mind-controlled, you still have to do atonement. The gods are very strict with paladins.

[SuperVaderMan]

My understanding (and I could be wrong, but it seemed obvious to me) is that they're pointing at the door to explain things to themselves. The axe was already broken, fighting wasn't going to work, and there was no way to communicate beyond simple gestures. Sure, maybe there were other things they could have tried, but what good would it do? Too late to prevent the axe from breaking. "Go through there, and it will become clear to you" makes sense to me.

OK? Why would they care whether their past-selves understood the situation or not? They, themselves, have discovered the time loop. They could have just as easily pointed them at the other door to break it. Or, even easier, they could have just not told their past selves to do anything and it would have broken the time loop.

The group didn't stand to benefit from pointing at the waterfall door in any way, and, as Morgaln pointed out, this was more likely to hurt them by intentionally ensuring the axe-breaking time loop continued. If anything, it's counterproductive.

[Arch Lich Burns]

Yes because freeing minmax from ropes was evil. I know he got hurt from it but that was not the intended result. Lying is also not evil, it is chaotic.

[Morgaln]

First of all, nothing in the description of the axe said that evil acts would actually break it. It only states that it needs to be infused with good acts to keep from breaking. Ears did that, so it should have been less close to breaking now than in Brassmoon city. By your logic, the axe should have broken then and there, because Ears held it while lying to the citizens of Brassmoon to get them out of the way. His intent was not to kill them, but then, intent doesn't matter, does it? Because Ears is a paladin.
But then, you know who else is a paladin? Fumbles! The axe shouldn't have hit him. Paladin is one of his 11 classes, and thus the axe should have passed through him harmlessly. Is hitting someone with a weapon that cannot harm him evil? The intent might be to hurt him, but then intent doesn't matter. So since the axe cannot harm Fumbles, the act wasn't evil, right?

Of course Fumbles himself comitted evil acts. He attacked that elven girl in Brassmoon. Not that he intended to, but then... well, we've been over this. So maybe he lost his paladin status that way? But why would he still be considered innocent then? After all, he would be a fallen paladin...

[Sessine]

This is like old times! I have so missed this level of detailed discussion of a Goblins comic page.

What?

Oh. Never mind me. Carry on!

[Xavier78]

But, yes, by D&D rules, it is black and white, and intent doesn't matter. That is, it's worse if you do it deliberately, but doing it at all is a bad thing. If you hurt an innocent, even accidentally, even if they started it, it's an evil act. Heck, if you were cursed or mind-controlled, you still have to do atonement. The gods are very strict with paladins.

What? I played D&D for years and defending yourself or your party was never, ever considered an evil act unless you killed or maimed unnecessarily. Nor was accidentally injuring someone, mind controlled or not.

[YardMeat]

But, yes, by D&D rules, it is black and white, and intent doesn't matter. That is, it's worse if you do it deliberately, but doing it at all is a bad thing. If you hurt an innocent, even accidentally, even if they started it, it's an evil act. Heck, if you were cursed or mind-controlled, you still have to do atonement. The gods are very strict with paladins.

What? I played D&D for years and defending yourself or your party was never, ever considered an evil act unless you killed or maimed unnecessarily. Nor was accidentally injuring someone, mind controlled or not.

Yeah, and although good and evil are objective, divine forces in and of themselves in DnD, independent even from the gods, there is still an element of intent. Both are defined in terms of intent and not just actions/consequences. At least in the rules as written. Plus, we know that BE hasn't done anything "evil" enough to lose his paladin abilities, since he's still using them. Even if he were acting unpaladinlike, the Axe doesn't need a paladin, just good acts. A one-off scene with MM where BE essentially does nothing more than pull a prank shouldn't really count.

Also, I don't think the Axe is still weakened from Saral Caine. When it was that weak, it was triggering BE's detect evil without him even choosing to initiate it, and the evil was enough to give him headaches and nose bleeds. That's not happening anymore.

I'm still thinking this has something to do with Fumbles's staff, but we'll see.

