The Legacy of Dominic Deegan: The Unending Snark

[Kantaki]

New comic

Snout got a date.
At this point it is a harem comedy.

[Gez]

Summary of the last week: Snout got roasted, got a date, decided to sulk, and then nothing happened.

[Traab]

He looks like he got photoshopped into random pencil drawings of backgrounds.

[Silly Name]

Is it bad that I feel like the last panel looks like Snout suddenly died out in the field?

[Kantaki]

Is it bad that I feel like the last panel looks like Snout suddenly died out in the field?

It kinda might've gotten my hopes up.
Unfortunately...

[Neoriceisgood]

Thanks for the replies to my question guys!

The original had more 4th wall breaking deadpan stares, terrible puns, mystery walls, and accidental/intentional body horror art. This one has more silent screaming matches. The original was way more fun to snark on.

Hmm I see, yeah I tried reading a little bit of this one when it first launched but it felt a bit slow. It sounds like it's missing some of that classic DD "so bad it becomes interesting" writing though, that's sad.

Yep. This still isn't good, but it's usually not bad enough to really laugh at. It's typically just boring. The plot is dull. The characters are barely even one-dimensional. The art is just as bad as ever. (Seriously, how do you draw consistently for over ten years and not get any better? That just defies logic.) And there's just so little content that I can't even think of another complaint.

Hm... probably not worth picking up then just for the snark of it?

Compared to the very earliest DD strips, Snout's Nudist Adventures does look better, to be honest.

The really weird thing is that if you compare Mookie's improvements with most other long-running webcomics*, his "improvement rate" is glacial. I strongly suspect he simply thinks his art is good enough and thus doesn't particularly strive towards making it better.

*there are also many stagnant webcomics that never got past crude/animesque art styles, to be fair

He didn't really "improve" his style; he just gained more confidence with it. His lines are smoother, and his designs are more consistent, but that's about it. This does look better than the early strips, but it looks almost identical to the middle strips.


There's nothing to suspect. He outright stated as such. In one of his DD commentaries, he says that he tried to change his style but that Dominic and Luna looked too different, so he decided against it. And he hasn't attempted to improve his art ever since. This statement, by the way, is why I can never respect Mookie as an artist. If he was just bad, I could still appreciate the effort, but he actively chooses to be bad because he doesn't want to get better. That's inexcusable.

I guess Mookie's just comfortable with the art style he's got going for him and finds it good enough to tell the story he wants to tell. I can sorta see his reluctance to improve if I look at it from a time investment & comfort p.o.v.

The time he tried to change Luna/Dom I remember him trying to get rid of the side mouth and snout-face and kinda making clumsy but okay looking side profiles. It always struck me that Mookie's one attempt at 'improvement' basically came down to altering his faces drastically and giving up.

I've always had trouble figuring out exactly how someone can improve so little, but I guess it's just simply due to him feeling comfortable with his current methods and *actively* deciding not to change anything due to that.

To some degree I can understand why he's made that choice. Personally I've sometimes decided to just keep my art consistent and easy to create for longer periods of time because I saw no path to improve further that wouldn't also drastically increase the time spent on creating art pieces. It's just painful that Mookie chose that for him that point fell when his art looks the way it does.

[Kantaki]

New comic

Because deep down you know he's right.

[Celestia]

Goddamn, All Spark, just say "I want to bone you" next time. It'd be subtler.

[Kantaki]

Note that Anduril just said his buddy Damodar was rude, not that he was wrong.

[Divayth Fyr]

Note that Anduril just said his buddy Damodar was rude, not that he was wrong.

I knew that the Flame of the West was a great blade, but it being able to form thoughts?

[Gez]

I knew that the Flame of the West was a great blade, but it being able to form thoughts?

It's just a running joke about not remembering Adirondack's name except that it starts with A.

[Vinyadan]

I knew that the Flame of the West was a great blade, but it being able to form thoughts?

Well, Gurthang even spoke a few words...

[Clertar]

Those bedroom eyes

[Kantaki]

True love needs no words.
No seriously, even without any context that scene is romantic.

[halfeye]

Are the ink witch and Arudak supposed to be Snout's parents?

[Kantaki]

Are the ink witch and Arudak supposed to be Snout's parents?

I... don't think so?
Merciful gods I hope not.
Not with the way those three keep interacting.

[Celestia]

Are the ink witch and Arudak supposed to be Snout's parents?

Incest is wincest?

[Celestia]

Wow! How convenient that Snout's existing library card from the Wild Zone will still work in Maltak! After all, we all know how insanely difficult it is to get a public library card!

[Kantaki]

Wow! How convenient that Snout's existing library card from the Wild Zone will still work in Maltak! After all, we all know how insanely difficult it is to get a public library card!

Who knows? Maybe in Maltak it requires an epic quest, where finding the Grail is merely the entry condition.

Of course in this comic Snout would literally stumble over the McGuffin(s), so... pointless side quest averted?

[Traab]

Am I the only one finding this somewhat patronizing? This feels very much so like "Mommy and daddy have real work to do, go read at the library and we will get you for dinner" vibes. If he can actually help, why send him to the public library these people likely have already checked for anything helpful? You think there will be a copy of the novel, "Help im stuck in (location) and this is how you can save me!" by Domonic Deegan there?

