Oots 445

[Plane Sailing]

FWIW I nearly choked up in this strip - which is pretty good going for a stick figure cartoon!

 

[SPoD]

If the complaint was about his comparitive usefulness to the battle, there is no reason for either response. (he's got like a dozen bard songs a day, he desn't need to save them....)

I didn't mean Elan was saving a bard song usage, I meant Rich was saving an Elan singing scene. It would have been annoying to have two songs within a few strips of one another, so I think therefore the singing was not shown before so that it would be more entertaining now.

 

[Crothian]

Elans first good song and still Belkar gets the laughs!

Well, the song was not what I would call ha ha funny.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I didn't mean Elan was saving a bard song usage, I meant Rich was saving an Elan singing scene. It would have been annoying to have two songs within a few strips of one another, so I think therefore the singing was not shown before so that it would be more entertaining now.

Elan's standard bard song would be "defend, defend, against the overwhelming odds..." If he had been using his bardsong in the battle, it would have been shown in the background of some strip with an entirely different focus and thus had no impact on the use of a "real" song in this strip.

Again, if the complaints you are responding to were that Elan was using his new dashing abilities in a situation where a bardsong would effectively be dishing more damage a round than V's spells, this strip doesn't change that issue.

 

[Quartz]

Sheer brilliance!

 

[comrade raoul]

Absolutely classic Belkar.

 

[shilsen]

Absolutely classic Belkar.

Got it out for you

 

[Klaus]

FWIW I nearly choked up in this strip - which is pretty good going for a stick figure cartoon!

Yeah, me too.

Doubly so because I used to sing Danny Boy to my son to make him sleep (he's a Danny).

 

[Masquerade]

Wow! This was a fanastic strip for me. Elan's song was emotional as well as hilarious ("And I don't think they'll let me hang at your place"), and the ending was, IMHO, one of the better Belkar gags we've seen recently.

 

[SPoD]

Again, if the complaints you are responding to were that Elan was using his new dashing abilities in a situation where a bardsong would effectively be dishing more damage a round than V's spells, this strip doesn't change that issue.

It does for me. It's better to see him break out this great song when he hasn't been using it all battle than if he had used it 3 strips ago. There is storytelling value in keeping things out of the narrative until you are ready to use them for maximum impact. It's just like one of the running gags, if you want it to have impact, you keep it totally out of the strip until you want to bring it in and focus on it.

If Rich had put the flumphs in the background five strips ago, the gag with them last strip would have fell flat. This is the same principle.

Lucky for my enjoyment of the strip, Rich knows this kind of stuff without me telling him, even if it annoys people looking for some sort of strict transfer of D&D rules into the comic.