Tagged: Webcomics You Should Be Reading

Webcomics You Should Be Reading: Order of the Stick

Webcomics You Should Be Reading: Order of the Stick

Roleplaying games are a rich forum for comic material, whether you’re riffing on the setting or the game system itself. Typically, this involves have “players” and the characters they play, and either cutting between them or having the players semi-narrate the action.

Rich Burlew presents the Order of the Stick, a group of PCs whose players remain unseen, but retain full knowledge of the game system that defines their world.

The aforementioned Order is an archetypal adventuring party, including Roy, the noble (and put-upon) leader; Durkon, the Scottish-accent sporting dwarven cleric; Haley, the leather-wearing kleptomaniac thief; Vaarsuvius, the haughty and verbose elven wizard; Belkar, the bloodthirsty halfling ranger/barbarian; and Elan, the clueless, excitable bard. Their overarching quest pits them against the lich-sorcerer Xykon, but along the way they fight dragons, giants, goblin ninjas, their evil opposites (the Linear Guild) and the legal system of Azure City.

Currently, there are three books collecting the online material, two with entirely-original flashback stories (the origins of the heroes and the villains, respectively), and a board game available at the Giant in the Playground Shop. (Plus t-shirts, buttons and the like, of course.) The Giant in the Playground forums also deserve a special mention as the most impressive collection of D&D geeks outside of the Wizards of the Coast forums—there is no D&D question they can’t answer and then debate for 30 pages.

Notable moments:

The relative intelligence of the party members.
The introduction of the Linear Guild
Who remembers the old Hostess Twinkie ads in comics?
The Order’s first battle with Xykon begins!
Dramatic confrontation with the shadowy pursuer!
The harsh light of dawn.
The prophecies that will drive the next 200+ strips.
 
Drama: Moderate. While there’s definitely some angst and some agonizing moments, Burlew also likes to skewer various tropes of adventure games and action movies. A pair of red-shirt characters manage to survive mortal wounds by revealing that they have names and possibly backstories.

Humor: A solid half of the jokes rely on basic knowledge of Dungeons & Dragons, particularly 3.5 and 4th Edition. There are also plenty of random pop culture references and obvious anachronisms in the fantasy world (like in any good rpg campaign), but this comic probably isn’t for you if you don’t recognize the phrase “Attack of Opportunity”.

Continuity: High. Start from the beginning. The first dozen strips are loosely-connected D&D gags, but the plot picks up early on and gets into full-on continuity lockout by the later strips.

Art: Burlew draws the strip using vector-based illustration software, in an enhanced stick-figure style. The art has improved over the years, and though the changes are nice, they’re nowhere near the radical changes many hand-drawn comics see. Flashback comics are done in a crayon-like scribble style.

Archive: Five years of page-sized strips (including some double-pagers and infinite-canvas strips), about 600 strips.

Updates: Erratically. It averages three strips a week, but they might be spread out M-W-F, or you might get two on Sunday and one on Monday.

Risk/Reward: There’s a full-blown epic story and Burlew has noted that he knows how it ends; hopefully he won’t disappoint the fans by not getting there. The storyline has yet to hit a comfortable “stopping point” of any kind, which means getting into this strip may get you hooked for several years.
 

Webcomics You Should Be Reading: ‘Wonderella’

Webcomics You Should Be Reading: ‘Wonderella’

What if Wonder Woman was a total jerkass? Not evil, or a supervillain, or the crazy Nazi-lady from Whom Gods Destroy, but just a self-centered, self-absorbed jerk?

Justin Pierce answers that question, by showing us The Non-Adventures of Wonderella. [link: http://nonadventures.com/].

Pierce skewers (did you see that? That was totally a pun) bits of DC Comics continuity, along with barely-disguised cameos from both DC and Marvel, and a smattering of other pop culture and cartoon references. Wonderella and her sidekick Wonderita fight evil (when it gets in their way), get drunk, travel through time, interact with historical and religious figures, and demonstrate superpowers they don’t even have names for yet.

There’s a book available that collects the first 99 strips, titled Everybody Ever Forever, plus the usual assortment of prints and buttons for sale. The strip also appears on Graphic Smash, where you can pay a fee to read Pierce’s other superhero-themed comic, Killroy and Tina.

Notable moments:

Drama: Not as such. This is a humor strip. There’s some lovely schadenfreude, though.
Humor: Requires at least a basic knowledge of comic book superheroes, and a willingness to accept that the protagonist is OMG TEH WORST PERSON EVAR.
Continuity: Low. Reading from the beginning will allow you to pick up some of the running gags, but pretty much every strip is self-contained and can be read independently.
Art: Pierce uses a bright, no-outline, construction-paper-cutout style reminiscent of early Scary-Go-Round [link: http://www.scarygoround.com]. Various deviations from this indicate that it’s obviously a stylistic choice, not an artistic limitation.
Archive: Two years of page-size comics, about 115 comics.
Updates: Once weekly, on Mondays.
Risk/Reward: Wonderella tends not to suffer consequences of her actions, so long-term conflict and resolution is really not an issue with this strip. Enjoy it while it’s here, mourn it if it goes stale or ends.
 

Webcomics You Should Be Reading: ‘Something*Positive’

Randy Milholland is a very, very angry man. He distills that anger into the purest form of hate known to man, which he uses as ink. And with that ink, he effects a marvelous transformation of rage into humor, he creates Something*Positive.

Of course, as many an astute reader has noticed, “Your comic isn’t positive at all! It’s mean!”

S*P is based in Milholland’s real life, and follows the adventures of Davan MacIntire (obviously modeled on Milholland) and his friends as they find and lose love, perform irreverent musicals, play inventive role-playing games, deal with family troubles, and cause amusing property damage and extreme bodily harm to those who incite them.
 
