Comic for Monday, July 17th
His list of titles can go one for sometime, he always forgets to add “Largest of the Hams”… though in retrospect that might be one that Peter gave him.
Technically speaking I don’t think this counts as a new character, as he’s been on the cast page since there was a cast page. He’s not a character we will probably see a great deal. His story is at a greater tangent with ours than even someone like Tyler’s, but we’ve stumbled upon an intersection.
Atter and Nathan are something of counterparts for their departments, but their rivalry dates further back and deeper than that.
We are but a dollar short on the next Patreon goal! A major thanks to those have chipped in (and those who’ve been in all along 😀 ). I guess I need to get working on it… I think the next step is a vote for what time period/story we should pick. I think Patreons will vote, but now’s the last shot to throw ideas into the ring (though I’ll ultimately pick the voting options).
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If you’re looking for typos, read it backwards. It’s an old proofreader’s trick. By disrupting the language flow you are more likely to see the letters.
What is the staff that Nathan Summers is carrying?
My guess is that it is a staff of +10 badassery (casts cloak flutter as instant)
and +1 for smacking ne’er do wells.
You’d think he could spring for a Coat of Fluttering like Arron, but no, had to make do with a Staff of Fluttering Assistance…
We’ll probably at learn something about the staff someday. I dunno, he’s sort of just a trespasser in this story, he belongs to his own story but is just drawn to spotlights that need standing in.
I really like this story. I like the appearance of a whole world. You know every person has a back story, each person interplays with each other person. You’ve really developed the character of your characters. When your characters behave out of character, they aren’t really, and there is a reason.
My main frustration with it, is it’s a comic and not a book. With comics you need to look at the pictures, and I often find myself so caught up in the dialog I forget to look at the pictures. And since you put so much detail into that aspect, I suspect I’ve missed a great deal of content specific information by not scrutinizing your pictures more closely.
Such as the lack of sparkles around Tom, even though he just arrived?
Thank you. This comment feels out of place here, but I didn’t know where else to put it.
It is not really up to me, but I do not think the comment is out of place. The contact page “forum” has been pretty quiet, so page comments are the place to be. 🙂
In the interest of jumping right into speculation, my current guess is that ellipses users do not give off sparkles. While we do not really know what it is, it does not seem to be literal invisibility, so probably something to do with not being noticed. I would guess at very least other mages notice mana being shoved around.
Regarding the book, I think @PastUtopia talks about planning to do it as a book originally in some of the earlier commentaries. There is actually the first three pages as a book HERE. Three pages is not too much, but it means he is considering it at least.
I would like the book too, but I am greedy and want both. Seconded on loving the comic though.
I always appreciate comments, they’re never out of place 🙂
To be honest I myself am puzzled that I make a webcomic, considering a few years ago I couldn’t draw stick figures and am constantly frustrated by the fact that I cannot draw things I want to show.
That said, some would counter to say that the affront to the english language that is me should not be allowed near more words 😀
If enough people would read the book, maybe I would write the book. The barrier to entry for books is a lot higher, because people have to try to get them instead of just stumbling into them on the web… that’s why I think I make a webomic 😀 Plus many people like pictures.
My current idea is I will keep the comic a comic and maybe write short side stories with more words and less pictures – the reasoning being most of the people want books are the people that want more stuff, period. They will be happy to have more stuff and more words. Time will tell, I don’t know. Still struggling to find enough time to keep things going as is. I enjoy the hobby the a lot, but I have lots of hobbies and work.
This is what the artist and writer K. B. Spangler did with her comic “A Girl and Her Fed” in the webcomic the main story finishes and then there is a gap of five years that she has filled with novels of character development. For some of the other characters that are less primary in the webcomic. Then stuff in the webcomic continues from that point on sometimes with visits from those characters from the books. She has over 300 agents of stories that she can write because everybody has different takes on the abilities that they now have access to.
I presume you could do something similar with all of the agents of Aaron or covering the time between when Peter left Aaron and when he met with the rest of his current crew.
Oh dear. Lets hope Naomi never meets Mr. Summers. Because I’m not sure she could resist the pull of his heroic speech. Much to the loss of the story.
Haha, some say two birds of feather flock together, some say there is only so much spotlight to go around. Each hero need their own spotlight 🙁
A wild Harry Dresden appears.
I’m not the only one who thought so, then? of course, Dresden is actually loathe to drop titles. this guy revels in them.
Haha 🙂
huh almost want to change my avatar… but the great nathan shows his face.
But Query is still best 🙂
PSA: If anyone wants an avatar, just let me know, doesn’t matter if you want a new one or want a first one, I’ll try to get to it at some point. I think I will make a list or something.
