Bros before hos
May 30, 2011
12:00 am
This was a rush job, I’m just tired of looking at it. Oh well, still made it up before midnight
OH! I wanted to aim you guys over to a fledgeling Podcast made by some of my Sheridan bros. Aim yourself over to the Guys With Pencils blog for a listen.
Yay Varric! I love that crossbow-obsessed dwarf!
Also apparently first! 0.o
Hoorays are in order!
Hooray!
*blinks* I’m confuzzeled. How do balloons relate to chest hair contests? I understand static cling, but the balloons & stuff is weird….Ah well…Who knows what goes through manly guy’s heads.
Whoever can hold the most balloons/hold the balloons the longest has the mightier chest hair.
best..contest…EVAR
WAY better than the “stubbing-your-toe-into-a-brick-wall” contest.
Absolutely! I always lose that one but with this I have a shot at ape like greatness.
:D
even that is better than the ‘insert toothpick under toenail and kick brick wall’ manly contest.
T_T
Sounds painful.
:| it /is/.
-scrunches toes protectively at the thought-
The worst part about all this? I actually know guys who has done that! *shudders*
If you think that’s bad, try ( http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1996-07.html ) on for size…The title for that entry fits perfectly with this comic!
Not to brag about it but I was the undisputed champion in my local league.
Mrs. Squid I think we need pics of you cosplaying as your main female character. T_T *pretending not to be a creeper*
I don’t look (or really act) anything like her. I look kinda like a chubby girl transgendered Bruce Campbell Elvis when I remember to get my hair cut.
Hold up, a female Bruce Campbell? Hot, when can you pick me up in your Oldsmobile so we can go mummy hunting?
Chubby = sexy so pics <_<
Stay creepy, Internet.
All the Internet, all the time.
Why can’t I love this post
That makes my brain hurt trying to picture you.
Like this: http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/003/6/a/That__s_how_I_roll_by_Coelasquid.jpg
:o Hot.
I second this.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
FUCK, IT’S A CREEPER
Commander totally wins
not even a question. I mean practically he’s a bigger dude with proportionally more chest hair.
Well, it depends on how dwarfs are proportioned. If they have human sized torsos but short legs then they’d have similar chest sizes. You’ve got to imagine that, given how strong most dwarfs are in fiction, it means they probably have pretty huge upper bodies. And given that you never hear about dwarf sprinters or jumpers they must have tiny scrawny lower bodies.
You know, like a lot of the people that lift weights in gyms.
Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, Gimli refers to Dwarves being natural sprinters during the long distance run as they’re chasing the hobbits towards Isengard.
Not trying to invalidate your point, just thought I’d mention that at least once there is a Dwarf talking about being a sprinter. Not that I believe Gimli for a second there.
Long legs aren’t necessarily better than short legs are for sprinting. The ratio of fast-twitch to slow-twitch muscles is a much bigger factor, and shorter legs are actually an advantage in shorter runs.
True, but people with long legs have much better stepping distance.
Actually, in the LoTR books, its the other way around. Dwarves are really good long distance runners and terrible sprinters. They changed it in the movie for comedic effect.
But that’s starting to split hairs, and the dwarf in this comic can’t spare any at the moment.
“Human sized torsos”. I laughed so hard.
Definitely not trying to criticize you, but it’s definitely noticeable that the third panel has a plain background.
Which really only makes me appreciate the rest of your art, if this is indeed a “rush job.”
Or it’s just plain to draw your eye to the manly men doing their manly thing. I mean, when you think about the audience within this strip, perhaps they’re just admiring their manliness, and that’s why we see the gradient. Their vision is narrowed so nothing distracts them from the manly.
Mostly it’s because drawing a BG in that panel would mean drawing the crowd of people standing behind them, and I was already running late.
*blinks*
Holy crap! There’s no background there! o__o
*was blinded by the manliness*
*and balloons*
there is nothing wrong with a gradient background, Disney did it for YEARS. seriously, go look at the early cartoons!
very simple, easy way to show space and lightsource without taking maountains of time/money. :B
-is nerd-
Manly Guys Doing Manly Things: Updated Tuesdays.
I still enjoy it though.
People endlessly whined when I was getting into crunch time on my last job and had to draw crappy simple comics in Flash to get them up on time. I figured people would complain less if I posted a fairly decent free comic a few hours late than a scribbly free comic on time.
Sorry to say but I’m past the point in my life where I can stay up all night doing my own stuff and still expect to pull my weight at work. 6:30 AM is pretty much my limit.
And, yanno, just to be pedantic it was still Monday in California when I posted this.
Coela, you really don’t need to explain why it’s late. I mean, it’s free entertainment for us and you have a job and a life outside your webcomic which needs to be taken care of first and foremost.
Harlow, stop pointing out that it was late, and enjoy your entertainment. Coela is doing a brilliant job keeping me entertained, so screw that it was ‘late’. It’s her webcomic, and she can do what she wants to. Like a Boss.
I’m sure he was just poking harmless fun but I gotta admit, when I forgo a night of sleep to get these things up and immediately have people riding my back for being a few hours late, it kind of makes me want to flip a table.
I am in no way complaining, just know that when you are on time, it makes mine(and i’m sure many other’s) Monday much better. :)
Keep up the amazing work. And remember your rush job is better than anything most of us could draw if we took years… =P haha
You probably ought to do it even if you don’t have people riding you. It can be tremendously cleansing. Also, thank you. Your talents improve my life.
I would totally watch you flip a table.
Really, you shouldn’t listen to someone criticizing you for being a couple hours late. I’m pretty sure all the greatest artists that ever lived have been late on some work.
Besides, it’s the Monday of this working week. Technicality, but it’s true.
“it kind of makes me want to flip a table.”
F.Y.I. Japan has an arcade game for that. Just thought you might like to know. *goes back to the corner*
Japan has an arcade game for everything. I’m sure there’s even a hit-for-hit arcade game there.
Comic is awesome, eff the haters.
+1 to this.
If the comments had the option I would +1 this comment.
Well, ya know … post it late if it comes to it. We get what we pay for, right? Great comic!
No, no. We get MORE than we paid for. We PAID for JACK. We GET awesomeness.
Thank you, Coela!
We paid for JACK. In return we receive Jack Bauer AND Chuck Norris!
Yeah, completely the point I was making. You don’t get to whinge about lateness if you ain’t paying.
Honestly, at this point all I care is that you don’t pull a Scott Ramsooair and update once a month and then disappear for two months and then start three more webcomics and don’t finish those either.
Update when you can!
This.
I really love Manly Guys, it’s an awesome comic! And this sure doesn’t look anything like a damn “rush job” :P
Just ignore the whiners, you’ve got already a sizeable fanbase and even though I can’t speak for others I atleast don’t expect you to keep some silly schedule; we have a saying here in Finland that translates to roughly about “Anything good is always worth the wait.”
In before obligatory ‘olololo female hawke’
You forget though Coelasquid! Varric’s chest hair blinds people with its radiance.
Female Hawke was one true Hawke. I stopped playing the male Hawke I started with like two hours in because she was just more badass.
Female Hawke and Female Shepherd were always better than their male version, the blokes were always horribly generic. Pity the males were the ones that got the spotlight in the ad campaigns.
I won’t argue with that, but I feel the only reason female versions of those characters are even there are for two reasons:
1. Pandering to the female gamer, because they are a growing base, not really caring about whether they are PC about it.
And
2. If the designers are anything like me, they’d rather stare at a female’s backside for 30+ hours in a third person game.
I mean, that’s the one and only reason I play the female character choice in any game – it’s either stare at a female’s butt for 30 hours or a guy’s butt for 30 hours. I’m a guy, I think like a guy, that’s what I do.
Yeah but who doesn’t want to look at a woman’s backside in a game? I don’t think they put very cute butts on most male characters but then maybe I just never noticed enough of them.
Also, the women in this case are more interesting simply because they’re strong, in-charge women. Strong, in-charge men are more common, especially in video games, than strong, in-charge women. Well, with a commanding air, yah know?
Also not necessarily arguing but throwing my two-cents in.
