Annotations Every Day - Written by T Campbell & Flo Kahn - Illustrated by John & Jason Waltrip
Guilded Age
The Saga of the Working Class Adventurer – New comics every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday!
Shaderunners
Alex Assan, Lin Darrow
A ragtag band of bootleggers open a speakeasy for bottled colour in the greyscale city of Ironwell.
Wilde Life
Pascalle Lepas
Oscar decided to rent an old haunted house, and that's when things got weird...
Hazy London
Scotty
A story about messy relationships. From friendly foes to crazy families. Nothing is black and white, just full of color. But, all colors can get a little hazy...
2 Slices
RJ Morel
After a case of mistaken identity, will awkward Daisuke find help from excitable Mamo, or will his love life be thrown completely off track?
Solstoria
Angelica Maria
After her brother goes missing, Samantha vows to become a Knight and help those around her in the Kingdom of St. Helena.
Wychwood
Varethane
When Tiara's pyrokinesis is finally noticed, she is captured by a magical research organization for study. If she cooperates, she could be helping to save humanity from a dire threat - but can she trust them?
Atomic Robo
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener
The robot punches monsters and bad robots and one time he was a cowboy.
Lighter Than Heir
Melissa Albino
A young Volant woman joins the military in an effort to upstage her war-hero father.
Folklore
Adam Ma, Colin Tan Wei
A superhuman horror story focused on a small band of survivors trying to navigate a war-torn world in the aftermath of the Federation’s collapse.
Spinnerette
Krazy Krow, Rocio Zucchi, Pablo Rey
When a lab accident gives Heather Brown spider powers and six arms, she does what any midwest comic geek would do: Become Ohio's #3 superhero!
Fairmeadow
Kendra P. / KP
A wayward soldier finds herself in a pacifist commune deep in the wilderness of a war-weary land. Living in isolation brings her closer to those she was sworn to kill than she could ever imagine - but also threatens to tear the place apart.
Awaken
Koti Saavedra/Flipfloppery
Superpowers, monsters and conspiracies. Piras, the spoiled Dameschi heir, fights to recover his identity after becoming a terrorist!
Demon Studies
Miyuli
Four students summon and study potentially dangerous demons within the walls of the mysterious Summerland University.
The Lonely Vincent Bellingham
Diana Huh
Vincent is an unkind man looking to disappear, and finds himself in the care of a vampire and her two wicked children.
The Witch Door
Anni K.
Katariina Lehto discovers her neighbor is a witch called Jousia Muotka. Jousia introduces Katariina to the strange people and places beyond the witch door...
Come Hell or High Water
Jenny/Star, Mori
Prince Gladimir was never meant to fall for a pirate. Swearing off love for duty, the threat of war propels him back into the Captain’s world of high seas and high stakes. Their relationship could be the thing to save the kingdom of Yvoire - or destroy it.
No End
Erli, Kromi
A queer romance about people attempting to build lives in a cold, post-apocalyptic world ravaged by hordes of undead.
Lunar Blight
Studio CARTRIDGE, Laura Lee
Lunar Blight is a gothic horror story about an elite knight serving a moon cult who must choose between upholding his honoured duty or condemning everything he’s grown to know.
[un]Divine
Ayme
A highschool senior thought giving up his soul for a demon was a good idea. It wasn't.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Goblins
Ellipsis
A fantasy RPG as told through the eyes of the low-level monsters.
Clockwork
Chikuto
Cog Kleinschmidt is a diligent, quiet worker at the Mercia Fortress, the world power's leading stronghold. His orderly life is thrown into chaos when an enemy kingdom sends a diplomat for peace talks. This diplomat needs something from Cog - whether he agrees to their terms or not!
Monster Pulse
Magnolia Porter Siddell
Four kids run afoul of a creepy secret organization's experiments, which turn their body parts into fighting monsters. Part sentimental coming-of-age story, part monster-training shonen manga, with just a bit of sci-fi body horror.
Sunshine Boy
Moosopp
New-kid Kelly is sweet but naive. Luckily, he's got his outgoing neighbor Grey in his corner.
The Otherknown
Lorian Merriman
Chandra is a 12-year-old accidental time traveler with a reluctant new dad, who happens to be a member of a feared galactic crime syndicate.
Demon's Mirror
Harry Bogosian
Based loosely off of "The Snow Queen", a story by Hans Christian Andersen, we see things take a different turn as the demons become central characters, and the side characters stick around. Yup, that's the only differences. Enjoy!
