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tasharobinson's review
4.0
The downside: I really dislike the greyscale art on some of these Order of the Stick books. It feels so muddy and dim after reading the full-color strips.
The rest: Rich Burlew is such a terrific storyteller and character-builder, it leaves me in awe sometimes. This is a collection of spinoff stories from his D&D-based fantasy strip Order of the Stick, which started off as a series of dorky gaming gags, and evolved into an epic adventure that remains one of the most gratifying and beautifully scripted web comics I've ever read. This particular collection is just side stories about minor characters, but its centerpiece, "How the Paladin Got his Scar," is a terrific introduction to his work. It lays out a complicated political situation that turns into a moral conundrum, as a paladin tries to navigate the conflict between his sworn duties and the belief in the sanctity of life. There's plenty of humor in the panel-to-panel interactions — Burlew has such an excellent way with pithy, snappy dialogue — but the overall arc of the story is a strong piece of narrative drama. I loved this book. I'd just love it more in color.
The rest: Rich Burlew is such a terrific storyteller and character-builder, it leaves me in awe sometimes. This is a collection of spinoff stories from his D&D-based fantasy strip Order of the Stick, which started off as a series of dorky gaming gags, and evolved into an epic adventure that remains one of the most gratifying and beautifully scripted web comics I've ever read. This particular collection is just side stories about minor characters, but its centerpiece, "How the Paladin Got his Scar," is a terrific introduction to his work. It lays out a complicated political situation that turns into a moral conundrum, as a paladin tries to navigate the conflict between his sworn duties and the belief in the sanctity of life. There's plenty of humor in the panel-to-panel interactions — Burlew has such an excellent way with pithy, snappy dialogue — but the overall arc of the story is a strong piece of narrative drama. I loved this book. I'd just love it more in color.
jadejade's review
4.0
OotS stories with an Azure City flavour. I definitely enjoyed this but I would only recommend it to people already familiar with the comic.
verkisto's review
5.0
As I was reading this book, I realized that the reasons I like Usagi Yojimbo so much are the reasons I like The Order of the Stick so much. Aside from the honorable characters and the deep-seeded evil of both stories, there's a general positivity to their works that you don't see much in modern fantasy. Sure, people die, and sometimes they're our favorite characters, but Burlew appears to write toward a general feel-good, heroes-win kind of fantasy. It still has an epic feel, and I know it hasn't been concluded yet, but it feels like that's where Burlew is going with his story.
Good Deeds Gone Unpunished is a collection of five short-stories, told in reverse chronological order, about the citizens of Azure City, featured in the collection War and XPs. We get glimpses into the lives of some of the major characters there, some seemingly innocuous, others profound and life-changing. There's a good balance of exposition and revelation here, which is about all most of the stories have. The first four are very short, and hardly have time to get anything going, but the final story takes up about half of the book and feels like a novel of its own.
Burlew is a talented writer. This isn't news to anyone who follows the online comic, but he's a writer who deserves more attention. His stories are geared more toward readers who have a familiarity with Dungeons and Dragons (the early strips more so), but anyone who enjoys epic stories with complex plots and a strong sense of humor would find a lot to like in this series. One of these days I'll get around to re-reading the story in the collected trade paperback.
Good Deeds Gone Unpunished is a collection of five short-stories, told in reverse chronological order, about the citizens of Azure City, featured in the collection War and XPs. We get glimpses into the lives of some of the major characters there, some seemingly innocuous, others profound and life-changing. There's a good balance of exposition and revelation here, which is about all most of the stories have. The first four are very short, and hardly have time to get anything going, but the final story takes up about half of the book and feels like a novel of its own.
Burlew is a talented writer. This isn't news to anyone who follows the online comic, but he's a writer who deserves more attention. His stories are geared more toward readers who have a familiarity with Dungeons and Dragons (the early strips more so), but anyone who enjoys epic stories with complex plots and a strong sense of humor would find a lot to like in this series. One of these days I'll get around to re-reading the story in the collected trade paperback.
bookwyrmknits's review
adventurous
fast-paced
4.0
Highly amusing set of 5 prequels focused on the citizens of Azure City. It was good to revisit some favorite secondary characters in these stories.
Contains the short graphic novels "That's the Spirit", "Scruff and Tumble", "Spoiler Alert","Pier Pressure", and "How the Paladin Got His Scar".
Contains the short graphic novels "That's the Spirit", "Scruff and Tumble", "Spoiler Alert","Pier Pressure", and "How the Paladin Got His Scar".
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