Try Dead Space 2. Some of Isaac’s suits are like DAYUM.
THIS. <3 Yes, those suits. Hrngh. Makes a gal like me want to pounce on my HD tv.
Me too. Plus it makes me giggle to think that the store machine is basically giving him a hard wedgie when it puts his suit on him.
Well, Hawke – lady or no – is the Champion of Kirkwall. He or she has to be a strong in-charge character. That’s the persona of the Champion. It really has nothing to do with what sex the character is, because it was written before they applied the male/female equation.
But I guarantee they wrote it with the male character in mind, and then scripted the female charater.
I wouldn’t be completely sure about that, the game was full of strong female leads in positions of power and the while the lead writer for the game is a male they do have quite a few women on staff. I’m not saying that women necessarily write female characters, but with enough of them working on the story I’m sure the female protagonist wasn’t a tacked on afterthought.
Sten, Leliana, Wynne, Oghren, Dog, Cullen, Isabella, Loghain, Merril, Varric, Anders, Bethany, Cullen, and Sebastian; as well as the mage origin, broken circle, urn of sacred Ashes, dwarf commoner origin, Anvil of the Void, and the Landsmeet were all written by women, so they make up a decent portion of the crew.
The first spoiler trailer – when the game was announced – was with a male Hawke. The advertising trailer and the video that plays at the beginning of the game shows a male Hawke fighting the Arishok. All signs point to the game starting with a male Champion. They pushed a male Hawke in nearly all their advertising.
They did a good job of translating the story in a very neutral way that makes it work for either gender. The character of the Champion is a strong leader with something that sets him/her apart. It doesn’t matter which gender you play – the character is already defined by the story that Varric has to tell (and the Seekers are pursuing). Doesn’t matter if a woman or man wrote it, because it’s about the “mythic” character of the Champion of Kirkwal. With no gender intended.
I also played as the female Hawke and had a great time. Especially wooing Merril, who then called me her lover in Dalish. Which was odd, but somewhat satisfying. Mostly because it upset Isabella and Fenris, who I detest.
Oh, the advertising was all about the male Hawke, but “writing” and “advertising” are two extremely different departments who have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Think of how many times you gone to see a movie with expectations based on the trailer and got something completely different. Going by that logic Moulin Rouge was written as a serious period piece and converted into a pop-culture musical as an afterthought, or Iron Giant was written to be a giant fighting robot monster movie and rehashed into a Cold War era coming of age story just before they put it on screen.
Wait, Moulin Rouge wasn’t about a giant fighting robot?
Yeah, you’re completely right, you can’t just lump that stuff together. One of my friends was listening to a lecture given by one of the Dreamworks Animation Studio’s… uh, directors, I think? And someone decided to be oh-so-hilarious and give her a hard time about the “Dreamworks smirk” and the lady calmly explained that she was aware of the concerns about it, and the jokes, but the marketing department has an agenda and they’ll tailor the perception of the product to match. It’s not the fault of the people who actually wrote, animated, and edited the product when marketing decides to give it a particular spin.
I’ve played 1 male Hawke. I’ve played 4 female Hawkes… or played through 3 and started a 4th, only to find I couldn’t get hold of the templateresref IDs I needed to dress her up as a harlequin.
Hawke is female to me.
Whereas I always think of the Grey Warden as being a Male City Elf…
And I always think of Commander Shepherd as being Male… but then pop-culture is to blame for that one. I only played one Shepherd and she was female (she looked like a goth Ann Robinson, of all things).
All this reminds me of the contention over the Knights of the Old Republic games. Apparently it has been recorded as canon that Revan was male and the Exile was female… which pissed me off, as I’d already established in my mind (as made more sense to me) that Revan was female and the Exile was male… Oh, and also that Revan never had any relationships with anyone because the only option was Carth Onasi and he was TERRIBLE… though playing a female Exile had the option of trying things with Atton Rand… who was awesome (but then that wasn’t strictly Bioware, was it?) …
The Neverwinter Nights character was male…. the Shadows of Undrentide and Hoards of the Underdark character was female (a female Monk / Paladin / Sorcerer as memory serves)…
Gorion’s Ward (Baldur’s Gate) was a female mage… as I once again trample canon underfoot. Didn’t much care though as I mostly played it for Minsc… and Irenicus. Those two had the best lines.
The Monk (from Jade Empire) was 100% male though. Had to be. Female just didn’t sit right in that game.
I think I’m running out of Bioware games I’ve actually played.
Or it could be that Bioware has been including that option in their games for a while and thought it’d be cool to keep doing it?
The writers try to make Shep as gender neutral as possible. One even posted his thoughts on the matter. Check it out.
Mass Effect and older games are pre-Electronic Arts tampering. I think we’re going to see a large change in the ME franchise since EA just jumped into the Bioware group developing it. Whether it’s a good thing … eh, I’m not convinced.
Dragon Age 2 had Electronic Arts basically dictating to Bioware what they wanted in a video game. Trust me – the frustration was palpable, although muted, while working through several “issues” that EA brought to the table as far as the game went. Some of those things people say they hate about DA2, and stuff lost from DA? Most likely a result of EA directly meddling in the design and direction.
I do give Bioware one big cookie – they knew what turned off a lot of gamers in the first Dragon Age and tried to change the game to be something that would sell well. I’m talking about the, “Clicking and watching my characters fight automagically is BORING as Heck. DA is boring because I don’t have to push buttons during combat,” comments that poured in like a typhoon. That was one of the biggest complaints from people who disliked the first DA.
The other complaint was, “I hate managing all of my companion’s gear.” Which they did dumb down for those complaints.
You stare at your character’s but for 30 hours? How do you proceed in the game? I bet you get highly distracted.
Yeah, I’m easily distracted. I try not to let female anatomy distract me, but I’m a male. My eye is easily led astray.
I didn’t even dare pick up Bayonetta. I’d probably only get … about 20 minutes in and get lost because I’m not paying attention.
(I wouldn’t pick up Bayonetta anyway, because I heard it’s a terrible game period)
Really? I heard the game is pretty good. But really, if you’re afraid you won’t like it than rent it. Or better yet, there is a demo version of the game you can try.
I tried the demo which left me kinda empty.
I don’t have the luxury of renting it, unfortunately. No store in my area rents video games, and I can’t afford Gamefly.
Bayonetta was a pretty good game. The story wasn’t original, but it was good. The game play was AWESOME. Bayonetta is the only game I’ve ever bothered to learn all of the combos in because she looks SO COOL.
If you get into the combos as much as I did, it has moderately high replay value. If you don’t care about combos, there’s no replay value at all. Either way, Bayonetta’s a quickie any way you slice it so just rent it if you ever want to play it. Even painstakingly perfecting all the combs only took me a cumulative 12 hours (6 at night to 3 in the morning and then noon the next day to three), including actually playing through the story.
Bayonetta is a bloody awesome game.
I may be biased because any game that tends towards being deliberately cheesy and gratuitous tends to win my vote… but still… awesome game.
So acknowledging that women play games and making an effort not to exclude them is “pandering” now? You know that word means “To cater to the lower tastes and desires of others or exploit their weaknesses” or “To act as a go-between or liaison in sexual intrigues”, right?
On the subject, there was a study I posted on my twitter a while back that found “gamers” are pretty close to a 60/40 gender split with the average age being around 35, making the ever championed “majority” of teenage-male-gamers more like a minority that the industry panders to.
I’m not saying they are doing it right – that the industry has to pander or try to lure women gamers in – but I almost always hear the industry independent game designers and coders (who usually break away from the corporate world) talk about how the larger, corporate part of the industry try “pandering” to women. As in the majority of the industry leaders always consider women gamers to be the minority regardless of whatever a study or focus group determines the true ratio to be. I find that true since EA is strictly focused in their documentation about creating and selling female characters. I worked for EA and Ubisoft, so yeah – it’s what most designers are taught or told to think about. It’s one reason I feel bad about Jade Redmond (and I tried at one point to alert her to the fact that Ubisoft wanted to tout her as the lead on Assassin’s Creed not because she’s a good leader, but because she’s a hot-looking lead – “visually appealing to the male demographic” as Ubisoft put it in writing). I’m not for it – I’m actually opposed to it. It belittles the industry.
