I have this theory. It goes like this: everyone in the world who is more talented than me, has more experience, and generally does a spectacularly better job of doing what I’m just learning to do is obviously a huge jerk. I try not to think about it too much, but since I spend a lot of time researching and reading webcomics, I’m confronted with legions of these huge jerks every day, always just being so much better than me.
(never mind that they’ve usually loads more experience and time invested into their craft; I feel like a hack and IT’S ALL THEIR FAULT)
Phil Kahn (http://gplus.to/philkahn), T. Campbell (http://tcampbell.net/), and John Waltrip (http://waltrips.hypermart.net/) are a trio of exactly the kinds of jerks I’m talking about.They write and draw the webcomic Guilded Age, which is uh-MAY-zingly good. Even through a change in artist they’ve maintained a consistent combination of style, storytelling, witty dialogue, well-developed mythos and interesting and well-defined characters that make me actually giddy when they update. Which they do, regularly and on time.
The story is that of a group of adventurers making their way through the realms righting wrongs and doing good, usually for some varied levels and directions of motivation. Which pretty much sounds like every D&D game ever, but this has a few hooks to it that set it apart from any kind of comic based on the exploits of player characters.
First off, there’s the cohesion; take any given D&D game, and while the adventures are interesting and exciting at the table, any attempts to actually write them down quickly lead to the realization that these things make no sense. Usually this is because there is some meta-gaming going on, and because playing D&D is a melding of the actual player’s desires (I wanna fight a dragon) with his character’s desires (I wanna fight a dragon because one ate my dog once). So when a dragon appears and the player goes haring off after it like a crazed, self-mutilating psychopath, it’s still fun but it’s nearly impossible to write that into a story and have it make any sense. So while the story reads like it could be an RPG adventure (although, truthfully, it appears the comic is aiming more for the MMORPG genre, but I have a harder time seeing it in that light since, for me at least, MMORPGs are just numbers games and the real stories are found around the table), it does not dissolve into the random hatchet-jobs that actual play tends to be.
However, the plot of Guilded Age is not without its meta elements. That’s what makes its cohesion especially impressive. Slight spoiler, but there is a point in the comic where the “real world” comes into play over the fantasy one we spend so much time in the beginning getting to know, a move that jarred me at first (mostly because I didn’t see the need), but fortunately did not ruin the story or become some strange live action parody of itself that was half good during some bits and really terrible during others (see the T.V. show Once Upon A Time, for example). After a few pages, I embraced it, and now not only do I get the political intrigue action/adventure fantasy plot with fantastic characters, but there’s an undercurrent beneath that that’s only so far a teaser, a hint at things that are beyond the ken and control of the people involved.
Speaking of the people involved: I love the characters. None of them is mister perfect, each of them has an interesting history, each of them has flaws and strengths that play off each other really well. I especially love the way the women characters are written–and here I’m going to make a snarky side note about the major dead-tree comics publishers, with reference to their complete inability to write women characters as anything other than visual fodder for wanking teenage boys. It’s one of the reasons I gravitate so heavily towards webcomics; it’s easier to find women characters representative of how awesome actual women can and should be. Guilded Age is no exception to that–between the surly tank, the clever thief, and the medic who is more alchemist than healer girlfriend, I’m thrilled to read more about their adventures with every update.
And I tell you, you should be too. Go on, here’s the first page, start reading it now: http://guildedage.net/webcomic/chapter-1/chapter-1-cover/
Then, scope them out on twitter: @guildedage
or on Google+: https://plus.google.com/100089135026321347786/posts
or on the Facebooks: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Guilded-Age/110348972319985
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