A Second Look through the Scrying Ball

Last week I mentioned Dominic Deegan, and spoke about how pleased I was with what was going on.

Or, more specifically, how pleased I was about how well Mookie was avoiding falling into old potential pitfalls, and making use of a new plot focusing on many of the side characters.

It strikes me, however, that I wasn't so much talking about the things he was doing right as I was talking about the things he wasn't doing wrong.

And while it is all well and good to avoid making blunders, not screwing up alone won't make a comic inherently good.

So what is it about Dominic Deegan that has, for the last few weeks, been constantly rocking my socks off?

Concerning the overall plot, he's certainly been doing strong.

He's added an new villain who isn't an infernomancer, or an arch-devil, or an ancient reincarnation of an powerfully evil wizard.

He has our band of heroes up against someone who, in the end, is just a petty thug.

Of course, more than that, he's a petty thug trying to hit the big leagues of organized crime. And he is smart, and it isn't just a matter of going toe to toe with brute force, but having them actively do their best to outthink each other. That's not just a nice change of pace - that's a genuinely interesting new character and a great set-up.

In the realm of humor I have no real complaints. I've never been big on the puns laden throughout DD, but I've been finding even them charming throughout this storyline. (Well ok, that might not accurately describe today's all that well.) But in general he's managed to mix things up just right, with the jokes laden throughout the story naturally rather than having them actively bog it down.

Output of content, of course, has always been a strong point - 8 panel strips every day of the week? Full color sundays? You are going to be damn hard pressed to find a match for that.

But what has really been doing it for me, in the end, is the crafting within each individual strip. Throughout this storyarc there have simply been a slew of great individual moments.

Moments that are either picture perfect segments of humor, or ones that nail a character perfectly dead-on.

That's the impressive part. We've got this large-scale production of content, and yet we have these moments being perfectly executed in every single strip. That takes more than just dedication - that takes damn solid skill.

And that's what Dominic Deegan is doing right.