July 2nd, 2010
Page 376
Comics for July 2, 2010 - Page 376
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July 2nd, 2010 at 12:05 am
OOOOOOOOOOOkay.
Maldik is officially in the bad books.
Also, gonna get this out there right now: Compare this moment to when Mentl had power of Ginsa. How Similar the scenes are the most basic elements (Male beating female he has power over) but how DIFFERENT they are in the greater context. (One is a man desperate to live, the other a man using an ‘innocent’ as a means to vent his impotent fury.
And is just me or does this gal LOOK a bit like Ginsa? Something in the eyes….
July 2nd, 2010 at 12:22 am
Is it just me, or is there no comment between the lines.
I agree has some of the same facial features.
July 2nd, 2010 at 12:39 am
How much do you want to bet that he’ll kill her? Kind of a morbid bet, I know, but… I think it’s likely. Poor girl, that gown may as well have been red.
July 2nd, 2010 at 1:16 am
What next, Maldik? Eating babies seems like a moral step up for you.
July 2nd, 2010 at 2:02 am
Ok, this is final proof, if anymore was needed, that Maldik NEEDS to be killed, and soon. Only someone that has no concept of self-worth, or concept of any sort of respect for anybody would do something such as this. Maldik no longer qualifies as a man, in my book. I gave him that status, but as a weak man. Now, he is truly no better then the reptiles that he has been dealing with.
July 2nd, 2010 at 2:44 am
@Elizabeth Well, he can always take up puppy-stomping.
July 2nd, 2010 at 3:21 am
If ever someone needed killing its this poser. Someone kill him please?
July 2nd, 2010 at 3:24 am
Ok, up untill now, I had a small bit of forgiveness set aside, in case Maldik redeemed himself, now I’m praying that Mentl skips the older songs(which are my preference) and breaks out “One of those Days”from Limp Bizkit(not gonna happen, but I can dream ;p), including the summoning of a magical chainsaw.
July 2nd, 2010 at 3:43 am
I hope someone cuts the puppet prince strings and let him lay lifeless on the floor like the garbage he is.
July 2nd, 2010 at 4:37 am
Okay, he needs to have himself snipped now.
What a true ass.
July 2nd, 2010 at 4:39 am
I would have had more respect for Maldik if this page had shown him going off on the Bishop, maybe shoving his dagger into the bishop’s gut. True, it would have been an unwise move, and would have had unpleasant consequences, but at least it would have been commendable. I would have cheered him on and hoped he found a way to hide the body.
But no, he runs back to his chambers and takes out his frustrations on an innocent woman, who means him no harm. First spewing venom at a mother who still cares for him in spite of everything and now this. Maldik truly does not deserve any sympathy or pity, just a horrible death.
Unfortunately, we all know that death will be a long time coming. But I hope it involves him getting to watch himself being eaten piece by piece by his Urrt “allies”.
July 2nd, 2010 at 4:39 am
Yep. Hopefully his days are numbered.
July 2nd, 2010 at 7:21 am
Beating up a woman who not only can not possibly harm him but apparently has no choice being there. “Royal whores” tend to be positions appointed by force of arms or finance. And yes, Maldik is now beyond all hope of redemption. May his rule last a day, but his death last an eon.
July 2nd, 2010 at 7:28 am
I didn’t think it was posible to make me like him even less
July 2nd, 2010 at 8:08 am
Am with everyone who commented thus far…am looking forward to seeing Maldik’s slow, struggling, and terrified death. Unfortunately I think that JED nailed his actions here by abusing an individual who really could do him no harm…a disturbing scene…but beautifully executed and does fit Maldik’s pathalogical character…I also noticed that there was no writing “upon the inter-panel lines”…but the scene kinda speaks for it self…
July 2nd, 2010 at 8:54 am
Man… Someone make that guy a sammich…
easiest thing to do?
get Zona to ’sammich’ him.
:}
July 2nd, 2010 at 9:00 am
I have reached the idea that a quick death would only remove him from our misery. I do not wish him to die quick or soon. Let him live a long and eventful life somewhere where they don’t know his postion. He would quickly go to the bottom of the food chain and take all the abuse and ridicule that he is giving out.
