today's penny arcade

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Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

Maybe it's just me. I'm not quite understanding what happened.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/5/7/

Panel 1: The boys kill the monster
Panel 2: Boy shows a blue ribbon (which I haven't seen highlighted before.. I went back and looked at the previous 5 comics)
panel 3: Man shows empty fist
Panel 4: Man suddenly has ribbon in his fist
Panel 5: Boy sees portion of ribbon in his belt, look of horror on his face
Panel 6: 3 leaving the forest, melancholy tones to panel

Uh, what just happened?
 
tegid

tegid

It's a game in which taking the other's ribbon means you won. You 'killed' him.
The kid thinks he beat the teacher, thus killing the monster, but he died in the process.

Something like this.
 
R

Raemon777

Oh, I get it. But it really wasn't clear. I'd think they should at least have SHOWN the blue ribbons before now, so they didn't come out of nowhere.
 
phil

phil

I think the kid who got his ribbon pulled might have died fighting the owl thing. The 3 in the last panel appear to be the blond one, tall one and the kind of pudgy one. Red hair died in the fight as he did in the training with the lookout master with the ribbons.
 
Shawn

Shawn

phil said:
I think the kid who got his ribbon pulled might have died fighting the owl thing. The 3 in the last panel appear to be the blond one, tall one and the kind of pudgy one. Red hair died in the fight as he did in the training with the lookout master with the ribbons.
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I don't think they were ever fighting a real monster. I think it was all apart of their imagination as they played with the instructor.
 
Telephius

Telephius

Shawnacy;382539][QUOTE=phil said:
I think the kid who got his ribbon pulled might have died fighting the owl thing. The 3 in the last panel appear to be the blond one, tall one and the kind of pudgy one. Red hair died in the fight as he did in the training with the lookout master with the ribbons.
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I don't think they were ever fighting a real monster. I think it was all apart of their imagination as they played with the instructor.[/QUOTE]

I believe it is this.
 
Espy

Espy

I loved this arc but honestly? It was confusing and things were terribly unclear as to what was going on. I hope they figure out how to avoid some of this kind of confusion in the future.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Really? I read it as a mixture of present and past events, with patch guy simultaneously teaching the kiddies and reliving the events leading up to the loss of his eye.

--Patrick
 
Espy

Espy

According to Gabe it was flashing forward to the future.


So between his comments, mine and yours I think my point is proven. It was, lets say... at least a little unclear.
 
Telephius

Telephius

I figured it was the imagination option so the full story was clear and not confusing to me. The only thing that I did not get was that it was jumping to actual future events but in terms of the actual arc I don't think that is revelvant to the clarity of the poem being illustratated.

In anycase I understood from the minute that they had shown the owlcat, that the scenes with the owlcat were of a different substance then when the kids were shown with their instructor. I did not need to know if it was pure imagination or a telling of what was in store for the future. What I thought was happening was when it was in the apparant future mode(which I thought was just lore reimagining) was the retelling of prior lookouts just the current boys living in that story imagining themselves as the players in that history.

When I read the last comic I knew what was going on. The first time I saw the blue ribbon I know what it mean, where I come from schools would do things such as tag football, or other various games where taking the tag from someoens belt meant someone was out, so in that one panel I realized that it mean they landed a killing blw on the owlcat.

This is how I essectially viewed the comic when seeing the owlbeast at first. I saw the boys getting chased in greenery by their instructor. Then it goes to top view so you are looking at a snowy ground. I though that maybe they were close to a snowline or something of that sort as the world the lookouts live in is somewhat mysterious. The top down angle also allowed for a switch between reality/present and imagination/future when you get focused on the fact that there is now snow on the ground and you give that a slight thought then the next panel hits. It is back to a level view but snow is still on the ground and now a giant owlcat lurkes in the back its face the same as the mask of the instructor. Panel 1 was 'reality', Panel 2 was set up as the distraction and transition away from the reality and Panel 3 was finale to that page that revealed that the story was being told in two different 'streams' of sorts.

From then on I knew that when there was green background that they were in the instructor reality, and when there was snow it was the other reality. Also the fact that there were verses to a poem on each page also allowed me the fact that there could be suggestive ways the story was being told and not just a direct viewing of the tale.
 
D

Disconnected

If the ribbon was going to be the big reveal and it was not shown on the boy (let alone the 'dad/beast') at all until then, this is what we call... cheating.
Also known as making shit up.

Looking at this ignoring the words it appears to have more sense to it. But by cheating the ribbon it just fucked you over.
And I can't believe I just picked apart a fucking webcomic but this feels like a case of the creators knowing exactly whats going on and hiding enough of it to claim it is deeper than a fart joke.
 
S

Soliloquy

what's even worse is that the small fragment of the ribbon in the second-to-last panel isn't even in the second panel, even though both panels are from the same angle, with practically the same pose.

They really needed the ribbons to be shown in every page.

---------- Post added at 08:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:48 PM ----------

Beyond that: I got the feeling that it was flashing back and forth through time, also, but the comic works with either interpretation.
 
