ChronosCat

I don't have as long hair as Susan, but I do have long hair. As far as I can tell, the only time my hair comes into contact with something my shirt or jacket wouldn't is when I'm trying to push my way through the branches of trees/bushes in the woods. In most circumstances, if you care about keeping your clothes clean, trying to keep long hair clean isn't going to be too much of an additional challenge. That said, I can still see where Susan's coming from; I certainly would rather get my clothes dirty than my hair. On the other hand, hair isn't alive, so getting something on it isn't as bad as getting something on one's skin (not that I'm as worried about getting things on my skin as Susan, either).

I was specifically talking about "Balance", not EGS in general. I doubt any of those are going to be dealt with in Balance. In fact, I've been assuming the meeting with the griffins, or at least the current adventure in the forest, would be the final part of Balance. As for the questions of who was controlling the owlgriffin and what happened to Tara and Andrea, those might be dealt with in Balance, and could make a good climax. I had just thought the battle with the owlgriffin might be the climax or at least the first part of it, but that wouldn't be the case if there's a long enough period of calm followed by another battle.

They played Hee Haw on a local station regularly back in the 80s, which is when I watched it. According to Wikipedia, new episodes were still being produced for syndication at that time, which is presumably what I saw. As for Lawrence Welk, my grandparents used to watch it regularly. I never really watched it with them, but I often heard it on in the background when I was visiting them or they were visiting my family. For as long as I can remember, and to this day, the local PBS station has been playing Lawrence Welk at 5 PM on Saturdays. Every once in a while when I'm missing my grandparents on a Saturday, I'll take the time to watch a little bit of it.

I'm surprised things seem to be calming down. If the battle we just got was the climax of Balance, it was disappointingly and somewhat anticlimactically short. Of course it's still possible someone else might attack, or there will be some other climactic event, but now such a climax would have to rebuild some of the lost tension.

I've seen it recently on broadcast TV, so apparently yes. It was mildly amusing, but I was a little dissappointed (though not surprised) to find I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I did as a child.

This is far from the first time Dan has hung out with the main characters in non-canon land.

My current guess is the consequences of Elliot's going "evil" will primarily be him having to deal with guilt over what he did, and being too burnt out to offer much help in any battles with magic users that happen in the near future. (He might also be too physically drained to fight at all the rest of the day, which will leave everything up to Grace if there is anyone else mind controlled around or the Griffins misunderstand what's been happening.) At any rate, this strip would seem to confirm my earlier feeling that "evil" Elliot is just a more violent and ruthless hero than normal, and he clearly feels he went too far. Even if his dark thoughts do remain, it shouldn't cause a complete change in character, just make it more of a challenge for him to be the person he wants to be.

It's not too bad if you don't follow too many people and those people aren't on Twitter all day. I'm following three people* including Dan, and except on days when more than one of them have a lot to say, I usually spend less than half an hour a day on Twitter and manage to keep up. (Well three people who use Twitter for micro-blogging. I'm also following several artists who pretty much only post their art, but all of them combined only post a few pictures a day.)

I never confused Dan's new avatar with any of the characters, but I suspect I would have thought them a new character in the first comic the avatar appeared in if I hadn't seen Dan switch to that avatar on Twitter before it even debuted in NP.

2009 was entirely taken up by Sister II, and primarily by the intro of Nanase's "new look", Abraham's attack on Moperville-South, and his and Nanase's final battle. If it weren't for a couple short scenes at the beginning of the year, we wouldn't have seen Elliot or Susan in the main story that year either.

We've come a long way from Dan's first appearance, in Grace form. It's no surprise knowing Dan (or even from just reading the main story) but it's still interesting to note that most of Dan's avatars over the years, including this one, have been feminine.

So, this has the potential to go very badly, but judging by what we see in this strip, Elliot's dark side still cares about Elliot's friends. I'm rather relieved by this; it means he's not past the point of no-return, and it might even be possible for Grace to talk him down if she reaches him in time.

https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/assorted2022a06 Now I want to see a sequel where they actually go through with it.

That's only a problem if the audience of the review show knows that and gets suspicious. After all, Susan's idea is they just act like themselves while transformed, fooling those who don't know about transformation magic into thinking they're acting.

That is one of the major differences between an anti-hero and a traditional villain, hence my suggesting this might be an anti-hero form. (Of course there's a bit more to the distinction than that; I've never heard of a person in a leadership or "mastermind" role being called an anti-hero. Anti-heros are usually expected to be a lot like "super" heroes or other "heroic vigilantes" except for being more violent and inclined to believe the ends justify the means; based on what we know right now, Elliot definitely seems to qualify in this respect as well.) It's possible there will be lasting consequences (besides guilt), and with all the build-up to this I rather expect it. I've mentioned before that there might be a lasting effect on Elliot's mind. Another potential lasting consequence I've thought of is if this affects the direction Elliot's spells go in, resulting in him getting a devoted villain-form spell and or spells that would be dangerous/immoral to use. However it also occurred to me, perhaps when the Emisary of Magic said it was a bad trade, he meant simply that it's a very uneven trade and thus might not produce the desired results. For example, the spell limits were designed to protect Elliot from hurting himself; what if the Villain-leadra form causes Elliot to burn out and/or physically injure himself (in a way de-transforming won't cure) before he can even win the fight? (Then again, the Emissary did list "points represent what he can safely handle" and "it's a bad trade" as separate arguments, so it's probably not quite that simple.)

