I had to check to see if I’d missed a day or something. I mean, I can infer what happened, but it seems like they left out the most important scene.
The lines themselves are really good, too, but I will agree this Steve guy’s work is incredible. It all came together really, really, well in my opinion.
Yeah, exactly! What the hell, right?
I definitely agree; these last few strips made me take note of an increase in quality that has actually been there for a while.
Steve Hamaker does do great colors. He’s also doing the coloring on Table Titans (with Scott Kurtz) and produces his own webcomic, PLOX.
I can understand if you don’t like the Lookouts stories, but I think you’re completely overreacting about the purpose of the comic, or its appeal only to parents. Really, you can’t relate to any stories about kids? I’m sure you were birthed fully-grown out of the head of Zeus or something, but you must know a few people who were actually kids at some point.
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.
Glad I could show you something you’ve never seen before!
RichVR
3289
It seems like, with the Lookouts, they are aiming for something mystical and profound. Something deep. IMHO they missed.
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.
I don’t hate kids, but the Lookouts stuff makes my eyes glaze over.
No biggy, a chacun sa gout and all that.
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.
As I recall, they presented three worlds (Lookouts, Automata, and… Jim Darkmagic?) to do a long-form story in, and the readers voted for Lookouts.
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.
Man, can’t believe that Ol’ Jim didn’t win it. Whatta goof!
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.
Editer
3297
Oh, I love this one.
Gee, what gaming site could they possibly be parodying there?
Is it bad if I genuinely can’t tell? There’s so many possible answers to that question!
(this might be exacerbated by the fact that I haven’t actually followed any gaming journalism proper since, like 2007, except via pissy reddit posts)
RickH
3299
I can’t decide whether it’s Polygon or RPS they are mocking. Or both.
Quaro
3300
