Comic for Thursday, July 12th, 2018
Well, well, well, what have we here. We have seen President Kokato before, he’s the President of Arpon for those that don’t remember the details of the last time, since it’s been awhile since he was the guest of Mium, who’s ice cream he wouldn’t let Ila eat, because that would have been poor manners.
In a way, he’s the Consul’s counterpart, though their positions are not necessarily equivalent, President Kokato has leveraged considerably more influence than previous presidents of Arpon, though some claim this is because of the support of the IDS and Pact pulling the strings.
In reference to the numbers, it should probably be noted that Malsa is a fair bit larger in size and population than Arpon, though not massively so, but as noted here and elsewhere, Arpon’s military considerably outnumbers Malsa, who historically can generally barely be arsed to keep what would qualify as an army, outside of the Family mages.
So, this is back to a full page, but we are still on shaky ground with buffers. I dunno. We’ll see. There is one more page of interlude before the next Chapter starts (I think, it might get split into two…).
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Our loses -> losses
A not-really-comic-related nitpick:
July 12th is Thursday, not Monday…
But maybe not on Palindra… 😉
So… the Wiki is up. Right now, there is very little there. But if people people want to edit, edit away. It uses the wikimedia framework, which is basically like wikipedia formatting.
If you want to create a new page, just go to “title=MyPageName” and create, then link it where appropriate. I have set up a “Theories” and “Peter” page in addition that can be used as templates. Theories should all go on the “Theories” page for the time being, but feel free to create pages for any of the characters (just use their first name, and you can just copy paste the template of the Peter page).
Currently images can be uploaded. If you want, snip an image from the comic and uploaded; I would ask that in general you do not upload anything that is not directly snipped from my stuff (comic, patreon, sketchbooks, vote incentives, that’s fine). I will have turn it off if uploads become a problem.
Additionally, it currently does not require an account to edit. You can create an account if you wish, and it should very easy, and does not require an email account (though it will be unrecoverable even by me if you don’t put in an email address and forget your password).
Oh, and just to note, I am not really dumping everything on any volunteers; I will update it over time, but, given how fast I update the existing info pages… it’ll be a slow process. In time, the existing info pages will be morphed into the wiki, and the wiki should just be a better version of them, as other people can contribute freely.
I will keep an eye here for any questions; I not an expert of wikinotation, but I know the basics, and I’ve just spent a few hours of procrastination setting this up.
I will also note that if this becomes a moderation problem, I will lock down who can edit it. I would much rather leave it open for now though, but use your brain, and don’t do anything dumb.
Some basic rules:
-If you revert someone elses stuff because it was wrong, say why it was wrong. If its just a different opinion, leave both.
-There is no such thing as a spoiler on a wiki.
-If you don’t do know how to do something, copy the format another page or ask me (here or email).
-Don’t leave something for me to do if you have something you want to put there, and feel free to change my formatting or stuff (like images) if you have a better one. I will only play god if moderation is required.
-Only upload media (images) taken from my stuff. Lets not have copywrite problems.
-Don’t do dumb stuff.
Very nice. I’ll be adding some stuff when things calm down a bit. Thanks for the addition, I’m sure that it will be well used.
I have begun adding some transcripts. So far, I’m adding these from files I’ve written because I find it easier to find things I want to reference by running grep on a bunch of files than by looking through the archive. I suspect if others find this useful, I’ll change my process to updating the wiki, and searching it with google, which will probably be faster.
I’m interested to know reactions.
– Do others find this useful?
– Is it ok if the text descriptions of the art admits to imperfections in the art? In the files I typed up so far, I did this from the perspective of, “Wow, looking at these older pages, Past has really improved his art!” But it would be easy to see these comments as being critical if one doesn’t realize it comes from someone who finds the artwork in XKCD to be intimidatingly good.
Edit: just to note, I did also do transcripts of the original versions of the pages I’ve done transcripts on. However, I’ve not uploaded those, because the answer to the last question really must be answered before I upload those, so I know how much editing is needed. While I think it goes without saying, while I appreciate opinions on my second question there from anyone who cares to share, Past’s opinion matters far more than anyone else’s. If he doesn’t say anything, the art comentaries get removed from any transcripts I upload from here on.
As noted, it is specifically my intention to not moderate the Wiki beyond what I have to, so I’m not going to say no to anything that people want to upload. If people find it useful or not, I don’t know.
