Guest Author - Lisa Shea

One of my favorite comics to watch for in the mail is Knights of the Dinner Table. This soap opera style strip follows the lives of four gamers. I first saw this comic many moons ago in Dragon Magazine, and now follow it in its very own publication. The series was created by Jolly Blackburn who is joined by Brian Jelke, Steve Johansson, and David Kenser.

It's not about action and adventure, at least of the live sort. Most of the panels simply show the game master and four other players sitting at a table. There are four guys and one girl. Each of course has a very unique personality, and of course the girl is the soft, kind, healy sort of person. For some reason that always seems to happen :)

If you've ever gamed, you can instantly relate to most of the situations shown. The players complain about something the GM's done. The players argue amongst themselves who will grab certain loot. You get the interaction of the real life characters, plus the interaction of the in-game characters they are representing.

The magazine is up to issue #106 - so there's a ton of history here. This is really great for the long term reader, because you catch all sorts of great references to past events, and story arcs go on for issue after issue. You really come to feel these are real, human people with long histories of success and failure that you are a part of.

This same situation can make it really rough for a new person to pick up an issue, though. You probably miss half of what is going on, and would have to either borrow or buy a bunch of previous issues to catch up on the situation and really enjoy it well. This is a case where it'd really be nice to be able to read previous issues for free on the web after a certain amount of time passed, to encourage new people to join the series.

The graphics aren't exactly stellar in this comic :) They're similar to what someone would generate by drawing 2-D people in Paint. Usually there is no scenery or background at all, either. It's not about the characters, it's about the dialogue.

I do have to warn that being 'adult gamers' getting into arguments that there is a fair amount of swearing, although the F word is replaced with other versions such as "friggin'". Some people might find that equally offensive.

In addition to the comics, there are also various gaming notes, such as cool traps to try, character suggestions, maps, and even movie reviews and such.

Well recommended!

Kenzer Co Website