For the intents and purposes of this stopover however, I'm thankful to HNTRAC for introducing me to LinT by Colby Purcell. Sometimes, even in guest or parody strips, you can tell that you already will like the comic that person creates.
There are a lot of webcomics on my daily reads that I read for various reasons. Some I read out of habit. Some I read for the story. Some for the art. And some I read because they're just so much fun.
This is the panel that had me falling off the bed laughing. I think the cream of the joke here is that it's being told with such a straight face. Note the banana in Xylic's hand..
For pure unabashed fun and comedic gold, LinT probably comes the closest to dishing out that brand of irreverent humour I loved in Elf Only Inn (Sortelli, Sortelli... Wherefore art thou, Sortelli?).
The story is a madcap parody of the usual fantasy cliche of a motley bunch of heroes on a quest to save the kingdom from the threat of an evil overlord...blah blah you know. In this case however, we quickly realise that the quest is barely of any significance (A McGuffin, if you prefer).
The whole point of this comic is just to have fun following the misadventures of the Sangwine's Merry Little Band and their rivalry with the other band of 'heroes'. When you throw a pansy elf, a sock-stealing thief, and irritable empath, an amiable orc and a midget dwarf. (Yeah you heard me correctly... midget dwarf) together, things are bound to be interesting.
And boy it is! I won't spoil any of the stories or jokes by repeating them, but I will say it was this page when I realised how much I liked this comic.
The art, while starting out a bit rough (sketchy pencils and some use of cut-and-paste) rapidly smoothed out and the recent colour strips now look nothing short of yummy. I especially love the covers of each chapter (which are based on classic paintings, I think), I hope Colby keeps drawing them!
In short, while the main reason why LinT ranks so high on my favourite webcomics list is because it's so infectiously funny, the other is that it's also fun. There's no agenda to reach one gadzillion readers, no 'I'm going to make the Keenspot lineup by year so-and-so', no 'I want to make this work so I can quit my dead-end job and go full time'.
Just the pure intent of creating a webcomic to enjoy, and for people to enjoy.
Goodness knows, we really could use more of that nowadays.