Gusto

Gusto

I honestly think we're better off having never been given a real answer. I think seeing te maimed body of an 8-year-old at tis point would ruin the arc for me.

Full points, Penny Arcade, keep on rockin'.
 
Telephius

Telephius

I agree that they could have placed the ribbons in harder to see spots such as the back of their waist so when the reveal comes they could have drawn the boy look over his shoulder at his back side to see that there was no more ribbon. They were sloppy in presentation on that count.
 
Rob King

Rob King

Yes. Gabe's twitter indicates that the ribbon was supposed to be on the back, hence not being in any other frames.

The winter/forest thing did confuse me at the end there, but I realize after looking back that on the third page, the winter boys in the top panel do look older than their forest selves.
 
Null

Null

It's clearer if you've read the previous Lookouts story - basically, the man with the patch is teaching the boys how to survive against the real monsters that roam the woods. First it was the cockatrice, in this case it's the "Winter King" or Owlbeast. The part where the man is wearing the mask is training, juxtaposed with the actual hunt in the forest. Remember the Lookouts motto: "What a man will know, a boy must learn" - they learn here that even in success, there are losses, and that even making the mortal blow doesn't make you immune from falling yourself.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Null said:
It's clearer if you've read the previous Lookouts story - basically, the man with the patch is teaching the boys how to survive against the real monsters that roam the woods. First it was the cockatrice, in this case it's the "Winter King" or Owlbeast. The part where the man is wearing the mask is training, juxtaposed with the actual hunt in the forest. Remember the Lookouts motto: "What a man will know, a boy must learn" - they learn here that even in success, there are losses, and that even making the mortal blow doesn't make you immune from falling yourself.
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True, but it's also apparent that this is the first time the group has SURVIVED the Cockatrice, as was apparent by all the statues in the clearing when they fought it. It always seemed to me that the entire thing was an elaborate means of sacrificing the children to it to appease it, gauging by the reaction of the elders when they got back and by how sad the leader was when he seemingly hid to let them confront the beast. Or at least that's how I took it.
 
Null

Null

No, that's not correct. Perhaps a boy or two from every time they faced a cockatrice (there are many in the woods) didn't make it - as the teacher told them "Look around, and see boys who did not pay attention to their Master." And the elders were mad because the Master intervened, distracting the cockatrice to help the boys kill it.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Null said:
No, that's not correct. Perhaps a boy or two from every time they faced a cockatrice (there are many in the woods) didn't make it - as the teacher told them "Look around, and see boys who did not pay attention to their Master." And the elders were mad because the Master intervened, distracting the cockatrice to help the boys kill it.
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But that raises the question of why the cockatrice is still there, if their have been successful hunts in the past? Do they simply leave it's eggs alone when they kill it, thus ensuring the woods will ALWAYS be dangerous, even if it means they can teach again in a few years? Did another cockatrice happen to move into the EXACT SAME NEST as the previous one? It seems to me that they'd have wiped out any trace of the beast if the goal was really to deal with this sort of problem.
 
S

Soliloquy

Can't we just ignore the first story, and pretend it never happened? Because I think we should pretend the first story never happened.
 
LittleSin

LittleSin

Gabe himself said that story wasn't in the 'continuity' because it did not go the direction they would have liked.

So, yeh, that story was like a fan fic.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

LittleSin said:
Gabe himself said that story wasn't in the 'continuity' because it did not go the direction they would have liked.

So, yeh, that story was like a fan fic.
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Well that's what they get for not fucking drawing it themselves like they said they would. Don't get me wrong, Automata was my choice too, but it's clear they wanted to do Lookouts.
 
Rob King

Rob King

AshburnerX;383036][QUOTE=LittleSin said:
Gabe himself said that story wasn't in the 'continuity' because it did not go the direction they would have liked.

So, yeh, that story was like a fan fic.
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Well that's what they get for not fucking drawing it themselves like they said they would. Don't get me wrong, Automata was my choice too, but it's clear they wanted to do Lookouts.[/QUOTE]

Funny how the first story in the lookouts universe wasn't canon.

And to be fair, the PA guys never promised to do it themselves. It's just that they always have, so there was never any reason to think that they wouldn't.

And to be even more fair, they still aren't completely doing it themselves. Tycho wrote this one, and Gabe is drawing it, but they brought on a guest to color ...
 
Espy

Espy

Gusto said:
Has anything in Penny Arcade ever been canon?

Let us think on this.
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LOL. No kidding right?

Regarding the clarity of the lookout strips I want to make the following statement: I have zero problem with the PA guys challenging their readers and making us work to understand whats going on, even leaving things up in the air, but between Gabe's comments about what is "really going on" (which I feel comfortable assuming we are to have figured out) and the variety of thoughts people have on what was going on I don't think they succeeded in being "challenging" instead of mildly (and I do mean mildly) confusing.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

Wait, you guys could make stuff out in the first Lookouts series? Looked like someone peed different colors on a piece of paper to me.
 
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