The Sticks Awards 406-410

[Nazzo, the 102nd]

Hi, and welcome to The Sticks Awards!

The Sticks Awards are given to the best strips of all times, chosen by the polls here in the Playground. Read the The Sticks Awards Results Compilation (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34791) thread for more details and previous results.

To vote, simply post your favorite strip of the current 5 on the thread. You have 3 days to do it.

The poll will close on March 6th, 20:00 PM forum default time.


The Sticks Awards 406-410

406 A Moment of Truth (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0406.html)
407 Fading (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0407.html)
408 Fallsville, Population: 1 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0408.html)
409 Intercession (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0409.html)
410 The New Lord in Town (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0410.html)

[Yerocha]

I'll vote for 407, for sure. The strips before and after it are also incredibly epic, but the singular moment of 407 is just...one of the best things ever.

[Remirach]

My vote's for 409, but if I'd been using another criteria it could have been any of the others. I did not foresee Miko flipping out like that, and things took an amazing turn for the dramatic, but Hinjo's leap into the fray took him from "background noise" to "badass" and made me go, "oh, cool" instead of "oh... wow."

[Lira]

My vote is for 407.

[Jarwy]

408 Fallsville, Population: 1... I mean seriously, Treasure Type O and the other brilliant jab Roy hit Miko with... hehe. :smallamused:

[Emanick]

408, but they were all awesome. :smallbiggrin:

[gusk]

I'll vote for 409

[AlisdairM]

Quite a set here, and best line goes to Hinjo with "I'll stand between any two murderers I choose", but my vote has to go to #406. Normally I dislike voting for triple strips, it's as if the giant did not quite know how to fit his story into the single page. However, in this case I would have had trouble picking a winner if all three had been single strips, so there is no contest when all rolled into one.

Of course, I said the same thing about the best of last quarter too - giant is definitely on a roll in this part of the story.

[Parvum]

YOU KILLED THE WACKY OLD DUDE WITH THE CAT?

Belkar's righteous rant and the climactic quip filled battle wins 408 my vote.

[Phase]

Definitely number 407, I just love that it can be made into a clock...

[memnarch]

409 gets my vote.

[Chronos]

Tough choice... In 407, we have both Shojo and the Twelve Gods giving Miko a righteous smackdown, but in 409, we have Hinjo giving Miko a righteous smackdown. The former was a lot more authoritative (divine will, and last words), but the latter was much more direct.

I think I'm going to go with 409, with Hinjo's great lines being what pushes me over the edge. "I'll stand between any two murderers I wish", and "His hands still were not the ones on the sword that sliced through my uncle. Yours? Were." Plus Hinjo being such an exemplar of the paladin code: Even when Miko has just killed his uncle and liege, and even while she's attempting to kill him, he's still trying to talk her down and get her to repent in preference to killing her.

[Hell Puppi]

Tough choice but....407

[RMS Oceanic]

406-409 are an epic set of strips, filled with plot points and soem nice gags. However, I'm going with 407, for it's awesome rendition of a Falling Paladin.

[Niknokitueu]

Treasure Type 'O' nearly swung it for me, but in the end it was Lord Shojo's final words:
"It appears... not everyone... agrees with your... analysis."

To me it even tops the righteous smackdown at the top of the page.

Number 407 for me!

Have Fun!
Niknokitueu

[David Argall]

I'll go with 406, and with the opinion that the winner in this 5 will likely make it to the finals.

[phobiandarkmoon]

407 for being only ever so slightly more awesome than the rest of these strips

[Prowl]

"Treasure Type O" makes 408 a winner.

Let me pre-register a vote for 412 in the next set too.

[JoseB]

#407

Can there be any doubt?

JoseB

[Kurald Galain]

Lots of awesomeness here, my personal favorite being 408. Heck, I'd take that Roy-whacking-Miko picture as a desktop background.

[dish]

Oh, this choice is actually easy (for me).

407

[DarkLightDragon]

I'll vote for 406... Awesomeness...

[Pagz]

408

My gosh... such a hard choice!

[warmachine]

All good, all good. So hard to choose. 408 just wins it with the combination of action, Roy's sarcasm and Belkar's indignation.

