I’m resisting the urge to enumerate them, but I think there’s been maybe 3 comics I’ve liked since Wake, which was (I think) posted in May 2011, seven-ish months ago. And it’s not like that comic was the end of some golden age – I remember folks in this thread complaining about The Pea a few strips before, on similar grounds – not funny, obscure, dumb. The shark jumped quite some time ago. I love this strip when it’s good, but the good isn’t around much. And I want to like this strip, dammit, but the author has tested my patience more than necessary.
De gustibus and all that. I’m not particularly disappointed in the current crop of comics, though I like the recurring characters and the OTT sex scenes best, like most other readers.
Hold on, now. I actually laughed at this one. Sex is nice but a lawyer joke is sometimes better.
Sport is up now. Sort of a return to the usual style. But still funny.
ALT + TITLE:
Alt - A circus tent in your pants
Title - these days we call it “beach volleyball”
HAH. I liked that one.
I laughed out loud at that one.
Then I went to my bunk.
Which kind of makes it the perfect Oglaf comic.
I admit that was a bit funnier because the context was more anomalous, but it comes back to what I was saying before: the strip lately seems to have come down to “stuff happens, then men have sex. Ha ha ha”.
It’s old.
It’s worth what we all pay for it, though. Maybe the author is just phoning it in on Oglaf because she has paying work that takes up her time. Couldn’t blame her for that.
Mistress, on the other hand, would have said, “Oh, that’s nice. Bring them up here. Get my whip.”
I realizes that this a webcomic, but in the first panel the gladiator on the ground has his hand up with two fingers up, is there any significance to this?
I dunno…why is he wearing a G-string instead of the Tarzan thing the other guy has? Why don’t they both have armor down there?
They’re both wearing loincloths, it’s just the guy on the ground doesn’t have a belt. And they’re both wearing quite reasonable renditions of gladiator garb - quite a few styles of gladiator were nearly unarmoured.
Right. These are gladiators, not soldiers. Gladiatorial combat is to warfare as reality TV is to… well, reality, I suppose. The weapons and armor aren’t chosen on the basis of what’s most effective, but on what will make the best show.
Nah, I’ve got underwear like the guy on the ground, but not…
Dammit.
So the crowd wants to see them go for each others…but wait, they did.
Including lots of exposed flesh so you can see the wounds.
You know, it just occurred to me that if ancient Romans had seen a picture of the classic bad-fantasy “girl in a chainmail bikini”, they wouldn’t react by saying “that’s unrealistic!” They’d react by saying “so, you people like female gladiators?”
Hell, including lots of exposed flesh so you can see the exposed flesh. These are athletes, not soldiers, and classically, athletes competed nude. The gladiator “outfit” was derived, I suspect, not by taking an armored warrior, and removing armor until it looked sufficiently sexy, but by taking a naked man, and adding just enough armor to him that the fight would last long enough to be interesting.
Y’know, actually…it’s not just reasonable gladiator kit, this pair is identifiable as a retarius (on the ground) and myrmillo (the winner), which was an actual standard matchup (representing a fisherman and a fish) - the retarius should have a belt, and the myrmillo’s leg armour isn’t quite right, but…it’s definitely what they are.
A thread on a pornographic web comic turning into a semi-serious discussion of ancient Rome. I love this place!
FTR, I laughed out loud at this week’s Oglaf comic. There may not be a story arc, but she’s bringing the funny back. My lawyer advises me not to say anything else. 
OTOH, I’d buy a girafferpillar toy.
The good: it has a joke.
The bad: it’s a joke about not-really-consensual gay sex. Again.