PTC 25-06-19 Read the room

[Giz]

New strip! http://www.ma3comic.com/strips-ma3/read-the-room/

[OllieOrOlly]

Ramona has a sibling? I wonder if the gender is being left ambiguous because they are also trans, it isn't decided yet, or simply to create speculation? *Edit* I remember their sibling now. Sorry for being forgetful.
Zadie is on thin ice with me, but she is holding on by her remarkable reaction faces alone; that first panel is amusingly palpable incredulity.

A bit conspiratorial, however, Aaron becoming increasingly contemptible - which is an extreme of a word, but frankly his levels of obnoxious have reached high enough to warrant it - may be a challenge to see if they can make a character so thoroughly unlikeable, and manage to redeem him in the eyes of the audience. There have been more despicable characters, but just the building up of annoyances... Aaron is like a woodpecker - little taps that add up to an unbearable noise.
Unless Aaron is being made homophobic, self-centred, delusional, superficial, sexist, and any other *charming* trait as to create a butt-monkey for the series that may actually deserve his misfortune?

[vampire hunter D]

we already knew about her sibling. Angel

[SailorDh]

Wow he really is dumber than a bag of rocks.
Can we just skip to the part where someone leaves him dead in a dumpster?

After suffering a decade of "Wing Girl" I don't have patience for this one.

[samtheman]

I wish this scene would end already but I'm thinking it's not going to because the team doesn't know where to take the plot next.

[oddtail]

"No gay guy could ever do it for me, awesome or not" - Aaron, that's an extremely long-winded way of saying "I'm straight".

(yes, I know, not every guy not attracted to other guys is automatically straight. It still seems to be the unspoken message)

Although the way he phrases it, I do think there might be some denial or being-in-the-closet going on. Or at least he has some self-esteem issues. I don't think most people confident in their sexuality randomly announce their preferences in a conversation strictly about someone else.

Otherwise - I continue to not find the comic funny, but at least Aaron is just being regular-stupid and self-centred. As opposed to "WHY WOULD YOU EVER SAY TAT" stupid and self-centred. So... things are moving in a good direction? Kinda?

[Spidrift]

Ramona has a sibling?

...'kin' heck, your memory must be playing up today.

I continue to not find the comic funny, but at least Aaron is just being regular-stupid and self-centred. As opposed to "WHY WOULD YOU EVER SAY TAT" stupid and self-centred. So... things are moving in a good direction? Kinda?

Yeah, he's de-escalated from "seriously obnoxious" to merely "annoyingly stupid". And this kind of self-delusion is hardly original comedy, it has to be said. It also sets him up for a lot more pestering of Zadie, which could get really tiresome to read, really fast.

In fact, Aaron represents the Ma3-universe comics going backwards. Gary was a frustrated virgin because he was a slightly messed-up geek, but at least he was basically inoffensive and seemed willing to take advice. Ruby was a frustrated virgin because she was angry and repressed, but she could accept it when people showed her she was wrong about stuff, and was willing to work through her problems. Aaron is a frustrated virgin because he's a tiresome comedy adolescent dickhead, with no detectable redeeming features. That's not an improvement.

Also, I kind of assumed that Ramona and Aaron were intending to write their own scripts, but if they're already actively looking for writers, apparently they're just going to... sit around declaring policy?

[brasca]

I don’t expect Aaron and Ramona to do all the writing. The latter has enough to do managing all this.

[Valkog]

This entire scene has been hard to follow. Everyone is all over the place, like they can't focus and have to follow up on every single comment and thought. It's been a couple dozen strips and I still don't know where this comic is headed.

[oddtail]

This entire scene has been hard to follow. Everyone is all over the place, like they can't focus and have to follow up on every single comment and thought. It's been a couple dozen strips and I still don't know where this comic is headed.

"Don't know where it's headed" is right. MA3 started over-the-top and the characters were often acting dumb for the sake of the plot, but the comic had a very strong start and established everything in a very efficient way (and funny, but "funny" is subjective, so I'm not counting that against the new comic). We open with the comedic equivalent of a Hitchcockian earthquake - two guys having sex on a table and breaking it. Then everything follows logically from that - and pretty fast.

I think the new comic lacks focus. Not every joke in MA3 landed for me, but the pacing and speed meant if something happened to be less funny, at least it moved things along.

With the new comic, I don't have a strong sense of what the comic's "hook" is meant to be. The start (a new person starts their job) was a good setup, but I don't feel it was followed up strongly immediately afterwards. Things got kinda... long-winded and muddled.

[Taliesyn]

Yeah, not getting into this one. So far Zadie has really just been a caricature, not a character, and Aaron's combination of early Gary's cluelessness with an intellect that makes Didi look like Einstein just makes for a bad and massively annoying character.

[Cresset]

I totally forgot Angel was her sister. For the rest of the story, I assumed they were childhood friends.

Although the way he phrases it, I do think there might be some denial or being-in-the-closet going on. Or at least he has some self-esteem issues. I don't think most people confident in their sexuality randomly announce their preferences in a conversation strictly about someone else.

He's replying to Zadie's sentence from the last strip (but that wasn't targeted at him, which is why she's annoyed here)

[Error of Logic]

I'm sure Aaron's room-reading skills will improve once (if ever) he gets over the notion that the world revolves around him.

[OllieOrOlly]

Ramona has a sibling?

...'kin' heck, your memory must be playing up today.

Well, being insulted or demeaned does trigger my memory, so now I do recall Ramona's sibling is Angel. Though, to cut me some slack, it isn't exactly like them being siblings was pertinent plot material, except for that one time ages ago in the spin-off.

[OllieOrOlly]

Yeah, not getting into this one. So far Zadie has really just been a caricature, not a character, and Aaron's combination of early Gary's cluelessness with an intellect that makes Didi look like Einstein just makes for a bad and massively annoying character.

I more or less agree. Although, Gary wasn't an obnoxious dickhead like Aaron.