Open scene on a lovely forested field. A young elven hunter, Cale’anon Vatay, emerges from the trees, backlit by sunlight and accompanied by butterflies and deer. He declares his intention to become a great hero and help the distressed, only to shortly thereafter be accosted by an evil warlock who, in the span of a few panels, completely desecrates everything that Cale believes in.
Welcome to Looking for Group.
Looking for Group, or LFG, follows the adventures of Cale, a member of a generally evil race who is trying to make good. His efforts are generally thwarted, however, as he falls in with a less-than-savory crowd which includes his pet panther Sooba, who tends to attack him more often than his enemies; Benn’Joon, or Benny, an orc priestess in trouble with the law; and Krunch Bloodrage, a tauren with brawn and brains to spare.
However, the most powerful and entertaining member of Cale’s band is Richard, an undead warlock who basically kills anything that stays in range long enough. In the first few pages alone, Richard incinerates a rabbit to explain the concept of “evil” to Cale, causes Cale to kill an innocent bystander, and blasts Cale into a small pile of ash which he then bags and carries around with him. The creators of the strip have even made an animated short called Slaughter your World, where Richard basically narrates his destruction of an entire town to the tune of The Little Mermaid’s “Part of Your World.”
This mismatched foursome is bound together in search of the Sword of Truth, which Benny must retrieve to free herself from her debt to Aelloon, a commander in the king’s army. The Sword is an epic weapon which supposedly arms its wielder with the magical power of anger. Richard, annoyed by the concept, immediately produces the “Fork of Truth,” and claims he is unstoppable because he is armed with his anger... and his fork.
The strip is written by Ryan Sohmer and drawn by Lar deSouza. LFG was spawned when the two were hired out to do a once-a-month MMO/gaming comic. They ended up falling in love with their creation and made it an independent project which they filled to the brim with their love of fantasy and sci-fi. Sohmer and deSouza have worked together before on their webcomic Least I Could Do, which is updated six times a week and has been published since 2003.
The storyline of LFG is just that – a story. While many webcomics follow several simple storylines, LFG is composed very much like a graphic novel, with one overreaching plot which unfolds further and further with each strip. This results in an intricate and clever story which gradually reveals more and more about the world and its inhabitants as time goes by.
Sohmer crafts an eloquent and expansive storyline by drawing inspiration from sources such as the works of Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind and video games like Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. The dialogue is very effective for such a complex world – Sohmer uses enough to make sure readers are tuned in to what’s going on, but not so much that they’re left drowning in text.
LFG’s art style is epically beautiful. DeSouza uses a traditional comic book layout in conjunction with attentively detailed artwork to create an aesthetically vibrant and elementally clean strip. Everything from the backgrounds of the strips to the characters' clothing is drawn with relentless attention to detail, thus creating a stunningly intricate world which makes the strip stand out among other webcomics.
Article comments
1 - Mel
Really good review. I haven't heard of this one. I gotta check it out.
2 - Amanda Bittle
I'm not generally a fan of either gaming or comics, but I do have a severely WoW-dependent ex-boyfriend, so I managed to pick up some of the humor. Pretty funny.
That elf guy has some serious ears.
3 - simon
fanboy review!
4 - Roey
No offense to the writer of this detailed review, but it's a bad webcomic. I enjoy reading other webcomics, such as Order of the Stick, The Noob and Erfworld, and LFG doesn't even come close to their level.
The humor is anything BUT subtle, except when it can't be understood at all. There is no real characterization, and you can't sympathize with any of the characters. The story line has long ago lost any meaning it had.
In the bottom line, the only redeeming quality of this comic is the amazing graphics. I just wish they had a decent writer, who could put it to a better use. Take a look at what Rich Burlew does in Order of the Stick, to understand how much the story is important, even when your characters are drawn as stick-figures.