The Stick Awards II: Second Edition (Best of the Thousand) [Semi #1]

[Porthos]

Welcome to The Stick Awards II: Second Edition!

The Stick Awards are handed out to the best strips of all time as chosen by our fellow Playgrounders.

The time has come to finally reach the The Best of the Thousand Tournament! Now we decide which of the strips really are the best of best of the best.

For full details about the Stick Awards, and any questions about them, please check out the main thread here.

To read more about the original Stick Awards, created by Nazzo, the 102nd, please read his thread here.

To vote in this thread, simply state which comic of the five listed is your favorite. Bolding the number of the comic (Like this) helps it stand out.

Voting, which only lasts five days during the Best of the Thousand Tournament will close on October 22nd, 4pm EDT. Any votes made after that will NOT count toward the totals.

The winner of this semi-final will go on to the finals which will be held after the second semi-final is done. The two strips that get the most votes during the semis that DIDN'T win, will also reach the finals. So voting is extra special important this time around, as it will determine who the 'Wild Card' entrants are.

Last time, 906 - Nothing Lasts Forever culminated the plans it had set motion years earlier and finally achieved its moment of ultimate triumph: Making it to the Best of the Thousand tournament. Where it goes from here is yet to be seen.

And with that, the board is finally set. The pieces are ready to be moved. Nine hundred and ninety strips have been set aside, leaving ten in the spotlight. But no matter how hard the choosing may be, there can truly only be one. So let us judge which of the following deserves to be in our very own Final Four by voting in....

................THE STICK AWARDS II:
BEST OF THE THOUSAND TOURNAMENT
...............(Semi-Final #1)

90 - Consequences of a Failed Skill Check
200 - The Confrontation
298 - The Future is Forged in the Fires of Today
367 - Innocent Man
464 - Not for Everyone

[Euclidodese]

Hey, I like water-coolers, anvils, offal and irritating Paladins dying as much as the next pokemon, but 200 gets my vote.

[Bird]

Wow, semifinals are here!

Nothing here even approaches 464 for me. The most honest & touching end possible for a highly controversial character.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I feel that, while the others are good, only 464 is truly deserving of being the best of 1000. Also, super psyched to see that we've gotten this far!

[Emanick]

I have dreaded this day for years.

I think I'll listen to some other people's votes before choosing which strip to go for. It's such a difficult decision.

[Gift Jeraff]

The first half of the series was the funniest (so drama and/or action can get my vote in the second half), and there is not another strip that nails comedy down better than
#367

[ChristianSt]

Because the strip I would truly want for this first five hundreds strips isn't available to me (439) I will have to figure out something of this selection. "I GOT A 4!" and Thog's "not nale"-speech are two outstanding comedy strips, but I have the feeling that the more serious strips have much more impact (like 84, which I still think is a shame it lost so early) and such a strip deserves my vote here: 464 - Not for Everyone

(And yes, I know that 439 is not serious at all - but maybe my judgment is clouded by the overall awesomeness imposed by Belkar aka the sexy shoeless god of war)

[Emperordaniel]

#464 - Not for Everyone may not be for everyone, but it certainly is for me.

[ChillerInstinct]

Well, it's a fine crop, as to be expected from the supposed best of the best of the first half of the comic's run thus far.

And it's just as tough to pick just ONE. 90 was one of the finest moments of the first book, 200 is, to this day, one of the comic's best fight scenes, 298 set the stage for the following arc so well, 367 is one of the overall funniest in the comic's history, and 464 is quite possibly the most iconic death scenes in the comic so far, and with good reason.

So, I guess, I need to go through the process of elimination:

298 is, in my mind, easily the weakest of the bunch, which really does say a lot considering the accolade it's gunning for. Works great as a framing device and as the conclusion to an arc, but on its own, it just doesn't hold a candle to the rest.

90... eh. It's funny enough, and again it's one of the best moments from the first arc, but if I'm being entirely honest that really goes to show just how far OotS has come over the years. As much as "I ROLLED A 4!" has become one of the greatest in-jokes we've got... the strip itself just doesn't hold up nearly as well as the others.

So, that leaves three that I'm really mulling over. And, perhaps fittingly enough given the circumstances, they all stand as shining examples of entirely different facets of the comic's strengths. Awesome combat for 200, clever wordplay and humour with 367, and touching, good writing with 464. It really is the perfect trifecta, and perfect encapsulation of everything that was great about the first 500. Picking any one to win, or to discard, is gutwretchingly hard.

