Weekly Webcomic Wrapup is inexcusably late

by Ross Miller { Jun 16th 2008 at 7:15PM }

To whom it may concern,

The Weekly Webcomic Wrapup has for the past few months been getting pushed back further and further. There is no excuse for this, and we have set plans in motion so that it does not happen in the future. Thank your for your time.

As is usually said, "Here are our picks for the week's best game-related webcomic. Be sure to vote for your favorite."

Signed,
The Undersigned.

Bad Date (Digital Unrest)
Golden Book Reject (Fanboys)
On Perspective (Penny Arcade)
Now You're Playing with Power (2P Start)
DM Rules (CAD)
Afternoon Delight (Dueling Analogs)
Superstardom (Sharcbate)

["Hang Man" image via Flickr]

(What? You say we didn't pick your favorite gaming comic this week? Make sure we and everyone else gets to see it in the comments below.)

Tags: webcomic

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

jcd @ Jun 16th 2008 7:24PM

never knew monday was part of the weekend

Yourself @ Jun 16th 2008 7:26PM

In that case, thank God it isn't called Weekendly Webcomic Wrapup!

jcd @ Jun 16th 2008 7:29PM

wow, nice reading on my part. Disregard that. I still wish to complain tho!!!

RobLink (Return of the McElroy Defence Force) @ Jun 16th 2008 7:25PM

At the moment, the votes are one for each. Lulz. I voted 2p start. It made me LOI the loudest.
On an aside, what's eeveryone's view of the CAD miscarriage storyline. I've never seen anything like it in a webcomic before, and I realise that a lot of people here aren't fans, but it'd be interesting to hear some views.

Dovi @ Jun 16th 2008 7:27PM

LOI?

Kyattsuai @ Jun 16th 2008 7:31PM

Bloody shame CAD wasn't in the poll last week; that was some of their funniest stuff in years.

RobLink (Return of the McElroy Defence Force) @ Jun 16th 2008 7:44PM

LOI = Laugh On the Inside. I never Laugh Out Loud at these.

Shignami @ Jun 16th 2008 8:05PM

The best part was seeing the rest of the internet once again have a chance to open up to how much they hate Tim Buckley.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Justin T. McElroy Memorial Burn of the Day Award) @ Jun 16th 2008 8:08PM

I like the story and unlike his attempt at the gamer poem he tried last year, this one actually has some touching moments. They aren't exactly forced.. well, okay, todays was.

I think for the webcomic as a whole to survive, it had to happen. Having a kid is one of those things that tends to ruin a strip like this. Hell, Marvel has been trying to undone the Parker's marriage for years. For CAD to remain what it was, the miscarriage had to happen. I'm glad the author realized this before it was too late and I'm especially glad he didn't turn it into a punchline.

Lijik @ Jun 16th 2008 8:25PM

I personally think Buckley is handling it horrendously. On its own, the arc works pretty well. It wouldn't be the best but it would be still passable and maybe even meaningful. Would probably be a bit better if it focused a bit more Lilah. It would also help if I didn't see it coming all the way from when the pregnancy was announced.

However what makes it all fall apart for me is I really just can't accept Ethan doing a total shift from his normal Manchild self during the pregnancy/miscarriage strips. The biggest thing holding the storyline back is that the characters just do not fit at all in it. Compared to past strips, it feels like Buckley took a storyline from a seperate comic and pasted his characters in with total disregard on if they would fit. The only thing that feels in-character at all is Ethan putting the small controller in the drawer. Furthermore, I just don't see Buckley keeping Ethan as a mature character (which he would have to do if the baby came), thus making the miscarriage seem like a cheap cop-out. Theres also the fact that its all too obvious that everything will be a-ok and Ethan will back to his WACKY HYJINX soon enough since he's pretty much a God.

It also doesn't that, along with the fact the strips do not work with the past few year's worth of CAD, Tim took a break in the middle of the storyline for two uneventful strips. There was just no reason for the DnD strip, hell Tim doesn't even play DnD in the first place. It also doesn't help the strip follows Tim's "Rude Unright Opinion Holder acts out and is bested by the Calm Right Opinion Holder in the last panel". The Players Pinup wasn't bad but should have been saved for later on when the arc reached a definite close.

So in conclusion, No Sir I do not like it.

