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So now that is is over, what are your thoughts on this arc?

I know there were complaints of bait and switch when they brought in the guests to do the arc.
The end had me scratching my head a bit ([spoiler:35t5xrva]was he supposed to sacrafice the boys[/spoiler:35t5xrva]?).

I was dissapointed at the guest art, and it really didn't have that full PA feel in the writing.
I got over it and started enjoying the story.
Wouldn't mind seeing a follow up.

I voted for it and hated every one. I didn't like the art and the story was confusing and lame.

I am very disappointed.

Yeah most of it was just a weird, jumbled mess. But, what can you do? You get what you pay for.

Edrondol said:

I voted for it and hated every one. I didn't like the art and the story was confusing and lame.

I am very disappointed.

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Yup, that's pretty much how I feel.

The colors hurt my eyes. I'm not sure why, but my vision just feels all wonky trying to see what's going on.

It feels like the artist just got a new collection of markers, and felt obliged to use every single one.

I wasn't expecting the run to use a guest artist, and the difference is far to jarring for me to accept. I feel like I've been cheated, if not flat-out lied to.

The ending with the other two men feels tacked on from another story. It is out of place and makes absolutely no sense after what came before.

No, sir. I didn't like it.

I would rather they waited on this and done it themselves at a later date, then give it to some guest artists just to get it done. The vote isn't just for the characters and concept, it was for the PA guys doing said characters and concept.

Oh well, maybe someday in the future we'll get a PA-done arc of the Lookouts world.

But, yes, I found it to be confusing as well.

I liked it. (Probably the only one, too, but meh, whatever.) Sure, it's a copout leaving it to the guest artists, but I think they did a pretty good job nonetheless.

Agree completely with whats been said. The only thing I liked about it was the lyrical style of the dialogue. The good news is that autmatica should be up next and that should be pretty good. Gabe also said he wanted to do a graphic novel for this sometime in the future, not set in stone of course but maybe this isn't the last we'll see of look outs?

I felt it was all pretty meh

I'm with Wahad.

Plus, if you don't count the quick sketch updates when they're at cons, this is probably one of the first times they got to take a break from drawing the strip.

Allen said:

I'm with Wahad.

Plus, if you don't count the quick sketch updates when they're at cons, this is probably one of the first times they got to take a break from drawing the strip.

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They do take breaks and vacations, they just build a queue first.

I liked it. I liked it a whole lot. Art was fantastic, the storyline interesting and things like the elders and the girls added a whole other layer to the world that makes the whole thing like a living world rather than just a story book world that revolves around the main characters.

The art shift was a little jarring but I was happy with the style the guest artist went with.

bigcountry23 said:

Allen said:

I'm with Wahad.

Plus, if you don't count the quick sketch updates when they're at cons, this is probably one of the first times they got to take a break from drawing the strip.

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They do take breaks and vacations, they just build a queue first.

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And they didn't have to build a queue this time

ElJuski said:

Yeah most of it was just a weird, jumbled mess. But, what can you do? You get what you pay for.

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Your statement would do well on the Transformers thread.

I thought it was a jumbled up, incoherent mess. I guess I can't be mad that they did what they wanted to do with their own comic, but I was really disappointed.

One thing that really irritated me was when Gabe tweeted about people complaining, and Jeph Jacques replied to him saying (paraphrasing) that people complaining about it was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. I like Jeph and his artwork/comics a lot, but he can be really condescending and closed-minded regarding other people's opinions sometimes. I think people definitely had a right to express dissatisfaction.

Lally said:

I thought it was a jumbled up, incoherent mess.

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I need to go re-read it as a whole but it just made my head hurt. The art was... almost great but it was so busy it kind of overwhelmed what they were trying to go for... too bad.

Espy said:

Lally said:

I thought it was a jumbled up, incoherent mess.

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I need to go re-read it as a whole but it just made my head hurt. The art was... almost great but it was so busy it kind of overwhelmed what they were trying to go for... too bad.

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It was like they were trying too hard... It's not that the artist had no talent, they just need to CALM DOWN. I literally could not understand what was going on.

I had a pretty tough time deciding on who to vote for between Automatica and Lookouts.


Glad I ended up going with Automatica.

I think the art is good, they just need to work on their storytelling craft a bit. I wasn't clear on who was doing what when. I thought it looked pretty, though.

The ending was a little odd and felt out of place to me, but it may have simply been that I was expecting something different. Like something that reinforced the Lookouts place in the world, not something that suggested the Lookouts were just an excuse the old guys used to lure kids into the forest to get them killed. I feel like we should have gotten an ending that indicated how the Lookouts are constructively important, not just bystanders.

I was really disappointed in this. It just looked too random and crazy and stuff. It looked like those bad one off cartoons you see during the day on cartoon network or nickelodeon. Confusing, and sort of gross looking. The kids noses some of them looked...phallic.

