The Stick Awards II: Second Edition (#0961 - #0970)

[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.

This week we are covering the comic strips 961 through 970.

For full details about the Stick Awards, 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 ten listed is your favorite. Bolding the number of the comic (Like this) helps it stand out.

Voting for this week will close on September 10th, 4pm EDT. Any votes made after that will NOT count toward the totals.

Last time, 957 Takes One to Know One told the judges in no uncertain terms that it was on to their little scam of theirs. It was about to threaten to blow the lid off on all of this, when it suddenly went "WHHHHHHWEEEEEEE" for no real apparent reason and jumped off toward the Best of the Hundred tournament. Anything else it might have had left to say went unheard.

And with that accusation dealt with we can finally deal with more important matters. Such as ALL THOSE CUTE GNOMES AND THE CUTE HATS.

...

Err. Ahem... That is, voting for which of these strips we think has the best hats-excuse me best. Best period. And we do that by hattingVOTING... voting for one of these to win....

.THE STICK AWARDS II: 0961 - 0970

961 Hearing is Believing
962 Just Think How Many Times He's Seen Himself Naked
963 Internal Struggles
964 Needs More Gears Though
965 The Bargain Hunter
966 About Town
967 Craft Wondrous Bauble
968 Next Week They're Getting Drab
969 It's Only His SECOND Favorite Cuisine
970 Wandering Eyes

[Gift Jeraff]

#970 for continuing the mysterious green eyes spying on the OOTS subplot.

[Sylian]

969. Character development for Belkar! 968 is good too.

[Mordae]

964. Splash!

[Mike Havran]

#966. A very good move by Durkula.

[littlebum2002]

969 or 970, 969 or 970... I'll have to noodle it over

EDIT: I think I'll have to go with Haley finally using all her rogue abilities...970

[Bird]

No clear winner for me in this set. 964 has a bunny on a leash and a propeller beanie, and 970 has WANDS!

I think I'll ignore whatever the HPoH is talking about in 963 and vote for that one, though, because of the sweet moment between Durkon & Mom, and because of Roy getting eaten by a frog.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I'm guessing we'll see few votes for 961 one this round. For me, I think I'll go for #967. No excellent strips this time around, but they are all pretty good.

[Emperordaniel]

I'll throw in my hat for 968 Next Week They're Getting Drab - the little gnomish priests are still some of my favorite gnomes in the strip.

[Dushara]

Gotta vote for Belkar in 969.

[Laurana]

I like 963 because it gives hope as to how Durkon can maybe manage something to undermine the HPoH at some point, 968 is the classic strip where you get enraged and miffed at the villain because we got so close to a turning point against it and then he manages to wiggle out thanks to that darn dominating gaze, but my favorite is definitely #969. Gotta love the Belkster, and the gnome lady.

[Jasdoif]

I'm gonna back 968, and the reveal that gnomish holy wafers are very tasty.

[Killer Angel]

969
Belkar's improvement FTW!

[137beth]

It's a tough one, but I'm going to go with 969.

[nogall]

Voting for 966? right you are, elan.

[ChristianSt]

Welcome to Tinkwertown: 964 - Needs More Gears Though. That big panel is just too awesome.

[Bluepaw]

Ohhh man. So much good stuff here. The gorgeous introduction of Tinkertown in 964, the Belkster asked out by a cutie gnome artificer in 969, a delightful play with Elan's foreshadowing habits in 968 -- but I've got to give it to 963, for more insight into Durkon's character, a hilarious pre-Order caper with Roy, and our juiciest morsel of hintage as to how Durkon's spirit can help tip the balance against his captor...

[ti'esar]

I want more than a little to vote for 961 just to annoy the people who went nuts over it being "terrible", but realistically it's got to be either 968 or 969 for me. I think I'll go with 969, because that gnome is just too cute.

[thatSeniorGuy]

Ugh, I'm torn between the absolutely gorgeous introduction to the gnome town in 964 and V & Blackwing in 967 (because V and Blackwing are pretty much gold together).

...
I guess 964 just wins out.

[martianmister]

964 Needs More Gears Though

[GuySmiley1970]

969 for more Belkar growth (however small).

[DeliaP]

Tricky:

#963: clear long term importance (and possibly of impending significance)
#968: ominous forshadowing (of current awesomeness)

but

#967: because I still love the complex comradeship-annoyance interaction between Blackwing and V.

So I'm going to vote for the one that made me laugh most: #967

[Emanick]

Hmmmm. There are a lot of excellent strips here. 967 has an absolutely divine punchline and 969 shows just how amazingly far Belkar's growth has proceeded. But Durkon has so few moments of growth (so far!) that I'm going to have to vote for 963: Internal Struggles. It also looks as though it's going to be excellent foreshadowing, and foreshadowing strips always get underrated in these rounds, IMO.

[Deprox]

I'd vote for 961 because "Hell no, Thor won't go!", but...

Very tasty wafers. So, 968.

[declinator]

I have a hard time deciding between the foreshadowing (unresolved) of 963 and the Vaarsuvius-Blackwing humour of 967... I'll go with 967 this time around. Perhaps in future editions of the stick award, 963 will be resolved and make that strip better in retrospect...

[Porthos]

Hmmmm. Difficult. Not sure which way to go here, as they seem to be more or kless on the same level. Coin flip between 967 and 968, I think. 968 just wins out. Mostly for the combination of "tasty wafers" and "DUN DUN DUN!". Could decide differently in a future thread, however.

And with that....

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED!

969 It's Only His SECOND Favorite Cuisine is the winner this week. It now moves on to the Best of the Hundred tournament.

Full Results are as follows

........THE STICK AWARDS II: 0961 - 0970

	Comic Number	Votes Received	Vote Percentage
	961	0	0.00
	962	0	0.00
	963	3	12.00
	964	4	16.00
	965	0	0.00
	966	2	8.00
	967	3	12.00
	968	4	16.00
	969	7	28.00
	970	2	8.00

Please join us for the next round of voting for Strips #971 - #980 which can be found here.