Order of the Stick

Fantastic.

Edit: translations of what Haley is saying.

Awesomely, apparently if you solve the cryptogram there’s a message encoded in it -‘Final Cryptogam’.

Wow, just, wow. This is the kind of thing that keeps me coming back. Just recently I re-read the whole thing, wasn’t my intention either, just wanted to read the firs ones to see how they compared to the latest.

OOtS got me again and coudn’t stop.

Loved this one, and in fact this particular thread of strips.

I’m impressed by how it grew on me. Having been a fan of RPG World from long ago, I started out with this not being terribly impressed. Another gaming strip with simplistic art and “aware” characters? Ok.

But at some point I got into “just one more strip” mode, and then “just until the end of this plot thread” mode. Now, I’m fully hooked. Some things can stretch a little long (Haley’s voice), or get overused (the lawyers), but nothing’s perfect.

One of the “art theory” books I read on comics (not books, but the strip variety) talks about how with simpler, less detailed art the reader will fill in the gaps and expand on what’s there, which often leads to a greater attachment to characters and a sense of “realer” emotion. The more detailed/real the art, the more little things stand out as “wrong”, and the better the artist needs to be to get the same emotional response.

As an off-the-cuff example (that would get me crucified on the MT forums), compare MegaTokyo to OOTS. I don’t think there’s much difference in the emotion conveyed to the reader, even though one is vastly more detailed than the other. Even though OOTS uses (more or less) the same “parenthesis around the eyes” for surprise and for sadness/dismay, there’s never a doubt.

I’m glad I stuck with it.

I bet somebody’s masturbated to Haley.

…ok, somebody else. Jerks.

Another good one after a slightly disappointing denouement between elan and haley. I love the ‘classic dilemmas’ he drops in, see also.

Or Vaarsuvius.

i somehow feel less bad about this board making fun of the strips i do like now

You don’t like it? I mean, shrug, there’s no reason why you have to, but give it a decent run of strips before you write it off. It’s utterly, totally nerdy but that’s its charm. That, and the way it nails the balance between taking a story seriously and taking the piss out of it - the essence of a successful p’n’p campaign.

Rimbo’s never played DnD PnP, I bet.

Yeah, I’ll admit it. I’m hooked. I’d never heard of it until it was referenced here, I checked it out, and now it’s the first Webcomic I actually like and check regularly.

Thanks for the find, Qt3!

Hmm, I thought Rimbo was saying that he did like OOTS and felt that the board was slightly more justified in making fun of the strips he used to post.

I said what I meant and meant what I said.

I didn’t mean anything I didn’t say, and didn’t say anything I didn’t mean.

RIMBO: ‘I felt bad about the board making fun of the strips I like (as I thought this reflected badly on my taste) but now, since the board seems to go ice-cold banana thickshakes over something i think sucks, it’s occurred to me that maybe just maybe it is the board that sucks, and not I. I therefore don’t feel bad any more.’

Like I said - no skin off my prepuce either way.

I just got turned on to OOTS last month after it was mentioned on qt3 and finally caught up to strip 398 yesterday. Awesome. I was so tickled, I came home and tried to explain the appeal of it to my girlfriend, who was nonplussed to say the least. (I guess I had no reasonable expectation that she’d be even remotely plussed.)

I even managed to overcome my Intrinsic Frugality and passed an Indecision check and ordered a shirt (I had about five in my cart originally). Eat, eat, eat, eat, the delicious sandwich!

I didn’t order a shirt but I did order the “prequel” trade paperback that shows how the group got together. Good stuff.

Sneak attack, BITCH!

thanks for the recommendation, I am still in the early issues, but this one had me laughing like a fool…

We can also watch it in spanish

Order all the books if you really love the strip. Each contains bonus material (extra strips that deepen the story line, for example) that’s a lot of fun. I got them from a friend who attended a con the Giant was at. In addition to autographing them, he added a doodle of an OOTS member to each. I’m now the proud owner of Elan, Belkar, and Durkon original art. :-)

Oh, cool, I didn’t realize the other two had some new material too. I’ll definitely grab those as well.