Chapter 9 – Page 24
New Comics Every Weekday - Written by T Campbell & Phil Kahn - Illustrated by John & Jason Waltrip
Guilded Age
Fantasy Comics every Weekday.
Philly Comic Con
(Philadelphia, PA 5/30 - 6/2)
ConnectiCon
(Hartford, CT 7/12 - 7/14)
Intervention
(Rockville, MD 8/23 - 8/25)
Wow. Nice deal. I wonder what he has to do in return for the afterlife?
Agree to be stuck naked in a tube in the basement.
Could be worse. Could be stuck naked with a tube in a basement. Although Best might be into that. Time will tell.
Resurrection Sickness for 60 minutes.
The other dead mystics probably “re-died” in the afterlife to send him back, and he’s probably strong enough to raise the others as a result.
The other mystics were killed by the CEO. The same who brought him back.
Wait, best called him an old ham… Run Gravy! Or you’ll be dinner! We’ve seen him eat old buddies before!
Ham and Gravy? All we need now are some biscuits.
Shank you very much for the rescue.
I see five caves. So Bandit is indeed coming back.
There are four caves!
I see what you did there Captain Picard.
you’re my hero.
Picard is everyone’s hero!
He’s got a glib tongue, but he’s no Jimmy Kirk.
Hey, words hurt too you know. :*(
Nor, dare I say, a Christopher Pike.
Picard > all other captains
Screw you other guys.
If by “>” you mean “Older than”, you are correct.
…Oh, I get it!
I don’t get it. :-(
Grrrr. Older, perhaps, but also better. Picard is the best Captain the Enterprise ever had. Period.
If you mean “best” as in Second best.. Jim would have him for breakfast and then ask for seconds, aka Archer… Then he would have melted Janes icy exteirior with his masculine wiles, then had sweet passionate love with her and the entire crew of all three ships. BOOM
Jim….could…certainly…try. But…I don’t think….he’d get…very…..far.
Sisko is literally a God. He punched Q in the face. Yet you go on about Kirk?
You won.
How do you speak with his voice like that??
Awesome *_*
What caves?
Tombs? Mounts? Rock shelters?
We could be seeing just the tip of the rock-berg here.
“How many lights do you see, Picard?”
“Five lights.”
“There are four lights.” “How many lights do you see?”
“Five Lights.”
“HOW MANY LIGHTS DO YOU SEE?!”
“THERE ARE… FIVE LIGHTS!”
“I can’t understand how you can be so blind.” “How many lights do you see?”
“What lights?”
Heh, I knew it rang a bell.
Oh my… no I get it, too.
now!
Good, good! Bring them all back. Although I’ve been perfectly happy with the whole “Dedalus” reveal bit, I have missed these guys.
And I take back what I said the other week or so about Best being less of a douche in this chapter. He’s still an engaging character, though, but yeah, as arrogant and selfish as before.
I’m going to be a little disappointed if all “G-Day” is is the resurrection of Wordsworth, Needle, Frag and Pundit. We’ve known that was on the cards since a little before they died!
There’s other stuff. I know because I can see the future.
Look, we’ve already established that “G-day” is going to be about clitorises and fighting the Nazis. The resurrection of our adventurers is just Gravey.
(Snaps top attention and salutes) Voluteering to fight the nazi clitorises, SIR!
With enthusiasm like that, we’ll have ‘em licked in no time!
I cheerfully will volunteer to join the Muffin Rangers.
Best is (ahem) at his best when he is by himself, because he is the only one who appreciates how totally awsome he is.
No need to lie about the “arousing” business, Best, we’ve seen your orgies.
Though necrophilia isn’t a line he has crossed. Yet.
No, but I bet he has nanced around it.
That we know of!
In Cyrodiil, it’s only 500 drakes for a first offense.
Grin. Just played that bit of Oblivion yesterday.
I wonder how much the penalty will be in Skyrim.
Probably an “eye for an eye” if you get my drift.
It’s a Deadline!
Guess he prefers a different sort of “stiff” XP
Oh, come on, we already used all the death-related puns last page. It’d be too repetitive to do them all again. This pun-off be dead in the water before it even started.
Whoops.
:( -5 to Innuendo then? That’s what I get for dicking around with the masters ;^;
Gravedust doesn’t look so well, he seems to be a bit under.