As for the art commentary, I mean, if the questions “would it annoy me”, the answer is probably no; I don’t mind if someone critiques the art. I mean, if the comments are “welp, the art blows”, I probably wouldn’t exactly find it funny, but I mean… if I go to the first page of the comic, despite the fact that I have redrawn it twice over the years, my first comment would be “welp, the art blows”, so… it is not exactly a trade secret that I didn’t know how to draw when I started the comic – the evidence is literally every page. I find it deeply confusing that anyone has ever ready through those pages and not just find a different browser tab to open.
There certainly are criticisms that can get under my skin (I am, last I checked, mortal), but art is not one of them, as I have no real pride in the art.
Personal I’m of the general mind set that people should upload to the wiki what they want, and if it gets used it gets used be people. I am personally not really sure what transcripts are used for, but then again I sort of know most of the story in my head, so I probably am not the person to be commenting on the usefulness of reference material – this is mostly a community project in my book, I will do what I can to help, in time will probably dump more obscure information on there for the people that would like to consume the world details in the more minute details (like detailing out the laws of the magic system and the like).
I’m aware of two uses of transcripts. The first may strike you as odd, but there are blind people who are interested in web comics, and screen readers handle text far better than images.
My personal usage is to check on what people said when – as I mentioned, it’s a lot quicker to have a computer search for text than it is to manually reread hundreds of pages of comics.
As far as my actual commentary, none of it was technically written as criticisms; I merely tried to do accurate text descriptions of the old pages. But it would be easy to see a description of the old art, especially the original pages, as criticisms.
Great! I can write some code to traverse through all the pages and extract their transcripts to separate named/dated files and reformat them to wiki pages but I do not know enough about Wikipedia structure to programmatically upload them to the wiki. That info would be appreciated.
Going to be honest, I have no idea if a bulk upload like this possible to the wiki. I sort of suspect its probably not. It is possible I can do a bulk create on the server itself if I have properly formatted, not sure though, so don’t count on that.
Out of curiosity, how would pull transcripts off the pages? The don’t have the page text embedded anywhere, it’s just on the image, unless I misunderstand what you mean.
Oops! My bad!!! I am catching up on my comics addiction after a two week trip and had the Zona transcripts in my head. My apologies. Extracting transcripts from images would definitely be a manual task.
So does anyone know how to make an omelet with the egg on my face?
Tesseract translates images into text.
Most programming languages include a browser library that allows scripted web access. I’ve used the ones for Perl, Java, and Python. Given the ubiquity of http based APIs these days… Anyway.
If it is needed, I suspect it will manifest.
Ah yes Mr. Kokato; making the unknown facts fit your world view, not your world view fit the reveal of new facts. Dude misses so much.
Heh, yeah, I would be absolutely STUNNED if M.Y.M. has not completely penetrated the entire Arpon computer net, and is able to futz with their military command structure–and everything else they have. ^^
Along with, you know, everything else Kokato doesn’t know about….
He seemed to be pretty good at that the last time we saw him, except for the parts where Mium just went “Whatever” at pretty much everything he said. How little of what he said phased Mium (or how little Mium even seemed to take notice of) should’ve been signs that maybe he was on the wrong track, but he appeared to just ignore pretty much all of it and continued to assume he was in a superior position.
Apparently he hasn’t really learned anything since then.
Oh poor, poor president Kokato. You have learned nothing…The IDS can’t even be trusted to act in their own best interests, let alone yours.
You go kicking that hornet’s nest now. We’ll sit back and wait as it all goes to hell for you.
I think the real question here isnt “Who would win?” Its rather: How does the event fit Peter’s plan? I am quite sure he planned and even formulated this exact conversation months ago.
In regards to the comic overall: I can 100% agree to Strikelords last paragraph. I could not have formulated it better. As for language and formulation:
I appreciate and fully understand your goal to “Do it right” but sometimes I get the feeling you care to much. Its clear by now you are not a native english speaker. But neither are most of your readers. I am from Germany, for example. The point is: We do understand what you and your characters are saying. I have read (and probably written) buissness emails in english, regarding contracts worth several 100k $, with not half your english skills.
And while everyone is happy to help with minor flaws in grammar, I sometimes feel you worry to much about it.
We all love your comic. For the lovable characters and the great story that develops. Everything else is just icing on the cake
Wilkommen, BlakkurSverrir! Guten tag! Du bist toll!
He’s called you out, Past! He knows your secret!
But does he know that your mother tongue is 1337?