Between Failures
Jackie Wohlenhaus
The low stakes adventures of an assorted group of 20 somethings trapped in the declining years of American retail. They are naughty and say lots of swears.
Patrik the Vampire
Bree Paulsen
Patrik loves to knit, bake, and help his friends while dealing with his own demons... like his thirst for blood because, oh yeah--he's a vampire.
Whomp!
Ronnie
A depressed, portly, hirsute anime fan stumbles through life in the ever-pursuit of chicken nuggets and other life-shortening indulgences.
El Goonish Shive
Dan Shive
WARNING: This comic often ignores the Laws of Physics
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Go Get a Roomie
Clover
Experience the queer journey of an upbeat hippie and the friendships she makes along the way! A tale of self-discovery and love of many forms.
Obelisk
Ashley McCammon
In 1908 New York, a young woman struggles to put her life back together in the wake of her father's death - until she discovers a vampire in the shambles of her inheritance.
Killjoys
Flatw00ds
When two disgraced ex-feds fall backwards into trouble with the clown mafia, getting out in one piece is gonna be no joke!
Far to the North
Allison Shaw
Kelu turns to the monsters of her remote mountain home when her family is held hostage by outsiders.
How to be a Werewolf
Shawn Lenore
Malaya Walters was bitten by a werewolf as a child. After being raised by her human family, she faces the chance to learn what being a werewolf is really like as an adult.
Anacrine Complex
Sae Cotton
A superhuman heist involving probably too many pigeons than entirely necessary.
Heart of Gold
Eliot Baum, Viv Tanner
A pianist with failing eyesight seeks out a priest with a miraculous healing touch, drawing him deeper into a world of miracles and curses.
Girl Genius
Phil Foglio, Kaja Foglio
In a time when the Industrial Revolution has become an all-out war, Mad Science rules the World...with mixed success.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Tove
Severin
The end of the world is coming, and Tove doesn't want to be a hero, but SOMEONE has to look after her little brother.
Real Science Adventures
Brian Clevinger
Spin off stories and other adventures from the world of Atomic Robo!
Star Trip
Gisele Weaver
Jas is a human taken from her home planet on a trip across the galaxy she will never forget.
MASKLESS
kickingshoes
In a world where people can wield the magic of elemental Masks, all Ashe wants to do is help. Maskless and useless, with dreams of fire and smoke on the back of his tongue, he finds himself on a strange, dangerous path to uncovering the secrets of these incredible objects, and the source of the monsters plaguing his home.
Countdown to Countdown
Velinxi
Iris Black is a self-proclaimed inventor with the curious ability to bring his drawings to life, and yearns to find a space where he can use his powers freely.
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
Sam & Fuzzy
Sam Logan
Troubled by gangster rodents, lovesick vampire stalkers, or confused ninja assassins? Don't panic! Sam and Fuzzy are here to help. (For a reasonable fee.)
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Drugs & Wires
Mary Safro, Io Black
Dan used to be a VR operator until his brain got fried by malware. Now he's stuck delivering packages in a post-Soviet hellhole all while trying to adjust to his new life and find some answers.
Knights Errant
J.R. Doyle
Wilfrid's humble quest for revenge becomes bigger and bloodier by the day.
KISMET
Jaki King
As interplanetary war threatens the Perseid system, a scientist ventures to the far reaches of space in her search for the truth: is humanity the master of its own fate, or is destiny truly inescapable?
Guilded Age is co-written by T Campbell & Flo Kahn, and illustrated by John Waltrip. Site design by Samantha Kyle. Fonts by Blambot.com.
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Privacy Policy
Guilded Age does not claim ownership of any of the corporate branding that appears in this comic, nor does it claim any affiliation, partnership, or endorsement of any kind.
They are used strictly as an artistic choice for the set dressing of the comic.
They are used strictly as an artistic choice for the set dressing of the comic.
Aww yeah. This is gonna be good.
I’m pumped up for this
I can just see it now. “I didn’t pick that option! Why my character doing (insert task) ?)”
Or
Attack the NPC.
Why? For kicks and to prove you Player Character isn’t turning sentient.
Lets see how long it takes for Shanna in insult everyone in the room for being gamers.
‘to insult’
The awkward greeting didn’t help but in her defense, a hitman for a gaming company just tried to kill her.
