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mlooney

Comic for Monday, Feb 21, 2022

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Looked at objectively, Grace is far scarier. She's only 1/4 human, she's another 1/4 apelike creature, another 1/4 omnivorous rodent, raised in a creche by an abusive overlord for nefarious purposes, often lacks an understanding of those around her, and is more vastly overpowered than any other cast member.

 

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4 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Looked at objectively, Grace is far scarier. She's only 1/4 human, she's another 1/4 apelike creature, another 1/4 omnivorous rodent, raised in a creche by an abusive overlord for nefarious purposes, often lacks an understanding of those around her, and is more vastly overpowered than any other cast member.

 

All true enough, but she looks harmless, and mostly acts harmless. Until you get to know them both pretty well, Elliot is much more frightening.

 

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24 minutes ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

All true enough, but she looks harmless, and mostly acts harmless. Until you get to know them both pretty well, Elliot is much more frightening.

 



She acts harmless enough until you challenge  her to a volleyball spiking contest.  I'm assuming the current NP story arc is at least some what canon.  Her strength will be all over the school by the time she gets back from the nurse.

I can't find it, but there was a comic where Elliot talked to Sarah about what people were saying about him and she said most of them were just thinking of him as "that scary martial arts guy"

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1 hour ago, mlooney said:

Found it.    Tedd and Sarah said that people called him "scary marital arts guy" back to back.

Tedd:
https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2017-03-10

Sarah

https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2017-03-13

 

Fifteen years after the comic debuted.

Who displays physical aggression first? Drum roll please ... Sarah, in the third comic.

I'm going to guess that no one can imagine Sarah being the aggressive one now.

Elliot's track record is not primarily physical confrontation nor scowling and intimidation; he is generally helpful and defaults to talking things out. With Ashley, phone and in the stairwell, Liz on the roof, with the griffins. Even with Tony, he's adopted a live and let live stance.

Even tossing out the earliest comics as not representative, later on Elliot has experienced extreme provocation (unsolicited transformations) and not resorted to intimidation and violence.

He is incredibly naive and unaware, and I suppose that often gets him into trouble.

This seems to be a retcon, period. Take today's comic; Tedd says, "I used to know you as 'that kid who fights Tony for fun'" (which is itself also a recent retcon). Prior to this, 'Elliot rescues Tedd from a gang of bullies, and thought he was a girl' (barely knew him, if at all). Or Ashley, "When I first moved here you stood out because you were really intimidating". Evidence to the contrary, we do not have scenes where people in the school are intimidated by Elliot, in fact they tend to be rather free with their negative and goofy opinions of him. Ashley appears to say to herself, "Thank, you, person I don't know, for returning my phone." And she is not afraid to approach him in the stairwell.

Grace? Two cited comics in the comments. In one, Elliot is calling out Grace for hiding her background. He's not wrong. Grace indirectly endangered him and others in the cast by hiding her background. In the other, some days later, she questions why Sarah wants to date Elliot. This seemed to have more to do with Elliot's unawareness than with his ferocious demeanor.

When his 'twin sister' is suddenly created and goes all supervillain on everyone, Elliot is protective and helps her acclimate.

<shrug> Different strokes, I suppose.

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5 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

On first encounter, Elliot is much like a big dog who puts on a mean face unless he is with his family, when he becomes a playful puppy

But don't lay a hand on his food dish or his family.

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6 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

On first encounter, Elliot is much like a big dog who puts on a mean face unless he is with his family, when he becomes a playful puppy

"You ain't nuthin' but a hound dog, crying all the time, ... "

I do not believe that Elliot has entrapped a lagomorph anywhere in the comic. Tedd has at least captivated a 1/4 sciuridae.

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I'm not saying that Elliot is a "scary martial art dude", just some people in the school (maybe even a majority) of them think that of him.  As an example in this comic, 3 of the 4 panels about things Elliot have done are violent or display some level of combative behavior.

https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2013-10-20

 

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7 minutes ago, mlooney said:

I'm not saying that Elliot is a "scary martial art dude", just some people in the school (maybe even a majority) of them think that of him.  As an example in this comic, 3 of the 4 panels about things Elliot have done are violent or display some level of combative behavior.

https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2013-10-20

 

Next comic deconstructs that. 'Weird do-gooder'.

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1 hour ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Next comic deconstructs that. 'Weird do-gooder'.

Yeah, you have a point there.  Could be his reputation at school is "Willing to fight, but mainly to defend someone else." which may or may not map to "scary martial arts guy"

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2 hours ago, mlooney said:

I'm not saying that Elliot is a "scary martial art dude", just some people in the school (maybe even a majority) of them think that of him.  As an example in this comic, 3 of the 4 panels about things Elliot have done are violent or display some level of combative behavior.

https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2013-10-20

 

Hmm, in retrospect, might “Avalon” be what Andrea calls her own realm?

