Loading...A Tale told in Sticks
I don’t read comic books, because they’re books – and include patronizing pictures. I can imagine an emotionally hollow billionaire that crusades at night; I know what a cowl is! Plus, a month in between 40 page episodes left me wanting as a preteen – whether Rick and Minmei would get saved while marooned in the SDF-1 left the comic I awaited quickly forgotten. Did the New Mutants ever escape Genosha?
I do read several web comics though, and this is the first of a new category of review. We start with my all time favorite The Order of the Stick, by veteran player/GM Rich Burlew. An atypical mid-level adventuring party living in a world run by 3.5 D&D rules and suffering through the harsh fate of an uncaring DM/author yet full of humor and even drama. Without the interference of pesky players, this is the campaign you wish you gamed in.
The most striking signature is the art: stick figures. Spherical heads atop box torso’s colored for clothing and two-dimensional arms with W-shaped three fingered hands. Sign of a piss poor artist, no. Is it a talented but lazy artist, yes. I’ve seen better art by far but this always pits the creator’s time versus real life demands. Burlew was doing a strip a day for a good stretch, and not those cheap ass three panel crumbs. Nine to twelve panels with double-sized strips for important plot points, those are Old Country Buffet servings. Also, if you don’t like the art, he’s up to strip 587 as of this typing – read from 1 to 20 and you’ll be sold, or you‘re hollow inside.
The story is that good. Starting off with a reference to the universal adjust many games underwent with the advent of Revised Third Edition rules, the dungeon around them took shape, there mission became clear, the main villain revealed, the righteous fall and a greater doom that threatens the world – you know adventuring stuff. A big source of humor is the way they dip out through the fourth wall. Jokes are made about rule mechanics and loopholes that any player would recognize, including common RPG tropes. Familiars tend to pop into existence once they are needed. A dinger goes off when they level. A bad guy uses spiked chain cheese, right off a cliff. All the table humor with none of the B.O.
The characters, the meat of any good story, are stereotypes given depth with time. Evilly arrogant Lich, Kobold oracle, Lawful uptight paladins are all present with unique touches added to the familiar, and given enough development to really engage the reader over time. You don’t have that much down time available? Your life sucks. Do a couple of strips per day and you’ll start to re-invest in your priorities; with the internet kids mostly raise themselves nowadays.
I’d write more but you really have to read it to believe how good it is. Here’s a sample, click to see full sample:
Popularity: 2% [?]
I have read and enjoyed many comics in my time (I’m a big Spiderman fan), but fell out of love when the writing and retconning got wonky.
As for webcomics (or even newspaper comic strips), people who get hung up on the so called bad art are really missing the point. Webcomic authors are not failed artists who add words to frames but are really clever writers who happen to doodle. Yes, there is the rare instance where both art and writing are exceptional (Calvin & Hobbes, for instance) but they are the exception. More prevalent are the instances of success that are attributable to the characters, dialogs and stories of the titles in question; Dilbert, Foxtrot, Cathy *shudder*, are examples in strips; South Park, Half the stuff on Cartoon Network and Stick Figure Theater (please tell me you remember this so I don’t feel too old)on TV and XKCD from the web. People give these their repeat business as it were because they like whats said and done, not because they look pretty.
Bill Watterson wrote that good writing can overcome bad art much better than great art can overcome mediocre or poor writing; to me this should always be the case. While, sadly, in video games and movies the converse wins out; the work of Rich Burlew is a tremendous exemplar that proves the rule.
XKCD may have well intentioned art. It makes me wonder if that’s how engineers and programmers actually see the world.