“I wonder what led him into THAT profession…”
*sidelong glare*
Given her previous track record? Probably about three pages.
Pages? I’m going with panels.
Pft, I scoff at your lack of guts and go with words !
Shanna Avatar is not amused.
Also, Xan looks much more disgusted.
Xan knows this household is Alliance scum. He’s ready for anything.
Penk is alright.
Would be funnier if it turns out Xan is playing HAMMERHEAD.
I’ll be shocked if she hasn’t insulted them by the end of Monday’s comic.
Aaaaaaaw yeeaaaaahhh!!!
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–9XVCxh4z–/691910602160022853.jpg
It’s like walking into some kind of depraved coven of nerdist degenerates. Have you people ever had air? Where have you buried all the bodies you’ve haxxored?
Uh-oh….is it about to hit the fan again?
This time the shit stained fan is going to hit a whirlwind.
Shoulda put my lack-of-a-shit-elf reference on this thread first, darn it
Tornado hitting a port-o-potty.
Every municipal waste treatment plant and every industrial hog farm shit lagoon dump into the Great Red Spot of Jupiter? (Go big or go home, yo.)
Jupier’s Great Red Spot is actually gone now.
Source?
MichaelHaneline may be referring to the fact that the Red Spot has been shrinking for a while now, and if this continued, it will disappear (note the future tense) within the next couple decades. Perhaps MichaelHaneline read a poorly written/edited article which made “Give it a few more years, it’ll be gone” seem more like “It’s gone! Definitely, sincerely gone, right now!”
I say it’s about damn time that storm calms down…Constantly observed since 1830 & may even be the same storm as first seen over 350 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Red_Spot
Big enough to engulf 3 whole planet Earths and people on the coastal regions complain about the piddling storms here…
Dorothy & Toto don’t even come close to a comparison…
wtf I was jus thinking, “It time to go 2 Sepia land” One page. It’s already spellbinding.
They can read your mind.
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh
Interesting
This can only end well.
DANIEL. Focus. Fireball. At Iwatani’s head. RIGHT. NOW.
Bad idea- 20ft radius.
The ends justify the means! -buttonmashes-
Nah, just use Minimize on it and take a reflex check:)
wow, that is an ironic avatar change. bandit did not pass her reflex save…O.o
We all know she’ll come out okay. See?
After all, she’s had worse. Y’know, being trisected an all…
Triple Bandit Bonus! In fact, Double Triple Bandit Bonus for three different Bandit avatars combined with a tertiary themes comment on the third.
First time I’d seen a Rogue *take* a x3 damage bonus *from* the Backst…er…Front.
Just switch to normal difficulty, no friendly fire.
He’s an adventurer, he can take it.
Sure, but there are likely NPCs and a number of flammable objects nearby.
Oh, and I notice Chrissie didn’t list a certain shit-elf when listing the primary players in panel 5. Even in Sepia world Best gets the short shrift … (I love it)
Okay, I’m the worst guy to comment when it comes to the history of long-running series, but wasn’t Best dead before the secondaries were introduced? She can’t list him if she never knew him.
Well, Bandit might have crossed paths with Best previously, but not during the time the five were together. So yeah, she wouldn’t think to mention him.
Bandit would have known him, but after he died/vanished she probably assumed he quit the game. I don’t think she’s been made aware of WAV yet.
And now for the jarring reminder that nothing you’ve read was worth emotionally investing in…
Or a reminder of exactly how we have no idea how “Offline” works in the whole Sepia/Arkerran dynamic, nor do we know when players are playing, or when characters are play themselves.
Honestly if you’re not having any fun with this, why are you still here?
I appreciate my Grand Marshall Jarvis.
That’s a gravatar win if there ever was some!
Because trolls play a different game than the rest of us?
…Well, THAT’S irony for you.
lol
It’s like it knows.
This was a fairly good hint though. Xan previously described it as “Skyrim +” and now we see some of that interface. From the outside, it seems like the most expansive RPG ever: individual side quests randomly pop up not just for certain player classes, but certain PLAYERS. Long dialogue trees with multiple options for all kinds of NPC’s! No wonder this game gets huge business.
…If you’ve got this far and you still think the Arkera storyline “isn’t worth emotionally investing in” because it’s “just a game”, you’ve not so much missed the point as missed the entire fricken spear…
Oh no!? This fictional world isn’t REAL?
