New Thread For Mix March Madness 2012 Finals: Gunnerkrigg Court vs. Goblins — Now With Penalties For Rude Comments

Glenn Hauman

Glenn is VP of Production at ComicMix. He has written Star Trek and X-Men stories and worked for DC Comics, Simon & Schuster, Random House, arrogant/MGMS and Apple Comics. He's also what happens when a Young Turk of publishing gets old.

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90 Responses

  1. Matt says:

    Thanks, Glenn.

    As to whether it’s a good idea to deduct votes for audience behavior… it seemed like a bad idea to me initially, but after giving the idea more thought, it does seem appropriate. This is a very close race, and the people who care about the outcome are the fans and voters, not the creators, at this point. As far as I’m concerned, the result is a statistical tie, and now that I’m fully caught up on the archives of both comics, that seems like an appropriate result to me. Given that the people to whom the vote totals matter are the people most likely to overreact, voting penalties for misbehavior do seem to be an appropriate measure.

  2. Colleen says:

    OKAY THAT IS QUITE ENOUGH THANK YOU!

    Fresh start. Let us not argue. Both of our respective favorite comic artists have suffered enough for this.

  3. mememe says:

    Hopefully nobody will pretend to be a shithead fan of the comic they want to win.

  4. Locust says:

    So if you want your side to win all you have to do is pretend to be from the opposite side and flame away? Methinks they didn’t think this through.

    • Glenn Hauman says:

      We have a few things in place to keep tabs on people trying to do exactly that.

  5. Mia says:

    I get that some sort of penalty has to be enforced if people misbehave, but I think that deducting votes is a bad idea because it leaves an opening for the trolls.

    What if someone pretends to be a Goblins fan and makes rude comments on purpose to make Goblins fall behind on the poll?

    Or viceversa.

    There is a huge potential for abuse there, especially since it’s hard to tell apart intentional trolls from regular fans getting caught in the heat of the moment.

    At least, that’s what I think.

    But I’m glad that you closed that comment section and will be moderating more heavily, in any case.

  6. Matt says:

    Discussion topic:

    What is/are your favorite(s) of the webcomics you have newly discovered through this tournament?

    Mine are Questionable Content and Lackadaisy. Lackadaisy seems like the overall highest quality one that I have discovered here, but does have update frequency issues. On the other hand, I love the character development and storylines of Questionable Content, and it updates every weekday. :)

    • Kim says:

      I started reading Wondermark and Manly Guys Doing Manly Things. LOVED the artwork of Romantically Apocalyptic, but couldn’t really get into it.
      Also started Looking For Group, and it seems pretty promising.

    • Mia says:

      Unsounded. It is a gem.

      • Anonymous says:

        With so many people advocating Unsounded, I’m thinking I really should read it. How long, roughly, does it take to get through the archives? O:

        • Matt says:

          Really depends on how fast a reader you are, and whether you like to take your time letting everything sink in or keep speeding along to the next exciting plot twist. It works well to read it either way. Plenty of detail for those looking for it, but you don’t *have* to pay that close attention on a first read-through to pick up the basic story, and stuff that someone might miss seems to be generally get explained more directly at some point.

          A good gauge for how long it will take is that Chapter 1 is the shortest, and Chapter 2 is the longest. She’s just finishing releasing chapter 5 this week, with two more pages to go; I figure there’ll be a new page on Wednesday and another Friday, unless she just puts them both up on Wednesday. She usually takes a little break of a few weeks or so between chapters to maintain her page buffer and stuff, so you’ll have plenty of time to catch up before Chapter 6 starts. :)

          • Matt says:

            Errata: Apparently Chapter 4 is longer than Chapter 2, whoops! But the contrast between Chapters 1 and 2 should give a good feel for the variations in pace and tone in the story, anyway. Chapter 3 is a good balance between the two, and Chapters 4 and 5 are just awesome as far as I’m concerned.

            Also, I had a grammar fail, yay! “seems to be generally get explained more directly,” heh. Nice one, self. :) She tends to hint at important stuff in an offhand way before explaining it more directly, most of the time. That’s basically what I was trying to say.

