Order of the Stick

There's a phenomenon on the internet called web-comics.

These are comics that are published solely on the web, frequently drawn by part-time comic artists who are still testing their wings and trying to build up an audience for their work. Most try to use their web-page to generate advertising income, or print T-Shirts. Some work hard to promote their work via frequent attendance of comic conventions around the States. A few are successful enough to begin small print runs of their collected comics and mail order to loyal fans.

But there's also a massive horde of 12 yr olds who take plagiarized pictures, video game sprites, Photoshop, a generous helping of expletives, in order to express their misguided humour and share the void in their mind & soul with the unfortunate web passer-bys. Stumbling upon such compost is like being flashed by a fat bastard in the street.


But there are some gems out there. The reason that many of them are not Scott Adams is not because of their lack of talent or humour. Sometimes, their humour is a little too niche and not available to those who have little exposure to the artist's world.

Examples of these being:
Larry Leadhead - a webcomic about a guy who's into tabletop war-gaming and painting tiny lead miniatures.

Turn Signals on a Land Raider - about Warhammer 40k specifically, a popular tabletop wargame.


The few that managed to get into print:
Errant Story - an ongoing fantasy, swords & sorcery comic.

MegaTokyo - an inexplicably successful manga drawn by a gaijin. Not even that funny. There are assistants in manga sweatshops in Japan with better technique. And the 1337 5pe@k one of the characters use is just irritating. But it has gotten itself published. It appears that Japanese schoolgirls have an unusually powerful magnetic draw on adolescent psyche.


Then some with 'alternative strategies':
Chugworth Academy - has rather juvenile gags, some punchlines don't even make sense, but art-wise the artist is very talented... especially when drawing nymphettes. His last sketch of the female lead in a tennis costume went on ebay for £360.


A few rather notable ones:
Penny Arcade - a comic that speaks to geeks & gamers, lampoons popular culture, but some jokes do require a *FAIR* bit of geek-ness to catch. And some require so much geek to understand that I weep for my poor lost soul... But most times it's just two pathetic characters throwing insults at each other.

Something Positive - is a rather angsty comic, but has a strong following, mostly because there are many fans of the boneless pink cat that used to ooze into another webcomic and steal the female lead's underwear. The artist challenged his readers (who complained that he didn't update regularly enough) to donate him money, and if he receives enough to cover a year's salary, then he'll quit his job and do the comic full time. He got more than US$20,000.


But my favourite web-comic is The Order of the Stick.

It's a stick figure comics, but the cast is adorable. Some of the jokes do make references to game rules of Dungeons & Dragons, but even if you do miss some of the hilarious insider jokes, the story is still very accessible to the masses.

I'm suddenly doing a big write-up of web-comics cos of the latest strip of OOTS.

I noticed a pattern to the gibberish that Haley was spouting, and on closer examination, I see many signs that it's a simple substitution cypher.

And... I went and took the time to decode it. The capital "F" is most obviously an "I". And "rdd" is most likely to be "all". And "Xqrm?", a single word sentence ending with a "?" will most likely be "What?". And so forth....

So, here is it:

Panel 4, "Treasure!"

Panel 5, "Gone! All of it, gone!! I Can't believe it's all gone!" "I got eaten by a dragon for that freakin' treasure!"

Panel 6, "I got vomited up! By a disgusting acid-breathing dragon! And now it's GONE!"

Panel 7, "Not THE loot, MY loot. Mine!"

Panel 8, "Wait, why do I sound funny? Hello? Hello?"

Panel 10, "What? No! Don't you dare!"

Panel 11, "Sneak attack boot to the face!"

Panel 12, "Darn Straight."