I REALLY wish they had done it themselves... I didn't care a bit about automata or jim dark magic...

ElJuski said:

Yeah most of it was just a weird, jumbled mess. But, what can you do? You get what you pay for.

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I'm with Dave.

I hope the guys handle Automata by themselves. I voted Lookouts but it was a close decision. I want to see Automata in it's presented form, not this bait and switch nonsense.

I enjoyed the art, but the story was confusing as hell. I liked how it was written, but it wasn't coherent behind the scenes, if that makes sense.

I havent been going to PA, someone tell me when its back to Gabe and Tycho.

Um... Friday's update.

Automata was my favorite of the three.... but yeah comparing the first page to the rest there's a world of difference. Gabe's page is beautiful while the rest is a jumbled mess. I think the point they tried to make is that only with their teacher's help, blinding the cockatrice, would they live to defeat it.

I just read the guest writer's blog posts on it. He's a writer for Heroes, which means that the horrible treatment of Lookouts makes sense.

I liked the art style, but it just wasn't Penny Arcade. It would be like me going to Subway and getting a Big Mac. I like Big Macs, but if I wanted one right now, I'd have gone to McDonalds. So though I might have liked it in another context, I didn't like it for Lookouts.

And as far as story goes, the most I can tell (and this is after reading the writer's blog posts on the subject) is that the leader of the group was intending to lead the boys out there, and let the Basalisk kill one (or all) of them. When he saw the boys fight so valiantly, it warmed his cold, cold, heart, and he decided to help them kill the Basilisk, and save the boys. The elders of their town don't like this, because ... I'm not sure why they don't like this. Or, I know why they don't like it: they were sending out a sacrifice to the Basalisk. But I'm unsure as to why they are sacrificing children to this forest anyhow. It seems to be incongruous when considering the original strip, the podcast, and what seemed to be the general flavor of Lookouts that Gabe and Tycho were putting forward.

I'd be interested to hear what Gabe and Tycho think of it. I mean, I know they're not going to be jackasses and say "yeah, we let guests do that, and it was crap. Sorry." but the strip (the writing particularly) was so ... not flowing from the original concept.

...that was supposed to be the story?

man, if I didn't already know that being good isn't one of the qualifications for being a pro writer, I'd be asking how that guy is a pro.

Rob King said:

writer's blog

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Dang, read the comments section on his blog. He gets reamed pretty by some upset fans (especially Yuk Yuk).

"May we die in the forest."

Allen said:

man, if I didn't already know that being good isn't one of the qualifications for being a pro writer, I'd be asking how that guy is a pro.

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It's this kind of stuff that makes me angry at my self-respect. I would love to write professionally, but there is no way in hell that I would present something as horrible as that as 'finished product.' And yet, this guy is making a living off shitting onto paper through a pen.

Steve said:

Rob King said:

writer's blog

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Dang, read the comments section on his blog. He gets reamed pretty by some upset fans (especially Yuk Yuk).

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Yeah, but the thing is that as rude as some of them are: they're right.

But this guy is probably shrugging it off as rampant PA fandom. Halfway down, he responds to the comments with something that can be summed up roughly in "Well, I showed it to some people [spoiler:3mzx7dvj][Translation: 'my mom'][/spoiler:3mzx7dvj] and they thought it was awesome. I'm sorry if you don't get it. I wanted to leave the reader with some food for thought: some questions about the subject matter."

I don't think this guy sees the problem with the fact that the most widely asked question is "What the fuck just happened, and how the hell did it happen under the Penny Arcade banner?"

-- Sun Jul 12, 2009 8:18 pm --

This comment was most salient for me:

I'm just disappointed that instead of taking the cool and perfectly straight-forward premise handed to you (fantasy Boy Scouts) you instead chose to interpret \"May We Die in the Forest\" as a command and go off on some weird human sacrifice angle that didn't even come through until the final \"gotcha\" page.

Fantasy Boy Scouts and boys learning to be men is a really awesome idea. Not to mention pretty well suited to three pages. \"Deeper\" doesn't always mean better, and your idea seemed like an episode of 'The Scary Door' from Futurama: twisty for the sake of the twist.

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So wait a sec. Here I was thinking it was just the art that was farmed out for this strip. You mean to tell me it was *all* guest work?

That makes it all the more annoying.

I thought it was just the art too. Why did PA even bother then?

DarkAudit said:

So wait a sec. Here I was thinking it was just the art that was farmed out for this strip. You mean to tell me it was *all* guest work?

That makes it all the more annoying.

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escushion said:

I thought it was just the art too. Why did PA even bother then?

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You guys didn't notice that the story didn't make any sense?

I mean, there are the occasional catsby and twisp strips, and other nonsensical editions, but this one was so accidentally incomprehensible I couldn't have believed Tycho wrote it if he said so himself.