[Maithu]

408 for Roy fighting "taunts"...

[mockingbyrd7]

Can't choose, they're all so close for me. I guess I'll go with 406.

[Shishnarfne]

Decisions, decisions... I'll take 410 with a side of paladin humor: "Summon Conscience"

[TroyXavier]

None of these are among my favorites but I'll go with 406 just for Miko finally snapping as she realizes her whole life was a lie.

[Morgan Wick]

I'll go with 406, and with the opinion that the winner in this 5 will likely make it to the finals.

Oh, there are still some other contenders between here and #425. Elan's speech before the battle, for one.

Wow, someone actually got in a vote for 410.

So many good strips... I can't decide... I can't decide!!!

[Vargtass]

407. The one prior comes close, but this time, wordiness lose to timing...
... as it should!

[kukn]

408 here. A good lot, full of strong tension, climactic feelings, drama and hilarious humour.

Though Roy's quip about jumping to conclusions being a Monk trait is one of the best ever.

[Swordguy]

It's nearly impossible to choose between 406, 407, and 408. These are the high point of the story arc. I'll go with 406, wordy as it was, because there's no other comic that had people falling out of their desk chairs going "Oh CRAP!".

[recluso]

I'll vote 406.

I want some of 406-409 to get higher in later polls. Immediately after reading 406-409 one would be tempted to vote 407, but I feel that it will be easier to appreciate how important 406 is, when read alone. I do like the refusal to get resurrected in 410 but it's not sufficient for a vote.

[Morty]

That's one hard choice. Those few strips has been preety epic. As much as I love the smackdown Miko gets in 407, 406 gets my final vote, for the "Oh, CRAP" factor.

[hajo]

The Sticks Awards 406-410
406 A Moment of Truth (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0406.html)
407 Fading (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0407.html)
408 Fallsville, Population: 1 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0408.html)
409 Intercession (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0409.html)
410 The New Lord in Town (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0410.html)

I vote 409 "NOW is a good time" :smallamused:

[Qov]

407, for the artwork.

[SlightlyEvil]

All of 406-409 are awesome, and the best part of the strip. The fight scene stretching through 408 and 409 is great, but my vote goes to 406.

I personally think of 406 and 407 as one comic, because of the timing of the scene. If I could vote for them as one unit, I would, but since I cannot, I pick the one with the, pardon the phrase, Moment of Truth at the culmination of Shojo's years of deception.

[carebearbecky]

Lots of good stuff in these strips, but I think I have to go with 409.

Just love Belkar's "Funny, I always figured I'd be killed by a paladin."

[Morgan Wick]

It's down to 406 or 409 for me. 406 is very important plotwise, but 409 has a lot of great lines ("You would stand between me and this murderer?" "I'll stand between any two murderers I wish, thanks." "Ooo, burned!") and gets my vote.

Shaping up to be a very down to the wire vote. More later.

[gnomas]

im voting 406 just for the epic moment

[Morgan Wick]

Well, as I write this, 407 has a very slight edge over 406 and 408, with 409 trailing fairly close behind. As I expected, 410 got crushed. But I can't really declare a winner because when Nazzo posts a time like "20:00 PM", the redundancy makes me wonder whether (s)he means "20:00", or 8 PM, or if it's a typo for "10:00 PM". And if (s)he means the latter (admittedly doubtful), the leader could well change by then, it's so tight. If I had voted for 406 a few minutes ago (EDIT: Or if the latter time was intended, although Face of Evil below likely didn't intend 407), we'd be going to a runoff.

On to the next round: 411 is plot-important and has a good line at the end, 412 is mostly a recap strip, 413 is hilarious AND plot-important, 414 has its merits but seems weak, and 415 is also laugh-out-loud funny. I expect 413 and 415 to battle it out for the lead and 411 to muster a few more votes than 412 and 414, but I could easily be wrong.

[Forealms]

406

Truly the epic moment of all (preceding) moments. Just how the story worked dragged me in.

[Icewalker]

406.

It's just such a stunningly tense and amazingly written moment.

