Guilded Age

Oh hey, y'all. Been a while since I busted out my comics blog, but there is a thing that has been preying on my mind. Specifically, Guilded Age.

Now, GA has been something of an enigma all along, because it has seemed at times like different chapters were advancing out of order. Which is to say, each chapter was advancing in order, but we would get pages from different chapters. Which was odd, but I was okay with it, because it seemed like an interesting narrative device.

Then, recently, it was announced that the artist was departing the project. I cringed greatly, because this has been the death of some good comics in the past, especially game-oriented comics (Cheshire Grin is an excellent example). On the other hand, how many artists has Least I Could Do been through? So it's not inherently bad.

The thing is, and this is kind of surprising in its way, the story has changed hugely since the new artist took over. I say "kind of surprising" because you'd think the story would be the most consistent part. But anyway.

First of all, it would seem that all of the characters have died. All except the jerk who wandered off early and seemed to only exist as the comical reason the good guys didn't get the fabled weapon of prophecy for their quest. And now said jerk is the focus of the story that's taking place in the fantasy world. This is never good.

Except--and this is key--the other storyline currently progressing seems to be revealing that the fantasy world is an MMO, and the characters we've been hanging out with all along are actually the characters of people playing the MMO in some sort of full-immersion living-in-a-tank fashion.

And man, I just don't know. On the one hand, this explains some of the anachronistic insanity that's been pouring out of some of the characters' mouths. On the other hand, I always took that as comic relief. But basically what it comes down to is this: Is Chapter Nine really where you want to introduce a massive conceptual change? I mean, this changes everything, no? Eight chapters in, I don't know how comfortable I am with that.

Now, I'm not saying "it doesn't work." I'm fascinated by any device that actually works better after killing off 90% of the established heroes. And I respect that it is one ballsy sort of move. But man, I just don't know.