#faints
(Sorry, is that too mean? I don’t intend to be a dick, but I feel that there’s been enough time to either make peace with this creative choice, or decide it’s not for you.)
Uh. That’s also obviously a reply-tree fail. *shrug*
precisely
Except that, even when not played by their players, the Arkerra characters are fully sapient?
Get on the train 39 chapters in, or quit making these comments. Back in Chapter 9 (page 4) I would understand why you would say that kind of stuff because it’s kind of a shocker at that point. But here, at this point, after all that’s happened, stop complaining, please.
Gr8 b8 m8 I r8 8/8.
See, I’m being respectful towards you by assuming that you’re just trolling.
Really? We’re seeing the plot about the people who have developed real friendships with each other through their roleplaying, linking up with the plot about how the struggle within Arkerra is literally a life-and-death struggle.
It seems to me this entire story is about the significance of the emotional investment in roleplaying.
Well yeah, it’s not real. It’s just a comic strip!
Wait, what?
If you seriously don’t like the Sepia segments I actually get that (annoyed me for awhile for similar reasons) and my suggestion is to JUST SKIP THEM. Take a break from the comic when it goes there, easy no?
Really it will be some time before the segments truly impact the ‘main story’ and just a cursory understanding of them (that you probly have by now) would will be enough to follow along when it does. Or just ignore it completely and imagine your own reasons for the behavior of the characters. This reading experience is yours and no one else’s. Skip the segments and get a different (not worse) arkerra-only story or just stop reading and switch to material that persuades you to ‘invest’ in the story more.
No one cares which you choose as long as this pointless whining stops.
Are some people, like, contractually obligated to bitch about this every time we switch to sepia?
…
Yes.
Whatever they’re getting paid for that contract, it’s too much.
Daniel doesn’t realise it, but he’s about to choose the dialogue option that triggers the Iwatani sex scene.
“My dialogue tree just went full Renegade.”
Iwatani, “You look like you could use another drink.”
Reply:
A) “Just what I was thinking, I’m not drunk enough to understand this political stuff yet.”
B) “I’d better not, any more and I’ll regret it in the morning.”
C) “I need to sober up so I’ll have … a HOT COFFEE!”
Between you guys and Ardaic, we’d never know that elves weren’t a maritime culture.
This should be a very interesting conversation.
Wait, how would the players know they’re not NPCs?
NPCs generally don’t do raids or story missions with you in MMOs.
They know the Five are real because they’ve run content and roleplayed with them. It’s just that the Five are Hard RPers, they never talk out of character.
I’ve seen MMOs with NPCs in those, but the AI isn’t up to a human player. That said, the whole premise of the comic is that this is an MMO that has become so strong that it’s actually created its own world with fully sapient characters.
The other distinction I was going to suggest, that NPCs are always the same in raids and story missions when they do appear, probably doesn’t apply because they don’t seem to repeat in Arkerra, although that might be because the RPers here don’t repeat content while other players might do so.
The distinction might be in the means by which they communicate. NPCs might communicate with players through dialogue trees, while the Five appear to use the same channels that players use to talk to one another.
Another way is that NPCs are static; they’ll be there largely doing and saying the same thing for everyone who plays their questline. So there would be other characters talking about their experiences with them and entries for them on Arkerrawiki or whatever, not just “Syr who? I think I’ve seen him on General chat sometimes.”
The static nature of NPCs was something I was considering myself, but I’m not sure that it the case in Arkerra. It seems to be a world that’s constantly evolving – certainly, we haven’t seen any signs that events are repeatable. This could be simply that the various players among the guild are at the same point in the timeline and never repeat content because that would be breaking character, but it could also be that the game is one where the world is constantly evolving and the same event never happens twice.
Which would be something that the company would explain by having highly advanced AI and world simulation programs, when the truth is that events on Arkerra stopped actually being driven by computer code some time ago.
I theorize that to sepia world players, it looks like dialogue trees are constantly updating. I’m sure you can’t approach an NPC and have a different conversation every time, but there’s probably like, weekly to daily changes in what they say, often related to current events. Like all the adventurers are noticing the NPC’s in town are becoming more hostile after that clusterfuck of a cultist event. Not so much however as to say “These things are self aware?” so much as “Man, how do they find the time to update this thing so constantly? What a great game!”
