Webcomic and Graphic Novel Suggestions
A question that regularly pops up is: I'm enjoying Pratchett, what else is out there I could possibly enjoy? This page is here to help you. If you like Pratchett's sort of humour, and want something more visual than a book, these works are recommended by the fans.
David Reddick
- David Reddick's Legend of Bill is a long-running webcomic featuring the adventures of an amiable but short-on-brains barbarian called Bill, who one day tires of his safe office job in the accountancy department of a local evil warlord. On a whim, he throws over his boring job auditing invoices and goes out adventuring, with his friend Frank the Blue Dragon - who turns out to be the real brains of the partnership. On the way they learn it isn't all about the unfortunately named dragonburgers and the chocolate milk shakes, the man's drink that Bill so loves in his usual bar, the Wet Gill. They learn about orcs, ogres, wizards, magic users, seductive sorceresses (one of whom takes a big shine to Bill) and fearsome pink-haired warrior princesses called Gina. Along he way the series generated two spin-offs: the Gnome Service(about a race of shy, retiring, magic-users whose job is to audit everything and give reality a poke when it needs it) and Barwench Tales, revolving around a typical tavern wench who is clearly in the wrong job: it is discovered she was trained as a lethal psychotic Assassin for whom pulling pints and dodging pinched bottoms is not an advisable career change. Her notions of good customer service are somewhat basic... Safe for work, btw. Although Reddick loves drawing pretty girls, nothing crosses any lines.
Oglaf
Take the warning screen seriously. This is definitely not safe for work and should not be viewed by under-eighteens. Opinion is divided as to whether it should be accessed by over-eighteens. In a darker fantasy realm, anything you can think of may happen and all sorts of folk-tales, mythologies and heroic fantasies are remorselessly sent up. Not every story has an NSFW warning attached to it and quite a lot of them do not mention sex at all. But do not even try to access this from work. Wickedly funny and the product of a warped mind.
[Oglaf]
Bloomin' Faeries!
The author of this wicked little series, Jaycee, also has a membership here and joined us to debate the issue of how far her ideas overlapped those of the great Terry Pratchett. We agreed that we are all fishing in the same stream and ideas overlap and run together. Although Pratchett isn't usually as blatantly dirty as this... another NSFW strip set in a Rabelaisian fantasy world and not to be accessed from a computer at work. Gloriously funny.
The Order of the Stick
It isn't all filth and depravity. Honestly. This deceptively simple-looking strip has been running for many years, has extensive back-archives, and completely sends up the game of Dungeons And Dragons, spoofing all its conventions and presumptions. You do not need to have played D&D to get the humour of it. But an ill-assorted party of adventurers full of egos sets out on a Quest... totally SFW.
Goblins!
Thunt's lovely take on what happened when the lowest and most despised form of life in the Dungeons and Dragons universe decided they weren't just going to be non-player characters and practice fodder any more and rolled their own character stats to become fully fledged players. Like Order of the Stick, but taking a different goblin-centred direction. Anyone reading Snuff or Raising Steam will see similarities. Only these goblins have got more attitude and sharper edges.
Brat-Halla
Even the Gods were children once. This strip follows the adventures of the children of Odin and Freya, along with other adult characters such as Valkyries, Hel and Fenrir, who are charged with their education as a pantheon. Lovely touches: the dark goddess Hel is the Schoolmistress from, er, Hell. The obvious issue of a world with overlapping pantheons of Gods is demarcation. The gods of Scandinavia deal with their fellow pantheonic deities in Greece/Rome, Egypt, the Celtic world, and further afield. (The Chinese and Japanese deities have some groovy ideas about martial arts). A Middle Eastern troublemaker who demands that no other Gods should be allowed to exist is summarily dealt with. And the Pantheon Games between the various families of Gods is just pure genius.