This. And not only this, but we’re going to see every dangling plotline get some resolution before its all over – including stuff like V’s spouse, Haley’s imprisoned father, Durkon’s ultimate fate and what it means to the dwarves, all of the Oracle’s prophecies, resolution to Elan vs. Nale and the Linear Guild, and the aforementioned nine competing factions.
We’ve seen bits and pieces, occasional hints, but none of that has been set up to any degree. Except: the “useless” sideline with the Azure fleet set up introducing (at least) one of the other factions and probably V’s fate as predicted by the Oracle (and lots of character development for Elan). And the “useless” sideline to Greysky City is resolving lots of Haley’s backstory, including further developing her father connection (and feigned character development for Belkar).
It has been obvious for some time that these sidetracks were coming – Rich kept dropping hints of other factions, other sidestories, and it has been quite apparent that none of those would have been necessary if he’d planned on having them march immediately to the next gate and neatly end the Xykon storyline.
And, frankly, I think that a lot of the pacing for the stories since Azure City will read a lot better once collected in the book. Haley’s long period of aphasia was really annoying reading two strips a week; not nearly so much reading the book straight through.
Personally, I’m not convinced that there is an overarching storyline. Clearly the original idea was a single dungeon crawl, and when that ended, the strip turned into smaller stories with no clear plot until the OOTS’s trial. This is a comic, not a book –it may just have episodes.
I think the strip is as good as it’s ever been. For me, the fun has always been about the characters and the situations and relationships they’re in. I don’t necessarily care if they’re fighting to save the whole universe or just one life. The fun is all in the telling.
And Elan is my favorite character, so I loved his development during the fleet arc. I can see how that might have been slow for someone only interested in the action, but for me I thought it was as good and compelling as any other arc. Can’t wait to see how he gets along with the newly revived Roy.
As far as overarching storyline, straight man, I believe that Burlew has said that he initially wrote the strip as a simple dungeon crawl, but around strip #100 he decided he wanted to do more with it and basically plotted out the overarching story. If you read the strips around that time, you can really tell the change, so I believe it. So since then there has been purpose behind the madness.
Nice cite, and I’ll take your point, but not entirely, no. A few thoughts in a list:
Overarching plot or not, OOTS remains extremely episodic, like most comics. The majority of its individual stories are, say, 75% self-contained. (That’s true of many books, too, of course.)
Even if there’s an overarching story, the thematic elements of the comic tend to be contained within the individual episodes.
Plans are always subject to revision – I’m reluctant to take authorial intent ahead of the actual creation too seriously.
Episodes are absolutely vital to keep readers. Is anybody actually going to read this thing for the next five years if there aren’t subplots with resolutions – if, in fact, those subplots don’t make up the majority of the actual work?
So please let me amend my first statement: there is an overarching plot, it’s just not very important.
ETA: yes, you can really tell the change. Still, I think the “purpose” is all of the fun little subplots, which really have to be enjoyed on their own merits in order for the comic to be worth reading. (It is worth reading, BTW.)
As the author of The Dreamland Chronicles put it a few strips ago, “Sorry for the cliffhanger again today. As you all know…I write this as a book. Not as a webcomic. So the pages end as they need to for the book.”
Amen. I’ve got 33 webcomics I read on a daily basis, and as long as I get a good laugh out of each OOTS installment, I’m happy. It more than I can say for some of the webcomics on my list, as I’m about ready to find out where the guy who does Chugworth Academy lives, go there, and chain him to his drawing table, post several large, muscular men as “incentives” and issue the command “Update the freakin’ comic! Daily!” Dude, this “update the comic every two months or whenever I feel like it” thing is unacceptable.
It definitely helps to keep in mind that OOTS is a Dungeons & Dragons story. One of the jobs of the Dungeon Master in an actual D&D game, in addition to creating a major goal for his players, is to insert “hooks” that will lead to the next major goal so that when the player characters reach one goal, there is a natural progression into the next adventure. As a player who used to play under a DM who only used published adventures (as opposed to creating his own), I always found it jarring when we would finish one adventure and then jump immediately into a new one without any kind of logical transition. A good DM will already be planning the next adventure long before the current one is completed, and will drop hints and other elements into the current adventure that will make the transition to the next adventure seem completely natural. And I think that’s what Burlew is doing here. It helps to remember that Burlew was a DM long before he started writing OOTS.
Reading the comic again, I find myself wondering if this cleric who’s aiding Belkar might end up joining the OOTS. I mean, I can see all sorts of potential for LOLs having a cleric of Thor and a cleric of Loki in the same party.
I like that dude quite a bit (not really sure why, he barely has a personality, but he is still somehow compelling) but I think it’s highly unlikely that the OotS team is going to get another permanent member. It might be kind of interesting if a bunch of the “temporary party members” went off to form their own adventuring party, though. Have them go after one gate while the OotS team tackles the other. Hinjo, his second in command, Celia and the Loki Cleric, maybe? Too bad Therkla’s not around anymore…
Yes, I"ve been reading the strip, online, as well as squeeing over my autographed copy of the original collection with all its author’s notes and over my various other OOTS paraphrenalia–but thanks for asking! While he loves to break the fourth wall in individual panels, his storytelling is highly traditional in structure. You can practically map Joseph Campbell onto it.