        • Mia says:

          I haven’t finished the first chapter myself, but I took a break after almost an hour. I’m taking the “stare at every little detail of every panel of every page” route.

      • Just a Reader says:

        I might give it a try myself.

      • Quindraco says:

        I can’t agree enough. I never heard of it before this tournament, and it’s absolutely incredible. It’s permanently earned a place in my reading queue.

  7. Kim says:

    Wow, such a close race! Both of these comics are quite good, and I’m glad that they are being recognized as such. (Still voted for Goblins, but believe that GC is great.)
    Not sure how the whole ‘taking back votes’ thing is going to play out… hopefully well, but we’ve all seen the trolls on here.
    Really don’t want votes deducted because some trolls got smart and tried to beat the system by fake tolling for the opposite side. :(

  8. cmorgan says:

    I have been a reader of both these comics for several years now. Both have engaged me with their wonderful art and stories! It was a hard vote to cast, But I think no matter what both comics are worthy of the title ^__^

    • Pinstripe Hourglass says:

      Damn, a few minutes ago it was 250 or so votes apart, now it’s less than 100. GKC is closing in fast. What an exciting race!

  9. Will says:

    I found GKC through this tourney after it beat QC, and now I’m writing a few songs for a possible OST.

    Goblins is also very good, and may the best comic win.

  10. Pinstripe Hourglass says:

    …and now it’s less than 10. Holy shit.

  11. All the venom spewed over the course of this round was bloody stupid, and the way fans on both sides conducted themselves was downright shameful, and thoroughly embarrassing. This contest was supposed to be all in good fun, and was designed to help fans discover new and excellent comics to read. I myself have discovered several that I’m going to be keeping up with regularly, and they’re all awesome.

    Anyway, just thought I’d toss out my two cents. Good on you guys for implementing something to regulate it, and may the best comic win.

  12. Just a Reader says:

    Aaaand.. GC is in the lead with less than 60 votes! And i can’t vote again for goblins before the time runs out.. oh dear! This is becoming almost fun again!

  13. Just another Reader says:

    Goblins is a pretty good comics. I read some of GC, and it isn’t bad either.
    My vote goes to Goblins though, it’s made me shed a tear or two about its characters, and their stories. That’s saying a lot, for a web-based comics.

    • Just a Reader says:

      Trully.. I read about a dozen webcomics. But this is one of the few to get me to actually care about the characters. And because characters actually die in the comic, it always has me on edge.

  14. Mr. Graves says:

    Glenn: Just curious, how many votes were you thinking you’d see in the finals before this whole thing started? Given that we’ve already passed 20x last year’s numbers…

    Anywho, yeah, I dunno how exactly you’ve got the set-up for anti-bots and post moderation penalties but I’ll trust you guys to take care of that. What I’m wondering is, for next year, if you guys are even thinking of trying this again (as interesting as it’s been I could understand if you didn’t want to deal with this kind of a headache again, hah!), have you started thinking about any format changes? I guess you could just set it up the same way as you did this year, but I think it might turn out more interesting if the comics were separated into divisions, either by categories or reader size.

    Categories might interesting because it would allow people who simply don’t have time to go through 128 comics to go right to ones that are similar to ones they already know and would make for a lot more excitingly similar and tough-to-make matchups (ala Goblins vs. LFG or OotS).

    Reader size might be more beneficial though; by grouping out between the heavy reader-bases and the less-well-known comics, it’ll allow the latter group to stay in the spotlight much longer. The cutoff would probably be somewhere around 75,000-100,000 on the Alexa rankings system (it’s not perfect but I figure that’s the quickest and easiest way to figure out a good dividing line). I know that reader-size isn’t 100% something that can’t be overcome in terms of votes (as we’ve seen several times already), but I’m sure there were quite a few comics knocked out in the early rounds for simply no other reason than they hadn’t had a chance to be discovered yet before this tournament (at which point it was almost too late for it to matter). By having them run in a separate tournament along side the heavy-hitters, they still have a chance to get a much bigger spotlight. I’m not saying GKC and Goblins have a readership on the scale of xkcd or anything like that, but comparitively they still are far more well known than many of the early exits. The details would have to be worked out but I think it has potential.

