Yep, I'm a huge fan. I'm up into the 800's now, so I'm about to catch up. I hope Mr. Burlew's hand gets well enough soon for him to resume drawing.
When it starts out, it's just good, freaking hilarious, off-the-wall parody. But as it evolves over time, you start to care about the characters, and they all have growing character arcs, and the later strips are a lot deeper in story development, and even serious sometimes, although the comedy never stops. "Order of the Stick" is a treasure, and a gift to D&D gamers everywhere.
I think the best stories are, indeed, those that start as pure parodies, only to end up developing their characters and bringing in some drama... but never truly losing the laughs.
Goblins is also pretty great sometimes. The art is kind of horrible, and it tends to get darn melodramatic sometimes, but when it gets good, it gets really good.
You can buy the books here. They contain a lot of extra content not found online. Two of the print-only books are prequels, with On the Origin of PCs detailing the backstories of the Order of the Stick, and Start of Darkness covering Xykon and Redcloak's backstories. Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tails, on the other hand, is noncanonical, and contains strips from Dragon Magazine as well as new bonus content.
The other four books compile the online strips in print form and have some bonus content, too, including commentary from Rich Burlew. They are, in order, Dungeon Crawlin' Fools, No Cure for the Paladin Blues, War and XPs, and Don't Split the Party.
Comments
But that's only because I've already read it, and with Rich Burlew's injury there haven't been new comics recently.
When it starts out, it's just good, freaking hilarious, off-the-wall parody. But as it evolves over time, you start to care about the characters, and they all have growing character arcs, and the later strips are a lot deeper in story development, and even serious sometimes, although the comedy never stops. "Order of the Stick" is a treasure, and a gift to D&D gamers everywhere.
Order of the Stick is among the best of such.
I DECLARE MY DODGE ON YOU !
The other four books compile the online strips in print form and have some bonus content, too, including commentary from Rich Burlew. They are, in order, Dungeon Crawlin' Fools, No Cure for the Paladin Blues, War and XPs, and Don't Split the Party.
http://www.ookoodook.com/store/comics_order-of-the-stick.shtml
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0864.html#