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9 hours ago, ijuin said:

Hmm, in retrospect, might “Avalon” be what Andrea calls her own realm?

Either that or King Arthur was a thing on their side of the world.

Or she's a Led Zeppelin fan

I'm Waiting For The Angels Of Avalon
Waiting For The Eastern Glow...

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Both Tara and Andrea thought that "I am in search of Avalon" was a code phrase that they could use to get help (presumably from people in the know about the two-sided nature of the world). Was this just another of Volty's lies, or is there an underground network of some sort that has so far escaped Edward's attention?

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21 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

This seems to be a retcon, period. Take today's comic; Tedd says, "I used to know you as 'that kid who fights Tony for fun'" (which is itself also a recent retcon). Prior to this, 'Elliot rescues Tedd from a gang of bullies, and thought he was a girl' (barely knew him, if at all). Or Ashley, "When I first moved here you stood out because you were really intimidating". Evidence to the contrary, we do not have scenes where people in the school are intimidated by Elliot, in fact they tend to be rather free with their negative and goofy opinions of him. Ashley appears to say to herself, "Thank, you, person I don't know, for returning my phone." And she is not afraid to approach him in the stairwell.

Grace? Two cited comics in the comments. In one, Elliot is calling out Grace for hiding her background. He's not wrong. Grace indirectly endangered him and others in the cast by hiding her background. In the other, some days later, she questions why Sarah wants to date Elliot. This seemed to have more to do with Elliot's unawareness than with his ferocious demeanor.

This doesn't read like a retcon to me, more like a the continuation of a long-running attempt to justify (and thus avoid retconning-away) Elliot's occasional early bouts of aggressiveness. (Well I suppose any attempt to add to or re-frame past events can count as a retcon. However, there's a big difference between "here's some more details about the past" and "everything you thought you knew was a lie" or "all that old stuff: none of it happened", and those latter two types are the ones that bother me.)

Furthermore, while Elliot's history with Tony is new, the fact that Elliot used to enjoy beating up bullies was established quite a while back. I also thought Elliot being a "scary martial artist guy" had been mentioned before; at the least I had assumed that those who knew of his bully hunter phase might be a bit intimidated by him (particularly as it's likely not everyone would realize he was only targeting bullies).

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Just another note, as late as "Sister 2" Elliot was willing to fight people for making fun of his friends.  Not attacking them, just making fun.  And was willing to take on the several people at once.  (Tony plus green haired dude "Dick" at a minimum )

https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2008-06-13

 

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Elliot was going to chase Tony (and Dick, most likely) away by means of being a scary martial arts dude.  He isn't a bully of bullies any more, but the bullies don't know that.  They tend to flee when he comes at them.  I'm not really saying that Elliot thinks of himself as a scary dude, but a number of people in contact, granted not close contact, with him do.

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9 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

This doesn't read like a retcon to me, more like a the continuation of a long-running attempt to justify (and thus avoid retconning-away) Elliot's occasional early bouts of aggressiveness. (Well I suppose any attempt to add to or re-frame past events can count as a retcon. However, there's a big difference between "here's some more details about the past" and "everything you thought you knew was a lie" or "all that old stuff: none of it happened", and those latter two types are the ones that bother me.)

Furthermore, while Elliot's history with Tony is new, the fact that Elliot used to enjoy beating up bullies was established quite a while back. I also thought Elliot being a "scary martial artist guy" had been mentioned before; at the least I had assumed that those who knew of his bully hunter phase might be a bit intimidated by him (particularly as it's likely not everyone would realize he was only targeting bullies).

AS retcons go, the ones in EGS are mild. TV Tropes has a spectrum, and EGS would be in the shallow end of the pool. But it is cited as an example of a comic with retcons, and not based on recent changes, because the comment has been there for a while. It quotes Dan himself as saying EGS is full of retcons (in the commentary).

Quote

Not that I'm saying that's a horrible thing, mind you. Just look at EGS. You can't throw a rock without hitting a retcon, and several of them do exist as a result of past mistakes. I just point it out because people seem to want to hide that it was a mistake.

Think of the main cast that have had their personality re-imagined, although you could generally call it character growth just as easily.

Props to Dan for owning it, unlike George Lucas.

 

9 hours ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

Considering how long the strip has been going and that Dan has been doing this since high school, the continuity has been remarkably good.

It is rather disappointing how many otherwise promising web comics simply cease in the middle of a story arc. I cannot criticize the artists that do so. Lord knows real life intrudes on our plans constantly. So, again, props to Dan for sticking to it. I'm glad he has.