Lijik @ Jun 16th 2008 8:26PM

*Doesn't help that

WiiFTW @ Jun 16th 2008 7:27PM

I'm the only one to vote for Fanboys so far. My vote represents 11% of the vote. I feel like a super delegate!

PointyThings @ Jun 16th 2008 7:30PM

There are a lot of complaints with 4E, some of them have to do with Fiends not being able to defeat Devils, (AKA book fluff) and how atrocious that is. That said, they also removed a ton of really awesome shit and basically made it D&D for people who play WoW.
Buckley has never played a game of D&D in his life. He said so in his news post. Gamers whine, yes, but sometimes someone really fucks your past time and you want to make some noise. Not like he'd know anything about that anyway.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Justin T. McElroy Memorial Burn of the Day Award) @ Jun 16th 2008 8:18PM

Yes, they removed stuff but they are basically working with a new system. Basically, whether you like or hate 4e, it doesn't make the previous manuals invalid and you can continue to play in your preferred ruleset.

As for my opinion, and I know I'll get hated for this, good on them. I quit DMing basically because encounters, even the simpliest, were becoming chores and each new player wanted to bring in new rules and we spent more time rule-lawyering than actually playing.

And so I attempted to heavily modify 3.5 with Eberron and add some custom requested elements as well. Got a new group going, started to have some fun and despite the fact that I laid out how "in depth" we were going in the rules just to keep the game simple, we once again got invaded by a rule lawyer who would waste most of the night debating with me and researching through books (which, while we told him we used only elements of the Eberron core book, he had all the expansions and claimed I was running off pure god tripping because I refused to read and memorize well over 2000 pages of expanding rules).

Essentially what D&D needed, at this point, was a fresh jumping in point for those of us who got tired of the excessive rule expansions and those who needed simpler rules as the jumping in point. I know it's "der, just WOW for tabletopping" but in case you missed it, WOW is currently the number one RPG right now. Since 4E came out, suddenly some of my old players are trying to get a game back together since it leaves very little room for rule-lawyers to ruin the night for everyone.

PointyThings @ Jun 16th 2008 8:47PM

I do appreciate you're take on it. I guess I've never really had a problem with rule lawyers (Cheaters sure, but I guess I got lucky and found a good group to keep playing with.) 4E does have the advantage of simplification, but so did 3.5 when it was first released; there are only so many books you can have as a core. I could talk a while about what I don't like about 4E (monks, we miss you) but I also love a lot about what they did, probably more so than what they took away or changed.
My real point was that there are very serious concerns about 4E that Buckley can't comprehend. I hate the people who are arguing over stupid shit like the Dwarven back story too, but that comic makes it look like anyone who complains about anything in 4E is a douchebag. Buckley has no idea what he's talking about and he needed to stay out of this one. He thinks he can make a comic about D&D when he's never looked at a character sheet, fuck him.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Justin T. McElroy Memorial Burn of the Day Award) @ Jun 16th 2008 8:55PM

Well, I understand that particular issue but from what I've read on the community forums when researching 4th edition (I didn't know it was happening, one of my old players cued me in), it did look like a huge backlash over nonsensical things. I've only culled knowledge as I'm backordered on the gift set right now so I haven't delved in headfirst. But things they've done like putting the cleric on the frontlines seems like an improvement. And before I even start a campaign, changes do need to be made to accomidate some of my own custom classes and races.

My campaigns tend to run in a steampunk style world similar to FFVI so it's not like I'm running a straight D&D campaign to begin with.

I think Buckley pretty much has an outsiders looking in approach and he sees this huge backlash against something players can use or ignore and to people on the outside, it does seem silly.

WiNG [Life in a Game] @ Jun 16th 2008 7:35PM

Digital Unrest was the best.

Sometimes I feel people just vote for Penny Arcade by name recognition. Not that it's not awesome, but still.

Mr Khan @ Jun 16th 2008 7:35PM

I wondered when this would finally happen, when the inevitable slide would push the WWW back to monday, good that the concern is noted

I really liked 2PStart and Sharcbate, but due to the little blurb "always room for Ivy," I went with Sharcbate

Arteen @ Jun 16th 2008 7:38PM

Is there humor somewhere in the Dueling Analogs comic? I can't find it. I liked Fanboys and 2P Start the most this week, with Fanboys getting the vote. The PA comic was good too.

