Annotated 18-16
So long, Bibli’Oh. So long, Penk’s innocence.
Phil did good here. Both of us had worked other jobs in addition to Guilded Age and while neither of those jobs involved the direct kind of moral quandaries we see here, we were both the sort to wonder how much of our souls we’d need to give to our day-job identities.
Though at this point, my financial straits were dire enough that just having a day-job identity would’ve counted as a win. I had seriously overextended myself over the last few years, hoping to create enough properties that their ad revenues would keep me afloat financially, and things had gone in the other direction instead. As Guilded Age entered its third year and our Kickstarter was still not quite ready, I moved to wrap up my other creative projects (except for an ill-advised sequel to one of them) and moved in with an old friend from college, whose daughter was my goddaughter. Helping out with parenting duties made me feel better about myself in a way that my financial picture did not.
None of this relates very much to Penk except for the general “This is not where I thought I’d be in life” feeling, but it may be worthwhile context for future updates.
Wonder if this ever caused some friction between Penk and Kur’ik later.
Unfortunately, I don’t think it would. Mostly because, how could Penk ever find out the identity and history of this particular elf, out of the mass of casualties that were slain in the attack?
Bibli’ohno!
Hey, I liked QUILTBAG, even if its hidden conceit was a bit unnecessary and narratively unsustainable
Same. I wasn’t too disappointed when it ended, not least because T had clearly lost his enthusiasm, but it was a ride while it lasted.
(And one of the aspects I did miss got carried over to here, so…)
Ba, rum bum bum, stab
If you are talking about Fans!, I’m sorry to hear that in hindsight it seems ill-advised to you. I think it is a strong showing and a proper and worthy third act of the whole story.
Nah, it wasn’t Fans; by then I had wrapped that one up, and even today it’s pretty satisfying to me (with the caveat that fan culture keeps changing as the years pass). It was QUILTBAG, which had some potential on paper but was the wrong project for me at the wrong time.
Coming up to Remembrance Day.
“WHERE’S MY INDIAN DRUUUM?”
“LOOK SKYWARD, MORON!”
In panel two, I was wondering why there’s a joystick port behind Penk’s head, until I realized it’s an axetank seen from the side.
So many years late, but nevertheless – I never really bought Penk’s justification here, and in my first read-through never forgave him this… I’m not sure what to call it, moral cowardice?
The slaying of an unarmed innocent fleeing a slaughter of his people has *zero* bearing on the survival of your own people, Penk. This is “just following orders” at close to its extreme, and I never let this innocent blood wash off Penk’s hands. Never truly accepted him as a worthy leader afterward, which dinged my enjoyment of the later chapters rather heavily.
Will be interesting to see if that opinion changes this time, with so many years between my first reading and this one.