Milholland also has a number of other comic projects. Those that are still updating appear on the main S*P homepage, and include: Super Stupor, a gag-a-strip comic about super-heroes and villains who are a bit more genre-savvy than usual; Something*Positive 1937-1938, which chronicles the life of Davan’s namesake, a friend of the character’s grandfather; Midnight Macabre, which follows stand-up comic Gaspar Baugh as he tries to revitalize a late-night horror TV show in 1981; and Rhymes With Witch, a collection of unconnected gags that have randomly emerged from Milholland’s brain. He has a discontinued project called New Gold Dreams, based on a roleplaying campaign introduced in S*P; and filler strips titled Life With Rippy, featuring Milholland and his “muse”, a talking straight-razor.

Notable moments:

The introduction of Choo-Choo Bear, the malleable kitty
Davan is the universe’s buttmonkey, in what become Kim’s most well-known running gag.
A second disturbing cat, Twitchy-Hug, is introduced and eventually removed.
A crossover with Queen of Wands . The main character of Queen of Wands eventually joined the cast of Something*Positive permanently.
Aubrey’s business venture, the sex-line for Geeks, Nerdrotica.
Fred and Faye MacIntire’s perfect day

Drama: Medium. The world of Something*Positive sucks, and though the characters virtually always bounce back and pass the suffering on to others, actual pathos has been known to rear its ugly head.

Humor: Excellent, though dark and often offensive. Milholland makes no bones about slaughtering sacred cows, turning humor out of sensitive subjects. Viewer discretion is advised, but if you can handle most stand-up comedy (particularly George Carlin), you’ll appreciate this.

Continuity: High. Very few of the comics stand alone, and stories tend to weave around to different characters as exciting eents happen in their lives. This is one where it’s important to start from the first strip [link: http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp12192001.shtml] and do an archive trawl in order.

Art: A cartoon-ish line-art style that has improved as the comic has evolved. How detailed the background art is varies from strip to strip, ranging from detailed depictions of Davan’s childhood home to flat one-color backdrops.

Archive:
Almost seven years, about 2000 page-sized comics.

Updates:
Irregularly, usually 3-7 comics per week. The main Something*Positive strip tends to be a bit more reliable than the others. For most of the archives, Milholland maintained (or retroactively added) a five- or seven-day-per-week schedule.

Risk/Reward: The story is very slice-of-life, and like life, doesn’t have a real beginning or ending. Milholland has commented that he has an ongoing plan for all of his comics and when they’re due to end, but schedule slips have called that into question. The best approach is probably just to enjoy it while you’ve got it.
 

Webcomics You Should Be Reading: ‘Player Vs. Player’

It started as just a gaming comic, but expanded to much, much more. It’s one of the most popular independent webcomics out there. It’s spawned books, cartoons, shirts, and even plush toys. It’s won an Eisner Award. And it shows no signs of stopping after ten years online.

It’s Scott Kurtz’s PvP .

Cole, Brent, Jade, Francis and Skull make up the primary cast, and the staff of PvP magazine, a gaming-centric publication that’s typically ignored by the cast in favor of wacky misadventures. Cole is the responsible grown-up (when he’s not jumping ditches in his replica General Lee), Brent is the Mac-loving artist type (and constant victim of panda attack), Jade is the hot chick who also plays games (and is often the “straight man” of the group), Francis is the twitch-gaming teenager, and Skull is the loveable-but-incredibly-stupid mythological creature (he’s a troll).

Kurtz’s style is a broad-based humor, backed up with ongoing plotlines. Pretty much every strip has a punchline, but there’s a continuity over weeks and years, and the characters develop throughout the strip’s run. It plays like a newspaper comic, if the average reader was a software engineer, rather than a little old lady.

If you’re intent on paying for additional PvP, there are six books available, five through Dark Horse (collections of pamphlets produced by Dark Horse, which are “enhanced” collections of strips published online) and a book of original material produced by Dork Storm Press. Shirts and books (and toys, as they’re produced) are available from the store, and then the random-and-amusing animated series.

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Webcomics You Should Be Reading: ‘Darths & Droids’

Webcomics You Should Be Reading: ‘Darths & Droids’

Though Star Wars fandom is full of disagreements and divisions, most of us fanboys are in agreement about a few things: Jedi, lightsabers and force powers are awesome. Anything Timothy Zahn writes is going to be better than anything Kevin J. Anderson writes. And Lucas probably would have had a better script for The Phantom Menace if he’d hired a seven-year-old to write it.

Enter the Comic Irregulars (Andrew Coker, Andrew Shellshear, David Karlov, David McLeish, David Morgan-Mar, Ian Boreham, Loki Patrick, and Steven Irrgang), who you might recall from their work on the action figure/photo capture comic Irregular Webcomic. Inspired by Shamus Young’s work on DM of the Rings, they ask the question, “What if Star Wars was a roleplaying campaign that went far, far away from what the Game Master intended?”

And thus was born Darths & Droids.

The comic is set in a universe where Star Wars never existed, and the unnamed game master/narrator has designed the world from scratch for his game. Before the game begins, the players don’t know anything at all about Jedi, or Tatooine, the Skywalker family, because they only exist in the GM’s mind. The setting is built up over the course of the story in response to what the players do, and what they do is never what the GM expects, in a classic roleplaying maneuver known as “going off the rails.”

The plot follows Jim (playing Qui-Gon), Ben (playing Obi-Wan), and three other players who join later as they demonstrate why you shouldn’t make laser swords the cheapest available weapons, why you shouldn’t bring your little sister to roleplaying group, and how much more sense the plot of Episode I makes when filtered through the chaotic lens of a roleplaying game.

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