    I dunno, just some ideas kicking around in my head. Thanks again for all the work in putting this together!

    • Mia says:

      A competition by readership size categories sounds like a good idea.

    • Glenn Hauman says:

      Next year? Heck, we\’re doing the adult one next MONTH.

      We\’re considering different format changes, and your Division I/Division II based on size has some merit. But part of the idea is to expose people to new strips, and a strong argument can be made that readership doesn\’t track with quality level at many points.

      Which is why we\’ll keep doing it, no matter how big of a headache this gets to be. But yes, by next March we\’ll have much more robust traffic mechanisms in place early on.

      • Matt says:

        I think that the idea is that *because* readership doesn’t necessarily correlate to quality level, and higher readership is an inherent advantage (though not an insurmountable one) in these contests, the multiple divisions concept could give low-readership, high-quality webcomics a suitable opportunity to be more widely recognized.

        What will the criteria for qualification for the NSFW tournament be? I mean, obviously Oglaf will make it in there, but what kind of range of titles and content are you expecting to see in that one?

        • Glenn Hauman says:

          We\’re trying to figure that out. The most interesting problem is how many adult comics are behind paywalls, which will tend to limit people visiting new comics, which is kind of the point. We may pass on comics behind paywalls for the NSFW round.

          But beyond that, we\’re open for anything.

      • techloveArtist says:

        I can see the fun of a tournament but if the goal is to get people to learn about new and perhaps lesser know webcomics, then isn’t the tournament counterintuitive? In a competiton like this, mostly the ones with the most support and fans will win. Do you guys do reviews?

        • Glenn Hauman says:

          Yes, we do reviews, though we\’re horribly behind. We are going to be contacting a few of the more thoughtful commenters here and ask if they\’d like a soapbox to spread their words.

          But we\’ve found that a lot more people show up to defend something they\’re passionate about. There have been hundreds of thousands of visits sent to different webcomics from this, and from what creators have been telling me, a lot of them have been sticking around to do archive runs and stick around, far more than simple reviews. (That\’s also why we seeded the tournament the way we did, so that lesser-known strips would go up against better-known ones, leading to serious cross-pollination… and the occasional upset, which brought even more readers to the strips.)

  15. David says:

    “As to whether it’s a good idea to deduct votes for audience behavior…”

    I think that would be very bad idea. The worst behavior is likely from trolls rather than a fan of either side. A troll knowing he could tilt the race in either direction on top of causing others to get mad would just encourage more stupid.

    • Matt says:

      I think they store your default sign-in in a hash table indexed by your IP address, rather than storing it in a browser cookie, so if somebody’s flaming away, they could lookup the last IP address used by the username, and subtract their vote, whatever it is, so that strategy would not work.

  16. jodietron says:

    Pfff. I can’t vote because my husband already voted from our network. Goblins is a huge highlight of my week, I really look forward to it. I had a little read of the other one and it seemed charming and whimsical. As a roleplayer though there’s no contest as to which is my favourite; Goblins feels so well planned and substantial, each droplet of the story makes me spend three days pondering which way the story will go next, and what the prophecy really means.

  17. Jon says:

    Its the internet. The place where anonymous people can nerdrage against other anonymous people without consequence. Feel really bad for Mr. Hunt , Mr Siddel and anyone else trying to simply make people smile putting their creative product out there FOR FREE and having to deal with that level of nastiness. On the flip side its part of what makes our global society great, the ability to basically be a-holes to each other :p The other choice is to have some central politeness authority…and what fun would that be ;)

    Good luck to both sides and thanks so much to all the entrants for your wonderful comics and the many many many hours I have wasted reading them.

