12-06-07

Woosh!
It must be a sign of my age that sometimes I feel like the most out-of-it goober on the peanut farm.  What's worse is those times when I'm honestly not certain whether I'm ridiculously out of touch or have tripped over a hidden gem in the vast desert of webcomics.  Admittedly, a lot of that has to do with my position in the webcomics community.  That position being that I don't have one.  I'm marginally respected as a reviewer and commentator, but I don't advertise, and I spend very little of my time futzing around on community forums where I can read 7 million messages from people who care enough about minutiae that they actually have an opinion on MS Comic Sans font.  I tell myself that I maintain this position because it keeps me sharp as a writer; an old teacher once told me (by which I mean he told me and the 20 other people in his class) that we write because we weren't invited to the party.  He explained that the best writing comes when you have the apparent objectivity of watching through a window.

So, yeah, I'm not an insider.  Nobody thinks they "made it" in the webcomics world just because they got a Casual Notes review.  Hell, most people outside my own little circle of friends and admirers (and people who really, really hate me)  don't even know I exist.  But still, I like to believe my eyes are open, even if no one's e-mailing me begging for my wise insight into the webcomics oeuvre  (one of the great things about being a reviewer is you get to use words like "oeuvre" with a straight face, and nobody bugs you about it).  And yet, I missed this one.  I had to click on a banner ad (something I never do—if you'd gone through as many virus scrubbings as I have, you'd understand why) to "discover" The Gods of Arr-Kelaan by Chuck Rowles.

Here's this popular comic (GoA's Wiki entry says it has about 1400-1600 daily uniques) that has existed in one form or another since the mid-nineties, a comic so popular that it has a separate page just for reviews, and I find out about it because I like the Project Wonderful banner he bought on The Noob!  Seriously, how far out of it do you have to be before you just check into the Golden Acres Village and watch for teenagers with your box of cats?

Okay, GoA is not exactly your typical webcomic, and  I doubt that Rowles has spent a lot of time kissing Burns's ass or starting fights with Kurtz.  Some might say that it's technically part of the roleplaying niche of comics (a niche, by the way, that includes The Order of the Stick, Darken, and much of Girl Genius author, Phil Foglio's early work), but that just opens the door to a whole list of existential questions, because GoA is not your typical RPG comic, either.  It's funny, but there are no wink-and-a-nod references to the oddities of table-top gaming, and while it features some creature and class types found in RPGs it has no real relation to any of them.  But the comic would not exist were it not for a D&D campaign.

So, what, exactly, is it?  When is a raven like a writing desk?*    GoA is a damn good comic, that's what it is.  Told with gentle humor, GoA is the story of the passengers and crew of the Traveller (a trans-stellar cruise ship) who awaken after crashlanding on the planet of Arr-Kelaan to find out that they are gods.  But wait, there's more.  Just prior to crashing, the Traveller was assaulted by space pirates in the ship Competent Offender, and some of the crewmen of that ship make up the more sinister side of the Arr-Kelaan pantheon.  Add in a few Old Earth gods with their own designs, and there you have it.

While GoA can't be said to actually have a star, there are a couple of the "Traveller Gods" that get special treatment by Rowles, and end up being showcased the most.  The top of that list is Ronson Eichler, the god of Apathy and Alcohol.  Ronson is detached and imperturbable, but not in the with-it, hipster way that Tycho of Penny Arcade is or in Davan of Something*Positive's cynical beaten-down way.  Ronson is a middle aged man who has made his mark, has been happy, and then had that happiness taken away from him when his wife died of cancer.  To say he has given up is to do him a disservice:  he is at an age, and an experience level where he is free to choose to just surrender to inevitability.  In many ways, he reminds me of the scene in Little Big Man where Chief Dan George lies down on his funeral platform and waits for the Great Spirit to take him.  The Great Spirit rains on him, a sort of climatic poke in the ribs.  Ronson is also rained-on.  He takes a cruise with his brother-in-law, expecting it to be a last act, and he wakes up apparently immortal with near omnipotence.  Even so, it is unfair to say he is apathetic.  Ronson cares deeply for everyone he meets, and spends a lot of his time ensuring that they don't have to suffer more pain than they need to.

Also of note are Claremont, the god of Knowledge, who often acts a a catalyst for action by the other gods, and Bikk, the god of Trade and Commerce, who is just the sort of eternal goof that makes life interesting.  Claremont is the aforementioned brother-in-law, and it is his gentle prodding that most often rains on Ronson when he lays down on his platform.  He is one of the few gods in the Arr-Kelaan pantheon who thinks honestly of the common good and not about his own agenda.  Bikk, on the other hand is so comically selfish and self-interested that you can't help but like him.  He is one of those rare beings who seem to honestly believe that the room disappears whenever he closes the door, but, when he is reminded that he isn't the only person in the universe with feelings, he betrays a wealth of sympathy.

The writing is, as you may have noticed, surprisingly deep for a humor comic based on a D&D campaign.  Or maybe not.  While the jokes are spot on, the humor does not seem to be Rowles main focus.  GoA is all about the people and the story, and Rowles handles them masterfully.  None of the Characters in GoA are throwaways.  Not a panel, not a remark, not a word is wasted.  There are no dead-ends and no sidebars to bring the funny.  It's funny when it should be, and deadly serious at the right moments, too.

It never loses its light-hearted appeal, however, and that is mostly due to Rowles's art-style.  He draws in a style reminiscent of single-panel magazine gags and Don Adams strips from Mad Magazine.  It serves him well, making even Claremont's epic walk through Purgatory seem less oppressive than it otherwise might, and punching up the humor when funny is appropriate.

The home page is a little busy, and site navigation can be difficult, but not so difficult that it interferes with enjoyment.  The trick is to get there and start reading.  I may be an out-of-it goober, but if you've read all this and still aren't reading GoA, what's that make you?

The Gods of Arr-Kelaan by Chuck Rowles
Updates:  Tuesday and Friday
Caveats:  Difficult navigation
Rating: 

*A raven is never like a writing desk. Ever.  That was the joke.  I didn't get it either.^