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Archive for lisa
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Lisa Guarding The Knee 5 / Go Live
Well, sorta. If you’re reading this, you know we actually went live in 2005, then again last month for what they called a “soft opening” in Oceans 13.
This is the first “new” strip for people who only got the first round of previews for Lisa. For people who got the second round of previews, this is the last of the preview strips.
This sort of reminds me of when we wrote The Tick’s Big Yule Log Special 1999. It was solicited September for Christmas 1998, but shipped to arrive January 1999, so we could have the cool “1999” for the issue number, all the while, we were writing it in August. I think I saw in Diamond Previews this month that that book is part of a re-issue of a re-print of Tick specials… By the way our editorial for one of The Tick Specials collections is over in Essays under “Arachnida.”
I know it doesn’t show, yet, but Lisa is not going to be a traditional D&D comedy adventure story. Lisa, herself, has a long history as a developing character, and my effort to make her into a comic character has gone through similar gyrations.
Lisa, for those that don’t know, is a warrior priestess of the god of war. But in her first incarnation, she was going to be a gladiator. Then warrior-rogue assassin whose trademark was a collection of earrings such that she might never wear the same pair twice.
In addition to being a D&D character, I’ve used her to model my choices in certain video games. Among them is Dungeons and Dragons Online. There, we used to play in a regular party (yes I know that half my readership right now knows this). What they might not know is that I was considering doing the second Lisa comic series as an adventure comedy with that party of misadventurers.
So, the first samples from the Lisa Notebook are the sample “strips” from DDO Dance Party Adventures.
Vicar was the “other” cleric in our DDO group. He was a halfling (hobbit). And at one point I looked at him and realized his shield looked like the top of a Hostess cupcake, with the drizzled frosting line across it. So, what better deity for a Hobbit than “Hostess”?
This sketch was also tribute to the ads running on the back of comic books in the 80’s, where Spiderman (et al.) would stop the villains by throwing fruit pies at/to them. Unable to resist, the villains would stop to eat the Hostess Fruit Pies, allowing themselves to be captured.
Yeah, her name was a pun. I didn’t come up with her.
She wasn’t our “sneak up and back stab the kobold” thief. Miss Demeanor was the sort of D&D thief whose skill points were all put into disarming traps and picking locks. She would have been very effective at it, if DragonFlame wasn’t so busy finding and “disarming” traps ahead of the party…
Sorry, this makes more sense to hardened players of MMO games.
Our primary secondary primary healer and main support character was a bard. They’re not nearly as annoying as Sir Robin’s Minstrels, but sometimes the support options seemed a little… limited.
Lisa, as a priestess (cleric), could heal. As a cleric of the god of war, thus thinking of herself as the main tank, she usually forgot to. I can honestly say she (almost) never died with mana left, but it was mostly spent on herself. Vicar wasn’t always around. So Lyrisis, the bard, was often our main healer.
If you’re getting the impression this party was a little dysfunctional, you’re understanding why I thought it would make a good group for fantasy adventure comedy.