When did OOTS become awesome for you?

[RighteousWarior]

I will admit that I wasn't very charmed by the first 50 or so pages of this comic at first. In fact I thought the humor was too abstract and the characters were too stereotypical. The thing that kept me reading was the art style. I was curious as to what he'd draw next. Then right after the Xykon battle when I was almost going to stop reading the series and go somewhere else, this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0128.html) page appears.

That page utterly sold me on the series. It takes something I can relate to and transforms it into a fantasy setting. After that I was a loyal follower of the OOTS, and I must say I am glad because I now enjoy the first 120 pages much better now that I know what D&D is.

What about you guys? When did the series get awesome for you?

[KillingAScarab]

It was probably #40: The Gods Must Be Busy (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0040.html). Tiny little stick figures mixed with "Mommy, what's happening?" is just the right amount of dark.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

I enjoyed the strip from the beginning. I'd say it started becoming really awesome between the end of DCF and the beginning of NCftPB. I can't really point to a specific strip, though I guess 136 is as good as any.

[ti'esar]

OOTS was awesome for me from the start, since I didn't get into it until BRitF was already running. The first sequence that really stood out as a "wow", though, was the Linear Guild fight at the EoB, especially Roy vs. Thog.

[YossarianLives]

Probably this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0007.html) comic.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I'm not sure when I first started reading the comic any more, but the one that got me started checking every day rather than 'every so often' was SONIC! (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0345.html)

[hamishspence]

I think I got into OOTS via Dragon Magazine, reading a friend's copy of Origin of PCs, and started checking the forum regularly about the time of Roy's trial in Azure City.

[Reddish Mage]

I swiped a friend's copy of Start of Darkness, I was hooked before the end of the first chapter.

[Quild]

I remember that I laughed really hard at the evilgasm (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0197.html)

I think I was already reading OOTS when it came out, but probably not for long. I probably started right after the bandit camp and therefore had enough stuff to be already addicted at this point.

[Sime]

I've started reading OOTS since, dunno... around #160, so the story was already getting somewhat "serious" with having a plot etc.

But for me, the first strip that made me think "this is gonna be amazing!" was http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0261.html, probably because it was the very first time I was all "woah. and now? what happens next?".

Needless to say, I loved the first confrontation between Miko and Belkar (and, to be honest, I hated the Crayons exposition even if it was published one-each-day, because it took away time from that duel).

[AGD]

I liked OOTS from the Start. I liked the first Fight with the Linear Guild and with Xykon and thought "Yeah, something funny with a sense for build-ups and pay-offs and little climactic Battles. Sounds good to me." Most of NCftPB was just okay for me. I didn't like the "King of Nowhere"-Plot with the two assassins. I liked the Trial. But the Moment, where it became real awesome for me, was this Strip: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0311.html I love the Line "Hiding is my best skill". It is so funny and at the same Time so tragic and so cute. It shows in one little sentence, who Haley is and does that with a good joke. And I liked the Dialogue, that Haley had with herself. Haley was my Favorite Character from that Moment on. She was then replaced with Vaarsuvius, when I fell a second Time in Love with OOTS: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0623.html That Page made me cry.

[Windscion]

I think we broke Haley.

[Tenmujiin]

Edvards Spiked Tentacles of Forced Intrusion (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0020.html)

[NeoSeraphi]

The convincing and tactful way that the Giant handled Miko's fall was what really sold me on this comic.

[hamishspence]

I think it was that period that finally convinced me to join the forum.

[brian 333]

At the time I was new to Neverwinter Nights, but already long time D&D player and DM. I had come up with a character concept so outlandish that I was, in fact, the only one ever to play such a character on the particular server I inhabited. My character was:

A paranoid halfling single-class ranger who was prone to shoot first and regret it at his leisure. His name was Merogo Oakenroot.

Then one day I was told about someone stealing my character concept on a 'new' webcomic. I had to look. Surely there was no one else stupid enough to create a halfling character without taking at least a few rogue levels, right?

