I really loathe children and shudder at memories of myself when I was one. Fuck, I shudder at memories of myself 10 minutes ago.
Anyway, this and the failed “lonely interstellar kid” comic idea they pitched seemed to arise around the time they were becoming dads. Both have a weirdly sentimental tone that’s not at all in keeping with the broader comic itself, although the Lookouts series pairs that with a sort of woodsy, fairy-tale-ish rambuctousness that’s almost, but not quite, interesting.
I genuinely posit that they’d never have created something exactly like what Lookouts has become if they’d remained unwed bachelor-virgins their whole lives. Maybe others in that position could pull something similar off or even express an interest in the concepts, but those dudes were a little too coarse, crass, and sardonic to write this kind of stuff 10 years ago.
So you hate that they actually gained some depth and grew both as people and as storytellers. Wow, that’s the worst reason to hate something that I’ve heard in a long time.
I think with the Lookouts strips they’re looking to give little glimpses into the setting of the game (RPG?) they’re currently creating. I believe the MBA mushmouth phrase would be “marketing synergy” or some such stupidity.
My issue with it is there’s really no context in which to interpret the little drips of narrative they provide. They had other experiments with long form storytelling that didn’t have that issue but they seem way more interested in revisiting Lookouts, no idea why.
That was the original genesis, yeah, but they’ve gone back to Lookouts way more than that. Personally I don’t get why it won back then, but whatever, they did eventually do stuff with Automata, which would have been my pick. They’ve just done more Lookouts, or it sure seems like it.
Oh sure – my point was that they basically did a focus group (via the original poll) which indicated that their fans really liked the Lookouts universe [I’m with you - I preferred Automata and even Darkmagic], so it’s not too surprising that when they feel the urge to do something halfway serious they go back to the well that they already know their readers like rather than trying to plumb a new one.
I also speculate that it has a lot to do with colors. Gabe seems to have really gone whole-hog for the watercolor-looking backgrounds recently, and this experiment with a third-party colorist might also indicate more attention to that aspect of the art. And as cool as Automata was, it was not particularly colorful.
They’re certainly referencing Polygon (at least), though the Polygon Doom review wasn’t up yet when the comic was created, and it’s ultimately a pretty unremarkable review.
I’m assuming (from context of the strip) that Doom wasn’t sent out in advance for reviewers. Often that’s a sign of a bad game; publishers would rather not have a bunch of negative reviews going up on day one. So the surprise here is that Doom is great, and then the question is why not send out copies for reviews if the game would be great?
The conclusion is that Doom is such a “retro” shooter, and the style of reviewing is changing a lot these days, so even a good game like Doom might get a lousy review because one of those dreaded millennials could seize onto some minor facet of the game and turn it into a political/social justice/whatever think piece.
I just read the Polygon review, bracing myself because I was expecting to be told how Doom is a problematic manifestation of white privilege, but it was surprisingly normal. I don’t know what PA is complaining about.