The true catering to women – though – is about to begin in a few MALE characters that are coming out in games being released by EA in the near future. I’m not opposed to playing those characters, but I’m very aware of the intention of the industry. And Ubisoft’s future Assassin’s Creed proposed models for a female lead … uh, yeah. Barely wearing ANYTHING and calling it, “clothing adequate for the female assassin.” I’m all like ^^;;;; at these things.
My point wasn’t necessarily that Bioware intentionally panders to females by adding a female-alternative character in their games, but that 90% of the time, when you play a game with a strong, beautiful female lead, it was either because they believe they must “pander” to the female gamer or they want something that will excite male gamers. Few – very few – game designers create female characters with the true intention of “Here is a game that appeals to both sexes.” It’s more of “Let’s excite the guys, and maybe make it playable for the women too.”
I found Lady Hawke (which is an awesome and funny kickback to the old 80’s movie) to be more appealing to my eyes than watching Lord Hawke run around in front of me all day. Looking at several of Lady Hawke’s armor selections, I’d say that it’s more about appeal/appearance than function. That has to be partly inspired by male designers thinking about female appeal, because when you look at Aveline, her armor is totally functional and not at all about sexual appeal. I think what’s happening is that corporations are stuck in 1990 in their way of thinking, and they force or influence the design of games to move in that direction.
Granted, some of male Hawke’s outfits are all about sexual appeal also. And perhaps they realized that appeal about Dead Space’s Isaac’s suits too. It appeals to anybody to see a tight spacesuit/short leather pants hugging someone’s rear. XD
I’ve only ever heard people say that game industry is “pandering” to any group when the person saying it is giving whatever feature they’re talking about a negative spin. Making the game so lady!Hawke has an easier time than her male counterpart negotiating conflicts or killing bad guys or whatever would be pandering to women. Putting lady!Hawke in a chainmail bikini while dude!Hawke gets a full suit of armour would be pandering to men. The bare presence of lady!Hawke isn’t pandering to anyone (unless you’re one of those people who thinks the very idea of a woman in combat alone is pandering.)
But hey, even if other people are using the term incorrectly it doesn’t mean you have to.
I mentioned to Sasuga that “catered” would have been my word of choice.
Except when I did once in communique to other testers the EA PR police came around and said that catered sounded like we were trying to feed people something which was not within the established form yadda yadda. So I’ve been basically trained by the industry to use the words they use.
I’m not trying to argue with you that it’s right or wrong, but that the industry does define these things in very specific terms. When trying to sell anything to anyone, the corporation refers to it as “pandering” to them, and I’m using their terms there. This is the corporate environment of video game companies such as EA (the official owners of Bioware now), Ubisoft and Activision/Atari. You don’t have to like it, but it’s the reality. Part of the reality is that EA had an active hand this time in shaping Dragon Age 2, despite the resistance of Bioware. I would not be surprised if tomorrow Bioware said something along the lines of, “Well, we changed this and that and did this and that because EA directors had a guiding hand in the game development that we had to go along with.”
EA has a bad track record of being slightly sexist and ignorant in regards to the fans of their titles. The talking heads are male-centric. Don’t take it just from me – take it from the people who have to work with them like I do in games such as all the EA sports titles, the Battlefield series (which – unfortunately – does not have any female models or characters) and their plethora of casual games.
I’m just accutely aware of it, and it irritates me. I’ve also become very apathetic towards it, since even the best of the industry seem to be unable to change it (or unwilling when dollar signs start factoring in). Please forgive me if I come off jaded or repetitive, but I just want to communicate to you that the industry is not all rainbow rivers and unicorn farts as the interviews and dev talks make it out to be. There is a PR machine in place that crushes the soul.
Realize that I work in the thick of entertainment industry and understand how it works, please don’t act as though I’m ignorant to the state of affairs in the media. I certainly don’t think that the industry is all “rainbow rivers and unicorn farts” as you seem to have suggested I do by deciding that you must be the one breaking this to me for the first time. I just think you aren’t giving Bioware nearly enough credit. They are still the ones writing the game, not EA. EA may have put their hands in the pot and gave them revisions or marketed it as a game for guys about guys, but unless you worked in the writer’s room with the writers and watched their process I don’t think you can “guarantee” that their 50% male and 50% female writing staff who were fully aware that they were developing a game meant to be played as a character of either gender “wrote it with the male character in mind, and then scripted the female character”, no matter how one-sided the advertising campaign may have been.
I must admit I was not there at the writer’s meeting. I’m sure the writers were not concerned about what everyone looked like downt to their belt buckles, except in very broad strokes. I mean, most writers I know in the industry start wide and work towards detail, and then give the product to the design staff, who is also directly wired into marketing. I’m not saying that Bioware is the culprit, but I’m pretty sure that EA has a large part in saying, “We need to make this more appealing to X gamers with Y and Z,” when the final art goes to the graphics people. I have to wonder if there is any angst at Bioware for it.
I’m also sorry if I came off as condensending. It is not my intention to say you know nothing, but I find that a vast majority of gamers always seem to be disillusioned about the reality of game design. I mean, at one point, I was going to get a second degree in GD and go work for a small company in Seattle where all my friends are, but alas, one of my peers thought I should try working for EA and then Ubisoft for a short period so I could get my head knocked about. He was right, in a way. I think I was actually talking to the broader, overly optimistic crowd who think gaming companies are perfect, fun little places to hang out. I am amazed at how many I encounter daily, and how changed they are when they come out of first contact with a corporation later. I don’t want to be the wheel that grinds their dreams to dust, but I try to deaden the pain from the impact. I grind my teeth often when I think about it.
Right now, I’m actually working for Activision/Atari. It’s not as bad right now, but I am highly pessimistic this project is going to survive uncorrupted. I will mourn it if it changes drastically, since the initial design and engine are fantastic as is, and the writing is largely exciting. Already, though, the red pen of the Director has entered the arena, and they ripped out a part that I thought would make the game unique. We are fighting him and I hope we win.
(If I went from being funny when I first commented weeks ago to overly dramatic now, it’s because this stuff makes me angry. My apathy for the objectification of women is a part of my angst.)
I’m just saying that no matter what EA tells them, it doesn’t stop Bioware’s writing staff from having the female variant of the main character in mind when they write. I’m not saying they wrote her to be female and then converted her to a guy, but I’m sure they had both characters in mind while they wrote the story. No matter what EA’s marketing department told them to do. They can’t say “okay this character is potentially going to be a girl when you’re done but DON’T YOU DARE THINK ABOUT HOW THAT MIGHT RELATE TO THE STORY AT ANY POINT IN THE DEVELOPMENT.”
I don’t think it helps that there is still that social stigma about ladies playing video games. Bad enough if you play them, but to be a GIRL and play them? My goodness!
I personally don’t have much of a beef with strong female protagonists, because a well developed character will be good in spite of their gender, rather than because of it. My own beef only applies when I see ‘this game is good because it has a lady for the main character!’ or the tried and true ‘Female Shepard > Male Shepard!’ arguments all over the interwebs (heaven forbid there even be even the slightest implications that BioWare may have their own Shepard in mind, but that is a while different ball game).
Now I wonder what it says about me when I’m a dude and don’t particularly care about staring at a polygon booty for hours on end
except for Tali’Zorah’s.LOL
Hey, I don’t get turned on or anything by video game characters, but I’d rather have something nice to stare at when I’m playing a game and the main way of travel is by foot.
Seriously, they need to add horses or something else to use for travel in DA3. I really don’t believe they don’t have some sort of mount. How would overland trade even get done if there wasn’t something fast that pulled wagons around? People pulling wagons everywhere? Please.
Every male game player I know just dreams of meeting a female game player that is into the same games. Just because Ubisoft wants to turn into Softcorepornsoft doesn’t mean that it will actually work out for them.
Where does that stigma still exist?
I’m a girl, I play games. The only negative reception I see is the “there are no women on the internet” thing in MMOGs, which is a little annoying, but the most common reaction is definitely more along the lines of “plays games and has boobs? Hot.”
