Other Webcomics: Oglaf (adults discussion only please)

[willpell]

(Since we're not in Controversy I'm going to suggest that we refrain from posting pictures and/or links unless a mod specifically approves it.)

My pet D&D campaign world is very heavily influenced by three webcomics which have sprung up in recent years, lovingly deconstructing and satirizing and justifying and otherwise playing around with the cliches of the "fantasy hero" genre. Like a vast hall of mirrors, my game riffs on things that have riffed on the game itself (not mine specifically, but still), creating a spiral of ever-increasing self-awareness which affectionately points out how ridiculous D&D can be, while also making it more awesome than ever. One of these comics is, of course, Goblins itself. Another is the wildly popular Order of the Stick, which has a thread around here somewhere and I figure doesn't need to be explained.

The third such influence is also the one most likely to make someone uncomfortable. Oglaf is a sexually-explicit - but only occasionally prurient to any real degree - webcomic by a female creator, in which about 3/4 of the humor revolves around sex, but sex is portrayed in a state of distinctly less than untarnished glamor, entirely unlike what would be done in a comic that was designed to be no more than self-indulgent wank fuel. While occasionally hot, it is more often awkward and mildly distressing, just as sex can be in real life, all while the tropes of sexually-charged fantasy literature are mercilessly skewered and plumbed to discover their many Unfortunate Implications. The humor is blatantly farcical in places, abstract and nigh-invisible in others, and deeply twisted in still others, and the art is consistently excellent almost since the beginning, assuming you're not allergic to genitalia (and even if you are, about a third of the strips are kept SFW and clearly marked as such in the archive, not that I recommend taking any chances and browsing in mixed company; when the strip is extreme, it is very much so, and thus caution is advised.)

So in the way it turns all the cliches of questionably-mature sword-and-sorcery inside out twice over, forming them into twisted mockeries of their original selves, which manage to both call the milieu's assumptions into question and play them straight at the same time, Oglaf is perfect for me as a source of inspiration. And so I'm opening up the floor to others who want to discuss this distinctly unusual entry into the D&D-webcomic canon. There are better strips, and certainly there are better strips for you, which will make you look better for being known to read them. But nothing else is quite like Oglaf, and I consider that to be high praise indeed.

[Zathyr]

I think my two favorite Oglaf strips also happen to be two of the cleanest in the archives. We can link to them right?

http://oglaf.com/skulls/
hehehe
and
http://oglaf.com/lute/ (does have a bad word)
<3 <3 <3

[willpell]

One thing about Oglaf that's both awesome and annoying - not only does every strip have an extra joke or comment or something as alt-text, but there's another such bit of text on the background of the page, invisible behind the image, so that you can only see it if your browser is a bit slow to load. I've only ever managed to catch a handful of these - for instance, this week's strip, "Unattainable" (it has no nudity but enough textual filth that I won't link to it), has the hidden sentence "Elegance is an ice cream flavor". I can't recall which other ones I've found...it's possible to locate the line by right-clicking on the background and going "View Page Source", but if you don't already know what you're looking for you'd have to read through a lot of HTML code looking for a comprehensible sentence.

[TinSoldier]

I read through some of the archives last night.

At first I was like and then I was like and then I got lost so I quit reading once I stopped getting the jokes.

I'll go back and try again.

[willpell]

This week's strip is kind of crappy, unfortunately.

[willpell]

Heh. Well, today's update at least confirms that heterosexual people do exist in the Oglaf universe. It had begun to seem uncertain whether anyone in this world ever balked at the idea of sex with anyone else....