When I was younger, people who spoke English as an alternate language would sometimes give me replies of sympathetic comradery like this. It was difficult to convey to them that, no, as far as external linguistics went, English is my first language. It’s just not the language in my head. No, there isn’t a name that I’m aware of for the language in my head. I just need to translate everything I say no matter what language I speak just because. But I don’t get an ‘already learned one extra language so the next is easier’ bonus. I apparently get a ‘you’re already at your language cap’ penalty. I’ve tried to learn half a dozen different languages. I was best at German, and so I studied it for six years to get through the four semesters of foreign language requirement at my school. At this point, I know maybe a dozen words well enough to speak them, and maybe a hundred well enough to understand them.
At this point, I’ve learned English well enough to understand that most people don’t know English well enough to understand what I want to say regardless of how well I speak it.
On the bright side, in my younger days, I picked up computer languages like they were nothing. These days, I know so many… “I want an associative array here. What type was that again? dict? hash? map?” map<other type>? Perl’s sigils are annoying to some, but for me, they mean that I am reminded of the base type symbols often enough I don’t have to struggle to remember what they are, even if I’ve left the language for a few years.
To me its kind of strange. Of course my main language is german. My english is.. well enough I think. I know a few words and sentences in most european languages, and I can sometimes “feel” the eaning of words by their context. Especially in Latin based languages.
The srange thing is: If you tell me something that I undrstand, I cant really remember in which language you told me. Recntly I told someone about his comic and he tried and said: “Yeah, but its in english, you know I dont speak english” And I was like: It is? Oh, you are right, it is
Your English is better than my German by a wide margin.
The experience of forgetting the input language is common. Recognition is always easier than creation.
Switching contexts for the spoken language takes more active thought than switching contexts for the language heard. Thus an individual asked questions in two languages back to back is likely to answer both in a single language without realizing multiple languages were in play.
It is an odd sensation.
-G-
Great plotting, as always. But maybe a few nitpicks…
In panel two, perhaps consider changing “supported by Malsan Family Mage” to “supported by [a] Malsan Family Mage” or “Malsan Family Mage[s]”. And, while it’s not incorrect to say “is going to”, it’s passive voice. You could simply say “will” and make it active…but that’s a stylistic point, not a grammatical one.
In panel three, I suspect “trading loses” should be “trading losses”. Ditto for panel 5; “loses” should probably be “losses” there as well. And in panel seven, “They do not like people DEVELOPING technology they did not intentionally release”–maybe consider saying “DEPLOYING technology they did not intentionally release”?
I love your comic! The intrigue and intricacy are wonderful, and your character dialog is sharp–the way you portray your dramatis personae’s speech evokes a quality of a world that is very similar to, but not quite like, our own, without the dialog becoming stilted, boring or incomprehensible. Keep on keepin’ on!
The I.D.S. do not like people developing technology they did not intentionally release. They mind the deployment also, but they’ve made it pretty clear it’s step 3 that first gets their goat, not the step 6. That said, step 2 makes them pretty nervous as well, and I suspect they’d prefer step 1 not be taken, though they haven’t really indicated that much one way or the other.
1. Notice a phenomenon.
2. Model the phenomenon.
3. Figure out a plan to harness the phenomenon.
4. Develop that plan.
5. Test that plan.
6. Deploy the plan.
Also, last panel, I suspect the intended statement is “Do not think…” rather than “I do not think…”
Fixed, thanks 🙂
Fixed, thanks 🙂
The president of fools has made a grave error. He assumes the only Malsan threat comes from the family mages and ignores the possibility that Malsa has better leadership. From this single conversation, I would willingly wager the Malsan Consul could beat this president in any competition. Furthermore, Malsa has Peter, and paint me red and call me a commie if Peter hasn’t planned for this eventuality.
I think we are seeing Peter accounting for this. Peter kidnapped this guy. If he has surfaced alive, it is probably because Peter thinks that he is more useful alive and working for the enemy.
If I remember right, the (hilarious) betrayal note that Mium left Rovak even told him to keep Kokato alive.
You guys merely think Peter planned for this? I think he set this up.
I mean, no, he didn’t want Arpon to go to war with Malsa. But he understood it was happening, so orchestrated events so that it would happen when Arpon wouldn’t have the support of the I.D.S.
Miko: That’s obvious. Step one of any plan is take control of the timeline of events. By manually triggering that event, their actions can be modeled to a predictable timeline of events for us to act on. Also, they tried to shoot me, it’s really them that escalated the problems.
I believe that this is just a step in that predicted timeline of events.
Also, the note didn’t tell Rovak to keep Kokato alive. It just reminded him that his employers would prefer he do so.
seems like a very angry conversation going on here
Same here, Decker.
However I confess that I like the regularity that “half” seem to help enable. It’s not quite as bad as missing a cup of coffee, but still…. 😉
Nicely done, Past.