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April 3, 2017 | Costello

Anatomy of a Top Comment

On page 10 of the current NPC arc, http://www.lfg.co/npc/tale/27-10 commenter Therese Chito Mastini posted the following:

Therese Chito Mastini
I’d like to contest the Top Comments list for NPC 27-6, posted on the 27th, mostly because I’m still unfamiliar with how they’re judged. Is it based on Likes/Upvotes, Position of Comment in the feed, or what the Chooser likes the most? So while I’m glad that I made the cut, I really think that Katrina Huff deserved the spot instead! Her comment was wittier and had more upvotes/likes (5 to my 1).

Enough of Galileo Figaro’s reply was accurate that it’s worth posting that here as well, and using as a starting point for the reply:

Galileo Figaro
The whims of the judge.
If Costello reads over your comment and he likes it, he puts it on board. If not, he doesn’t.
The secret is having an appropriate balance between length, comedy, originality and lack there-of.
It needs to be original enough to be amusing and unoriginal enough for it to be familiar and not alienate the judges.

Whims of the Judge
This is the biggest qualifier: Did I like the comment? And not strictly a Facebook “Like,” sometimes I give those out as consolation prizes to comments I know only I like. However, I try to remain aware of my own preferences and go outside them. Like, I prefer a pop culture reference to either be 100% on point or to be modified with LFG content to fit the context, but I’ll take a pop culture reference that only mostly fits if it’s outside my comfort zone.

Balance of Content
Length matters insomuch as I like comments with punch. A short comment that delivers immediately is great, but so is a meandering comment that turns with the last few words is great too. Also good, long jokes that play to their length. Song parodies are fun, but just parodying the chorus isn’t as good as parodying the whole song.
Beyond comments needing to balance everything out, I also need to balance the comments I choose. If two comments illicit the same reaction from me for the same reason, I only include one. I check which of the two commentors has been Top Comment drafted less often, who has the better grammar, and who posted earlier to break ties.

Originality
This is a big one. It’s why I enjoyed the Dnah NPC arc so much; the layers of of originality the commenters pulled off making hand-related puns for 26 pages was staggering. Galileo mentions not being so original with your references that I don’t get it. I do look up references I don’t get, especially if the comment generated a lot of feedback, and I do my best to mix in references from outside my frame of stuff I know, understand, and appreciate (there really needs to be a word for that). Oh! My parenthesis just reminded me: You know the surefire way get your comment out of contention? Explaining the reference, in parentheses or otherwise. Maybe it’s just me but it strikes me as lacking confidence in your joke. Nothing’s sexier than confidence. Well, confidence with the awareness of whether that confidence is warranted. Or being absurdly confident about something pretty average, that’s charming. TL;DR: I should just name this blog Sexiest Comments.

 

Other Factors
A purely negative comment will never make the cut. Galileo Figaro expresses his critiques of the comic whimsically enough that he regularly gets Top Commented.
Conversely, enthusiastic posts speculating on the direction of the story, calling back to moments that the new comic to the archive, and other signs of engagement are appreciated and I try to include them, even if they aren’t funny.
Political discourse posts don’t tend to make the cut, even if they are appreciated and valuable to the TDA comment sections.

With the ground rules hopefully better established, let’s get to the sexiest comments of March 20-31, 2017.

LFG 1071
Valentina Savchenko
Everyone writes witty comments, and I’m just like “Awwwwww, he wants a carrot!”.
Somebody draw him a carrot already.

Matthew Mueller
I totally thought the dragon (sorry I forgot his name) was wearing a hoodie. Looks like he’s got his hand in a pocket in the fourth panel (yes I know it’s behind his back).

Yücel Flavourius
Farming Simulator:
How to train your Dragon-Edition.

Doug Bailey
Thing is, the horse NEVER gets the carrot. Well, maybe at the end of the day, but not during the work.

NPC 27-7
Sariias Moor
It’s better to be under the possession of elemental spirits when you finally find love and be too overtaken to realize you lost it than to have never have loved at all- uh… wait…

Kenneth Mellon
What a fickle young lady. One moment she’s all excited about an “us” and the next moment she’s on to someone else. Sheesh. Possessed buck-toothed guys just can’t catch a break.

Galileo Figaro
You know you’ve screwed up when the girl that was willing to tolerate your tooth during love making suddenly suggests that you should see other people over a tooth unrelated matter.

Jesse Kopelman
So what? She can’t handle the tooth?

TDA 162
Geoffrey Knox
Well thats so accurate it hurts, thank god i have oba……oh….right….

Sariias Moor
Just because it’s Little Dick doesn’t mean it can’t go deep.

Dee Zed
shouldn’t that be Fwoosh care?