That said, and I'm having a hard time thinking of peers, web comics that have lasted in the rough neighborhood of as long as EGS, few of them are heavy on retcons, so I'm not seeing what you are comparing EGS to. First off, I'll agree that his retcons are mild enough that they don't affect continuity. Second, he foreshadows a lot, and those have been mostly consistent, or at worst, I'm not sure if he dropped the idea. What comics with broken continuities did you have in mind?

 

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44 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

That said, and I'm having a hard time thinking of peers, web comics that have lasted in the rough neighborhood of as long as EGS, few of them are heavy on retcons, so I'm not seeing what you are comparing EGS to. First off, I'll agree that his retcons are mild enough that they don't affect continuity. Second, he foreshadows a lot, and those have been mostly consistent, or at worst, I'm not sure if he dropped the idea. What comics with broken continuities did you have in mind?

I don't know about webcomics (even at the height of my interest back in 2006 I couldn't have checked out more than a few dozen of them, and it's been a very long time since I've been actively reading more than a couple of them), but long-running comic books (particularly the multi-comic superhero "universes" produced by Marvel and DC) tend to be very retcon heavy with confusing convoluted continuities. (Mind you, I haven't read more than a handful of new Marvel or DC comics in the past two decades, but I've heard enough to know things haven't improved since I was heavily into superhero comics.)

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8 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

so I'm not seeing what you are comparing EGS to.

Hmmmm... There were, I suppose, some unstated premises. Probably comic books would be part of my base, certainly they changed immensely over the time I was reading them. I'm old enough to remember Batman before the television show. The characters, and the whole tone of the stories in the books, changed to match the TV version. It was disappointing to say the least. Before my time, before Dr. Wertham (Google him if you don't know about this) forced the industry to geld itself, the stories tended to be grimmer and bloodier. There was a Batman story where he killed the bad guys with a machine gun!

Another consideration would be Dan himself, whom I've never met and can't claim to know, but he talks about himself in the notes, so what he has shared about himself would be a part of my thinking. Dan was in high school when he conceived of Elliot, Tedd and Sarah. Their growth as characters would be influenced by his maturation from high school to art school to adulthood. Of course there have been changes, my point is that the changes have been, all things considered, minimal and mostly easy to explain away as character growth.

Are there retcons? Of course. Do they jar me? Not much.

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12 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

I don't know about webcomics (even at the height of my interest back in 2006 I couldn't have checked out more than a few dozen of them, and it's been a very long time since I've been actively reading more than a couple of them), but long-running comic books (particularly the multi-comic superhero "universes" produced by Marvel and DC) tend to be very retcon heavy with confusing convoluted continuities. (Mind you, I haven't read more than a handful of new Marvel or DC comics in the past two decades, but I've heard enough to know things haven't improved since I was heavily into superhero comics.)

 

4 hours ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

Hmmmm... There were, I suppose, some unstated premises. Probably comic books would be part of my base, certainly they changed immensely over the time I was reading them. I'm old enough to remember Batman before the television show. The characters, and the whole tone of the stories in the books, changed to match the TV version. It was disappointing to say the least. Before my time, before Dr. Wertham (Google him if you don't know about this) forced the industry to geld itself, the stories tended to be grimmer and bloodier. There was a Batman story where he killed the bad guys with a machine gun!

Another consideration would be Dan himself, whom I've never met and can't claim to know, but he talks about himself in the notes, so what he has shared about himself would be a part of my thinking. Dan was in high school when he conceived of Elliot, Tedd and Sarah. Their growth as characters would be influenced by his maturation from high school to art school to adulthood. Of course there have been changes, my point is that the changes have been, all things considered, minimal and mostly easy to explain away as character growth.

Are there retcons? Of course. Do they jar me? Not much.

 

Well, yeah, compared to comic books, especially DC and Marvel, you're both right. They have multiple writers over the years, and jarring you is part of getting you to buy the issue. You could toss in Star Wars and Star Trek as examples, though even George Lucas is milder than comic books.

TV in particular, but also movies are subject to retcon due to executive meddling.

The Batman TV show that you cite, shows of that era do not play well today. Cultural drift changes expectations.

Does this Elliot retcon jar me? A little. Mostly, we've had X has a personality change, Dan is fleshing out the character, taking a two dimensional poster board trope and giving the person motivations, opinions, and interesting features. This Elliot thing isn't the same. It feels like it's trying to explain something that wasn't asked, and muddying the water as it proceeds. I expect in the end, he will be the same Elliot. Or possibly will have been given a lobotomy.

 

Edited by Darth Fluffy
fix typo

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