I follow a few webcomics.  They make great bite-size reads when I’m waiting for a compile at work, or while eating an in-cube breakfast.  One of my favorites is one called Erfworld, created by Rob Balder and Jamie Noguchi.  Erfworld follows the adventures of a gaming nerd who is summoned to a fantasy world as the “perfect warlord” that a hard-pressed, losing faction desperately needs.  The fantasy world follows all the conventions of a turn-based wargame, including movement points, levels, attack bonuses, and so forth, and Parson Gotti (the protagonist) has to learn all the details as he goes.  Unfortunately for him, his boss is both crazy and dim, his forces are vastly outnumbered, and no one trusts him.

The writing and art were both excellent, and as a gamer myself I was constantly laughing at the dense layer of in-jokes and game references almost every update.  Unfortunately, after completing the first installment of the comic, artist Jamie Noguchi got overcommitted and eventually decided to step down from illustrating Erfworld.  Rob Balder kept up with text-only updates, but they were sort of just marking time.

It looked like Erfworld was heading for a slow suffocation, but recently Rob announced that they will be relaunching today, October 28, with a new artist.  They’ve already revealed some of her art and it’s excellent!  I can’t wait to start the new installment of the comic; it looks like Rob is pushing the writing to deal more with the social ramifications of living in a world patterned after a fantasy-themed board wargame, which are pretty bizarre.  In turn, the concepts of free will and human rights Parson is importing seem just as alien to the Erfworlders.  Add in a major war to test Parson’s strategic chops, and this second book looks like it could be pretty awesome!

Tags: Review, Webcomic