    Mr. Siddel, Folks at Romantically Appocolyptic, you make some fine comics that made my favorites bar because of this little contest. Someone asked if anyone else was suprised that Girl Genius got knocked out so quickly…+1 here. Thats a gorgeous comic. For me though you gotta follow the funny, and Goblins manages to be funny and engaging throughout. Also The Profs Foglio dont really do the tap into the fanbase thing.

    -Jon

  18. michi says:

    I love both comics but voted for GKC because it seems the whole thing was plotted out way in advance, and the story arc moved me more, emotionally.

    I was brand new to both comics 6 weeks ago, and read through each in its entirety over (separate) 4-day stretches, so I think I have the benefit of eliminating some biases that might otherwise inadvertently arise.

  19. Jon says:

    actually, the fact that ANY comic could outvote OOTS after their showing on kickstarter recently is pretty amazing.

    • Clammy says:

      Not generally surprising, though.

      It has been fan driven effort on part of most comics and authors have been staying away from it. Just taking the final four, MSPA author commented about how little he cares about contest. OOTS author has not commented at all. GKC author commented only that he regrets the ugly tone the recent confrontation has taken. None of those comments were made in a way that would influence voting.

      Goblins main page, OTOH, has many many comments from author indicating interest. Some of them were high road, complimenting quality of competing, like RA, OOTS and GKC. Others, like buying votes with art and the recent conflict, were low road.

      Nonetheless, they all indicated interest in winning. Never underestimate how much author’s desire to get fans to do something would influence fan base, especially fan base that is generally happy with the comic.

      • Just a Reader says:

        This post was uncalled for. We have kept this civil for a few hours. This is not the time to start the argument about Thunt’s blogpost-reaction again, especially this close to the end of the voting. We have said enough in the old thead, people should just look there.
        The art promised (shield of wonder and Goblins Map) will be posted anyhow, regardless of votes or winning. Thunt said it himself in his blog 4 or 5 days ago. So, people, you don’t have to vote for him just for that.
        Also, note that Thunt is a professional, who makes his living through comics for years. He allready has a very good reputation, so bad publicity is exactly that, bad for buisiness. He is neither a guru to manipulate the masses, nor a kid to start a flame war.
        Furthermore, it has previously been established that the lady was being verbally abused and threatened before Thunt wrote his blogpost.
        So please, let it rest at this.

        • Clammy says:

          Nonetheless, nothing I said is not accurate. Yes, he has backed off the questionable tactics, and I don’t view the encouragement that is not questionable as underhanded or unfair tactic. Mentioning the contest all by itself is perfectly fine.

          Nonetheless, there is heavy promotion. The most recent update once again mentions the contest, and it is 11th such mention in a row. How do you interpret “Six hours left in the contest and we’re neck and neck with Gunnerkrigg Court (we’re less than four hundred votes behind them)!” except as a call to go and vote?

          The question I was replying to was a query about how a comic can get more votes than other comics significantly more popular. Well, heavy promotion by author is how it happens.

          • Just a Reader says:

            If promotion is the point, I concede the point. Advertising oneself thorough winning a contest is good business, however, so “low road” or even “questionable” may not be fair (consider that all or most of the participants are professionals). For the rest, I interpreted your post as meaning that the aforementioned artists supposedly low tactics unwantedly incited his fans to attack the poor woman, and thus as placing a moral slight on the man for conditioning all this mess. If that was not the intended meaning I wholeheartedly apologise, unreservedly.

      • chain song says:

        I would argue that while thunt has made a few PR missteps, he has never taken the low road,

        I would also argue that it would’ve been nice to see the other authors take a passing interest in the tourny as well, if only to review their competition and pass (positive) comment on them.

