Battle For Gobwin Knob

I like it.

I think you critical guys are just enjoying reading your own long posts. Whoever appointed you as experts?

MS Spider said:
A frame in a comic should be aimed at doing one of four things:
Says you. Refer to last question.
 

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Actually I think I'm the only "Critical Guy." It's probably a bad habit of mine to overanalyze things and write too much.

I used to be a friend of the Author (Pclips) way back when I was a webcomic writer myself. Along with a few others we formed one of the first critical thinking groups about webcomic writing and defining what makes a comic good. Some probably wrong, in the four or five thousand strips I wrote before I couldn't afford bandwidth for them anymore I probably made every mistake possible along the way and I'm sure I haven't left off making mistakes since. On the other hand I penned the first ever review of Order of the Stick when it was five strips old and predicted that it would be a hit over the boos of the general crowd, which I consider rather nice proof of my own understanding of webcomic-dom.

Out of curiosity machiavelli, if a comic strip's frames aren't funny, aren't leading to funny, and aren't building the world or characters so they can be funny and/or dramatic what else is there for the space to be doing? Particularly in the case of Gobwin Knob which is trying to be both plotful and funny in a very limited space?
 

And here I go with a long-winded post of my own...

Personally, I don't mind inventing explanations of my own for the who, how, and why. Some stories are more fun when they simply serve as excuses to employ dramatic framing and dialogue. You have to admit, the framing and artwork have a sort of seriousness that contrasts everything else in the strip.
What tiny shreds of information are offered can be used to extrapolate and imagine all manner of character traits and setting details. Bogroll, for instance: I enjoyed that character, and even chuckled at him, though he occupied but three frames and spoke but three short lines. The situation he was in offered hints at the sort of organization Lord Stanley runs, and the loose comraderie formed by the few who have endured Lord Stanley's tiresome string of stupid defeats.

Does it matter why the Mona Lisa is smiling, or if she's even smiling at all? No, the viewer is left to take it as he may, and is better off for not bein spoon-fed by the artist.
While not a timeless masterpiece, Gobwin Knob is at least quite amusing. If one does not "get it", the artwork itself loses no value.
 


I suspect some don't like how close Parson hits home.

I think he is a an amusing character. No pretences he will be a good guy, the shading and detailing on him scream negative character. He definitly gives a vibe that he will enjoy causing misery and geting back at Erfworld for whatever happened to set him down the path of the life-less gamer.
 
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Heh, I didn't even realize they were supposed to be stuffed animal/miniatures.

I agree with the general consensus in that the "in" humour is largely lost on the casual reader. Jokes/plot seem to happen at random with no apparent rhyme or reason. In fact, without the "PLOT" gag I wouldn't realize that there's anything going on other than "a war" between two cartoon fantasy factions. But I don't care about the war, as the author has yet to give me a reason.

The croakamancer IS hot for a toon. *LOL* In fact, I am strongly enjoying the artwork in general. It's probably the only reason I'm still reading it here and there.
 

I get the feeling Erfworld as a whole will be much more enjoyable in compiled form, when large chunks of it can be read in sequence. The brand of humour and the relatively minimal dialogue seem to build slowly and over time, which is rather frustrating when you're trying to read it two strips a week. As a comparison, I'd refer you to OotS's trial sequence. It dragged horrendously when it was happening, but you go back and read over it now and as a unified whole it works nicely. (Except the Haley scramble-speak thing, which was amazingly annoying and should have been dealt with about 50-100 strips earlier than it was, but I digress...)
 

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