Maybe you meant from other women, although all the girls I know have the same interests as I do and are into games, so I don’t really see that. There are a lot of women who try and pretend they’re into whatever game so more boys will like them.
I don’t think anyone’s pandering, designers are realising the market is changing, more women are buying games, so their target audience is changing. You make stuff accordingly.
It’s likely because I’m a reclusive and prefer to keep to myself, but I don’t hear many stories of young girls being encouraged to enjoy whatever it is they enjoy if it’s not adequately lady-like (especially if that thing is video games).
Although I would argue that dudes getting huge boners about girls playing video games contributes to the stigma of ladies who play games, just not more so than the one about dudes playing video games being lonely nerds desperate for some wank material.
LOVE the comic, but just thought I’d mention for the record, most of the statistics leading to a 60/40 split include games like Solitaire, Farmville, etc. FPSs, RPGs, etc. are vastly dominated by men, something like 80+%. FPS’s more so than most, but yeah… the “real hardcore” female gamers are a very tiny minority still.
I still think there are a helluva lot more women playing games than people think. I always see people use that as a blanket statement to act like they’re still some underwhelming minority, but I barely know any girls who don’t play Fighting games, action games, adventure games, FPS, something in that end of the spectrum.
Honestly, the number of women I know who competitively play Street Fighter or Dragon Age or Fable or Heavy Rain or GTA or Assassin’s Creed or portal or L4D faaaar outweighs the women I know playing bejeweled and farmville.
Dude, I know almost NO women who play any “real” games. I feel like they tend to pool in certain areas of the country, I need to find these places…
Or just don’t belong to your circle of friends.
Guess Gears of War ain’t considered a real game then ;P
In all seriousness. Being a sexist ain’t good look on anyone. Girls play as much games as any other guy does. Some can even beat a guy in other games. It’s a video game though, anyone can be amazing with no limits. 12 year olds play Halo, some even kick ass. As for fighting, men are better.
“If the designers are anything like me, they’d rather stare at a female’s backside for 30+ hours in a third person game.”
You’re assuming all the designers are male and/or into ladies. And make their design choices solely on that basis.
He does qualify that by saying “if the designers are like me”, to be fair…
I do admit that when it comes to having to stare at something for over two hours, I can be shallow.
Now, it’s not just women. I also like visually appealing men. One thing I hated about DA:O was that I could not make a visually appealing male character. They all looked totally like dorks or freaks. So I made a female character because at least she looked like a sleek, agile fighter.
Also, Thor. I was like, “Wow. Good job picking that guy because he’s pretty tight and looks like a God of Thunder who likes punching things. He totally deserves to walk around without his shirt on (or with that completely painted on T-shirt).
I’m assuming the designers are human. Most humans like to stare at whatever appeals to them. Maybe the designers at Bioware do not find the female anatomy appealing, but looking at Isabella … yeah.
Just, y’know, puttin’ it out there, Isabella was brought to you by the same woman who was in charge of Oghren, Wynne, and the dog. Sometimes people create characters with the character in mind, and not because they can’t control their hormones. Isabella was obviously meant to be sexy, sure, but with a track record like that I can assume they hit the whole spectrum.
And Isabella was probably meant to be a spectacular flirt with a colored past filled with exploits that make harlots blush. A pirate smuggler with a perchance to kill those who get in her way. A broken heart wandering the world looking for a compatriot soul.
But she could have looked less busty and more covered and still been sexy. If she had any character I cared about that is. I don’t know what got lost in the translation from paper to screen, but I mourn it.
She’s drawn to be a tart, with the humor and wit of a tart, with barely enough corset to hold up her ample bosoms and barely enough skirt to cover her lower half. And she’s also exotic with a perfect face and skin smoother than the others. Someone who designed her artwise had to have some attraction to the female anatomy or she could have been a saucy wench that wore pants and loose shirt, with a few scars that mar her otherwise perfect complexion.
I guess I’m just colored by the industry to suspect the true motives behind design choices. My opinion echoes a lot of people’s – can we try to scale back the maddening objectification of women in our games? Otherwise, I sit here and shut off my conscience so I can play through a game staring at women’s barely covered backsides.
I don’t mind objectified women in games as long as they’re not all objectified. Some women dress to get attention like that in real life, they know they’re hot and they exploit it. Some girls just dress like that for the hell of it because they like the aesthetic. Can’t say I’ve never gone chilling out with my pals in a corset and miniskirt before, I just like wearing corsets and miniskirts.
If all of the girls were Isabella I would have been disappointed, but they balanced out the Isabellas with the Avelines and Merrils and Merediths of the world. I’m sure Isabella was there as eye candy, but hey, hot girls exist in real life. It would be a shame to pretend they didn’t. She’s not totally a male fantasy character though, I don’t think they would have made reference to all the STDs she’s carrying around if she was.
What largely disappointed me in Isabella and would have balanced her out was if she was more awesome in ability. As it was, she was my least valuable character. Everything she did could be done by Varric, and she often fell down in combat even if I tried to make her more hardy. I gave her the good blades, the right skills and healed her often. Varric still got in the most damage, though.
That’s where she is unfairly handled, in my opinion. The only thing that made her unique – to my party – was her looks and sultry nature. Which wore thin as the game progressed. I wanted to strangle her at that point where she makes everything more difficult (you know that part). I don’t know if that was the intention of the writers or not, but from her banter and other fluff, I don’t think so. I mean, my character ends up *spoiler* with her after everything’s done (say what? was another reaction I had).
I think this is a really important part. Isabella to me was just a domme Yuffie, and Aveline drove me crazy, as do most stoic warrior-women characters, but I adored Merrill, and really engaged with her story.
DA 2 managed to reflect a variety of female character types, both in personality and appearance. It had a wide variety of male character types, too. Although man, Carver was an ass.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Perhaps “pandering” is too strong a word, but it’s the word the industry corporate world uses when referring to games that draw in a female gamer crowd.
Personally, I would use the words “catering to” but I was told that catering is a word normally associated with FOOD and would imply that we’re trying to feed female gamers something. And then PR stepped in and said that internal memos weren’t supposed to be reviewed by outside sources any way yadda yadda yadda.
Eventually these guys will have to change their tune, but it’s not happening today.
I would say a word associated with food is better than one with implications of exploiting weakness, at least.
Yeah, gotta say I’d rather be fed a strong female protagonist than exploited with one. Metaphorically speaking, anyway.
I wish you were an executive in the industry, then. They need someone to change the current moronic approach to marketing and interest. Unfortunately, I’m not skilled enough and my soul was taken by the corporate beast along time ago. I just playtest and critique design choices now – a mere consultant.
I could write a game that would rival Dragon Age 2, but alas, I have no audience, programming experience or art skills to back it up. And it would treat all parties fairly (although I must admit, dwarves in Dragon Age are treated more respectfully than their counterparts in other fantasy realms).
It does not surprise me that some business-types would be both unaware that “cater” has non-food uses, while also being unaware that “pander” has largely negative connotations, so here are some alternatives to “pandering to” for future consideration:
targeted towards
appealing to
with (women) in mind
for the benefit of
intended for
with consideration for
to garner the interest of (women)
Eat that, PR!
I don’t feel like that’s the reason those female characters are there at all. There have been plenty of video game women who haven’t been the stereotypical babe in tissues and shoestrings for clothes. What about Samus and Laura Croft? True, both had skintight outfits at one point or another(And large breasts), but both also were strong female leads who didn’t hide behind men as a weak unit/character, and wore more than the bare minimum.
You also don’t have to play as your gender, when you can choose, to enjoy a video game. I like playing pokemon as a boy more because I’m not forced to wear short skirts, and I also like playing as a male character in Oblivion because I hate the stat changes between genders, and prefer smacking stuff to flinging magic at it. Dose it make the game less enjoyable? No. Is it wrong to enjoy being a male character, when I can choose? No. Is it silly to stare at your character’s butt for 30 hours when you should focus on the enemies coming at you? I can’t say for other people but the hind end and back are not what I’m focused on when fighting a freakin’ dragon coming at me.