July 2nd, 2010 at 9:28 am
I’ve been reading TCoZ since 2007 but this is the first time I leave any comments,
I think all that Maldik is saying in this page is what he would have liked to say to Yanora, his mother, because of all he says in panel seven; it just happens that this girl is a whore he has at his service (the same one that was in his bedroom when we first saw him and Tethik, maybe?) I guess no matter what would had been her work he would have still said the same words and beaten her, seriously, poor girl.
Until this page came out, I felt a little sorry for this guy, he obviously isn’t very bright, his mother has never been affective and he’s the puppet prince. But now… I just want to see him die, just like everyone else does.
Keep up this amazing tale, JED!!
July 2nd, 2010 at 9:57 am
Moral Event Horizon anyone? For those unfamiliar with tvtropes.com (you benighted heathens!) that is the point at which a character forfiets any chance of sympathy whatsoever and for me abusing someone you know can’t fight back is this.
July 2nd, 2010 at 9:57 am
oops, sorry, that tvtropes.org
July 2nd, 2010 at 10:03 am
Somebody needs to kill that guy. Preferably after stomping repeatedly on the royal “soft-and-tenders” with hobnailed boots first. Prince Scumbag officially just disqualified himself from any sort of clean and relatively painless death right there.
July 2nd, 2010 at 11:43 am
by linking to tvtropes you just ruined several lives…
July 2nd, 2010 at 11:49 am
taltamir: Why thank you. And yes, there’s a Challenges of Zona article already there if anyone wants to contribute.
July 2nd, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Okay -
I guess the concensus is:
“A Boo to Maldik!”
BOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
“And a hiss!”
HISSSSSSSS!!!!!
And there we have it.
A lot of similar commentary, so I hope this once you’ll forgive me making a general reply, not personal ones. Yes, this is Maldik distinctly NOT at his best. But he is not going to die, at least not soon, and on Tuesday you all shall see just how low he can go.
Yes, this is the same girl we saw when Maldik made his first appearance back on page 48-52. She’s very young, though in a society where some girls are married at 14, it’s not as awful as it might be. Her name is Dia. (I almost never create nameless characters, even when they’re extras or background)
I have to say that this was the one scene that, just as a person, was hardest for me to render. It’s one thing to make cartoon violence and cut off monsters’ heads and have blood and guts in a battle-scene. It’s even something to have Mentl force himself to bash Ginsha because he needs to escape to save his life. But Dia is, essentially, a child, for all her loss of physical innocence. This is a little too close to real-world violence and abuse and I was wincing, even as I did it.
As to the similarity between the Mentl-Ginsha bashing and this one, The two may have some similar themes and action, but that’s probably just more because I lack imagination than anything else. Dia and Ginsha are not even close to the same model or mesh, Dia being a highly modified Millennium Girl 2 from Daz, and Ginsha was Victoria 3 just like Zona and Tula (and a whole lotto other character ladies)
I’m actually fond of TV Tropes! It’s cute, especially if you don’t take it remotely seriously. It was fun to find Zona in there, and to see how many “tropes” I am employing in the strip. I know the thing is derivative, but if this site is to be believed, there is not one single character, situation or scrap of dialogue here that can’t be categorized as some recognized “trope!”
See, I grew up knowing these things as “archetypes,” not “tropes.” Also, with any kind of analysis you can see that the same description applies to the complete works of Shakespeare. Seriously, the man made the greatest melodramas in the English language, and he never created an original story, character or situation. And yet he crafted them so exquisitely, drew the characters and conflicts with such genius and poetry that intellectuals and college professors hijacked them from their proper place as entertainment to the dry and dusty halls of academia. One of the reasons why people don’t like Shakespeare, frankly. Or Beowulf, either. They’re not “great literature.” They’re good stories made for people to laugh at the clowns, cheer the hero, weep at the death of lovers and, oh, yes - BOO to the VILLAIN!!
July 2nd, 2010 at 12:36 pm
@dalewake The comments between the lines are usually humorous asides, and there’s nothing remotely humorous here.
July 2nd, 2010 at 12:46 pm
@John - As you told me a while back, “nobody kills him, he lives”. This is nearing the Greek tragedy level of Snape, turning on the last person who cares anything about him and spending the rest of his life trying to atone. But a tragic figure has to have at least one noble impulse and Maldik just doesn’t cut it.