[Delphince]

These kinds of arguments about timelines is why I'm glad people don't have temporal powers of this sort (as much of a ridiculous stretch as that is, like saying it's a relief there aren't real Supermen). When it comes to causality loops, most people inevitably say "well if I know what's going to happen, I'm just going to do something different". In a truly linear timeline, that comes across like a little kid saying a video recording of himself won't display the same actions that he remembers performing. It's rigid, whatever change you try and do is what you saw. Having free will prior instead of after just creates an illusion of control because of the huge mental posit that cause always precedes effect, like saying gravity always points "down". If it helps to look at it a more digestible way, you see Future You do something, you do something different, Future you would have done that instead, and you'd have tried to do something different from that. The timeline rewrites itself continuously until it stabilizes on a scenario where in trying to do something different from what you saw, you accidentally do the exact same thing.

Aside from that, I just shake my head that so many people are essentially saying "oh look, the tapestry of existence, I'mma smash it".

I have a character that manipulates time, and to say it's tricky to simulate is an understatement. Nevertheless, I take pride in simultaneously confusing, impressing, annoying, and blowing the mind of my GM all at the same time.

[SuperVaderMan]

How is any of that relevant? The characters didn't even discuss changing the 'loop' that they're in, let alone actually trying to affect it. The subject of time being immutable never came up in the first place.

That's part of the complaint, actually, that the characters realized the loop and didn't attempt to use that to their advantage, especially considering the axe-demon problem the loop created. Whether they would have succeeded or not is irrelevant.

[Krulle]

There never was a time loop.
The dungeon created magical opponents, based on the characters that are in the room.
These magical opponents attacked.

How the dungeon knew what to create, and where, and to let them behave like the party did/will do is anyone's guess.
But since MoM we know that in this realm time-manipulation is available to dungeon creators. If the dungeon knows future behaviour of a group by peering into the future, then it can quite successfully emulate the party with its constructions.
Past behaviours for the second room are even easier to emulate, if the dungeon has a sort of mind which can remember.

[Arch Lich Burns]

And a total railroad by the gm. That still does not take into account the ax breaking in a stupid way either.

[Shardstorm]

A lot of people are imbuing the GAP with an amazing ability to analyze and dissect a situation, then formulate a plan and execute it at a group level, in a near instantaneous fashion. At the top of this panel here http://www.goblinscomic.org/05202016-2/ we get a look at why the group being directed through the waterfall would or would not listen to the advice. It could be a trap, but between the Axe, Complains, and the injuries they've taken, it's advantageous to them to back out of the fight.

From the other side, some of the group directing them understand what has happened to a degree, and know what worked to get the previous group to disengage from the fight. But what are their alternate options? They can't point them back the way they originally entered, Kore is presumably chasing them and it's reasonable to guess they won't go there. They can't point them towards the door they were originally making for, I'm guessing that is where the GAP ultimately ends up and I can't very well see them adventuring off together. And they can't communicate with them, so stopping and having a chat is out of the question. So they quickly do what worked to get them out of the fight originally, because our GAP may well be just as keen to get away from this fight as they were the first time. All the reasons from then still stand, and now they are just trying get out of there. I don't think the idea of changing the time loop occurs to any of them, and I don't think it should. In a world filled with magic, they won't necessarily jump to the logical place we think of with time magic. Besides, in what they have seen the Axe has broken twice, but for our group, what they need to worry about is the one they caused and the cracking of reality that BE feels right now. That is priority one, not potentially stopping it for another group.

TLDR: The GAP point them through the waterfall because it quickly closes off the fight and lets them move on to dealing with the ramifications of the axe being broken. Nothing they did with their 'past selves' would chance that fact, so get a move on and work out how to fix it, not waste time fighting.

[Krulle]

It's a pity. This is the discussion within the GAp and MM group I'd wanted to see most.
And it just gets abbreviated to "Moments later".

[Morgaln]

A lot of people are imbuing the GAP with an amazing ability to analyze and dissect a situation, then formulate a plan and execute it at a group level, in a near instantaneous fashion. At the top of this panel here http://www.goblinscomic.org/05202016-2/ we get a look at why the group being directed through the waterfall would or would not listen to the advice. It could be a trap, but between the Axe, Complains, and the injuries they've taken, it's advantageous to them to back out of the fight.

