It always bothers me when a small, petty detail ends up distracting me from enjoying a comic.

Take today’s Dominic Deegan, wherein (spoilers!) we discover that the mysterious assassin who has been hunting oracles is not Dominic’s sister, as everyone feared, but instead Luna’s.

It was one of the better done plot twists I’ve seen in the strip – subtle enough to not be completely obvious, but also one that makes a reasonable amount of sense after the reveal.

I had difficulty noticing this, however, because the language of today’s concluding panels produced an irrational rage entirely disproportionate to the crime. Luna says, “The Oracle Hunter isn’t your sister, Dominic. She’s my sister.”

Those last three words bothered me. She could have simply said, “She’s mine.”It is not all that big a difference – the extra two syllables slow down the reveal and diminish the effect and the wording is somewhat redundant. But how big a deal is that, in the end? So Mookie could have used a more powerful line to finish today’s strip – is that worth raising a fuss about in any possible universe?

I suppose not. I’m not saying he should have done it better, or that it was a major flaw in the comic. And yet – it was enough to break me out of the moment. One minor mis-step, and nothing more.

Sometimes, that’s just how these things go.

Anyway! I haven’t posted much of late, for which I have… little to no excuse. Nonetheless, time is likely to remain at a premium for a bit, so despite the fact that there are plenty of interesting things to talk about, I am unlikely to do so until sometime next week.

Fear not, however – the Main Man of webcomics criticism has stepped back into the field and is currently running through a comprehensive series of posts on all the comics he reads. And the snark seems to be flowing in significant quantities, so it makes for a damn fine read. So for anyone desperately in need of some genuinely insightful webcomics criticism, go and enjoy the Websnark.