[Kantaki]

Am I the only one finding this somewhat patronizing? This feels very much so like "Mommy and daddy have real work to do, go read at the library and we will get you for dinner" vibes. If he can actually help, why send him to the public library these people likely have already checked for anything helpful? You think there will be a copy of the novel, "Help im stuck in (location) and this is how you can save me!" by Domonic Deegan there?

If I may quote myself:

Note that Anduril just said his buddy Damodar was rude, not that he was wrong.

So yes. Yes, that's exactly what Agamemnon and the Ink Witch are doing.

[Silly Name]

Am I the only one finding this somewhat patronizing? This feels very much so like "Mommy and daddy have real work to do, go read at the library and we will get you for dinner" vibes. If he can actually help, why send him to the public library these people likely have already checked for anything helpful?

Well, he can't help. Snout is completely ignorant of world history, magic, geography, symbolism, linguistics, philology or literally anything else that may help in the sort of research Ink Witch and Abigail are doing, so may as well let him go on his little library date instead of having him mope around the house.

You think there will be a copy of the novel, "Help im stuck in (location) and this is how you can save me!" by Domonic Deegan there?

Considering how the world seems to conspire to ensure Snout is always in the right place at the right time? Probably.

[Vinyadan]

There is something I've been thinking about. Snout immediately recalled me of Mookie -- fairly tall and lanky, with a lot of head hair and an appearance that both shows something cavemanlike* and very gentle. He also is inordinately friendly, and I think Mookie has often been described as really nice, and I'm pretty sure I actually once read an explanation by him, that he wanted to be nice and that it was something he had worked for.

Now, Mookie as a comic author is mainly a geek (DD was based off his old D&D character and clearly influenced by anime, he likes metal and IIRC used to play Skyrim), but he has also shown interest towards some high culture disciplines, like classical music and astronomy (with a dip in astrophisics). However, these fields are obviously dominated by massive academic eminencies, while Mookie's relationship with them falls more in the "whoah!" area. For example, the Maestro in DD was impressive (an immensely powerful wizard that rides a permanent thunderstorm he uses to play full-blast symphonies), but Mookie, for all his fascination for classical music, seemed to ignore what librettists did, which might not be the most common knowledge, but it is something you learn in any basic course that touches upon opera. Or you have an attempt to integrate a gravity slingshot in SP, while missing how it looks.

So I wonder if there is something of Mookie in Snout's "Am I Too Dumb to Keep Up?" question, although not in a damning way. What I mean is that this enthusiastic approach can either happily stay at the superficial level of knowledge, or find out how hard these disciplines are: there are steep prerequisites before you can tackle them, and long study courses in specialised higher education institutions if you want to be serious about it. So feeling stumped or alienated when compared to the real expert could refer to this.

Of course, there also is a literary trope of feeling dumb or inferior when dealing with people of renowned intelligence or culture, and some of them being inexcusably arrogant.

For someone with a webcomic in general, I guess that the "why do I dwell on words that crush me, instead of the supportive ones" part must be a common thought. Actually, it probably is true of most human interactions.

*I am fairly certain I once saw a photo of him with his dad, and Mookie's own comment was that he (Mookie) looked like a Neanderthal in it, which is positive for an enthusiastic metalhead.

[Kantaki]

New comic

Why was the city build on those four rivers?

[Celestia]

New comic

Why was the city build on those four rivers?

Because you need a good water source to sustain a city. However, I'm pretty sure those are roads. Rivers don't criss-cross.

[Kantaki]

Because you need a good water source to sustain a city. However, I'm pretty sure those are roads. Rivers don't criss-cross.

Well sure, that's the other option, but those pointless curves and no city gates mean that doesn't work either.
And while rivers don't criss-cross they do join together.
Okay, the visuals'd still be off.

Point is it looks weird and I'm confused.
It would probably help if the road-rivers weren't empty.

[Silly Name]

Awful architecture/geography aside, are we supposed to be awed by that last panel? Because there's just not enough detail to make this a "woah" moment even if stuff was drawn better. I'm just looking at a city with a big hill within a circular wall, sitting on a featureless plain providing no reference scale, nor is anything detailed enough to make me thing it's big or cool or whatever.

Also, even if those are roads, one generally doesn't make roads curve so much without a reason.

[Vinyadan]

Is that worldbuilding? That's unusual. It's even of a sort that makes sense.

[Gez]

I know I've read another webcomic before with that idea of cities constrained by walls and a pact with nature spirits not to ever expand further.

Of course in Chirault it was a bit different, as the cities got overcrowded and they were seeking a way to cheat the spirits so as to extend their cities anyway.

[Silly Name]

I know I've read another webcomic before with that idea of cities constrained by walls and a pact with nature spirits not to ever expand further.

Of course in Chirault it was a bit different, as the cities got overcrowded and they were seeking a way to cheat the spirits so as to extend their cities anyway.

The idea itself isn't really novel - can't say for sure where it originates, but may have roots in ancient concepts of sacred borders and the like. Of course, most ideas have been done by someone before, so it's not really a valid criticism: what matters is how well you pull it off.