  20. Will says:

    Great set up Glenn. I, for one, appreciate a clean slate here. And so far, the comments have been back to what they should be: general friendly banter. I am slightly sad to see GKC pull ahead by a few hundred as it widns down, but only because of my attachment to the Goblins characters as I have been a fan of that strip for much longer. I did; however, discover Gunnerkrigg through this tourney, and first voted for them in round 3, and would likely have voted for it here against anyone else, including OOTS which is another of my long-time favorites. I do want to say that I appreciate the time and energy that both authors as well as this site have put into encouraging fair play and fun times. I truly think that both creators are simply happy to see their creation be enjoyed by so many people. I figure most of the creators of free comics look at similarly to their “child” or pet. They don’t care so much about the winning or the prizes, they just want to know that something they created can bring joy to others. All in all, I think this has been a great competition, and as this is my first year ever hearing of it or knowing about it, I’m excited to see what new comics I find through it next year, and I hope I can keep up with all teh ones I have found this year.
    To answer a question from a fellow commentor above: What comics have I discovered and thoroughly enjoyed via this tournament: I re-connected with OOTS, which I used to follow religiously but had lost touch with for a while, I love GKC, RA was very enjoyable, I like Manly Guys Doing Manly Things for the oddball humor about super heroes, xkcd is pretty entertaining, I also really came to like Least I Could Do. There are a few more that were fun but I just don’t have time to dig through everyone’s archive…but I will when I get caught up on my current ones. I’m stil lpulling for Goblins for the win because Kin and Dies Horribly are my heroes, but I won’t be upset at all to see it go for GKC (Which it seems to be doing), and will be a continuous reader of both.

  21. Nusa says:

    In an obvious effort to defuse things, the authors of BOTH comics have now announced that they’re donating any winnings to Child’s Play charity. Neither one is happy with the international pissing on comics contest this turned into.

  22. Vilding1 says:

    Only way this final could be any harder to decide on would be to make it a Triple Threat fight between GkC, GG and Goblins.

  23. properpseudonym says:

    Thank you for imposing politeness.

    Both comics are wonnerful, and I had a hard time choosing which to vote for.

  24. feenie says:

    I like both ! Tho.. goblins didn’t hook me in at all.. I know many enjoy it though ! I love gunnerkrigg court and prefer it <3 I'll give goblins another shot in the near future !!

  25. Just a Reader says:

    Some thoughts: I can understand why goblins may not appeal to all. It’s not simple fantasy. Too DnD game related, so much that non dnd players may be overwhelmed by the continuous physical combat, and fail to notice character development, which in fact appeals to me a lot. GC, is more accessible as a “general” fantasy blend (mystery, alchemy and politics included). However, i must stress out that even though Goblins starts as light comedy it progessively gets more and more dramatic, and the story more and more serious, to the point of being tragic (i am very sentimental about the death of a certain character). If in the case of GC a new readers may be dissappointed by the slow pace, in the case of Goblins they may get an entirely wrong idea by the early episodes. One should persist, though. In my case, it was Neil Gaimans informed positive mention of GC that set me to read it. I like the both, but Goblins still gets my vote.

    • feenie says:

      ah yeah , I enjoy playing DnD if it’s at all relevent.. but i’ve only played it a handful of times with some friends who have played it for quite some time, ahaha !
      Anyway , I’ll definitely give it another shot sometime soon ! I definitely don’t think the comic is bad in any sense of the word.

  26. Good luck to both. I’m personally a bigger fan of Goblins, but like others have said, it’s close enough.

  27. workaway11 says:

    This has been an awesome competition. I’ve found quite a few webcomics that I never knew existed. I’ve been a huge fan of both Goblins and Gunnerkrigg Court for a long time now though, so this last vote was really tough!! Congrats to all the winners though, it amazes me how much time and effort these writers and artists put in just for the enjoyment of others. I know they sell books and prints and whatnot, but I bet that doesn’t even touch what it costs to run.
    PS: To all our lovely comic creators, if you are reading this, we love your plushies!!

  28. No name given says:

    I love both comics, but I’m voting for Goblins to support a fellow Canuck.

  29. Anonymous says:

    I love both comics, but for me it really comes down to how Gunnerkrigg Court creates an original universe, while Goblins takes place in your standard Dungeons and Dragons setting.

