4/10: Week in Review

Well, it looks like the D&D-focused role-playing website Dungeon Mastering is reaching out into the world of webcomics. Last week I reported on its collaboration comic series with Geeks Next Door, the first installment of which posted last Saturday. Now Dungeon Mastery has also posted an interview with Penny Arcade's Jerry Holkins, better known as Tycho Brahe. In the interview, Holkins talks about his past role-playing experiences, his thoughts on 4th edition D&D, and his contribution to the April Fool’s Day preview of the "witchalok" class. For the most part, it's solely of interest to RPG enthusiasts, but Penny Arcade fans may want to tune in for his characteristically loquacious humor.

On a related subject, here's a comic I came across a few months ago that will be of interest to old-school video gamers: The Final Fantasy 6 Comic. The FF6 Comic, whose creator goes by the handle "Orinocou," is nothing less than an unofficial comic-form retelling of the Super Nintendo RPG whose name it shares. The storyline and characters will be familiar to anyone who's played FF6, but they're also quite accessible to newcomers, even to comic fans who don't play video games. The art starts off decent enough, but in recent installments it's gotten downright exceptional. Just goes to show what drawing regularly will do to improve one's skills! If The FF6 Comic sounds like your bag, be sure to go check it out.

Also in the realm of fantasy, this past Sunday's The Princess Planet features a truly bizarre situation when the local graveyard comes to life. Princess Christi springs to the rescue once again, and we find in the punchline panel that she's the one responsible for the living-graveyard situation. How? Well, do I look like I'm going to give away the funny? You can read it for yourself, via the magic of hyperlinking.

It's been awhile since this blog paid a visit to the Blank It universe, so let's make that the next stop on our journey. After navigating such hazards as windstorms that blow away the light, exploding robot bugs, and intelligent hair, our heroes come full-circle and return to the shovel beam. And in Thursday's installment, our heroes discover that a town has sprung up around the Shovel Beam. Some of our heroes are more eager to discover who populates it than others. In any event, we'll all find out who its inhabitants are on Monday. My money's on "more bug people."

In other news, Boxer Hockey creator Tyson Hesse has received a print publication offer and is taking steps toward turning Boxer Hockey into a quarterly comic book. Hesse himself delivers the announcement in this video, where you can hear the news in his own words, and hear him respond to a few of his readers' inquiries. However, he does plan to reach some closure in the current webcomic story arc before the move to print, and his comic recently wrapped up the game against Australia's team (which starts here). It's an interesting move, going from web to print, and I'm curious to see how it turns out for him.

And, let's conclude with a handful of quick shots:

• Cat and Girl's unemployed Boogeyman goes looking for work, but appears to be hilariously out of his element for the job interview in Tuesday's comic.


• Over at Starslip, uptight Protocol Officer Quine makes Vanderbeam look positively mellow by comparison. Vanderbeam gets snarky.


• For Arthur the Duck, the bathroom mirror provides opportunity for philosophical speculation in Tuesday's Sheldon.


• This past week, Moe from Moe tries to impress a Christian girl he's met by joining an evolution protest. While other cartoonists might treat this as an opportunity to make fun of the side they disagree with, Moe creator Michael Firman delivers hilariously naive absurdity from all parties. It's less making fun of the issues and more simply making fun--and I like that.


• If you purchase one piece of webcomics merchandise this year, let it be Dinosaur Comics' Time-Traveler's Survival Guide Shirt. Actually, it's probably still too early in the year to make that call, but still.


• And something would almost certainly be amiss if I didn't mention today's epic clash of webcomic titans over at Least I Could Do. Today the Final Civil War Crisis Whatever reaches an apex of unmitigated violence!

So, that's a wrap. Don't forget: I don't just update on Fridays! Recently we've seen reviews of Jump Leads #3 and Superfogeys #1. Have a good weekend, happy Easter, and I'll catch you next week.