I'm not sure how far along the comics had come by that point, but it was before 2003/2004 when the NwN server we played on shut down. From time to time I'd check on ersatz Merogo, until one day my roommate fell out of the chair laughing. He had used my link to check out the comic and ran into this page. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0327.html) We both were, and still are, big fans of logic puzzles, and the solution to this one was pure magic! Since then I have been hooked on OoTS.

[Hamiltonz]

"What, there is a comic that goes with this card game. I gotta see this"

[LadyEowyn]

First book was bad: lots of juvenile gags, sloppy art, and nothing of interest.

Second book was okay: a bit of character development (mainly for Roy), art slightly better, writing more thoughtful, mildly interesting.

Third book was good, especially Elan's Dashing Swordsman arc, the big battle with the Linear Guild in Azure City, and the Battle of Azure City. More characters get development, especially Elan and Haley; impressive arc with Miko; some character development for Redcloak; and fantastic battle sequences, tactics, twists, and turns in the Battle of Azure City.

Fourth book was great; Roy's judgement and time in heaven was particularly thoughtfully done, and both Elan and Haley got good stories (although the Thieves' Guild didn't particularly engage me). Belkar started on the road to having more than one dimension. O-Chul was amazing. Redcloak became a highly interesting character as his motivations and goals became clearer and more sympathetic. The Dark Vaarsuvius arc, followed by his and O-Chul's battle with Xykon, is when the comic became awesome, and it's continued strong since them, with excellent and improving storyline, characterization, and art.

Happily, I started reading partway through Book 4 or 5 (think I found it via TVTropes), and then went back to read the earlier strips once I was engaged with the story. If I'd started at the beginning, or even at the start of Book 2, I'd probably have given it up as not worth my time.

[Lissou]

I started really enjoying the strip somewhere along book 2, but my "wow" moment was when Start of Darkness came out. I just loved the depth of the plot and the characters.

[Mike Havran]

For me, the first really awesome part was the Cliffport chapter and Nale-Elan switcheroo.

[D.One]

Being a D&D player, I really liked it from the very beginning, since things like "I jus' felt really...stable" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html), "I think I just failed a Spot check." (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0003.html) and "I love the smell of bat guano in the morning" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0020.html) really appeal to my gamer humour.

That said, I think the level of awesomeness started to escalate into surprising or badass with things like
"YOU BROKE MY SWORD!" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0114.html), a direct approach to acceptance tests (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0149.html), and Double Disintegrate Combo (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0186.html).

[Lombard]

I don't think I got turned onto this strip until late 2005 or so, echoing another poster it was by referral from an NWN server I was playing at the time. (That server is still apparently going though I stopped playing around '08).

First gag of the first strip gave me a laugh and I read them all that same day. "DAMN IT!" Heh. Still gets me.

[Pollaxius]

V - "Evan's Spiked Tentacles of Forced Intrusion!"

Trigak - "Wait, what?"


http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0020.html

[FlawedParadigm]

Every time I need to post a link, I have to re-learn how to do it.

Anyhow, I think I went from "okay this is pretty cool" to "I'm going to follow this to the end no matter what" during #75 (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0075.html) - coincidentally still my favourite. The characterisations were solid enough by then for this strip to work, and the characters being self-aware of it was amazing.

[Silferdrake]

The first page that had me laughing out loud was this one (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0014.html).

But the strip that really hooked me up on the series was this one (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0120.html) which was the first time you got to see that there really was going to be this awesome story instead of just D&D jokes in a dungeon.

[kivzirrum]

Well, I started reading in the very beginning of 2007, but I started from the first page and read it all over the weekend (when I finished, he was on somewhere between 400 and 405--all I remember specifically is that I definitely had to wait to see Shojo get bisected, so I had already finished devouring the archive by then). Since I read it all so fast and it was so long ago, it's hard to remember exactly when I realized it was a truly great work. While the D&D jokes were funny to me right away, even if those early strips now seem awkward, I really started to care about the characters right around the beginning of NCftPB, when Roy and Elan emerged as my favorites, but I realized everyone was great.

In terms of overarching story, I think I first had a moment of real, intense excitement following #200, and realized that there was something really intriguing going on with this world around the Crayons of Time strips. The art, I realized just how in love with it I am during the Cliffport arc, and more so during the Battle for Azure City--which, for me, remains the visual highlight of the comic until well into Blood Runs in the Family. I guess OotS became awesome for me during the very first strips, but as it went on I just kept realizing that somehow--it only gets better.

