Rich Burlew’s The Order Of The Stick is arguably the type of fantasy epic Williams Street Productions (of adult swim fame) dreams of someday making. Originally spawning ten years ago as a largely plotless parody of tabletop game clichés, over time its two head high cast became more fully fleshed out and a well defined universe with its own concepts emerged, while still maintaining its rapid fire approach to comedy. That reliance on Dungeons and Dragons based satire (the 3.5 edition apparently, as I’m also a laymen in that regard) may sadly be the biggest hurdle standing in its path to total accessibility for some, but the bumbling yet likable cast is more than capable of smashing through it. And for many they have, as OOTS has been successful enough to win a number of awards and has also been printed in a few magazines.
Our motley band of misfits are led by the lawful good Roy Greenhilt, easily the most sensible of the bunch in their quest to defeat a lich villain known as Xykon. He’s accompanied by- or rather has to put up with- a crude and sociopathic chaotic evil Halfling named Belkar Bitterleaf, the snobbish neutral elf mage Vaarsuvius whose gender is intentionally left into question, and the chaotic good archer thief Haley Starshine who somehow is able to manage a second-in-command position despite her irrational, Daffy Duck/Nami levels of greed. There’s also Durkon, a devoutly religious and lawful good dwarf who fears trees (that’s not a typo. He fears trees), and the chaotic good Elan the Bard, whose idea of effective camouflage entails of him stripping down to his birthday suit and who also considers his hand puppet Banjo The Clown to be a deity (and it technically is within OOTS’s rules).
Along the way they encounter a number of adversaries such as the Linear Guild, a fun spin on the evil clone cliché, an inexperienced group of bandits, and the self righteous paladin Miko Miyazaki who kicks off an adventure in her hometown of Azure after she tries to apprehend them for various crimes. Xykon’s forces- or “Team Evil”, rather- are also entertaining in their own right, with Redcloak the goblin serving as a good balance to his boss’s lack of attention span and quips. However, Xykon proves to be a fearsome foe amidst his goofiness, which keeps an underlying sense of drama running throughout all the self awareness and dry as a martini jokes. My personal favorites include the Monster In The Darkness, a yet to be revealed henchman with a childlike approach to the world that enjoys children’s cartoons and tea parties over being any sort of a threat, despite his obvious power. There’s also two lawyers that periodically appear to block any copyright infringements, and the ghost of Roy’s father who largely prefers griping about his son’s life choices to offering any helpful, non-vague advice.
There’s not much to say about OOTS from an aesthetic perspective. It’s exactly what it advertises, stick figure people, and they’re very neat and competent looking stick figure people. There’s just enough detail and expression to eliminate total homogeneity in the designs, but if you’re looking for Frank Frazetta level artwork then this ain’t for you. Still, at Clash Of The Webcomics we believe in going above and beyond for our consumers, so here’s some Frazetta just because.
The tone never deviates from its cheeky approach despite the plots gradually heating up and becoming more epic, on top of a few “wham” moments and what could be considered fairly graphic violence were we not talking about little scribble warriors. Burlew adds too much absurdity, too much fourth wall breaking (almost all the cast know the rules of the game, their levels and alignments, and that they’re also characters in a comic strip) and way too much sarcasm in OOTS’s atmosphere for the Cerebus Syndrome to become too suffocating. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of the roleplaying injokes will fly over a good portion of the heads of the unconverted, but most of the relationships are believable enough (although at some points you may be wondering why they don’t just surrender to their inner desires and feed Belkar to a dragon) and the banter is smart enough to be universal. In fact, at times OOTS flat out feels like a medieval Futurama, and that’s not a complaint.
For my money, The Order Of The Stick is one of the better webcomics around. At 900+ strips as of writing there’s a lot of archive to dig through, but you’ll be rewarded with a very funny work even if just hearing the words “dungeon” and “master” bring a chill down your back. Personally, the rules of the universe weren’t too hard for me to pick up on, and I was able to enjoy the ride. Take a look here and decide for yourself.