[FoE]

407. Slash! Slash! Slash!

[Reigheena]

My vote's for 407

[Ikialev]

409

Blahblahblah

[hajo]

The poll will close on March 6th, 20:00 PM forum default time.
So this poll should be closed already ?

[Morgan Wick]

Yeah, if this vote is any indication, Nazzo appears to be slipping again... just in time for an incredibly close vote!

(If I've posted my recap and preview of the next round, the polls are probably closed.)

[ravenmonkey]

I LOVER ORDER OF THE STICK WOOT!:thog: <------ BESTIST

[Nazzo, the 102nd]

So this poll should be closed already?

Ok, sorry about that people. :smallredface: I'm just not used to this 12-hour-am-pm format you people (and the forum) uses. Here in Brasil we use the 24-hour format, hence the confusion.

The time intended was 20:00, 8:00 PM.

So, whenever you guys get confused, just ignore the AM/PM part and you'll be good. :smallbiggrin:

[Nazzo, the 102nd]

Okay, guys, sorry about that time mess. The poll is closed, and the official results are below. Some explanations:

The official end time of this poll was March 6th, 08:00 PM, and so the votes by Morgan Wick, gnomas, Forealms, Icewalker, Face Of Evil, Reigheena and Luena were discarded (sorry, people). They sum up 3 votes for 406, 2 for 407 and 2 for 409, or 4-1-2, depending on Face Of Evil's vote. The latter would change the outcome, and by the Awards rules, when that happens, only the votes within the timeframe of the poll are accounted.

This was quite a week for me. I myself didn't even vote on this one.


406 - 9 (25.00%)
AlisdairM; David Argall; DarkLightDragon; mockingbyrd7; TroyXavier; Swordguy; recluso; M0rt; SlightlyEvil

407 - 11 (30.56%)
Yerocha; Lira; Phase; HellPuppi; RMS Oceanic; Niknokitueu; phobiandarkmoon; JoseB; dish; Vargtass; Qov

408 - 9 (25.00%)
Jarwy; Emanick; Parvum; Prowl; Kurald Galain; Pagz; warmachine; Maithu; kukn

409 - 6 (16.67%)
Remirach; gusk; memnarch; Chronos; hajo; carebearbecky

410 - 1 (2.78%)
Shishnarfne

[Morgan Wick]

The official end time of this poll was March 6th, 08:00 PM, and so the votes by Morgan Wick

Objection! The timestamp on my recap post is 4:56 PM PT; my vote came in sometime in the 4:20s. By my calculation, that is 7:56 PM FDT (I logged out and checked the difference in GMT offsets a while back). Therefore I believe my vote got in just under the gun and should be counted. Which also means there are two votes for 406 whose timestamps qualify them but which you threw out, which would force a runoff.

And I didn't have a problem with the use of 24-hour time, only the combining it with AM/PM. And I think I was probably the only one with a problem with it, and I doubt there would be many more people in the whole world with a problem with it. See http://morganwick.blogspot.com/search/label/about%20me

[Nazzo, the 102nd]

Objection!

Holy gosh. Sorry, by bad. I forgot that when I'm logged in, the times change for the local timezone. Usually I do the counting without loggin in, then I log in to post the results. But that time I logged in to explain the situation with the time format and got everything messed up.

Okay. This makes the following votes valid:
Morgan Wick - 409
gnomas - 406
Forealms - 406
Icewalker - 406

Thus, the results are rectified as below. We have a new winner. Sorry again. I must have eaten something bad. :smallfrown:


406 - 12 (30.00%)
AlisdairM; David Argall; DarkLightDragon; mockingbyrd7; TroyXavier; Swordguy; recluso; M0rt; SlightlyEvil

407 - 11 (27.50%)
Yerocha; Lira; Phase; HellPuppi; RMS Oceanic; Niknokitueu; phobiandarkmoon; JoseB; dish; Vargtass; Qov

408 - 9 (22.50%)
Jarwy; Emanick; Parvum; Prowl; Kurald Galain; Pagz; warmachine; Maithu; kukn

409 - 7 (17.75%)
Remirach; gusk; memnarch; Chronos; hajo; carebearbecky

410 - 1 (2.50%)
Shishnarfne