Female characters are not ‘pandering to female gamers’. Pandering to ‘female gamers’ is housing, pretty characters we make, and adorable pets following us around, when it should be giving us armor that doesn’t make us look like we’re going to be gutted because we’re in a metal bikini that doesn’t protect our vitals.
I’ve probably typed too much, and been much too opinionated over one internet comment, but I felt like he completely misinterprets female characters and female gamers, as a whole, and I wanted to address it. I am sorry Coelasquid.
No no. I get your point.
My point is the corporate gaming industry is still stuck in the 1990’s male-centric world. Luckily, not all designers or companies (early pre-EA influenced Bioware being one) think that way, but the majority still do. It’s really not about WEAK female characters, but visually appealing eye candy. You can have both a strong lead female character and one who is very visually appealing to males, but I can tell you which portion was the primary focus of the company producing the game. It’s usually something along these lines:
DIRECTOR: “Make sure she’s very visually appealing to excite the male demographic.”
WRITER: “Can we make her a strong female lead with a powerful backstory and motivation?”
DIRECTOR: “Uh, sure. As long as she’s hot.”
If you want me to give you examples – Witcher 2, Bayonetta, Resident Evil, N3, most JRPGs, any video game featuring a cat girl, etc.
Hopefully, some day it won’t be that way. But video game design is influenced by profit, and profit still resides with the visually appealing character designs.
I understand where you’re coming from, but we have had some more recent developments in making stronger, less dramatically appealing characters. There’s been examples, but none I can name off the top of my head, besides maybe Emily from Deadly Premonition. You are correct, but at the same time I don’t think the people who play the type of games are really thrilled by Sexy McBadass(with a whip and dominatrix outfit) like they use to be. Maybe the gaming industry should really figure out what we honestly want from the characters…
Wait, what? They’re only there to pander?
Has there been a single Bioware game where playing as a woman wasn’t an option? Bioware games are almost all based on D&D format stuff, Mass Effect is about as far from it as they get, and there’s still a bit of a noticeable influence. Part of the awesomeness of Baulder’s Gate is being able to design any character you want… so naturally, being a woman was a choice. As their characters developed more personality, they just kept the genders available.
I actually prefer male Hawke, but female Shep myself. Female Shep really does have a LOT more personality than male Shep, but male Hawke seemed just fine to me. I played him snarky, though.
… Wait… someone was questioning the gender?
I was about to question why you depicted default Hawke.
I mean seriously… was anyone so lazy as to NOT customise her appearance? Besides, the default option’s eyes looked weird.
Y’know, all walls of text aside, Coel can draw a pretty foxy female Hawke.
As a rush job even!
Its a good thing its just a chest hair contest – once you start counting how many balloons stick to the back, then it just a starts getting SILLY. :P
Yanno, I never really appreciated the allure of manly men, with buffness and musculature and excessive body hair. Then the Commander walked (swaggered?) onto the Internet and wahey.
I didn’t understand how people could be attracted to fictional characters. Then the Commander took his shirt off.
Before you know it they’ll be moving on to facial hair.
The facial hair contest will be “Who can pop the most balloons with his beard?”
hmmm this contest must be tough to referee. How much of your torso is considered chest? to the bottom of the rib cage?
its not fair anyway, varric will lose cause hes little.
He can rack up points in the “how long they stay on your body” category.
heh, heh, you said ‘rack’ when you were talking about chests.
I’m so sorry, I’ve got no idea why I turned into a seventeen-year old there.
Haha oh wow, if you hadn’t said anything I wouldn’t have noticed it, nice pun :P
Perhaps it’s not as simple and “logical” as you’d think. I’d explain but… “It’s too manly, you wouldn’t understand.” *caress beard*
Suddenly “Manster” was born.
i am officially a manster
The Manster – Similar to a typical hipster, but with the ability to easily break your nose. Though they won’t, because it might ruffle their perfectly groomed arm hair.
I was into The Manster before it was all “popular”.
If they had held a balloons contest instead Isabella would’ve made it to the team, but it’s a chest hair contest, so tough break. C’est la vie.
Something about Varric makes it look different, I think it’s the width of the face, being thinner here, or something of the sort. I don’t know, I’m no artist, I can’t catch these details. All I can say is he does look more “handsome”.
Really like how some characters get “Manlified” here and still be recognizable (honestly Hawk didn’t even need to mention his name), like Prof Oak (my favorite yet), I love it.
Eh, yeah, I had a hard time with him because on one hand his concept art makes him look waaaaaay more angular than he does in-game and also because if I just straight up drew him the way I normally would he would look a helluva lot like Commander (broken nose, stubble, wide jaw, all that). His eyes are off too. he has really narrow lion-y eyes and I just couldn’t get them right without making him look elfish.
I, knowing nothing, assumed this was a tv show strip rather than a game strip and thought he must be played by this guy.
Good stuff, thanks.
I wanted Varric on my team because he was the one with a likable personality.
Everyone else was just there to take up a role, and, y’know, sleep with.
Brienne of TarthAveline was pretty badass.Although I did have the option to sleep with Manveline as well.
Only I didn’t, because my initial thought was, “Uh, hmmmm. Well, yeah. Extremely angry and bitter. And likes submissive men. Not my type.”
I wonder how many other people had the same reaction.
You actually don’t have the option to sleep with Aveline. You can flirt but it goes over her head.
Ah. Good then. I was slightly disturbed that I had the option to even flirt with her. I mean, she’d probably kill the Champion of Kirkwall in any sort of romantic encounter.
Just puttin’ it out there, my boyfriend was disappointed that Aveline wasn’t romancable. Some guys dig tough chicks.
Though I don’t remember any place where she says she likes her men submissive. Both of her husbands were soldier/warrior types, and she was very shy and avoidant when you had to play wingman for her.
i wish aveline was romancable. Merril and isabella are both lame. Merrils got the mind of a three year old and isabella is just a steryotype of a loose woman.
Maybe not her first husband, the Templar. We don’t know much about him save that he was a Templar, so we assume he was somewhat commanding (although his remaining few minutes were doing whatever Aveline wanted).
Her second husband – the guard? He was clearly easily dominated. Even when Aveline was clearly giving him conflicting orders due to her conflicting feelings, he still didn’t protest to her about it (although I heard about it). He was fairly laid back and not much of a fighter, actually. After having played out the scenario three times (I played it through in every class) in different ways, I was convinced that he was easily dominated, and Aveline liked him that way (not overly outspoken, that is). She liked telling Lord Hawke what to do at times, and when he went against her opinion … man, she was rather “HEY HEY HEY! DON’T MAKE ME SMACK YOU!” about it.
My point about Aveline is that she scared me, because I’m pretty sure as powerful as she is (she is rather strong and hardy) and skinny as Lord Hawke was, she was going to break him in half during … errrr, well … I don’t want to think about it. LOL
I thought ALL guys dug strong chicks? Any time there’s a female lead, she’s an alpha bitch. Ever read Anita Blake? She makes me queasy.
I was pleased I had the options to make female Hawk not be a jerk, and glad Merrill was there to lighten the mood. I’m tired of the overused warrior-woman character type who thinks a man getting the door for them is a massive insult which implies they are too physically weak to open a door themselves, instead of it just being courteous.
Aveline seemed like a woman who was strong because she had to be, for her job, and her past love and so on, rather than wanting to dominate her men. It seemed like in order for her to succeed, she had to act like a dude. In order for Isabella to succeed, she had to act like a slut. I was glad Merrill was there to provide a female character who could be useful in combat, and in the story, without going to either extreme – although she was a little clueless at times.
I never felt like Isabella “had to act like a slut” to succeed. She acted in line with any olde timey sailor/pirate stereotype. They booze and whore and take what they want. She was just Jack Sparrow with tits.