To the pain!
@All; unfortunately, Maldik is not an inhuman monster. My mom was a child welfare worker for 20 years, it’s the human monsters that are far, far worse.
July 2nd, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Agreed with ICWT. Humans make worse nightmares than monsters.
I harbor some small pity for Maldik, but he’s now shown there is little if anything to be salvaged by giving him another chance. I await the moment Gorshash feeds his gutless hide to some odds-ends Urr-Nait, or something else that will eat his flesh and sew his skin into its clothing.
Not in that order.
July 2nd, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Well, I admit great heroes need worthy villains.
July 2nd, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Right. Kill him.
July 2nd, 2010 at 6:15 pm
“There are none more abusive to others than they that lie most open to it themselves; but the humor goes round, and he that laughs at me today will have somebody to laugh at him tomorrow”
Seneca quotes (Roman philosopher, mid-1st century AD)
nuff said and may the comeuppance come soon.
July 2nd, 2010 at 6:44 pm
@ICWT: exactly, he’s not an inhuman monster, and that was why I sort of felt sorry for him, but you’re right, humans can be way worse than any mosters we create from our imagination, and this guy is simply a worm, and a very disgusting-looking one.
July 2nd, 2010 at 6:52 pm
To quote another fine comic creator..
“I take his weapons away from him. Both of them.”
- Frank Miller,
That Yellow Bastard
Yep, gonna enjoy Maldickless’ eventual demise. I hope it’s long and interesting.
July 2nd, 2010 at 7:43 pm
Ok, I officially hate Maldik. At first I gave him the benefit of the doubt thinking he might just be confused and spoiled but no, he just sucks.
July 2nd, 2010 at 10:58 pm
Exactly Elmatpe, ICWT. I once read somewhere (it may have been the Dresden Files or maybe Good Omens) that the real reason demons direct so much attention/hatred towards humanity is that we are so much better at evil than they are.
Sad, but oh-so-unfortunately true.
Still, as long as we can recognize our own capacity for such evil, we are that much better armed to choose to turn away from it. Evil, unrecognized, is the most dangerous sort, because it can strike us unaware and unprepared. In knowing and recognizing our weaknesses and faults we are more able to overcome them.
July 3rd, 2010 at 7:14 am
Man, if Maldik ever wound up in our universe, he’d better pray he didn’t wind up in Texas, or in any place that has a ’stand your ground’-style law. He might last as much as 6 hours before somebody in Texas decided to kill him and use the old defense of ‘he needed killing’.
Roughly the same in ’stand your ground’ territory.
July 3rd, 2010 at 7:50 am
Maldik is the essence of cowardice. He would never stand up to anyone he thought had even the remotest chance of hurting him. Why do you think, even when invited, he couldn’t kill his mother? Because as foolish as he is, he was afraid of the consequences. But Dia has no defense at all in such a society; she has no powerful friends, so she is the unfortunate person on which Maldik vents his frustrations.
July 3rd, 2010 at 9:00 am
Just let me shoot him. :p
Seriously, by the whole “your friends have been playing you for a fool” dialogue THIS is the one he thought to do it? I wonder if it’s out of being coward enough to hit an inoccent or because he’s plain stupid.
July 3rd, 2010 at 9:11 am
Just let me shoot him. :p
Seriously, by the whole “your friends have been playing you for a fool” dialogue THIS is the one he thought to do it? I wonder if it’s out of being coward enough to hit an inoccent or because he’s plain stupid.
July 3rd, 2010 at 10:15 am
Is it wrong that I’m now hoping that Zona is going to kill Maldik? A lot?
Like, turn him into little teeny-tiny pieces? Or maybe something more amusing and unusual?
July 3rd, 2010 at 2:30 pm
@people - Zona, will not kill Maldik slowly. Thus kibblization is too merciful. Some gloating by Gorshash before he becomes a Shuach-toy is possible, but I think Maldik’s imagination is too feeble to fully appreciate the Otherwhen. If we keep things on this plane, I vote we subcontract the job to Morcai, Tethik’s ‘friend’ from the Tanners. There’s a clever lad. We never did find out a multiple of WHAT was going to be his reward. License for slow torture-rape of selected nobility would fit with Tethik’s efficiency. Nome Sayen?