A little bit limp, would you say?
I don’t know, Gravedust seems to be on top of things. Though Best’s sympathy is clearly bottoming out.
That’ll upset Best, he never likes to be behind. Especially not in scoring.
This punline really blows.
I thought this comic used to update at midnight Eastern time. Did that change? Did I miss a memo?
It’s been updating at this time (4pm here) for as long as I’ve been reading.
Pretty sure it updated the same time it always does.
Yes, it used to update midnight Eastern, but I assume that the scheduling’s behind. It might be a daylight savings thing, though.
Plus you have to account for that one-and-a-quarter microseconds since the big earthquake.
: |
Im startin to guess Bests prob is just when he’s around other people.
When he’s alone hes the very best n could easly be my fav. char. <:
“L’enfer, c’est Best en présence des autres.” (Sartre, if he’d known him)
xD loved it.
Maybe thats why I like him. He’s actually a nice elf with bad attitude because of what he’d lived so far.
“Best the Beast” (mais que quand quelqu’un est trop proche d lui).
I wonder what kind of favor Best might ask of the party in the future. Maybe they could be backup dances at one of his concerts or something.
*dancers
Tombdirt has already been established as capable.
Frigg would be a good bouncer. dare i say the dopest bouncer in history.
The folks she bounced certainly wouldn’t try coming back!
All I can think of is him trying to talk poor Syr’nj into some sort of skimpy outfit to just that purport.
….An image that was quickly followed by Gravedust in a grass skirt and coconut bra.
Thank you for that image sir. It will haunt me to my grave. Now, where’s that brain bleach shop I saw the other day… *Wanders off to locate some brain bleach, inwardly screaming in horror.*
Hey, it could have been worse. He could have said Big D, the reporter geeks and Adam Sessler in said skirt and bra.
all in ONE SKIRT!?
Seperate skirts, but that idea is even more frightening.
I was about to say, a grass skirt would be right up syr’nj’s alley.
I’m guessing we are going to find out what Bandit’s deal is in light of the Sepia World revelation sooner rather than later.
Im just so into rule #34 for bandit ;_;
I’m afraid the internet’s Army of Perv Artists has not caught up to you yet. This will have to do for you until Rule 35 kicks in.
http://guildedage.net/webcomic/chapter-6/one-year-anniversary/
Guess its time for me to give a lil back to the internet 4 all those things that it had given me.
to me! pencils!
I’m actually REALLY surprised at the lack of GA rule 34.
There has been no mention of him being “Gravedust” in this, so it is obvious that this is Tombdirt.
That symbol GD’s drawing looks like a slight variation on the Ankh of Life, which I guess isn’t surprising for a sand dwelling mystic even if he is a dwarf.
It looks like an ankh to me as well.
i have no ankhexiety for this theory.
Hadn’t caught that. Thought it was his tracks. Wasn’t sure why he wouldn’t walk to the next cave in a more direct fashion.
Anyway yes. Definitely and Ankh of some form.
He’s dragging a stick through the sand to make the shape.
Not just a stick, that’s his mystic bow he’s using.
It is a late St. Patrick’s day comic and that is a clover. Tombdirt is Irish.
What? You’re telling me everyone else isn’t reaing him with an accent?
“…But I requoired yer services ta free me’ body.”
Nice catch, Captain. It’s an Ankh with an infinity figure “8″ as the cross bar. So… Eternal Life symbol? Only thing I could come up with for a
resurrection rune.
sweet.
Totally.
You could have had Gravy draw a picture of Marvel Comic’s Jean Grey into the sand.
Which one of her….?
Isn’t it Phil and T’s job to come up with this? Don’t tell me they just said, “Hey John, draw some ‘thing’ that goes with this whole resurrection theme we’ve got going”.
No, they did not say that.
They actually said “Hey John, draw us a comic. We’re going to go get drunk.”
:)
No, T did not say that.
I notice he only argued T didn’t say that…..
Looked like a Morpork to me…
I thought I saw Roderick and Keith hiding nearby.
Actually, it looks to me like an hourglass, with the infinity symbol crossing it in the middle.
…Does this make Gravedust a necromancer?
I can’t tell.
No, being able to speak to the dead made him one. This just makes him effectively a cleric.