Nor did I think Aveline was “acting like a man” it’s like that whole thing I wrote up on gender issues a while back, people just associate “being strong and in charge” with “being a man” so as soon as they make a female character who is strong and in charge people say she’s acting like a dude. Why can’t she just be a strong-and-in-charge woman? She’s the Captain of the Guard, she isn’t there to give hugs and giggle. It’s like Shale in the first game, all sorts of people were floored when they put it out there that she was a female dwarf before she was a golem because she “had a male personality and male voice and acted like a man”. When, if you actually used her at all she had a woman doing her voice (albeit a pitch processed one but hey, I could tell), and she would always talk about liking glittery things and being fashionable and hoping new armour you gave her “didn’t make her look too wide” But since she was big and clunky and liked getting into fights that meant she had a male persona to a lot of players.
Sorry, I must’ve mis-spoke. I meant that I think Aveline intentionally acts more aggressively, with bravado, when she feels threatened. I didn’t feel like she behaved as if she was comfortable being a woman and being strong in her own right, without really trying to flaunt and emphasise her authority. I felt like the character overdid it, to try and make people believe she should be taken seriously. That’s what I meant by acting like a dude, I just mean, I feel like she put on more aggression and bravado than she actually felt, given how compassionate and shy she occasionally is.
It annoys me that most strong female characters act UBER strong in this way. It’s possible for a woman to be a strong, determined woman who can fight, without being an uber-bitch, a seductress, or someone who picks fights, gets insulted easily (was it me, or was she super-defensive in dialogue?) and feels they have to continually show off their strength or acts of aggression in order to remind everyone she’s a strong woman.
That type is just old, to me. Female Hawk had the option of being strong, in charge, and also compassionate, feminine, understanding, empathetic, as well as make decisions and be a good leader, etc. I didn’t feel that Aveline had any of those qualities, and her aggression and bravado annoyed me, she was constantly trying to remind everyone how tough she was, even when it was rude and inappropriate.
Isabella dressed provocatively and flirted absolutely constantly, with absolutely everyone, but we’re led to believe it’s a self-defence mechanism to prevent her from becoming vulnerable. I think she put on her facade of promiscuity on purpose, and intentionally used her wiles to manipulate people, in order to get what she wanted. I’d call that the opposite end of the feminine scale, where she’s going to extremes with the whole seductress thing, and it’s also a pretty tired idea. I think it fit her character, of course, but it’s a character type we’ve seen a lot, too.
There don’t seem to be that many that are just happy being girls and liking whatever they like, and not continually trying to re-assert their authority by throwing their weight around and being unnecessarily nasty, or extremely flirty to try and wrap people around their fingers.
Like I said, I was really pleased with female Hawk, and the range of options you got. It was nice seeing a strong female lead that wasn’t at either extreme, and I’d like to see it more often.
Granted I didn’t use Isabella awhole lot, but what exactly gave you the impression that she was a poor soul forced into a life of promiscuity against her will rather than someone who just enjoyed sleeping around? I never got that impression.
And I personally think you’re off the mark on Aveline too, but I’m probably not going to change your mind on that. There are plenty of women in the media who ruin themselves by PROVING SO HARD they’re better than the boys, but I never got that impression form her. she was tough and no nonsense most of the time, and showed her soft underbelly sometimes. I don’t think she was any different from Sten being serious and no-nonsense then having those moments of playing with kittens or getting sad about his dead comrades or being excited about cookies. Aveline was a duty-bound do-gooder who didn’t have patience for people who undermined her authority, and occasionally had moments of vulnerability. I think that’s a pretty well-rounded character, personally.
As a late adopter to the Game of Throne series, I managed to finish DA2 before I got to Brienne’s arrival in the books. So Brienne will always look and sound like Aveline to me.
She even has the freckles. And we all know the DA-devs are GOT fanboys (and girls). No one will ever be able to convince me Aveline /=/ Brienne.
I too found Varric to be my favorite. He’s a really likeable character, and he’s the only one of them who isn’t constantly just driving some agenda, he genuinely seems to care about his companions.
Isabelle on the other hand is one of those characters I dislike the most. There’s simply absolutely nothing likeable about her, only despicable things.
I disliked Isabella because she wasn’t very good at anything.
She couldn’t fight well (she was always dying on me), she couldn’t lie well, and she was pretty awful at wooing me. And everything she could do (like unlock chests) Varric could do.
Varric’s crossbow and stealth skills were awesome.
Why would the balloon contest make Hawke want Varric on the team more than Isabelle? Granted, I don’t like having Isabelle on my team because the skankified her since her small appearance in the first game…. but that’s not a reason for Hawke, apparently.
Because Varric is a bro. A bro with radcore chest hair.
And because Varric isn’t a *spoiler within a spoiler spoiler I won’t spoil* like Isabella is.
Oh, and I forgot to say.. Jonesy!Hawke is totally my new favourite rendition of femHawke. It’s purely the expression in the first panel that made me think “Jonesy cosplaying Hawke.”, even if it wasn’t intentional. It’s your artstyle, methinks..
Because Hawke is a pervy dwarf fancier. Who finds chest hair hot.
I can’t blame her.
She was fairly skanky in the first game, too. Maybe not in dress, but uh… she taught me the duelist class in exchange for my having a three-way with her. If that counts as skanky to you, anyway.
Huh. That’s… odd. My version of Isabelle wasn’t that bad. I guess I just didn’t play the convo the right way to see it.
I’m surprised I don’t see Wolverine here. There are actually groups online dedicated to him finding nair, veet, etc.
Also, as a comic book fan I can honestly say I would rather get your strip with quality humor then on time. You do a awesome job. If you feel like you need extra help though you could have a henchmen contest. “America’s Next Top Lackey” or “The Pee-On” (instead of apprentice).
Then the lackey and I spend all night drinking Guinness and watching Netflix and the comic is late anyway.
Yes, BUT it will be late twice as fast!
I’m a little bit tempted to work up a rulebook for this, but I’d have to do math.
Well, you could work it like WoD does, and use rock-paper-scissors…
SPOCK!
I win.
Lizard.
Ohhhh this is why you were asking about dwarven heights the other day. I love how they’re just rubbing balloons all over themselves–and Varric’s ‘hey-how-ya-doin” eyebrow quirk.
Your art is getting better and better! And I’m not just saying that because I love Dragon Age. The expressions are evolving too and I like it :)
Thanks! I was looking at some of my older stuff yesterday and thinking “man, I’ve gotten better at this”, but usually other people tell me they don’t see a difference :P
No, it’s genuinely gotten better. The way the Commander looks has especially changed, but that may be just me.
Also, nice way to bring the red-headed-girl-who-likes-Commander-Badass into the strip. Amused bystanders for the world!
Oops! Her name is Jonesey! I forgot!
Which contest would you like to see done, balloon holding contest or man chicken? Out of the two contests which one would you see winning it a government official or a Ceo of a cancer research business?
I like how the Commander and Jonesy can just step into the Dragon Age universe and she’s completely chill about it. Like, just sitting cross legged on a barrel drinking ale while her boyfriend has a chest-hair contest with a fantasy world Dwarf.
Hey man, when Awesome just lands in your lap you’ve got to roll with it.
I think my going theory is that games in this world are kind of like dramatized accounts of the character’s lives. That’s how Jared can play games even though game characters are walking all over the place, or get all excited about meeting Duke Nukem and stuff like that.
Hmmm…interesting. I had pictured it as more of a “Rodger Rabbit” type world but with video game characters instead of cartoons for some reason.
I suppose that the “dramatized account” explanation does make more sense, though.
Yeah, Roger rabbit’s a good way to look at it, like, the toons act in their shorts but then they go home and still more or less act like their characters.
Isen’t that the beginning of Duke Nekeum Forever? He plays a video game of himself? That would make a lot of sense…Like all the pokemon games are sort of stereotypical, dramatized, save the world games, or tributes to the first child champion Red(or something along those lines), when in the real world of Manly Men, if a child with a level 80 pikachu stood up to Dialga or Palkia, they’d be dumped into a dimensional void and wiped from the memories of their loved ones.
…Wow, that sounded incredibly sad and frightening. If that’s what Jared was expected to do then I totally understand why he didn’t want to go into the world.
She surely wouldn’t pass seeing two hairy half-naked men rubbing rubber balloons all over their chests.