This is a distinct possibility, since back when Xan and Shanna first met he was talking as if almost every Akerra-centric chapter of the comic is a named content expansion of the game, which is a pretty stunning number of major updates. Especially since it took six chapters just for the two of them to drive to meet Chrissie and Lia.
Would it really be such a stretch for a RW MMO to hire professionals to play their game as “the Five” full time, and never step out of character no matter what? You know, full investiture in order to make the world seem more real to actual players? There wouldn’t technically be a need for the fully body tanks and magic and stuff. They’d basically be GMs pretending to be players.
To a limited extent, some MMORPGs used to do that: they’d coordinate gameworld events, and would have professional players to participate in those events.
My impression was that, sadly, game companies found these efforts didn’t pay off. Only a minority of players would participate in those events, and most players preferred to go on with grinding for XP and so on. So the trend in game design is to build games entirely around grinding, and not bother with expensive features like coordinated events and professional players.
From the Australian perspective, it also tends to mean that people who have nonstandard schedules often simply miss out. Making content that only runs once also has the problem that you’ve gone to that effort for something that only runs once – content that can be replayed by new players or nostalgic older players is the gift that never stops giving.
If you’ve ever played an online game, there’s always a way to tell the difference between a player and an NPC. In World of Warcraft, the game that Kingdoms of Arkherra is a parody of, players have a different color name and a different icon, and they show up in chat lists, and they can be added as friends and guild members, and different menus show up when you click on them, and so on and so forth.
Ha! The Classic MMORPG fatigue strikes again!
Finally a player realizes that the game is making them a super-star in game Meta and they start whining and complaining about how ~involved~ everything is.
This is why Developers can’t have nice things.
“Oh god, that oxygen over there looks like it’s going to try to kill me. ABORT MISSION. FULL EVAC.”
Ooh, this should be an interesting talk, to say the least! And I’m really looking forward to seeing how the players’ characters will act once they know the truth…
This one page just answered a whole bunch of speculative questions that have been asked for a long time. The primary one being, that the users are not always online when their characters are doing things. It was suspected, but this is confirmation.
This one had already been confirmed by the events around Rachel’s annihilation.
oh yeah, that’s true. Well, I still like this page, okay?
Okay.
:-)
The brooch on Lia’s coat!!
Just a note to all the people that don’t feel “emotionally invested” in Arkerra because it’s “just a game”: either you shouldn’t be reading webcomics, because they are fiction, or you should realize that in the context of this story, the characters in “the game” are just as real if not more real than the characters in Sepia world. That is the literary backdrop for this entire comic: which is more real, the game or “real life”?
I believe it’s called the willing suspension of disbelief. After all, Pride and Prejudice is “just a book,” yet Eliza Bennett lives.
“Obviously I am choosing that option that continues the questline.” Damnit E-Merl!
Finally!
plot twist, he’s playing His Grace Iwatani
Did she just confirm that Bandit isn’t actually one of the main crew? Haha, wow. She might just be an alt!
I’m confused what you meant by this? I just figured Chrissie hasn’t been playing the game in a while in general. Though I suppose you could be right and her main could be Sundar. Or maybe Sundar is the alt and Chrissie has just decided to focus on him more really.
I am not sure what you mean by “isn’t actually one of the main crew” though and I don’t think anything was confirmed in that particular line anyways.
Besides Chrissie not playing Bandit in a while makes sense since we haven’t seen her in the main story in a while.
Nooooo why did this have to be the comic to end my archive binge? Why? Though on second thought I’ve been waiting to see this scene for a (relatively) long time… so I get to find out about it in real time.
Y’know I just realized something that I frankly should already have realized and that would make me want to put up with almost any mishandling of World of Arkerra (except for perma-deleting my character.) Every individual character gets their own story/questline.
Of course if this were true I would have to wonder why gamers and programmers weren’t already theorizing that this thing was made by literal magic.
The only thing that bothers me about Sepia World and Arkerra is that I want to see exactly how the two parallel universes are linked. What is H.R.’s Magic A? How does Magic A connect Universe A to Universe B and C? And I need an explanation for why Carol decided to encourage an already mentally unstable man to imitate several real-life dictators other than that her older sister is probably an uber-hippie and going far-right wing seemed like the best way to rebel as a teen.
E-merl’s soul at work. Nice.
Nice job to T, Phil, and John for the fact that the only color in Sepia-World is the screen into Arkerra. That’s a cool visual cue.