A Wizard's Quest

The Dungeon: #6

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This Cookie Is Beyond Any of You

The parallels to Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring are obvious and intentional; our wizard is basically Gandalf with 50% more dementia and 100% more fireball. But—to stick with percentages—I’m 99% sure Tolkien included a footnote in one of the appendices that stated Gandalf was late to the Shire because he was chasing ancient cookie lore after getting baked on Hobbit weed.

It’s basically impossible to escape LotR’s shadow when doing anything in the fantasy genre. D&D largely suffers the same fate, in spirit if not in fact.

A Song of Ice and Fire aka Game of Thrones aka George R.R. Martin’s kryptonite, avoids this fate because the fantasy resembles reality. A nice zag but not the best hang. I’ve been enjoying A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms largely because it makes fantasy fun again. Though last week’s episode reverted to the standard formula and left me with that familiar, vaguely depressed feeling in the aftermath. It’s all poop jokes and penis cameos until the swords come out.

If it’s not already clear, our comic takes cues from Tolkien’s classic. Sometimes directly. If you enjoyed this week’s strip, wait till you see our version of Helm’s Deep. True story. The strip is already done.

We suspect we can conduct a brisk business poking into LOTR’s crannies looking for laughs. So we shall.

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