Webcomic Deer Rectory

I think the outstanding Paranatural cipher question is what the hell the skull-talk means.

hehehehe I liked the secret of the blacksmith language a lot

zack morrison and gigi digi are friends and that means things happen sometime

i love the blacksmith ghost so much and i also love spender

I think the outstanding Paranatural cipher question is what the hell the skull-talk means.

It looks like a slightly more complex cipher where a set of characters might correspond to a single letter. I don't think there is a big enough sample size to brute-force it. The comic suggests that you learn one word of it at a time, so it seems reasonable that the character pairs would be letters and not individual words. You can't encode that much data with just those two symbols, not unless there's a very short list of words we're not privy to, which seems uncrackable.

I tried googling it and nobody's come up with it yet.

It could possibly be a book code, with the first skull being a page number and the second one being a word number. Then the question would be, what book? Something suitably demonic/murdery?

He said https://twitter.com/paranaturalzack/stat...5096668160
Book code was my guess too, but the questions being a) what book and b) how do the eyes/teeth/horns translate to numbers?

So, Gigi seemed to be offended or bothered by the fact that somebody said the writing on CQ is "pretty vanilla". Is that... fair enough? I suppose? i mean it's totally true, but i guess it must be hard to listen to criticism from strangers. However, i can't help but feel like she just didn't take the criticism constructively, not that the criticism was extremely constructive but still, kinda snarky from her to respond like that.

I guess it must be pretty hard to be on the receiving end of the criticism stick, i really can't imagine because i've never done any serious writing.

E: The person that did the "Welcome to tumblr" also wrote that comment so i don't know what to think since i partially disliked that, i don't know what to think anymore.

i feel like the main issue is the bit where he's like, "but it's pretty!"

when someone who does mostly art things does comic stuff theres sometimes a disconnect where the writing is not as good as the art and it is scary? it brings up this idea of like, do people actually like this comic and the characters inside of it because of the ideas i communicate or do they just like it because it looks nice???

i feel like also even if you can argue that the /dialog/ in cuke quest isnt the Best that isnt equivalent to the /writing/ in cucumber quest

Hahahaha "It's good to be mindful of what you say, though." Sorry someone has an opinion about your work that they had the utter gall to express, gigi.

Besides, "pretty vanilla" isn't that bad. I would call the plot extremely formulaic and generic.

Sollie, i think people refer to "the writing" as in "the plot"; the dialogue isn't bad. The reason i like CQ (though i kinda lost interest and haven't read it in a while) is because it's pretty and the characters are funny and likable. There really shouldn't be a disconnect between art and writing if both are solid, Gunnerkrigg is an example of this since both are really good.

Vanilla is a very good descriptor for every aspect of the comic that is not the stunning art, I would say. Far from constructive criticism (which would focus on why and how it's vanilla and specifics of its vanillity), but far from an unwarranted or unjustified attack.

Not lookin' too good with that response there, but then again it's not like she flew off the handle either.

Am I reading a different conversation than everyone else?

None of what either party said seems unreasonable or even like, in any way particularly notable in any fashion.
Gigi receives mildly sarcastic comment accompanied by praise, returnes mildly sarcastic comment accompanied by praise, clarifies that they are doing good work. What's the point of contention here?

There isn't any hard feeling on either side. The person in question has even reblogged it themselves and obviously doesn't have any deep dislike of the comic because, as they also said themselves in their email, they are making a 200 hour long voice acting production out of it.
Kind of smells like someone's trying to make a controversy out of nothing...

All I know is that apart from the super-rich complaining that society is unfair to them, Gigi's last e-mail in that chain is probably the most toolish thing I've ever seen written down.

Hey there, Akumu. Be mindful of what you say.

It's okay, I got it.

Looks like it was a book code:
https://importrawdata.tumblr.com/post/78...-pixskulls
Not that it helps with the understanding, but it'll probably start making more sense once the not-dogs get explained in more detail.

I was actually pretty sure it was a book code after seeing them each say one pair of skulls last comic, and going off of Supe's incredulity about knowing what book to use I thought it might possibly be Paranatural itself, but I didn't go check. Wish I had!

Edit: Not sure I would have figured out the skull -> number scheme, though.

Edit2: Does this mean the "foul crime" you have to commit to learn skull language is reading Paranatural?

It would be nice if, instead of just aping and japing those conventions, she subverted them enough to give the characters and writing some actual depth beyond vanillity. But, let's be honest, most of her readership almost certainly are all ABOUT the videogamefulness and would be disappointed if it deviated much from that, even if people like me would think it a significantly better comic for so doing.

the current scene in cucumber quest is without a doubt the most thorough destruction that ive ever faced in my life

Something was bugging me about Annie's face in today's Gunnerkrigg, and I eventually realized that there's no indication that her head is turned such that it doesn't match the angle of her neck and chest, but her face has slid to her right as though it was. And also seems a little too small.

It's weird to see something that jarring in a comic with what's usually such great art. Am I just not parsing the panel right or is it genuinely off?

I'd agree that it does kind of look like her face has shrunk and started slipping around her head yeah

KC Green has a new comic. You should go read it. You should go read it now.

Gunnerkrig Patreon Video

I love it so much

So I feel it's worth mentioning that Nimona has wrapped up.

I really enjoyed that comic, and I'm glad that it had a proper ending without major pacing issues. I've seen a lot of comics that go on for years without really getting anywhere, and whatever sadness I might have that there won't be more of this is outweighed by the fact that this wonderful little gem has avoided that fate.

If you somehow haven't read Nimona despite the numerous recommendations from people here, then I guess you can experience the joy of reading it all at once now.