So, screw it, I'm going to be a munchkin and do my part to make sure all three make it to the finals, whether as wild-cards or as the winner of this round, and hope that I can make an easier decision when they're part of the final six.

And with that angle in mind... I've got a good feeling that 464 has this round bagged and tagged, so that leaves the other two, both of which have one vote as I type this...

...And of those two, I've got a gnawing feeling in my gut that 200 has the worst chance of making it in of the three, considering how beloved the Not-Nale joke is, so there it goes.

[Mandrake]

Yep, so many good strips (including those that did not make it this far).

For me, OotS kept getting better and better and I kept getting more and more immersed. The storyline, the art, the script (execution, in a sense), all of it. So I cast my vote for

#464

although I feel it is not a contestant for many 500+ strips.

[Dushara]

Funny, the choice among these strips is very clear to me. Though 464 is a very good strip, there are more touching strips in the latter five hundred. However, even when compared to the later strips, one of the best examples of a climactic battle is still 200.

[137beth]

Dang this is tough. It's almost like every one of these strips is near the best in their story arc!

I think I'm going to go with 464.

[ti'esar]

At last, the road to the final showdown has begun!

I don't have the slightest clue which of these I'm going to vote for yet, but I wanted to mention how pumped up I was anyway.

[DemonRoach]

#367 for sure.

[SamDerringer]

Many of those singled out are comedy gold, but I think I'm going with the conclusion's of Miko's story.

#464

[Emanick]

Upon reflection, I think I agree with Jift Geraff. 367: Innocent Man is just brilliant. It's a strong contender for the funniest OOTS strip of all time. It's so good that, as a wee youth, I read it (totally out of context) aloud to my parents and was astonished when they didn't laugh.

As an aside - yikes that was eight years ago. I was barely in high school then; now I'm a college grad. My, how the years have flown.

90, while magnificent, is (as has been said) more of an in-joke than a serious contender for Best Strip of All Time, though it probably wins Best OOTS In-Joke of All Time. 200 - ehhh, perhaps I've read it too often, but it no longer even comes across as one of the top five action strips of all time, IMO. 298 is merely excellent, not blisteringly brilliant. And 464 - I don't know, it just doesn't strike me as the OOTS-defining brilliance it ought to be in order to come away with the crown this time around.

[Tentreto]

Lets go for 464

[Killer Angel]

200 is am epic battle with great cliffhanger and Miko's "real" introduction
367 is a wonderful strip, with on of Thog's best moment
but 464 is the end of one the most controversial character (npc), and deserves the victory of this round.

[Vargtass]

464 it is, at least for me!

[Sylian]

464 wins by a large margin, with 200 taking second place.

[Laurana]

To be honest it's an incredibly disappointing set, to me.

None of these gets even remotely near my top 50 strips.

I guess I'll go with 464, which at least is meaningful. Soon is a great character, and it is a well done ending for Miko.

[serenetempest]

464 brought a fantastic end to Miko's character development, but 367 still makes me crack up when I go back and reread it, so it gets my vote.

[Mike Havran]

I like the second half more. Here, #464 has my vote.

[GuySmiley1970]

464 for me. Rest In Peace, Miko.

[thisisnotspam]

I vote for 367.

[Arvedui]

464 seems like it's going to win, which is completely understandable - it's a great one. But I'll cast my vote for 367. Along with the not-nale joke, there's just a beautiful sense of melancholy and sadness in that last panel, that it at least deserves second place here.

[Joerg]

Of these, I find 367 best. It's both extremely funny and great character development for Elan.

[Pigkappa]

464 is my favourite of these

[thatSeniorGuy]

Interesting to see which strips are up against each other.

I was going to go with Thog in 'Innocent Man', but Miko's death wins out. 464 it is.

[FLHerne]

298 ("The future is forged in the fires of today") has the best name ever, it's a great conclusion to its arc, but it's not all that good as an individual strip.

464 is perfect, but almost everyone already voted for it.

So I'll go for 200: The Confrontation, because it's got the nice art, the detailed fight scene, and the start of a long-term plot. Detailed rules, without the silly jokes about them.