Looking For Group Vol.2 fills a fast growing niche of web-based comics lucky enough to take flight in RL. Yes, that’s “Real Life” to all you n00bs. For the die-hard fan, there is nothing more fulfilling than actually getting to flip through your favourite web-comic, analogue style.
Getting to the meat of it, Looking For Group is one such web-comic. What started as a joke by award winning Canadian cartoonists, Ryan Sohmer and Lar Desouza, has spiraled out of control into a fully blown saga spanning over six years.
The series tells the tale of your typical merry band of adventures. There’s Cale’Anon (an elven hunter), Richard (a sadistic undead warlock), as well as their companions Benn’Joon (the half-troll healer), Krunch Bloodrage (a Minotaur-like cow/man warrior) and Pella (the salty-tongued dwarven lady fighter). Anyone who has played WoW (World Of Warcraft) or any fantasy based MMO will notice some recurring themes here.
Looking For Group explicitly makes note of their fantasy/sci-fi parodizing. “We poke heavy fun at everything World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, RA Salvatore, Dungeons & Dragons, George RR Martin, Everquest, Star Wars and anything else we enjoy, derived from Video Games, Film, Television, Books and Graphic Novels.”
Unlike most comics or graphic novels, those uninitiated to ‘Looking For Group Vol.2’ may have a hard time reading this book cover to cover. The might even have better luck starting with Volume 1, or catching up on the entire series on the website, as recommended by its creators. Gaping plot holes render the storyline into a series of loosely held together non-sequiturs and inside jokes. The new reader may be left flipping to the good parts where Richard does stuff like banishing woodland creatures to the 9th plane of Hell, or turning a fruit vendors stock into a horde of baby cobras. Not that there’s anything so terrible about that, our evil mage is a show stealer.
Don’t believe me? Watch the animated viral vid the guys produced and you will understand.
