Order of the Stick by Rich Burlew (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots.html)

Inside all of us, there is a little bit of gamer nerd. For Rich Burlew, that nerd is two-dimensional and stick-figured. Beginning in 2003 as an aside from Burlew's gaming site, Giant In the Playground, Order of the Stick began as a series of poorly-drawn in-jokes with the Dungeons & Dragons community, but the comic has grown over the last few years in include a wider audience of non-gamers, while keeping its heart and mind set firmly in the universe of where so many outcomes are determined by the Game Master's whim and the multisided die.

Following the travails of your canonical adventuring party, OOTS has grown into a textured world with equally textured characters and storylines of the same quality as one which A Gm lovingly been pieces together for the enjoyment of himself and his players. As necessary for any D&D story, the scale of the adventurer's journey is no less than epic, with the very whole of creation in the scales of balance as the party seeks to defeat the lawful evil Xykon and contain the chaotic wrath of the Snarl. Going well beyond the simple race-class-level descriptors of characters, the comic creates a meta-gaming experience through character backstories, relationships, and theology.

The basis of Order of the Stick's jokes-- as backed-up by lowbrow high fantasy-- has always been based in poking fun at the game as the players so often do (e.g., characters are quite aware of their level, stats, feats, and how well they did or did not do on that last spot-check). Although heavy-handed in the D&D jokes, the strip appeals to non-gamers alike, often setting the atmosphere to interest and invite would-bes to the game itself. Indeed, the poorly-drawn world which the adventurers inhabit, in fact, has become one of the running jokes of the strip, with both the author and characters well-aware of their one-dimensional proportions, taking note of when their creator shifts with any new artistic style or character clothing. As for an artistic critique, the stylization itself has modified somewhat over the last few years, with the cartoonist utilizing differing media for the Creation Story, but has otherwise remained static, keeping to the simplistic roots.

While the update schedule once followed a Monday-Wednesday-Friday series, one can now count on Burlew's updates at least once per week, the scheduling having been on a bit of a sliding scale for the past few years. While this is often a sin in the webcomic community (nonetheless, one which drives me mad), I can give Rich Burlew a pass, as he has been suffering from an undisclosed illness for a few years; in recent months, however, the updates schedule has improved.

Admittedly, I have not yet gotten a chance to take a look at Order of the Stick's related six books (which include many origin tales, and side-stories in addition to the strips), I do look forward to pick them up one of these days to fill-out the remains of the storyline (Although one can do well-without the formulaic romantic subplot). In addition to the usual commentary on the gaming world (great tribute the late Gary Gygax in 2008 as well), the strip has introduced general geek humor, bringing Harry Potter and Dune into the adventure when the time calls for it.

This one speaks to the inner nerd in us, and feeds on the absolute geekiness with no apologies, and congratulates you on that new d20 you bought, and challenges you on the rules and opinions of 4th Edition.

Roll for initiative.

Humor: B
Artwork: C-
Plotline: A+
Characters: B
Schedule: D+
Creativity: A-

Updates abound! Yes, the promised reviews aren't in, but I felt the Haiti has more than taken prominence this week over my half-spell checked rants about books. [Please, please, please support aid efforts if you can but clicking the link above]

So let's begin critiquing the internet. To begin this quasi-periodical series of webcomic reviews, is a very old one, and one of the first which I began following in 2003 or so, Nukees by Darren Bleuel.

Following the adventures of a group of nuclear engineering (Nuc.E) graduate students, I took to this easily given various references to physics humor (yes, us geeks have our own jokes), and somewhat skewed reality. The story lines and humor centers upon Gav, whom is best described as the megalomaniacal mad scientist wannabe whom establishes himself as Alpha geek in the Stanford engineering department.

As any good webcomics geek should, digging into the archives places one in the AOL-era Internet of 1997 when Bleuel (a then grad student at the university) began posting his campus newspaper a generalized slice-of-life strip regarding departmental humor, (grad) student life, and campus culture. Through the late nineties and early aughts, however, Nukees quickly departs into a somewhat surreal development of Gav and his friends as they explore and exploit the world through the power of a gigantic robotic ant, journeys through the legal system, the afterlife, relationships, beer, and other general metaphysical entities.

Written for the pure science nerd at heart, Nukees has kept it's fan-base of physics and engineering geeks at the core of humor, in spite of the frequent wanderings in the plot line. In particular, one would be remiss to forget Bleuel's arguably greatest contribution to geek culture, Agnostica, created within the Nukees world in the December of 1999. Beginning on December 14 (the 99^th anniversary of the presentation of Planck's theory of quantized energy-- the birth of quantum physics), and extending to an indeterminate date (in consideration with the Uncertainty Principle), Agnostica is a fiercely secular celebration of logic, the beauty of the natural world, uncertainty, and ultimately, the spirit of giving. Amazingly, this self-prclaimed geek holiday has curiously sprung-up within certain circles with joyous celebration of physics, math, and glögg.

Although Bleuel's work has clearly undergone metamorphoses through the last thirteen years, the strip itself (both in artistic style and writing) peaked somewhere in the range of 2002-2004, and has in recent years been relatively static on both these accounts. While there has been a greater degree of character development since mid-decade, many of the plots tend of be of the nature of rambling episodes which stretch over the course of months to get to any sort of conclusion. The slice-of-life style of the early strip is now long passed, and the innate weirdness of particular plots (Giant Ant, Danny's Inferno) have seemed to given way to relatively weak stories wherein the reader, at most times, in unsure as to the direction and ultimate point of the author's intentions. While the whole of the story-arc has been sub-divided into sixty-odd pieces, these "chapters" are generally only defined long after they have been completed, making introduction for new readers difficult. While site design isn't particularly something of which I take note (so long as I can find what I'm looking for), Nukees.com has a very strong Web 1.0 feel, having undergone little revision in many years (news updates are seasonal at best).

This is not to say that Bleuel has done a poor job. As one of the longest-running comics I read, Nukees has a distinct credibility in never posting late. While Gav began as a loose caricature of the author, the years have since proven Gav_author to have real-life capacities far beyond that of Gav_character in organizing the Keenspot network of webcomics (through which I discovered Nukees), the International Random Bag of Fun (see "Agnostica"), his own research, in addition to the regular strip and its book, Nukees: d/dx.

Final call: more physics, less drama. Keep the funny
Grades:

Humor: B
Artwork: C+
Story lines: B-
Characters: B
Schedule: A+
Creativity: B-

The biggest problem with employment is that performing a task for money severely hinders my time for books. Between the December 23 and January 2, I was able to take-down and review at least three readings, and was able to get started on several more. In fact, in the time that I've run this quasi-periodical rant, there's been a definite time compenent to posting frequency with school vacations. The issue remains that I would like to post on a regular basis, but my duties elsewhere draw away from time which can always be better spent reading (most times in life are, in fact, improved with a book in hand).

So Tilting at Windmills will embark on a new adventure for the next couple of weeks, where reviews of webcomics-- my daily dose of small-scale reading regularity (ah, alliteration!). As webcomics go, familiarity and reading-times are not issues, just finding time to write them up will be the key to providing daily updates. While I'm not too sure how many readers out there (all 3 of you) participate in the webcomics subculture, but there is a strong following within the geek community, and I'll see how this goes. As always, I'm looking for input; there are about fifteen posts which I have in mind to begin with, but if you have any suggestions, I'm more than happy to broaden my horizons.

Incidentally, the books will probably slow down for a while (see working above), but I randomly found a nonfiction about maps of all things, which has been nerdishly addictive. Additionally, I've finally started House of Leaves, which I've been looking forward to for a while. I look forward to reviewing both soon.