Res plz!
Depends on who is defining necromancy at any given point of time.
It’s a funny word. Nowadays, pop culture has defined -mancy as meaning “magic”, but originally it meant “divination by”. For example, fortune telling by cards was “cartomancy.” So necromancy originally meant “divination by death.”
Except that it didn’t. The necro- part is a back-formation, language’s way of “fixing” words so that they mean what you think they should mean instead of what they used to mean. In Medieval Latin, the word was nigromantia with the prefix meaning “black”. As in “black magic”. Which it apparently meant then, even though every other word with -mantia in it referred to divination specifically.
I’m not sure what my point was here.
So… yes? No?
Sorta!
In greek the word nekromanteia was already used in the 3rd century. So necromancy isn’t a backformation even if it was called nigromantia at one point. The word was altered to nigromancy by association with the colour black.
So what you’re saying is everything’s not so…Black and Wight.
or Black and Write.
Or Black and Rite.
Or Black and White…no, wait, I’m bad at this.
No, he’s a Mystic
If Best had accepted what he thought was Gravy’s offer, then HE’D be the NecRomancer.
you can tell Best is uncomfortable, he’s putting his shirt on
EXCUSE ME? That is a MANLY JACKET. You can tell how MACHO he is because he does not wear a shirt underneath it.
A manly jacket for extra MEN-ERGY!
Boy + Jacket = Man!
Man + Jacket = Manman….man!
Pregnant woman + Jacket = Holy sh-
That and deserts can be cold at night.
In Arkerra, Desert is a dish best served cold. And it is very cold… at night.
Best is immune to the cold. He melts it with his wit and charm. In fact, little known fact, the personification of Winter is not an Old Man, it is an attractive young woman. Spring comes about whenever Best goes to visit her.
I read that Oglaf strip!
Aww, the second panel there was kinda poignant, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it way. Last of the Savasi mystics! Poor Gravedust.
Like!
Dialogue’s quite nice all the way through this, the stumble before “rouse” suggesting that it might not be too pleasant for someone to go around raising the dead, and the misinterpretation of that as a different word. Lovely :)
The tone that I got from it is that he was trying to play up the rarity of the bow. Being that he ‘is’ the last of the Savasi mystics I suspect he thought it sounded better than, “I made this bow”.
The image of GD offering his bow really is kinda sad and strongly contrasted by Best’s disdain. So much sorrow bottled up inside of him.
So does Frigg get Gravedust’s name yet?
It’s Tombdirt.
But Gravedust told Frigg she could have his name when he died. Well, he died. Frigg is now Gravedust, who is now Tombdirt, who may or may not have been Gravedust at one time. so now Frigg’s name goes to Byron, Byron’s name goes to Bandit, and Syr’nj will henceforth be known as Cyril Prendergast, Esq. I hope this clears things up.
He said, “I would probably be to preoccupied to object,” not “yes.”
He is no longer too preoccupied to object.
Longest corpse-run ever…
You never know, he might’ve been flogging a dead horse to get there.
Please; It’s not Blizzard, it’s Hurricane, and it’s not “flogging a dead horse,” it’s “Eating a dead bawkbagawk.”
Respawn. Yaaawn….
I am so pleased by this. So ridiculously, inordinately pleased.
This really makes me wonder, why show us that this is, in fact, a game? More specifically, why now? Narrative wise, you could have theoretically just continued with Best’s story undisturbed, but the choice to bring in a meta element now is… curious. I’m interested to see how exactly this is relevant to the current events in-game.
It’ll be worth bearing in mind as future events play out, I guess.
Definitely an idea to play with.
My guess is — if we weren’t introduced to this new “reality”, then many of us would be crying Foul! at Gravedust’s reappearance and the apparent imminent resurrection of the party. Knowing they are not permanently dead, any future life-threatening situation is no longer any concern.
“What, they’re being attacked by 10,000 Landsharks? How will they ever survive!?”
“So what. Big deal.” (Points for movie quote reference)
“Gravedust will just rez them again and they’ll be on their merry way.”
Now that we think it’s a game, their resurrection has a different meaning and there are other elements in which crises can have importance in the story.
Good point!