LFG 1072
Galileo Figaro
Longer than you’ll know, shorter than you think.
There’s an entire field of physics based on the Narrative Relativity regarding the mortality of effeminate elves, the leading expert of which is none other than Dr. Richard Ashendale, physicist, physician, mortician, warlock, dancer, volcanics expert and most recently professional glass statue.
He even came up with the famous formula regarding elves’ alcohol tolerance, you know the one.
Elf equals Massive Lightweight squared?

Angel D. Figueroa
the lifespan of elves varies depending on your fictional source, the lowest I’ve heard of is 900 years, but I’ve also heard of them being essentially immortal unless they’re killed. Sometimes they even work like dryads and their health will decline when their forests are damaged

Kai Lowell
Ah yes, one of those burning questions, Like, how many licks to the center of a Tootsie Pop, or who took the cookie from the cookie jar, or what if the hokey pokey really IS what it’s all about?

Matt Thompson
You had to make me think of the futurerama episode where seymour waits for fry to come back till he dies. You just had to do it didn’t you. Shame on you

NPC 27-8
Speedy Marsh
Poor kid got his memory from his father, Forgetto – the absent minded dentist who wanted a real boy.
The tusk didn’t grow from the kid telling lies. His dad just kept forgetting that he had already put crowns on the unfortunate lad’s two front teeth. He just kept putting on bigger and bigger ones, till he got to the current one, a shiny crocodile tooth (next month, Woolly Mammoth tusk)

Therese Chito Mastini
Aaaw, poor guy! Now I feel bad for him. Jarl must have lost his only, close friend, other than this girl who may or may not actually be his friend, and have a crush on him. )=

Alexandre Cauchon
I want to think the cup just rolled off to Richard because long tooth Gollum was clingy

LFG 1073
Sariias Moor
What if she’s not trying to ruin it for the farmers, what if she’s arranged the salt in the fields to work as some sort of containment ritual or spell? You know, like what they do to catch smart cars these days. We used to do it to demons, you know, and ask them math problems and who liked us (and I mean like-like, not just normal like). Smart cars aren’t as exciting to trap. Most of them aren’t even combustion related. And all they know is directions and the time

Cody Barnes
2 weeks of digging and planting? Maybe you should of found a farm that was already at the “harvesting” bit, these things can take awhile.

Hillary Burgardt
Pella is my spirit dwarf.

Kai Lowell
Little salty, Pella?

NPC 27-9
Nick Lancial
SERIOUSLY!?!?!……I know its a tooth but how is it that nothing chipped off a massive piece of that thing long ago….and really the girl just suddenly has the cup….wondering what she’ll end up turning out to be next page

Yücel Flavourius
Not sure if comment section is more confused about the girl having the cup or still more disturbed about that tooth.

Mikkel Ulriksen
okay, mister bucktooth, don’t scrw this up, because i think this lass likes you.

Jenn Tribbett
Damn it Jarl, you just keep coming back to that cup addiction.

TDA 163
John Daly
Richard is having a night out on the town, so this is a formal dining experience. So a dress code is usually enforced, which means either tie or tie + jacket for men. Evidence – the wine glass is the only glass available. However this is clearly a fantasy since the knife and fork are *shudder* next to each other. This is all kinds of formal dining room heresy, because forks go on the left, spoons and knives on the right.

Holly Choo
It’s also kinda funny since Hannity shills for a high end steakhouse as well.

Garry Cylon
We have gone from Alt News, to Alt Facts, and now to Alt Fats? Et tu, TD?

LFG 1074
Sariias Moor
I like the juxtoposition between Pella and the dragon throughout the story, how Pella used to follow the dragon, and now it’s the other way around.

Galileo Figaro
Nobody inspects carts the way they used to anymore.
Back in my day, they would search even behind the donkey’s ears to make sure that there were no tresspassers.
Nowadays, you can even find gnomes on board of an airship.
Those filthy, cog-grabbin’ gnomes…
Always tinkering with their dirty little fingers…

Speedy Marsh
The soldier that checks Dragon guy’s cart will be fine. There’s no way the dude will go digging in the durian. But, I feel pity for the person that picks Pella’s peaches.

Alexandre Cauchon
I think none of you grasp how much agriculture evolved since scientists invented magic

NPC 27-10
Doron Ben Hadar
The teeth were too crooked, we brought back the braces.

Jurgen Boel
Now this story development I can sink my (buck)tooth into.

Katrina Huff (retroactive best based on Therese Chito Mastini’s nomination)
Why does his tooth keep getting longer in each page? It looks like he’s just walking around with a Lik-M-Stix in his mouth now.
Now you know!
-Costello