From the other side, some of the group directing them understand what has happened to a degree, and know what worked to get the previous group to disengage from the fight. But what are their alternate options? They can't point them back the way they originally entered, Kore is presumably chasing them and it's reasonable to guess they won't go there. They can't point them towards the door they were originally making for, I'm guessing that is where the GAP ultimately ends up and I can't very well see them adventuring off together. And they can't communicate with them, so stopping and having a chat is out of the question. So they quickly do what worked to get them out of the fight originally, because our GAP may well be just as keen to get away from this fight as they were the first time. All the reasons from then still stand, and now they are just trying get out of there. I don't think the idea of changing the time loop occurs to any of them, and I don't think it should. In a world filled with magic, they won't necessarily jump to the logical place we think of with time magic. Besides, in what they have seen the Axe has broken twice, but for our group, what they need to worry about is the one they caused and the cracking of reality that BE feels right now. That is priority one, not potentially stopping it for another group.

TLDR: The GAP point them through the waterfall because it quickly closes off the fight and lets them move on to dealing with the ramifications of the axe being broken. Nothing they did with their 'past selves' would chance that fact, so get a move on and work out how to fix it, not waste time fighting.

No one asked them to do things in a near instantaneous fashion. On the contrary, part of the criticism is that they don't take time to evaluate the situation. What they did was forming a plan and executing it almost immediately, but that plan was to point at the door, which was about the worst thing they could do.
There were numerous ways to communicate with their past selves and get out of the fight. Pulling back to one side of the room in a non-threatening fashion would almost certainly have served to stop the combat and help them figure out a way to do more, or at least to give them time to come up with a plan among themselves. Also, they are now wasting time arguing about correct terminology; that's only better than wasting time fighting in that no one is likely to get killed that way. Although Thaco might, judging from the last few panels.
Why can't they point the party at the door they were originally making for? What's stopping them? What's the worst that could happen, and would it really be worse than everything that happened when they pointed at the waterfall door? Even if the chance to stop the axe from breaking is tiny, it's still worth a try because almost every other outcome is better than that. As you said yourself, dealing with that is priority number one.
And while we might have additional information from outside the comic (which shouldn't be necessary to understand the comic, but increasingly does become so), the goblins don't have that information. They cannot know that they can't change the fact the axe broke; indeed, if it were a real time loop, there is a good chance that altering their behavior will change the outcome. Again, what do they have to lose?
In a world filled with magic, I'd actually argue that characters would be more familiar and comfortable with time magic, because it is a more common occurence, so that thought shouldn't be so far off. And whether the goblins have actual players or not, Minmax does and so he should be familiar with popular books and movies on the topic, Back to the Future at the very least. He has referenced Star Wars before, so it wouldn't be out of character for him.

[SuperVaderMan]

There never was a time loop.
The dungeon created magical opponents, based on the characters that are in the room.
These magical opponents attacked.

As has been said before, yes. This fact is irrelevant, because from Ears's perspective, he thinks it's a time loop.

A lot of people are imbuing the GAP with an amazing ability to analyze and dissect a situation, then formulate a plan and execute it at a group level, in a near instantaneous fashion.

You mean how they instantly decided to all point at the door, including MinMax (pointing behind himself at a bizarre angle and a poor attempt at foreshortening that makes it look like he has a hand coming out of his shoulder)?

The fight was over. As soon as their past selves' "axe" broke, the fight stopped, and Ears told everyone that these were their past selves. Their past selves wouldn't realize this, but since our current group wouldn't be attacking at that point, there'd be no reason for their past selves to start attacking again, either. There was plenty of time to be had for even a short discussion on what to do.

You're right, though, in that dealing with the axe should be priority one for Big Ears. Thus, he probably should've come to the conclusion that stopping their past selves from going through the door might have prevented the axe from breaking in the first place. It wouldn't have worked, since this isn't actually a time loop, but again the characters don't know that.

It's a pity. This is the discussion within the GAp and MM group I'd wanted to see most.
And it just gets abbreviated to "Moments later".