Which was a rush job, this comic or Dragon Age II? *rimshot*
Anyway, despite the blank background on panel three, this comic still looks fantastic and you got a chuckle out of me. Also, panel 2 needs more clones! Ok, I’ll stop making fun of Dragon Age II. I did actually like the game, but it’s surprisingly tempting to make jokes about it.
Fun way to look at the characters, since I don’t know the source material. Hey man, I can’t afford none of them fancy video gamin’ geegaws. I gots GameCast.
All you really need to know context-wise to get this is that Varric has mighty chest hair and hangs out in bars.
Yay! Dragon Age! I am so very happy that this occurred. I think everybody needs more Varric in their day. And especially more shirtless Varric having chest hair contests with shirtless Commander.
Even though it’s a rush job, I still love it. Varric should appear more on Manly Guys.
Sheridan? As in Sheridan College?
In Oakville, yeah. I graduated a few years ago.
I’m delighted by the Dragon Age II comic! Varric made me swoon, and honestly in the future I would love for him to open up as a romance option (they did it ME2..I can dream, right?). I am normally I beard gal but somehow the chest hair did it for me.
Please don’t feel bad about being busy and having to rush or put comics up late! Fans should understand that this is not your full time job the way other web comics are. This is something you’ve started for fun and have been updating regularly for US. You’re wonderful.
Varric was just plain awesome any way you looked at him. He was witty, he was loyal and he was powerful at higher levels. A well-rounded character.
I must also echo the sentiment that updating late is your perrogative. You provide an avenue of entertainiment, and you do it for free on top of that. So anyone who whines should be like bashed with Aveline’s huge, ugly shield.
I’m surprised she can think straight with shirtless Commander. I mean, I just look buff torso and go all manly arms which renders sexy dude… What was I talking about?
It probably helps that most of his shirtlessness is covered by balloons of various colors.
There’s a rule covering that…
There’s a really funny dialogue line between Varric and Fenris where Fenris says that he thought that all dwarves had beards and Varric says he lost it, so Fenris says ‘I thought t maybe it fell onto your chest.’ Thats kindof what I imagine led up to this contest.
Also I would’ve figured you for a warrior, but you’re in Mage armor here.
I just pulled the first ref of LadyHawke off google. I hard a hard time telling the outfits apart in this game, because the warrior armour didn’t have giant fuck-you tanky shoulder pauldrons and the mages didn’t have stupid hats anymore.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who hates the hats. ALL the hats/head armor in DAO irritated me. It either made them stupid looking or I couldn’t see their faces.
Time for terrible idea time, with Bravetriforcer!
All right then, it is very clear that this chest-hair contest is too much in Commander’s favor. what with him having more chest hair and everything. So how do we make it fair? Pubic hair contest, with miniature balloons. I’m sure Jonesy wouldn’t object.
Who’s the girl in the armor?
Lady!Hawke
I can’t be the only one who rolls Isabela and Varric on the same team, they get awesome banter (about chest hair at that).
When I play games like this I tank everywhere. My DA:O party was Sten, Shale, and Ogrhen, with my warrior beef!elf warden. I would just go back later with Zevran and open all the chests.
I do the opposite, I let Alistare/Aveline handle all the tanking, and load the rest of my party up as DPS as I can. DA:O was all Leliana and Morrigan.
After a few DA2 play throughs I’m convinced that Varric, Isabela, Aveline, and Merrill have the best dialog anyway. Fenris is too mopey, and I hate Anders.
I ran with Anders, Fenris and Merrill, and they never stopped freaking arguing.
I did Anders, Merrill and Varric. Anders my healer, Merrill my area-of-effect damager, Varric for similar reasons as Merrill (and his dialog is all gold), and my Fem!Hawke was a BA rogue. This playthrough, though… Considering I just DON’T like Anders, and my Hawke is a mage healer this time around… I kinda have just whoever in my party.
In DA:O, though, I had Alistair or Zevran in my party at all times entirely for the party banter. They were too funny not to have around. That and they didn’t die as quickly as Sten or Ogrhen because I guess I didn’t set them up correctly to be effective tanks. Shale will always be the ultimate tank, though.
in DA:O, it was all about Alistair, Wynne, and Zevran. kept the well-rounded team there, and sent my DPA/ranged Rogue warden in whenever there was a loss of balance. Only failed once, and then had to rely on Zevran for about 30 minutes of hide-and-seek-and-sucker-attack.
in DA2 I always mixed and matched [I was always a Rogue again], but kept Varric at all times [who could say no to the manliest man to ever man?]. My other two companions were usually Anders and Aveline, the latter of which is freaking awesome.
Is this the party-sharing party? :D
About midway through my DA:O game I ran most parties with Sten and Wynne, with Leliana during exploration runs and Shale/Morrigan for serious thinghitting. (And ran my first endgame with Sten, Shale and Wynne.) Banterwise, I just took what I got – particularly enjoyed Wynne the ale-taster, Sten trolling Morrigan and Shale letting her inner Qunari fangirl slip.
DA2 might not be for me. Not until I have all the tissues in the world for [spoiler] and [spoiler].
I was sort of on the fence about [spoiler]. I wanted the achievement, but then again I just really wanted to kill [spoiler] after [spoiler]. CONFLICT.
Personally I love the implication that Isabela is complaining about not being on the team, when, hello, she’s the worst rogue EVER (thanks for telling me about that trap, Isabela – good thing I’m a healer beacuse otherwise this bear trap that went all the way through my calf would be a PROBLEM) and lies to you from moment one. Having done it both ways, I don’t see a lot of redemption-positives from Isabela. Varric, however, is the best bro a femHawke could have, HANDS DOWN. His amazing chest hair is merely one item on a long list of why Varric gets to go on fun and dangerous missions and Isabela stays in the Hanged Man listening to bad poetry.
As a fellow hairy chested man, I salute you Coelasquid. This is possibly my favorite MGDMT.
omggg Varic lookkkksss soooo hooott :D LOVE IT!
I’m now compelled to have this as a genuine competition between guys…
lmao!
Just hope no one has some darts to through at the balloons like those carnival games.
THIS MADE MY DAY!! I’m serious! Oh, Varric. <3 Why anyone would want to take you out of the party is beyond me. If it's not for the chest hair it's the witty banter and constant teasing of the emo elf.
This is silly!
Thank you Coela for my weekly source of manliness, you never fail to make my day even more awesome, even when I don’t get the reference that week XD
Sadly where I live here in California, us hairy men are so unappreciated :( about 99% of the girls here want “guys” that are more along the lines of Twilight characters >_> It’s nice to see that at least somewhere us hairy guys are appreciated :D
Varric > Isabella, any day of the week.
My first (and the only complete) playthrough DA2 was with female rogue Hawke.
It permanently made the game into a story of a woman, who tries to stay alive and keep her little sister safe after losing her brother and her mother. Made much more sense that “You got to free the oppressed mages!” or “You got to help templars, who protect population from demons!” – F* that, I would butcher every last one of you to get my little Beth to safety…
Also, Isabella made the most sense as a love interest for a female Hawke, as otherwise you had to choose between goth angst and emo angst. Yes, she’s catty: cats treat you with disdain, piss in your boots and run away for no reason, but you keep them around anyway.
Eh, I really wanted to like Isabella but she was kinda of boring and bitchy t’be honest. Not any better than Fenris or Anders, at least. The “love interest” characters are usually bland as allgetout to me.
Haha, I love having Isabella AND Varric in the party at the same time, she hits on him like nobody’s business.
I wonder when a real man like Geralt is going to show up in this comic
I googled that and was rewarded with some kind of goth Legolas.
Please, please do yourself a favor and pick up The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski. Helluva name, for sure, but it’s the first of the series that spawned The Witcher video games (which are great!), but also made Sapkowski pretty much a Polish national treasure. The story is a little episodic, but it is a great read and Geralt is a really likable character in that he doesn’t try to be likable, he’s just that awesome. He’d be another example of a good manly man that doesn’t necessarily have the super-buff physique. Tons of scars though, google that if you want to see some really badass character background/detail.
Also, thank you thank you thank you for MGDMT. I read a lot of webcomics, and I look forward every week to reading this one. :D
IMO he is a pale imitation of Elric of Melniboné, but the games are fun.