So the mysterious Nathan finally appears.
And his name is Summers.
Also, has Arron tried making people underestimate him because he’s old on purpose? I wonder how well that would work for him.
(You know, “Largest of the Hams” almost sounds too sarcastic for Peter. You sure that was him?)
Peter’s views on Nathan are one part admiration, one part annoyance. Makes for a particularly sarcastic swirl in someone that is not really good at expressing actual social interactions.
Ageism is such an ugly thing, and it’s so amusing and satisfying to watch these whippersnappers underestimate Aaron. ^^
I am guardedly optimistic that we might find out what, if any relationship Kally has to Nathan.
There have been clues that he is her brother. We will see if that is confirmed. I would say that look he looks about brother, but it can be hard to tell.
@PastUtopia is getting better at differentiating characters, but determining family relationship by looks is still kinda iffy. He could be her brother, cousin, uncle, even father (Look at Kyle. Without the gray in his hair, he doesn’t look all that old.) Also, even nephew isn’t out of the question.
BTW, did you notice that he has a little five o’clock shadow? ^^
What language is -()-?
Another language on central… sort of an older language, it’s not that widely spoken, especially post-Incursion. Mostly mages know it, Nathan and Arron can understand it well enough, if for different reasons…
Hahahahah.
Hmm, Nathan is holding a interesting looking staff. While it could be purely decorative or just for dramatic effect (Which it seems would fit perfectly with the personality of its user), if i’m not mistaken we have seen at least one object that has interesting interactions with magic here. Entertaining the idea that the staff has some non obvious function, what would it be, hmm. It appears to have runes of some sort carved into it, but if I had to guess I would guess they are more decorative. I wonder, would it be possible to etch an object such that when viewed in Eidos it would be covered in little “code snippets” from spells? Could a mage speed up their spell casting by carrying such a code library around? Of course I imagine that any such object may be unnecessary or superseded by autocasters and digital information storage. Of course a savvy mage interested in dramatic effect could simply get an autocaster built into a staff.
This does get me interested in Tom’s crowbar too though.
Also I think PastUtopia forgot a close > at the end of Nathan’s little introduction in panel 7.
I hope we will get more information. I have suspected since we first saw him that Tom’s crowbar is not just a crowbar. He seems a be peculiar, but not actively crazy, and given that he a high ranking IDS Agent, he certainly has access to better weapons.
Storing snippets of code in the staff could make sense, but I do not see the advantage over the autocaster. Maybe it is a more traditional approach? He seems to have the more “I am an flipping Wizard” vibe going on that most of the mages we have seen.
I suspect that it is definitely possible he does it for dramatic effect, as he seems to have a flair to that regard.
I assume panel 4 is supposed to be “become *so* confident”?
Also, last panel, the word you’re looking for is “climactic” (at the climax), not “climatic” (related to climate).
Fixed. Thanks 🙂
Also, I was unaware that climatic is a word. I’m not sold on that as a word. I looked it up, but I remain unconvinced that we need that word.
Unfortunately words are added to a language and seldom removed.
You have another word-o in the commentary. In the last sentence, you want people to ‘throw’ meaning to put nouns into an place, and not ‘through’ which means that the nouns would continue on in a longer journey unhindered after briefly being within the ring.
I don’t usually try to proof the commentaries too much, I expect if people venture into more of the word things I write they know what they are getting into 😀 I don’t mind people correcting them though, fixed, thanks 🙂
I like language and languages, just not good at writing it correctly 😉
I have a really hard time seeing my own errors, or really any errors unless its incomprehensible. The best solution I’ve found is to read it out aloud as it forces me to read more of the words, but it also makes me seem like a crazy person 😀
That is the exact technique that I use to find them in my own writing. Especially for something like an important business email. The only downside I have found to it so far is that my writing then becomes more social and less technical. I’ve also noticed that people read into what somebody writes with a bias that affects the words that they see. And we are all guilty of this.
When I check the comic, I deliberately go word by word. Still miss some things, but it does help, I find.
I didn’t know Kally had family. and it’s been MANY Chapters, since we saw the hobo with the crowbar.
Yes, and in that last sighting of the hobo with the crowbar, Naomi learned from him that Ms. Winters had a brother, who was working with said hobo (Tom).
And here, we finally see
the great question mark himself
Nathan Summers
Technically I think the last sighting was HERE. A sort of glorious and information rich conversation on its own right. Tom’s coming usually seems to herald good pieces of information.
He’s sort of sneaky like that, appearing where the plot is the thickest before fading away.