Jan 22 2018: E, K, N.

[Bapuvitttssf]

New page is up, and it teaches us a few things about Kin (she has wizard levels, the dragon's name, ...)
http://goblinscomic.com/comic/page-12018

[BuildsLegos]

The plot device about her I.M.E. makes me teary-eyed, or maybe it's the yawning. Probably a little of both.

[AXIS]

Clunky exposition forced in there.


Show, don't tell, Thunt



Lose the last Dialogue panel, maybe throw in a Illuminate type spell to convey the Wizard thing and the IME with KEN it it conveys all it needs to without the on the nose backstory thoughts.

[Gurkenglas]

Get off the platform, the fog might touch the shapes and turn them equal!

[Krulle]

Hmm, good idea, Gurkenglas. But is the I.M.E. material enough to be touched or to touch?
Anyway, the fog density will also prevent her from seeing something sooner or later. No matter how observant she is, it'll be hard for her to see if a symbol changes colour.
And if she doesn't find the exit fast enough, the symbols may also be on a timer...

But maybe Parchment can keep one of the symbols in a different colour, since (s)he is not of Kin's I.M.E.-colour?


For anyone interested, a sketch of panel 8.

The first instance of the E, K, and N.

edit: corrected Parchment's gender.... I should've known better... (link) Yeah, I'm getting older, but I can't remember my memory having been better in my younger years (except before I hit puberty, back then I had an excellent memory...)

[Gurkenglas]

Reason she doesn't remember E K N: http://goblinscomic.com/comic/09292013 http://goblinscomic.com/comic/10172013

[Wolfie]

Clunky exposition forced in there.


Show, don't tell, Thunt



Lose the last Dialogue panel, maybe throw in a Illuminate type spell to convey the Wizard thing and the IME with KEN it it conveys all it needs to without the on the nose backstory thoughts.

Kin is known for excessive dialogue and overthinking. It would be, IMO, strange if she didn't keep up a running monologue.

[Krulle]

But most of it are her thoughts, and not a monologue (spoken language).

But still, I agree. I prefer this wall of text. I don't know how you'd convey "I do not know what the E, K, and N in my I.M.E. means" by using images only.

She wants to know, but she's not forcing the knowledge, also due to her not undestanding how she could acquire the knowledge yet.

Also, Kin is known for being careful with her powers, and doing some magic to convey she now has levels and is a wizard would be one thing, but for non-D&D'ers like me, the wall of text is helpful in that.

The comic has been glacial enough lately (not as glacial as Outsider), but a wall of text can convey a lot more storytelling than images.
(I agree, in some situations an image says more than thousand words, but not in this specific situation.)

In the Goblins:Animated series, they could adapt the way the message is carried.
E.g. a small "in previous episodes" we get reminded what the E, K, and N mean. But that would still not convey that she doesn't know the meaning yet. She may have learned it through the repeated run-throughs in the MoM. She even learned how these kind of runes work.... (which shows a lack of imagination, really, twice the same solution in different dungeons? Thunt, you can do better! <sup>*

*</sup>: joking. Really. I am joking. Your (Thunt's) writing is extremely imaginative, and the world building is tremendous.

[Matney X]

Clunky exposition forced in there.


Show, don't tell, Thunt



Lose the last Dialogue panel, maybe throw in a Illuminate type spell to convey the Wizard thing and the IME with KEN it it conveys all it needs to without the on the nose backstory thoughts.

Kin is known for excessive dialogue and overthinking. It would be, IMO, strange if she didn't keep up a running monologue.

Inner monologing is one thing, but namedropping the Maze, Ruby, and Onyx was like a "Previously, on Goblins" before the episode actually starts. And there's nothing natural about how this inner monologue seems... do any of your inner monologues say "But I've long since given up..."

Beautiful page, as usual, but the exposition is super clunky.

[rwstyles]

Remember this isn't reality, it is a comic. If you don't explain things, people eventually either drop the comic, or depend on forum to understand what is happening. This way the author stays in control.

Clunky exposition forced in there.


Show, don't tell, Thunt



Lose the last Dialogue panel, maybe throw in a Illuminate type spell to convey the Wizard thing and the IME with KEN it it conveys all it needs to without the on the nose backstory thoughts.

Kin is known for excessive dialogue and overthinking. It would be, IMO, strange if she didn't keep up a running monologue.

Inner monologing is one thing, but namedropping the Maze, Ruby, and Onyx was like a "Previously, on Goblins" before the episode actually starts. And there's nothing natural about how this inner monologue seems... do any of your inner monologues say "But I've long since given up..."

Beautiful page, as usual, but the exposition is super clunky.