The costume isn't bad, but I was hoping for something a bit more dramatic and stereotypically "villainous" (villains usually get all the best costumes). On the other hand, I've been thinking about how Elliot considered the thing that would make him a villain being lack of restraint, and I'm starting to suspect this will actually be more "anti-hero" Elliot than a true "villain" Elliot. I am concerned for Elliot though, and not just when it comes to his mind. I'm thinking he probably should have put some more points into endurance/resistance so his body could better handle his new speed and strength; judging by the look of his hands, all the sweat, and that off color to his forehead, he's in danger of injuring himself.

On the one hand, some of my favorite stories don't spell everything out. Needing to work to figure things out can make the audience feel more connected to the story; furthermore if there are are multiple possible interpretations it can be meaningful to a wider range of people and situations. On the other hand, for most stories it's important that what is happening is more-or-less clear, even if nothing else is. Otherwise, it barely counts as a story. There have been instances where Dan has had to stop and clarify something it was important for the readers to understand, and I feel those pauses improved the story. On the other hand, there have been cases where the thing he was stopping to explain wasn't important, or could have been left up to the reader's interpretation; I'm not sure how bad those pauses are to the story, but if nothing else they're bad for the pacing. Dan wants to be understood. He just doesn't consider anything canon to EGS unless it appears in the comic itself. (The convergence of these points is why we get all those pauses to explain things which I was just mentioning.)

I expect Grace's role in the upcoming fight will be to try to talk down Elliot before he maims or kills the Owl-griffin. I suppose she could call Arthur before getting involved (I expect it to take a least a little while for Elliot to overpower the Owl-griffin), but I suspect she won't think to.

I don't interact much with people who really care about celebrity drama (or at least such drama never comes up in our conversations), so it's never been an issue for me. If I were to be confronted about my ignorance, I'd probably wind up accidentally insulting the other person by implying I was "above such petty concerns" (which is my actual attitude, but is also hypocritical of me as I usually claim to value all knowledge).

I'm guessing the owlgriffin can only control so many limbs at once, so he stops controlling his front legs to control the phantom hands.

https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/assorted2022a03 space for spoilers I haven't really encountered this trope very often, and usually when I have it's overlapping with the "an average person refuses to believe someone who claims to have seen monsters/aliens/etc." trope, which is entirely reasonable. Perhaps because of that, it doesn't really bother me. Rich's attitude, though, is pretty annoying, particularly in the final panel.

I'm actually not super interested in competition myself (I'm particularly not interested in competing). But when I look at most sports, it looks to me like they're designed around determining who's "the best" at the skills required for the sport (obviously in team sports it's "which team is best" rather than "which person is best", but the point remains). This is actually a big part of why I'm not interested in participating in sports, and have only a minor interest in watching them. I do occasionally play multi-player video games where the players compete against one another, but only against friends/family, and only as an excuse to play those games together. Obviously the same thing can be done with sports, but an informal game between friends/family is very different from sports in school (which is the context where I usually hear most of the justifications mentioned in this comic) let alone professional sports.

On the plus side, we're about to see Elliot cutting loose and kicking butt. (Well, assuming Villain-leadra is more powerful than the Owl-griffin, but that seems to be where this is headed.) If we're lucky we'll even get a cool new costume out of it. On the down side, there will likely be some negative consequences from this decision, probably long lasting. With no restraint, he could seriously injure the Owl-griffon or even those around him, leading to him suffering from extreme guilt when he returns to normal, and possibly messing up relations with the other side of the world. Or perhaps I should say, "if he returns to normal"; I don't think Dan would go in this direction, but this sounds dangerously close to the origins of an aberration. (Another possibility that occurs to me is Villain-leadra is a temporary form, but is addicting or has some other affect on Elliot's mind that makes him have to fight not to use the form again, leading to a Jekyl-and-Hyde scenario. In this case, the long abandoned "Elliot's inner demons" idea could be making a return...) ...By the way, unless all my time travel has disoriented me, this is the 25th of March, not the 15th.

(As I said on Twitter) I've always thought competition was the main point of sports (trophy optional), and all the rest were bonuses and/or justification to make it sound good to those who don't care about competition.

So, last time I was assuming the Owl-griffin was trying to kill Mr. Verres. However, another possibility has occurred to me, tying in with my theory that Uryuoms and griffins are enemies: What if he thought Grace was a threat to Mr. Verres, and thought he was going to the rescue (not expecting Mr. Verres to get in the way of the charge)? Either way, unless Grace can fly faster than the Owl-griffin and/or find a good hiding place, this is only delaying a confrontation with him. ...By the way, an interesting bit of speculation I've seen over on Twitter: what if the Owl-griffin is being controlled, much like Voltaire "guided" Dex? This would explain his odd way of saying "royalty", his expressionless stare, and potentially why Grace senses something familiar about him.