T w e n t y S i d e d
Shamus Says:
And a quick murder gets things back on track. Casey’s story might require that they get through the swamp, but MY story requires that Ramgar have his spear.
Shawn Says:
And we’re nearing the end of the original run. Man, the “Ramgar’s Spear Is A Euphemism For Chuck’s Penis” subtext really shines through in this one.
Also, Penis.
Looking ahead: We have one more comic, then we have a couple of entries where I outline my notes for the entire story, and then we’ll wrap things up with a final bonus comic.
id Software Coding Style
When the source code for Doom 3 was released, we got a look at some of the style conventions used by the developers. Here I analyze this style and explain what it all means.
Push the Button!
Scenes from Half-Life 2:Episode 2, showing Gordon Freeman being a jerk.
Silver Sable Sucks
This version of Silver Sable is poorly designed, horribly written, and placed in the game for all the wrong reasons.
Why I Hated Resident Evil 4
Ever wonder how seemingly sane people can hate popular games? It can happen!
Mass Effect Retrospective
A novel-sized analysis of the Mass Effect series that explains where it all went wrong. Spoiler: It was long before the ending.
Hmmm, kinda disapoining that the entire comic just ends in the middle of nowhere, story-wise. While I didn’t like it as much as DMoTR, it definitely had its moments. I find it kinda sad that the comic that had way more effort put into it wasn’t as popular as the one which took less effort. I think you guys just needed some more time to find your footing as a creative team…
Nah, honestly, Shawn just wasn’t cut out for an ongoing regular comic. He had some personal issues, and his finances were never stable. His own comic, Clockworks, got to about 100 comics and 10% of its storyline after 8 or so years of sporadic updates and hiatuses, and isn’t even up on the internet anymore.
It’s a shame, cuz his evolving art style became one of my all time favorites.
I’m not trying to throw shade, I’m a fan of the guy and his work. But he just wasn’t ever up to the commitment of regular comics updates.
It happens to a lot of comics. Unreliable pay, audiences that can be fickle – it just turns out to not be worth the effort. Same as with a lot of art.
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Also, taking bets on whether Josh is going to pick up all that crap he just offloaded onto the merchant and try to flog it to the next guy. Odds of…
…Ah, who am I kidding. Of course he’ll do that.
Leonardo Da Vinci barely finished any project he started, so it happens to the best of them!
With patreon i think things can be a lot more viable, assuming you can keep up a steady publish schedule.
Get out of my head.
Though on reflection, if he goes a step further, he might actually skip looting the guy and just slaughter every merchant he comes across now. Though perhaps he’ll loot ALL of them and sell stuff in town, where it is harder to remove all witnesses.
Though if you think meta-ly, it’s better to try to barter first, before slaying the merchant, you know, to confirm that they actually DO have something valuable so that the DM doesn’t end up saying that the merchant is broke or has nothing valuable after Josh have slayed them.
… But yeah, that is why NetHack Shopkeepers exist.
When I read these, the “inefficiency” is one of the things that stood out to me. There’s just way too much effort made for the jokes provided, and I think Shawn was having to work way too hard and Shamus constraining himself way too much to make it work.
In the latter case, the humor works better for Shamus when he can rift on an idea for a few panels. The “Diablo” jokes were amusing in DMotR because they were so rare, but they hardly got the traction of something like his “Specific level of tired” joke that gets repeated to this day, or the whole Uncertainty Lich set up.
There’s a reason why most cartoonists stick to simpler art styles for regular comics, even when they are capable of doing much better (see Bill Watterson).
Even though every extended game review was for a game I’ve never played, I’ve still enjoyed reading about each one. This is probably my least favorite extended artistic content that Shamus ever created, although at least this time I stuck it through to the end.
However, I’m still happy he gave something new a shot. It’s always interesting to try something new creatively and figure out afterwards what made it work or not work. Much better than always playing it safe.
Kinda sad how the whole thing petered out.
You think you’ll ever do comics again, with ir without an artist?
What do you mean, badly? He didn’t have to pay any extra fees, and he got his spear back in a timely manner.
I always hate doing returns. And the few times I did them I often have issues. One time I went to trade in a faulty device and they wanted me to pay 2$ extra because the price of the product had increased. So I rarely order stuff because I know I probably wont want to go through the issue of sending it back, and I dont want to waste money keeping something that doesnt work.
There are cases where I don’t even buy stuff in the first place because I’m afraid a return becomes increasingly likely by the modalities of the sale and returning the item is going to be way too much of a bother to be worth it.