    • Brefin says:

      I agree with your on GC’s original universe vs. Goblins’ borrowed one, but the reason that Goblins gets my vote is because Goblins pulls my heartstrings one way and another more effectively then any other comic I’ve read. It’s rare when a comic (especially a webcomic) can have me laughing on one page and then literally crying the next. GC and Goblins are both amazing stories and both are well deserved of this honor.

    • Just a Reader says:

      Part of the charm is that Goblins has taken a known setting and
      reversed everything. Monsters are mostly the good guys, humans mostly the bad, a ranger and a paladin (supposed to be really good) are really evil, and so forth. Its meta-.

      • Clammy says:

        You mis-spelled “one of the most hackneyed, trite and overused hooks since creation of Drizzt Do’Urden”

        • Just a Reader says:

          Actually, Drizzt is made fun of as a stereotype in the very early chapters of Goblins (there are more drow exiled heros in the surface than normal evil drow in the underdark etc.).

      • dev says:

        saral cain (if that’s who you’re talking about and if that’s how it’s spelled)- not a paladin.

    • Jaye says:

      I’m sorry, original? Its all borrowed, just like Goblins. It all comes down to what they DO with it. I am a fan of both, but where GC has me interested to see what concept they include next and how they do so, Goblins has me invested in the story and characters much more so.

  30. Scarab83 says:

    At this point, they’re both winners. For being so classy about the whole thing, and also for donating the money to Child’s Play.

  31. Franie says:

    SORRY GUYS Gunnerkrigg is going to win because my brother and his d**k friends are using TOR + removing cookies to continually vote for GK. I told them to stop but they told me to f**k off so I GUESS YOU WIN GUYS.

    Can we just never have these competitions again? They aren’t even worth it.

    • chain song says:

      The competition is ‘worth it’ in the sense that it gives publicity to comics the voter may not be familiar with.

      Case and point, me.

      I heard about this tourny best Thunt (Goblins) was promoting it in his blog and on twitter. so i came here, and started voting. as a result i am now familar with half a dozen comics i was COMPLETELY UNAWARE of merely two months ago.

      Gunnerkrigg Court included. (and it has to be the favourite of all the ‘new’ comics i follow).

      So, the competition is worth it in that regard.

      But, please recall, you are under no obligation to vote or pay any attention at all to this tourny.

    • Just a Reader says:

      Come, come.. I am sure that for every vote cast in this manner for GC, one was cast in a similar manner for Goblins, by some other similarly immature and probably underaged troll.

    • Anon says:

      To be fair, I’d say people on both sides are probably doing similar things, since proxies in general and Tor in particular aren’t uncommon (I can use Tor myself, although of course I didn’t vote in this poll using it). The actual amount of difference it makes is unclear because of that, and I’d say that it’s pretty much impossible to penalize either side for unfairness due to that, although it’s not a good thing to do by any means.

      • Just a Reader says:

        I was being sarcastic, actually. It doesn’t make any difference who wins. People will only remember the controversy.

        • Anon says:

          Aw, I don’t know if that’s the case. Internet drama fades very quickly in retrospect, but a lot of people started reading more comics because of this, so it’s probably good for the comics themselves in the long run!
          I think it’s just bizarre that the poll provider has no method to blacklist known Tor exit nodes, though.

          • Just a Reader says:

            A few new good comics to read is a definit plus. And TOR nodes may be detected, really. The moderators did say they had prepared for some eventualities.

    • Nelly says:

      Don’t worry about it, that kind of thing happens a lot in online polls. If one side is using it then most likely there is someone on the other side using that method as well.

  32. Just a Reader says:

    Since I am still present and posting, I would like to congratulate Gunnerkrigg Court for winning.
    (I doubt Goblins will close a gap of 500 votes so close to the end).
    CONGRATULATIONS!

    • A goblins Fan says:

      We’ve rallied before.

      I suspect this ‘dance’ GC and G have been doing is related to the time zone difference. GC is, i think, produced in the UK, and Goblins in B.C. Canada (-8 GMT). thats an 8 hour difference between the too. if the majority of those fans who vote for GC are in the UK as well, the difference in sleep cycle could explain the voting pattern.