Jhongerkong @ Jun 16th 2008 7:43PM

2P Start wins. End of story

Neebs @ Jun 16th 2008 7:52PM

Meh. All crap this week.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Justin T. McElroy Memorial Burn of the Day Award) @ Jun 16th 2008 8:09PM

I voted for CAD... namely because I enjoy the hell out of his very accurate depiction of 4th Edition backlash.

The Dark Lord Meowcifer @ Jun 16th 2008 8:10PM

Does everyone just blindly vote PA now?

Sir Fidlious Wong (Justin T. McElroy Memorial Burn of the Day Award) @ Jun 16th 2008 8:22PM

YES!
NO!
POSSIBLY!
PERHAPS!
MAYBE!
BUT NOT REALLY!

Lijik @ Jun 16th 2008 8:29PM

I actually enjoyed it the most, since if theres one thing I utterly despise its when gamers seem to think anything less than a 10 means "lol game sux"

The Dark Lord Meowcifer @ Jun 16th 2008 9:29PM

Yeah, I liked PA the best too, but it seems every week (whether it's good or not) it always has some ridiculous lead in the polls.

The Dark Lord Meowcifer @ Jun 16th 2008 9:30PM

Yeah, I liked PA the best too, but it seems every week (whether it's good or not) it always has some ridiculous lead in the polls.

Superstar90 @ Jun 16th 2008 8:35PM

2P start was pretty awesome this week. I always knew Final Destination was a time-machine level!

Velops @ Jun 16th 2008 8:37PM

PA wasn't anything special. It's basically regurgitating what goes on joystiq when people get into a heated discussion about review scores. Please stop beating the dead horse. We already know that some people get riled up by review scores.

I voted for 2PStart because it pinpoints an often ignored contradiction. Contradictions are funny.

Isaac @ Jun 16th 2008 8:43PM

AWKWARD ZOMBIE
http://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic78.png

Demaar @ Jun 16th 2008 9:09PM

B^U is shit as usual. Bring back the lulz from last week, plz.

PointyThings @ Jun 16th 2008 9:11PM

True, but 4E wasn't free. I think the complaint comes from the idea that they payed money for a product that's inadequate, and that's a very old source of aggression. 3.5 still exists and I can still play it, and I do like 4E, but under Tim's purview if I see anything wrong with it I'm suddenly an asshole. He does have an outsider's perspective about D&D because he's never played it, yet sees fit to comment on it. If I didn't think he was an arrogant fucker already I certainly do now.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Justin T. McElroy Memorial Burn of the Day Award) @ Jun 16th 2008 9:39PM

You're telling me you never commented on a game you never played? I mean, the backlash to 4e was out before the books were even legally acquirable. So it's a matter of people complaining based on the leaked .pdfs. This is like having a music pirate comment on how an album he stole sucked.

And he's not saying every person who doesn't like 4E is an asshole. But you gotta admit, there is some really unreasonable backlash as you even pointed out. And yes, I have seen some excessively negative things said. Example? Amazon's reviews. Read some. 1 out of 5 stars? REALLY?!? With a four paragraph rant on how World of Warcraft sucks. No knowledge on the product other than WOW sucks and D&D 4E suck by proxy. While I'm shuffling through opinions trying to decide if I'll be taking up the DMs screen again, this is the stuff I'm coming across. That's where the parody comes across.

YOU.. can reasonably say what you do and do not like about 4E. That's good. It's reasonable. YOU'RE not the type of gamer he's fucking fun of. The 1 out of 5 stars idiots chanting WOW sucks when talking about 4E are the ones.

It's like this. I prefer Sony. No secret about that. But there are other more extreme idiots on here who bash non Sony products nonstop. So if Someone makes fun of those fantards, I don't take offense. I know I'm not like KillJebus, for example. I'll have a good hard laugh at the extremes. They are WORTH making fun of.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Justin T. McElroy Memorial Burn of the Day Award) @ Jun 16th 2008 9:44PM

*making fun of.

I don't really know what I was thinging when the f bomb made it's way into that post.

j.howlett @ Jun 16th 2008 9:27PM

sky rockets in flight

MNC Dover @ Jun 16th 2008 9:43PM

I was hoping our last week or this weeks comic would have made the poll. Ah well. Check em out and rip me a new one if you feel so inclined.

Last week:
http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0049.html

This week:
http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0050.html