[Morgaln]

Remember this isn't reality, it is a comic. If you don't explain things, people eventually either drop the comic, or depend on forum to understand what is happening. This way the author stays in control.

Kin is known for excessive dialogue and overthinking. It would be, IMO, strange if she didn't keep up a running monologue.

Inner monologing is one thing, but namedropping the Maze, Ruby, and Onyx was like a "Previously, on Goblins" before the episode actually starts. And there's nothing natural about how this inner monologue seems... do any of your inner monologues say "But I've long since given up..."

Beautiful page, as usual, but the exposition is super clunky.

None of these were things that needed to be explained right now. They could all have come up later naturally, through conversation with other characters for example.

[Aegis J Hyena]

Levels in wizard. That can't be good if she's picked up a few flashy evocations for blowing things up... although I figure with her mental strength she'd go more for crowd control and mental powers like Charm Person...

I was hoping more messing with Psimax's gears would restore her memory out of sight of Ruby, but I guess no such luck.

As for people saying it's "clunky", I blame having to get back into the groove. After what happened to Thunt, getting back to a "respectable plateau" (lack of better words) will take a while.

[Krulle]

What happened to Kin's arm?

She's covered her arm with armour to make certain that no one ever grabs her leash again.

Grab my cursed leash once: Shame on you.
Grab my cursed leash twice: Shame on me for not covering that up.

TBH, because of the maze of many, I'm not even 100% sure this is the same Kin. But then again, I tend to overthink everything.

Well here's what we do know...

This Kin has a psionically recreated tail (like Forgath's beard and Minmax's eye). That's something that happened to "our" Kin in the Maze Of Many, so we wouldn't be seeing alternate Kins with that kind of tail.

She's also mentioned Sapphire, Ruby and Onyx by name.

[rivkin]

The plot device about her I.M.E. makes me teary-eyed, or maybe it's the yawning. Probably a little of both.

Or the ninjas peeling onions nearby. I vote that...

[Wolfie]

Kin is known for excessive dialogue and overthinking. It would be, IMO, strange if she didn't keep up a running monologue.

Inner monologing is one thing, but namedropping the Maze, Ruby, and Onyx was like a "Previously, on Goblins" before the episode actually starts. And there's nothing natural about how this inner monologue seems... do any of your inner monologues say "But I've long since given up..."

Beautiful page, as usual, but the exposition is super clunky.

You'd be surprised at what my inner monologues sound like.

Kin is long winded and it's been a while since we've seen her. This could be a way for her to catch up on stuff since she's forgotten why she likes MM or needs to follow him. She feels him. That much is evident by her knowing which door he chose. She's trying to figure it out. In the past, when Kin doesn't understand something she ponders and expositions and makes a verbal nuisance of herself. But that's her personality, so I'd expect her inner monologue to match her outer dialogue.

Remember this isn't reality, it is a comic. If you don't explain things, people eventually either drop the comic, or depend on forum to understand what is happening. This way the author stays in control.

This.

Besides, this comic is THunt's baby, not ours. We can love it, like it, or hate it, but it won't change it. I'm glad for all of the entertainment, tugs on the heartstrings, and cursing at the computer screen that I've read over the past several years.

[Scoshan]

Hey, Kin's a wizard with a cool dragon familiar, and I wish I had something relevant to add to the conversation.

[ForgetsOldName]

But if the KEN necklace never existed, then her IME never soaked it up. And this must be a relatively new development because it wasn't mentioned before.

[Scoshan]

The feelings the necklace represented are still there though aren't they? Maybe when the IME starts forming a shape, the object it's based doesn't have to continue exising.

[BuildsLegos]

Correct, void-holes only erase the matter and memory of what they eat, but not the emotional impact. The I.M.E. is a reflection of one's soul and you don't need to remember why you feel a certain way to feel that way.

[kida]

Did we have thought bubbles in the comic before?

[BuildsLegos]

Since the very first page. And Complains did it recently...

[ForgetsOldName]

I don't know...retaining the feelings caused by an object sounds an awful lot like remembering the object to me.

I do think it's odd that Kin hasn't figured it out, as she undoubtedly knows that an obliterated object could cause changes that persist, assuming that is all there is to it.

[BuildsLegos]

I don't know...retaining the feelings caused by an object sounds an awful lot like remembering the object to me.

That's because you're wrong; the Ken necklace caused the positive equivalent of trauma.

[Xavier78]

So it's erased from existence, except when it's not? Paradox? This doesn't make sense to me.

[thinkslogically]

I'm kind of sad that the happy birthday mouse-party didn't count for anything to Kin.