      • mrpibbleton says:

        I just know the goblins fans can rally and win this, after all they’re capable of harassing a rape victim until she apologizes for not liking the goblins comic, they’re certainly capable of getting 600 votes in an hour! Believe in yourself guys!

        • Just a Reader says:

          Are you trying to ruin this for everyone in the last possible moment? We had this discussion before. Previous Thread. Closed because of Trolling.

          • mrpibbleton says:

            Sending a victim of sexual assault a barrage of hate mail is inappropriate behavior and I don’t think you can muster a sufficient argument to prove otherwise.

        • Kat says:

          Whoa now, we just got out of that mess. Let’s not go back there again.

        • Glenn Hauman says:

          Hi. You seem to have a virus. Some loudmouth has hacked your computer and is sending out trolling comments. You may want to check your anti-virus programs.

          Consider this a friendly heads-up.

    • somebloke says:

      It’s way too early to call this thing. Goblins and Gunnerkrigg have been overtaking each other all day. It’s not quite the duel that GKC and MSPA had (I like this image’s representation: http://i.imgur.com/IAq1I.gif), but there’s still plenty of time to make up a paltry 500 vote difference.
      42,117 votes at the time I post this. o_O

  33. John says:

    Wow talk about a close race! I’ve been following the Goblins comic for a while now and according to Thunt’s latest blog he says he’s cool with 2nd place he doesn’t care about winning (at least I think that’s what he said). I still voted for goblins cuz i just started reading GC and it looks really good.

    • mightycleric says:

      He did say that as long as he ends up with over 45% of the vote, that he will be happy, and that because most of the time GKC has been in the lead, that they probably deserve the win (though I think the sheer amount of voting for both means that whichever wins deserves it, and neither deserves to lose), but he is exceedingly proud of how his fans have risen up during this tourney to get him into the finals and keep it close.

      I hope that Goblins overtakes GKC in the end, but I hope even more that the end isn’t determined by subtracted votes from either side, because trolls have already had too much say in this contest. Both comics have done well, and this has been a fun tournament. Let us remember it for the fun and the new webcomics we found, not for anything negative.

  34. Chris Fraser says:

    I think they should both win. This vote has been tainted shortly after it started, due to made up drama and now it seem potential vote rigging. Geesh people, really.

    • Cat says:

      COMPLETELY agree.
      I know for a fact that both parties are heavily using Tor/Scripts right now and at this point it’s just a contest of “who has the MOST fans cheating”.

      I honestly think the right thing for comicmix to do is let them both win and either give them both $100 or split it and give them both $50. Both Thunt and Tom are donating all the winnings to the SAME charity so

      yeah.

      • butts says:

        you know for a fact, huh?

      • Clammy says:

        Tainted vote would be most unfortunate, given the closeness of the final numbers, and I doubt that ComicMix has the resources to do the investigation that would clean it up. I would like to know where the certainty about cheating comes from. While I am gonna agree that the voting patterns have been somewhat suspicious toward the end, that is not enough evidence to suspect foul play.

    • Matt says:

      I doubt Thunt would even accept an honorary tie at this point. That would just call further attention to the negative behaviors around this round. Thunt seems quite content to allow Gunnerkrigg Court the title of winner in this competition. But the real winners, as has been mentioned repeatedly today, are all the readers who have discovered great new comics through this tournament. Let’s remember it for that, not for the controversy.

      • Just a Reader says:

        I think it might be better to let the result stand. Neither of the creators is responsible for any of this, and quite frankly, i think that declaring both winners will only damage the webcomic community.

  35. Yuki says:

    I vote Gunnerkrigg Court, hands down! XD

  1. April 9, 2012

    […] hours left in the contest and we’re neck and neck with Gunnerkrigg Court (we’re less than four hundred votes […]

  2. October 1, 2012

    […] Comments here are closed and a new thread for comments has been started here. You can vote at either […]

  3. October 1, 2012

    […] New Thread For Mix March Madness 2012 Finals: Gunnerkrigg Court vs. Goblins – Now With Penalti… (comicmix.com) […]