I wonder if the players have more or less subconsciously decided that the game is so fun that they don’t want to quit playing, and therefore they’re meta-gaming to cheat death. Because Dedalus didn’t do any gaming, meta or otherwise.
It also brings up an interesting question on death and the afterlife in this world. Is Big D’s inability to release them because Gravedust is affecting the game in ways he isn’t expecting through the Afterlife? Or even through the tech aspect? We got an impression that he is an academic of sorts but is his knowledge only books?
“So what. Big deal.”
Buckaroo Banzai.
Finally, a get out of TPK free card. Courtesy of your very own overpowered magic-user class.
Free?
They owe Best a favour. Nobody wants to owe Best a favour.
If Best is anything like the Marquise de Carabas, they’ll eventually have to raise him from the dead to repay him. Given how much they dislike Best. . . yeah. . . nobody wants to owe Best that favor.
Death has always been a temporary inconvenience in D&D and derived games…as long as you make your System Shock on d% ;)
Funny thing is, I’ve always found “coming back from the dead” to be the single biggest break in immersion in any RPG, tabletop or online. Some make some effort to justify it in the game world, but it never really makes sense — especially in fantasy RPGs with intelligent undead, who are understood to have committed horribly evil acts in exchange for coming back as grotesque rotting corpses with crippling vulnerabilities. By contrast, the heroes come back without a blemish, and with little effort.
Hopefully Gravy’s debt to the underworld is a significant one.
I don’t know what would be worse . . . Owing the underworld a debt, or owing Best a debt.
Unfortunately they, or GD at least, are stuck with both.
He could consolidate his debt by sending Best to the underworld.
I’m with you there. As far as I’m concerned dead needs to be dead. Once in a rare while someone pulls it off well, but most of the time it just breaks the story. This being said, thus far the Guilded Age Guys have done a flawless job of avoiding the trappings of fantasy fiction, so I’m gonna see how this goes before making any accusations.
I’m also interested in the specifics of this because it brings up the question of why the other mystics didn’t come back. I’m certain that this question will be answered. They wouldn’t leave a genuine plot hole like that. Perhaps some manner of collective debt, or everyone needing to work together to open the rift wide enough for one/five person(s). Anyway, there’ll be an answer, and I’m interested in what it is.
I suspect the dead wouldn’t have anyone to talk to if ALL the mystics were dead, so they let Gravedust slide. After all, none of them would ever be able to rest if they didn’t have someone to help them with their unfinished business.
Perhaps the arrangements made were not palatable to the other mystics.
I bet all the other mystics gave their han to GD so now he’s the first true mystic in a hundred years!
Too much flaying-alive in that scenario for my liking.
Not that Best isn’t giving the dwarf a good flaying at the moment.
“Flay the Dwarf” would be a great name for a band.
I had to do it. Check out their new album cover:
http://thnikkalemur.deviantart.com/art/FTD-Album-Cover-201832514
(This is fan art of fan art, apologies to Meirnon)
Gold Star.
FAAAAAKE.
(The real album cover totally has Gravedust and Tombdirt rocking a double guitar solo against the background of Hell.)
One strums while the other does the chords?
But nay, nay. The bard is clearly the instrumentalist. Tombdirt is the dance troup. Gravedust is dead, lending them a mysterious past and street cred.
I always assumed that the town that was destroyed was where they kiled the mystics and they just slaughtered the rest of the town to throw people off
In D&D at least, there’s no way to come back from dying of old age, which is why someone might do something cruel and horrible to become an undead rather than relying on having someone you trust spend a fortune in diamonds to keep ressing you until you die of old age.
Among epic characters in the Forgotten Realms setting — at least the classic version — there are a lot of heroes, mostly with ties to Mystra, who have lived for centuries without aging. And, there are a lot of villains, who are liches.
That’s just among humans — then we get to elves.
I guess Best passed up the opportunity to bury the hatchet.
Granted, Best is being a jerk, but I’d be pretty pissed myself if someone had lied to me about something I had based pretty much my whole life on.
Eh suck it up. He got the quest exp. He was offered epic Lootz. What more could an adventurer possibly ask for?
An epic fuck?
He’s a musician, so perhaps an epic lute?
This one time, at bard camp…
Finally a comic that’s not just Best!
I have a theory.
Everything we saw in Sepia World was what Gravedust was seeing.
