Kingdom of Loathing #1 - Mobile Edition

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Kingdom of Loathing #1
By Garth the Geek
February 16, 2012 - 19:26

Asymmetric Comics
Writer(s): Joshua Nite
Penciller(s): Doug Kullberg
Inker(s): Doug Kullberg
Colourist(s): Doug Kullberg
Letterer(s): Doug Kullberg
Cover Artist(s): Doug Kullberg
$3.99 US

The Kingdom of Loathing is a free-to-play web-based game featuring stick art and more jokes than you can shake… well… a stick at. And there are a LOT of sticks. Because it’s a game featuring stick art. Ba dum bump.

Bad jokes aside, if you've never played 'Kingdom of Loathing', I recommend checking it out. The game's wit, pop culture references and humour - along with off-beat character classes like the Disco Bandit and the Seal Clubber - have created a fairly large fan-base. So it was only a matter of time before it branched out into other mediums…

ENTER: 'Kingdom of Loathing', the comic!

From the moment you open the comic, you get the sense you're not in Kansas anymore. It begins with a very standard, “Once upon a time…” and quickly corrects itself. “Well, okay, it doesn't matter what time it was. Once upon a place… Once upon a place, there was a place called… No, that doesn’t work, either. Once upon a world, there was a place called the Kingdom of Loathing. It was a pretty pleasant place. Well, except for the hideous monsters and the growing menace of a naughty sorceress known only as… The Naughty Sorceress.”

And that's page one.

Thanks to artist Doug Kullberg, the comic features upgraded visuals - sorry, no stick-men fighting stick-monsters - and writer Joshua Nite has captured the feel of the game well. Even better, you don’t need to have played the game at all to enjoy the comic - the story is accessible to veterans and newcomers alike, and most everything you need to know is presented within its pages.

Issue one follows two main groups: The “good guys”, including the comic's protagonist, spunky 16-year old Sauceror, Jill 8-Pack, her father, Joe 8-Pack, and Jill's attention-deficit demon, Riddlin. And what story would be complete without the “bad guys”? In this case, Azazel, a disembodied mass of eyes and teeth, and his henchmen. Er, henchDEMONS. They’re in search of a talisman of ancient unspeakable evil, which just happens to be in the possession of the 8-Packs…

Overall, ‘Kingdom of Loathing 1’ is a promising start to what is slated as a 6-part mini-series. It may be a little difficult to find - I received my copy due to supporting the Kickstarter project - but it received such huge support (raising almost seven times its goal) that hopefully it will make its way to a comic shop near you. And if it does, check it out. (If it doesn't, you can always order it from the Kingdom of Loathing store (http://store.asymmetric.net/) for $6, which includes a .pdf download.)

Rating: 8.5/10