Agreed.

[RocketScientist]

that's only better than wasting time fighting in that no one is likely to get killed that way.

I usually go with the "not likely to get killed" option when given a choice.

[Sessine]

It's a pity. This is the discussion within the GAp and MM group I'd wanted to see most.
And it just gets abbreviated to "Moments later".

Yes, and I wonder why.

Here's where I remember that all the major plot points in this story were set in stone many, many years ago. It may be that with "moments later" Thunt is hurrying us past what he now realizes is a bit of a weak spot. He can't have the characters do anything that changes the outcome; that would bring the whole plot crashing down in ruins. The Axe simply has to break here -- because it did when the plot was written. If it doesn't break, we don't get the rest of the story. And this room is the way it is because that's how it was written. It's a pivotal moment when the world changes, and, viewed as a part of the whole, the weird symmetry here is a huge part of what makes it an aesthetically pleasing story-pivot.

But... all these years later, he may have realized that, oops, the GAP characters didn't actually have any good intrinsic reason to point at that door. So he still wants to preserve symmetry in this mirror-spelled room because it matters to the whole story-shape. He could invent reasons. For instance, he could say that Big Ears wasn't smart enough to think about trying to break a time-loop. Which is probably true: BE is good-hearted, and very motivated to preserve the Axe, but he isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. And since BE was the one who realized what was happening, maybe everyone just did what he said without arguing...? But then the whole Axe-disaster devolves into BE being too stupid... and yeah, it's not really a time-loop, but the characters don't know that, and... it would kind of cast a shadow over everything, whether the other characters eventually started in with recriminations or not.

So Thunt slipped us past it with two words of narration. We are asked to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Mind, I could be entirely wrong. It could be a pacing thing. There could be a page coming up that will show exactly, in retrospect, how and why the characters decided to point at the waterfall door. ...But if there isn't, that's all right. Flaws or not, it's still a good story. I'm okay with getting on with it.

[Arch Lich Burns]

It does not feel like it was planned, though. Even if it was planned he still could have changed it before publishing it, and it is still the most contrived way of storytelling he could have done.

[Sessine]

It does not feel like it was planned, though. Even if it was planned he still could have changed it before publishing it, and it is still the most contrived way of storytelling he could have done.

Sorry... could have changed what before publishing?

What I am saying is that the future path of the story depends on events here in this room playing out pretty much exactly as they did. Change anything important here, and all of a sudden lots of stuff later on won't work.

So what do you do, as an author, if you're working over the course of decades to unfold a long story that you already know, and when you get to certain points, you realize there are some details here and there that don't quite work? If you can think of a retcon that works, of course you go for it, but if you can't, well, the one thing you don't do is throw out your whole intended story and make it come out differently.

Or maybe you do. Some authors do. Some even succeed, and the result is better than the original tale.

But if you don't want to -- if you still like your original story and want to tell that -- then you have to do something to get past the sticky point and move on.

[Morgaln]

It does not feel like it was planned, though. Even if it was planned he still could have changed it before publishing it, and it is still the most contrived way of storytelling he could have done.

Sorry... could have changed what before publishing?

What I am saying is that the future path of the story depends on events here in this room playing out pretty much exactly as they did. Change anything important here, and all of a sudden lots of stuff later on won't work.

So what do you do, as an author, if you're working over the course of decades to unfold a long story that you already know, and when you get to certain points, you realize there are some details here and there that don't quite work? If you can think of a retcon that works, of course you go for it, but if you can't, well, the one thing you don't do is throw out your whole intended story and make it come out differently.

Or maybe you do. Some authors do. Some even succeed, and the result is better than the original tale.

But if you don't want to -- if you still like your original story and want to tell that -- then you have to do something to get past the sticky point and move on.

That's actually where editors come in. Most authors don't publish their first draft. Even if they don't go over their work again themselves (most do, though), publishers have editors that will read the work and find all of those little flaws, inconsistencies and oversights that are liekly to make it into the story. In most cases authors will have to change things at that point. Obviously, that's not something that will happen in a webcomic where every page is published as soon as it is done.