Saxton Hale wasn’t invited? But… but Australia is a huge country! He was bound to win!
Saxton Hale would hold 4 balloons on his mustache ALONE!
I’m implementing this contest at my next D&D game.
What stat would you apply Chest Hair to? Charisma? Strength? Constitution?
I mean, that’s a great idea, but I’m having a hard time trying to design a mechanic that’s fair around chest hair. LOL
Unless you mean getting your players to take off their shirts and compete. Then I salute you and wish you the best of luck.
Chest Hair is governed by the Manliness (MAN) ability score, along with Swear, Spit, Ride (monster truck), and Discuss Magnum PI.
Maybe better as a skill then.
CHEST HAIR (CHA):
The skill of growing manly chest hair, to the point that it totally prevades every facet of the campaign.
I think in Varric’s case at least it counts as charisma.
I was thinking that, too.
Save then it doesn’t necessarily equate to manliness, since apparently that involves being somewhat buff and hardy along with it.
Thus, maybe CHEST HAIR should be a skill or a power.
I’d argue that it would go into Charisma, as in many rule systems Charisma governs, or at least influences (or is influenced by) the character’s comeliness score. (The house rules for our game has people roll scores for individual attributes, however, for the Face, Chest, Arms, Abs, Butt, and Legs.) To me, a high comeliness for a man (or Chest score) would include chest hair.
Nothing says having a high Chest score couldn’t be a prerequisite for access to certain talents or feats, though.
I am always highly impressed at your ability to draw these characters spot on. And of course, while I haven’t played through DA2 myself, I’ve watched the boyfriend play, and Varric is our favorite character. You portrayed him perfectly, kudos.
For a rush job, this is very well drawn! Especially the first panel, it just crackles with energy–the way she’s powering in through the doorway is pretty tense. If I didn’t know this was a humor comic, between her pose and the look on her face, I’d be worried for her! Also the foreshortening on her left arm is awesome.
So, who won? I’d think the point was endurance and not mass, for the contest, and my bets would be on Varric, despite not playing DA2. I just think his hair would hold the balloons longer. I’m not sure why.
His chest hair probably has the same resilience as a standard dwarven beard. That might be why you have that feeling.
Whoa…You went to Sheridan? I had classes at the Davis campus :3
Fuckin’ Brampton…
I love the comic, and I love that contest.
But I don’t get the last panel :( What does she mean? Who does she prefer to have on the team and why?
I feel so dumb.
Varric is a bro.
And Isabella is not.
Your Varric looks way hotter.
*dies and iz ded from ze lulz*
Isabella’s boobs are just as big as those baloons…?
So in magic, they need to come up with a uber Manly planeswalker, because it seems no matter how manly the planeswalker is, he still gets his ass handed to them by a Giant Dragon who is vast intelegence, giant size and badassness kills all, or a emo-punk looking boy who whines alot and likes stalking people’s minds. I vote for Commander Badass to become a planeswalker. :D All magic players say I
I second.
I like to think the women of the bar try to instigate these kinds of challenges between the men as often as possible.
NOW i remember why i wanted to replay Dragon age 2!
Isabellas BOOBS
whatsername with the scar on his nose, in the fourth panel her facial expression seems very and eerily familiar
God, I love Varric. Honestly, I loved Dragon Age 2, period. I don’t care if that means I have bad taste or not!
Also, I’m kind of baffled by a lot of the comments on this particular comic…. Lady Hawke was the Hawke of choice for a lot of female and male players. I don’t get why people still find it surprising that people would opt for a female lead. There are absolutely scores of female gamers, after all. Is this the new version of the “there are no women on the Internet” thing? Just because some of you might not hang out with female gamers doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
DA2 was the first game I picked up where I legitimately liked the female option more than the male one. Usually if I have a choice in a game I play as a dude because my character class of choice is “biggest tankiest juggernaut possible”, but after I got like two hours into DA2 I just hit the reset switch and started over again with the default Lady!Hawke.
ever play Saints Row 2?
nope.
I ask because in the 3rd upcoming game there is large Russian fellow whose arm is as big as the people he kills
I take it you played SR2 as a female, then. I’m not sure that I could, knowing as I do that the British male voice is performed by an actual baron who also happens to be the dad from unloved ’90s Fran Drescher vehicle The Nanny.
Wait…that’s Charles Shaughnessy? I just choose that voice because having an androgynous looking Asian badass/demon (see the final cut scene for the Ronin) with a British accent was just way too cool. I hope he does voice acting for The Third as well.
Yeah, that’s the Right Honorable Fifth Baron “Thug Lyfe” Shaughnessy, Lord of Montreal in the Dominion of Canada, Lord of Ashford in the County of Limerick, and Lord of Throwing Strippers into Traffic.
If he’s not back in SR3 I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Nah, it’s just that most of the industry tends to look at the entire female gamer population as a tiny part of the whole picture and still likes to opt the female characters as secondary to the male ones. Which is disappointing. As a whole.
I made a crack about playing Lady Hawke because I like to stare at female backsides (compared to staring at male backsides) when playing third person perspective games. That triggered a discussion about the objectification of women in games, and I must admit that I hate it when they overdo it so I went the extra mile to be argumentative.
I liked playing both genders in DA2. I liked male warrior Hawke, and I loved female thief Hawke (she literally stabbed her way into my heart). The mage role was hard, and I restarted as male mage Hawke after the robes on female mage Hawke looked dorky and I realized I didn’t need yet another female mage in the party.
I am not entirely comfortable with the look Varric is giving me
You know, in the Artemis Fowl books dwarves have hairs which, when plucked, can be bent and shaped and then quickly harden into some indestructibleadamantiumsuperhardwirething. They use them to pick locks and stuff.
I like to imagine Varric has that in common with those dwarves, his chest hair would be way more ep– er, awesome.
Those dwarves also had unhingeable jaws that hey used to literally eat stone, which they then shat out at potentially lethal speeds
I love you.. So much….
Best comic on the face of the earth!
I like how Isabela says that girls shouldn’t choose Varric just because of his chest hair when guys choose her mainly because of her huge breasts
I’m just glad my suggestion for a Varric comic finally made it up here. Keep up the good work. Chest hair ftw.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS YET http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lm6wr4Fzzt1qaqlyro1_500.png
Yeah, a couple people have sent me that.
…I don’t get the reference. What is Celestia?
A character in My Little Pony.
can’t wait for Monday, I’m having a shitty day and your comics cheer me up a lot.
You know, I bet the Lost vikings have more chest hair, unfortunately, they are married!
Oh man, if the Lost Vikings ever show up I will cry manly tears of joy. I loved those games.
i must say i enjoyed the debate on this page as much as i enjoyed the comic…even tho im late to the party id like to say that i hope they do make more strong female leads samus was kick ass i love playing as her…oh im a male fyi…personally i want there to be more female gamers they tend to be less assholish then males and well hell i need somebody who shares my intrest and ill admit gaming is my cocaine so i need some body to share my drugs with :) if you read this whole thing ..thx lol
Hellyes. Because everyone knows: the Champion is female, and so is Commander Shepard.
(Also, best versions of Champion and Isabela I’ve seen yet.)
I’m so curious! How do they get from universe to universe?
navy TIALS members are all able to do that.
Ah, crap. You’re updating on Tuesday and that’s the day I’m on an airplane headed to India.
I’m trying to finish it tonight, but if it has to go up Monday night it has to go up Monday night.
You didn’t have to do that at all!
You’re amazing and awesome and deserve hugs.
I will send to pictures of the MANLIEST ELEPHANTS I CAN FIND.
And the people who charm snakes. Those guys have to have guts.
Man I wish I could have the Commander as on of my team mates in DA2.
I laugh every time I see the look on her face after being told “chest hair contest” – it’s just like the one I see on my wife’s face when she comes home and I tell her what I’ve been cooking.
Well this may be the hottest Isabella, yet.
Welp. I just need to get of this before I start actually physically laughing my ass of from all the dragon age humor.
My boyfriend could compete with them :3