Sepia World is the afterlife? Sort of? I was going to say that now GD at least knows they’re in a game, but he isn’t acting differently. Plus, now I’ve written that out, I don’t think it’s such a good theory after all.
….it was bunnies.
I have a theory
they’re gamers dreaming
and we’re all stuck inside their wacky RP nightmare.
I don’t know if I buy that idea. maybe if you say it… Once More *puts on some awesome shades* With Feeling…
…or maybe midgets.
I don’t think that makes sense, it seems fairly clear that brown-scarf-dude is Tombdirt, and most of sepiaworld was from the perspective of the mr. moustached-man. I think Occam’s razor most likely applies here, and what we’ve seen is what we get.
I’ve had bunnies. They can be very devious, as well as vindictive!
My theory is that Gravedusts player hacked the system and is keeping the party trapped and never “dying” or otherwise logging out and mustache man is “Byrons” brother
This is going to be a super-awkward reunion for Byron. He’ll have to apologize for leading to the TPK and filleting Bandit like a flounder.
“I, I’m sorry, Bandit.”
*REDACTED FOR POSSIBLE SPOILERS*
“WHAT? RRRRAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!”
Anyone notice how Best is now dragging his Master-Crafted Sky Elf-Made Instrument through the dirt?
He IS a jerk, after all.
Holy crap and can we get a shout out to Best who made a grave pun IN-COMIC?!?!
The Pittance comment? – I don’t think it’s an intended pun.
I don’t care I don’t care! It’s Fabulous!
Hmm.
Tombdirt said they wouldn’t be going far, but only after drawing most of the ankh. Does this imply some sort of transport to another plane is about to take place?
And if it’s not that far, why do they have to take another plane? Anyway, it was an airship they took the first time, not a plane, so why another? This is all very confusing!
And here I thought it was that the others are in the other cav…Sorry, John…holes in the other rocks. :-)
uh, I thought I made the thing about the plane quite plain, plainly I may need to explain. What a pain.
The rain in Spain falls mainly on the Boeing 747.
Silliness quotient exceeded, you guys.
Are you going to detain me again? just let me explain! Mainly you’ve got everything ot gain!
You’re insane.
In the membrane?
Why thank you.
Nice!
At least their foes had the decency to provide burial grounds.
I was thinking the same. They were oddly considerate in the treatment of their bodies.
Rez pls
I’m really impressed with how this was handled. I was expecting something rather overblown (and don’t get me wrong, I love overblown) when it came time to reunite the party, but Gravedust simply works, and works well. Love it!
Lol. That’s Gravedust for you. Anyone else would tell a fantastic tale about the adventure to get a second chance at life and redemption. I’m sure there would be one to tell if Gravedust cared to tell it. But no, Gravedust just makes it sound like a pretty typical business transaction. Doesn’t even comment on whether or not he got a decent price. Not an ounce of theatrics in his body. Really looking forward to seeing how he interacts with Best.
THERE’S the Best I know and disdain.
Why doesn’t Gravedirt just lie to Best? Flatter his ego.
“Why, elf, this IS part of your destiny. We are mere bit parts; important, but bit parts none the less. Why can’t you feel the power flowing through your veins? My spirit cast a spell, right before re-entering my body. It has made you even more skillful than before! You are practically a god! Now, Elf, fulfill your destiny and slay the foul Troll Harki, so you may take your place as the HERO OF THE WORLD!”
Then I would have sat down with my newly-resurrected teammates and watched as he ran headfirst to his likely-death.
Dusty strikes me as the horrible liar type. That or he really just detests Best.
Tombdirt’s too smart for that, he knows if he said that, then Best would just go and do it. Then we’d have to live with an even bigger ego.
I get the feeling Tombdust would rather be upfront and honest if he can help it. Lies and deceit is last resort.
So, is Tombdirt a version of Gravedust only better at everything and a more clear moral compass? Not that Gravy’s evil, he just strikes me as very neutral-ish.
Then, can we have a Bizarro Gravedust? We could name him something like “Lifeclean”. He’d be tall, bald, albino, sharply-dressed, somewhat stupid, and would speak only in limericks.
We could call him Cryptgrit.
Stonebirth?
Mr. Clean?
Clean Slate.
Grave gets better service because he’s got a VIP account…