[Burner28]

Since the very beginning.

[truemane]

I think the first OOTS I ever saw was the one where Thog leaps through the window in the Leprechaun costume. A friend of mine emailed it to me because it was so silly. And once I saw it, I went back and went through the backlog.

So I didn't really have time to form an opinion about the more episodic joke-of-the-week format from the beginning. But it was around the time Miko showed up that the story really took off for me and became the star of the show.

[JetpackJimmy]

Personally, for me it was Miko's fall, and then the Dark V arc.

Thinking about it, if I were to introduce someone to the comic, I'd start with WaXP, as Book 1 and 2 were just....eh. Book 1 was honestly enough that if I wasn't like, ten, when I started reading it, I would have put it down.

Book 3 kicks off the awesome and the writing we love the Giant for, Book 4 makes things get REAL and really feels truly grim, and Book 5 kicks off a war for the very nature of storytelling, with hints of social justice, deep characters, beautiful art, and a villain unlike Xykon's whimsical monstrousness, Nale's obsession (Which the book really highlights), Kubota's scheming moustache-twirling, or even the unspecified plans of the IFCC.

On my original topic, Miko's fall takes a character who kind of existed as a love-interest for Roy, and then was sort of discarded (In the unfortunate tradition of many narratives treating Asian women). That was Book 2, anyway.

Book 3, and we get her as an unhinged vigilante, and she characteristically preaches honor while slaughtering an old man once she takes her judgmental attitude into the realm of madness.

BADASS.

The writing even more so!

[RighteousWarior]

Personally, for me it was Miko's fall, and then the Dark V arc.

Thinking about it, if I were to introduce someone to the comic, I'd start with WaXP, as Book 1 and 2 were just....eh. Book 1 was honestly enough that if I wasn't like, ten, when I started reading it, I would have put it down.

Book 3 kicks off the awesome and the writing we love the Giant for, Book 4 makes things get REAL and really feels truly grim, and Book 5 kicks off a war for the very nature of storytelling, with hints of social justice, deep characters, beautiful art, and a villain unlike Xykon's whimsical monstrousness, Nale's obsession (Which the book really highlights), Kubota's scheming moustache-twirling, or even the unspecified plans of the IFCC.

On my original topic, Miko's fall takes a character who kind of existed as a love-interest for Roy, and then was sort of discarded (In the unfortunate tradition of many narratives treating Asian women). That was Book 2, anyway.

Book 3, and we get her as an unhinged vigilante, and she characteristically preaches honor while slaughtering an old man once she takes her judgmental attitude into the realm of madness.

BADASS.

The writing even more so!

You know, you're on to something there. I find myself reading books 3-5 WAAAAAY more than 1-2. I dunno why, but the characters and world felt more fleshed out in 3-5 and the humor was more sophisticated. I also loved the way Rich is using naught but simple stick figures and two-color backgrounds most of the time, and yet you actually feel the story taking you into these places. It's amazing.

So, if we pit the first two books against each other for title of least-read book, book one wins. I rarely ever open my copy of Dungeon Crawlin' fools, except when I feel nostalgic.

Book Two is an all-time classic to me. It might not be as entertaining as 3-5, but it takes themes that everyone knows and uses them in ways you'd never think. I absolutely ADORE the wooden forest arc and the segment where they thought Roy was the King of Somewhere. Those two parts alone make it almost just as awesome as WaXPs.

My most-read book is going to be Blood Runs in the Family. I read and re-read it in my browser ALL. THE. TIME. Seriously. Rich outdid himself with the character of Tarquin. Easily my favorite character in the series, despite being a total mean meanie head.

[Ranzear]

When I started reading Xykon in Tim Curry's voice.

[Shining Wrath]

Awesome?

O-Chul and MitD. "I know what you are ... You are a good man".

stuff happens

ESCAPE!

That was where I thought things went from "this is interesting" to "we have characters worth caring about".

[TerrickTerran]

comic 80 with the appearance of the Almighty Banjo.