#tabletitans

Alright, alright. I’ll be the first to admit that yesterday’s post was a little on the broody/emo-side. All I need is to listen to some Cradle of Filth. It gets you through the tough times.

One of the things that has made me so angsty about what I’m doing is because my artistic side has reawakened so dramatically. This certainly isn’t a bad thing; it’s just frustrating when you feel like you should’ve been doing it for the past however-many years instead of getting your soul slowly ground down to a fine powder in a Monday-through-Friday 9-to-5.

In the art department, I’ve been really inspired by four main pieces of work. The first one is Scott Pilgrim which I finally finished when the graphic novels went on sale on Comixology just this last Valentine’s Day. Second is Megatokyo, is a webcomic that I’ve been dutifully reading since 2003 and Fred Gallagher, the author and artist, has gotten back into the swing of things for more regular updates. The new Archie comic series from writer Mark Waid and the first arc featuring the awesome art of Fiona Staples is fantastic and therefore my third. Lastly, I was introduced to another webcomic by a coworker recently that is SO GOOD I read 3,000+ pages over the course of the last weekend. Questionable Content from Jeph Jacques is, like so many webcomics, really fascinating to read from the very beginning for so many reasons.

Webcomics, much moreso than traditional comics books, are really an interesting look at the development of both writers and artists. Since so many webcomic creators are amateurs in that area who do or did something else as their day job, they tend to not start off with a very professional look. That’s not to say that they’re bad at all, though. In fact, what most of us might look at and say, “Ew, gross art,” I’d say is awesome because, if nothing else, they’ve got the balls to put their work online for everyone to see. A decade-and-a-half later, all the webcomics that started around 2000 look amazing. Some people I know might say they’re still not that great to look at or read, for one reason or another, but it’s hard to deny the vast levels of improvement that these folks see over the years. It’s a real testament to what constantly working on something can do to improve your game.

Most of the webcomics I enjoy all tend to be within the same genre, with regards to the writing. Megatokyo is most definitely a manga from an American’s perspective, with a heavy dose of drama to go along with the goofiness. PvP started life as a loose collection of random nerd stereotypes who cracked jokes on the latest gaming news, which Penny Arcade has managed to successfully do for the last fifteen years. What PvP did was to break out of that mold and inject some very introspective story telling looking at what makes humans tick. Scott Kurtz, PvP’s creator, has even taken it a step further by doing the D&D-themed spinoff Table Titans which, as good RPG people can guess, is as much about the personal interactions of the players as it is about killing dragons in-game. Questionable Content was written similarly to these others I’ve mentioned, but with more indie rock jokes than gaming humor. Jeph also manages to slip in a Dune reference every chance he gets, which is something that is near and dear to my heart. Again, though, past all the jokes are stories that are about people that could easily be someone you know. The characters that inhabit all these comics all have that in common: they feel like they’ve been pulled straight out of my own circle of friends and they’re given a different paint job. This very personal feeling, I believe, is what webcomics have managed to achieve that traditional comic books have been struggling to find for over fifty years.

Obviously, I recommend checking these out, as I do on a regular basis, and here is where you can find them:

www.megatokyo.com

www.pvponline.com

www.questionablecontent.net

www.tabletitans.com

Tabletitans has resumed with a new storyline!

I’ve mentioned it on the blog before, but Tabletitans is one of my favourite roleplaying and D&D related comics. Aside from the fact I love the DMing style adopted by Brian*, especially with what he pulled out with “Winter of the Iron Dwarf”, I just really love the characters and their interactions (both in game and reality). The new season has started, with a really great new artstyle (from the…