July 3rd, 2010 at 3:23 pm
that was just hard to finish JE. that cut pretty close to home for me… i’m glad it was hard to render, but was it nessecary? i dunno, maybe i’m too soft.
July 4th, 2010 at 12:18 am
OK, i just read this and i just upgraded maldik from a ride down a hill in a barrel full of broken glass, to what i call the weighted fish-hook treatment. i will leave the details to your imagination, but the barrel kills faster. you can live through the fish hooks though.
July 4th, 2010 at 7:05 am
Actually, I think Zona WOULD kill Maldik quickly, so as not to stain her own cha. She’s not currently been offended enough be him that she has any claim on exacting retribution from him.
However, if she were able to engineer his own choices destroying him painfully and utterly, well, he had the opportunity to make other choices.
July 4th, 2010 at 9:30 am
Beating a young woman is hardly a capital offence. Criminal, yes, this is definitely an act of assault. It’s an illustration of the nature of his character, yes. What TVTropes would call a “kick the dog” moment, yes. From her fearful expression in panel 2, I don’t think it’s the first time this has happened, either. She came into this relationship with a little more eagerness:
http://www.soulgeek.com/comics/zona/2006/06/11/page-52/
We may now read additional meaning into Tethik’s “Well, that’s a matter of opinion, I’m sure.” This is probably not the first young lass he’s collected from the lower classes and used as his personal plaything, and I think Tethik knows that he doesn’t treat them very well.
She doesn’t really have much control over the situation, in the immediate or larger scale sense - acting king and all that. The fact that she’s helpless to do anything makes it all that much worse. She’s trying very hard to be whatever he wants her to be, and unfortunately for her, what he wants today is a human punching bag. It’s terribly sad and quite disturbingly realistic.
July 4th, 2010 at 10:37 am
“Disturbingly realistic”
Could not agree more.
July 4th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
I’m REALLY hoping she gets saved before he kills her
July 4th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Maldik is a bastard, but you already knew that. I feel sorry for the poor girl. She has done nothing to deserve such a treatment from Maldik. No child could ever deserve such a thing.
July 5th, 2010 at 12:15 am
Hard to finish? Yes. Hard to Render? I am sure it was. Necessary? Absolutely. I am guessing this is a scene where Maldik wrote it in, no JED. We need to see the depth of Maldik’s depravity to fully appreciate his downfall..
Excellent page JED. Thank you for letting the story lead us where we need to go…
July 5th, 2010 at 9:23 am
@ Gemma, you forgot the “rape him to death” part. Which, as we’ve seen with certain reptilians, is all part of the fun.
July 5th, 2010 at 9:28 am
Don’t think I’ve left more’n three comments in two years but …
This one hit me really hard & close to home. I follow a LOT of webcomics, & a bunch of ‘em especially for the “rough edge” & realistic plotlines.
No judgement for including this one. If anything, kudos for taking on such a tough subject. Certainly real & rough in a Medieval-style world, even tame …
But I feel like I took a real kick in the guts watching this & not being able to intervene.
Fully intended as a compliment, JED … you really pulled off a plot (& graphics) trick to emote out such intense feeling & caring over fictional characters.
This cannot, BTW, be even remotely compared to Ginsha. Fighting an enemy with weapons & skill at hand is one thing; whipping a helpless kitten deserves a very creative and long, drawn out death.
July 5th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
i think he is more a coward than bein a great evil villain
he found a target to do what he would like to do to all thoes he fears but the ppeople he afraid of he cant take action agaist them so the 1st person to annoy him and was in his control was allways goin to be bad news for them
if hoes kill the girl and takes account of the blood on his hands he might get a backbone and become a true evil character
ps everything just said is on the premiss thats this is a story not relife if it was real life i would agree with every one else and say kill the basterd
July 5th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
To Uhl - I figured it was a sensitive enough scene to leave out that first bit. Plus, who the heck would touch Maldik with a ten-foot pole, after seeing him like this?
To TJHairball - it ought to be.
July 5th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
I think he’s the kind of guy who would get into things like “Weasel Stomping Day” (Wierd Al song…Hope Mentyl uses it while referencing this goober as the weasel!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k76IGLi6jWI
October 28th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Spineless bastard.