The Order of the Stick is good. It's not mind-blowing, it's not the best thing you'll ever read in the history of whatever. But it's good.
Initially, the comic starts off slow. Like, really slow. Most of the jokes are based around the niche that is Dungeons & Dragons— If you aren't too familiar with the game, most of the jokes are strange at best and a teensy bit incomprehensible at worst. My D&D knowledge is not large. I have played a few campaigns and that's about it. But eventually, it grows out of these jokes. There are also more than a few jokes that come off as impolite and insensitive when compared to modern-day sensibilities, such as the jokes of "haha, what's V's sex/gender" or the entire Gender Belt sub-plot. Thankfully, Rich Burlew eventually stopped making dumb jokes like these because he realized they were impolite and transphobic.
The plot is initially pretty bare-bones. "We gotta kill a lich! Uh oh, looks like he didn't actually die! Let's just dick around until something happens idk"
Eventually, it grows out of this too. The plot, while not the world's most innovative plot in the history of whatever, is quite fascinating. I love the characters, and I would never think the comic would have me intrigued by a simple stick-figure comic. There is an actual sense of depth, and despite their silliness the characters do have realistic motivations and sometimes are blinded by their own personalities and character flaws. A lot of people who claim to be "Driven By Logic" or whatever claim that if they were in Character A's situation, they wouldn't succumb to their emotional desires, but having flaws and depths do add to an element of realism.
It's honestly nice to see how this comic has grown over the years. If you ask me, War and XPs is where the comic picks up. There's actual stakes and growth, compared to how Books 1 and 2 were just kind of... a little surface-level.
Pretty Good / 10
The Order of the Stick is good. It's not mind-blowing, it's not the best thing you'll ever read in the history of whatever. But it's good.
Initially, the comic starts off slow. Like, really slow. Most of the jokes are based around the niche that is Dungeons & Dragons— If you aren't too familiar with the game, most of the jokes are strange at best and a teensy bit incomprehensible at worst. My D&D knowledge is not large. I have played a few campaigns and that's about it. But eventually, it grows out of these jokes. There are also more than a few jokes that come off as impolite and insensitive when compared to modern-day sensibilities, such as the jokes of "haha, what's V's sex/gender" or the entire Gender Belt sub-plot. Thankfully, Rich Burlew eventually stopped making dumb jokes like these because he realized they were impolite and transphobic.
The plot is initially pretty bare-bones. "We gotta kill a lich! Uh oh, looks like he didn't actually die! Let's just dick around until something happens idk"
Eventually, it grows out of this too. The plot, while not the world's most innovative plot in the history of whatever, is quite fascinating. I love the characters, and I would never think the comic would have me intrigued by a simple stick-figure comic. There is an actual sense of depth, and despite their silliness the characters do have realistic motivations and sometimes are blinded by their own personalities and character flaws. A lot of people who claim to be "Driven By Logic" or whatever claim that if they were in Character A's situation, they wouldn't succumb to their emotional desires, but having flaws and depths do add to an element of realism.
It's honestly nice to see how this comic has grown over the years. If you ask me, War and XPs is where the comic picks up. There's actual stakes and growth, compared to how Books 1 and 2 were just kind of... a little surface-level.
That's my review.