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!
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
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.
Angel's Orchard
Harry Bogosian
After the events in Demon's Mirror, Gerda has accepted her role as a Demon Hunter, and Cezar has traveled back to the Demon City. Demons have existed alongside humans for millennia, so things begin to return to normal. But an impossibly powerful Relic has been taken by one of the Demon Masters, and a silent war enters its final stages.
Sakana
Mad Rupert
Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
Darkling Bright
Chris Hazelton
Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG.
At least, he was, and that was the idea...
Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
Freakshow
Scotty
A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
Not Drunk Enough
Tess Stone
Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
Barbarous
Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota
A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
Nigh Heaven & Hell
Scotty
Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
Augustine
Winter Jay Kiakas, Windy
August and her ragtag group are just like everyone else, simply surviving in the treacherous Crater... When they stumble into what may be an artifact of the ancient past, their lives are thrown into a much bigger loop as they trifle with bounty hunters, monsters and gods.
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
Little Tiny Things
Clover
What are the little things that move us? The simple joys that warm our bodies and hearts? The micro life of insects that influence our world more than we think? The tiny steps we make everyday to have a happier tomorrow?
Lies Within
Lacey
Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
Novae
KaiJu
A historical romance with a touch magic and a dash of astronomy. It chronicles the romantic adventures of Sulvain, a sweet tempered necromancer and Raziol, a passionate 17th century astronomer.
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!
Ozzie the Vampire
Eric Lide
Ozzie and her best friend Kimmy are your average everyday normal art students – except one is an immortal vampire with superpowers and the other possesses a magic talking grimoire. Also they have to save their town from a demonic invasion.
Monster's Garden
Ash G.
Champion pit fighter Kilo Monster was content to spend the rest of his days tending to his quiet garden alone... until he met a curious robot girl and her human family.
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
Brian Clevinger, Escher Cattle, Lee Black
A troupe of wandering "adventurers" down to their last silver "acquire" a map only to find the real treasure was the fiend they dug up along the way.
The Golden Boar
Magnolia Porter Siddell
A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
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.
The Weave
Rennie Kingsley
A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
Peritale
Mari Costa
A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
Three Panel Soul
Matt Boyd, Ian McConville
It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
The Messenger
indui
In a ruin-abound town cursed with bad luck, Kai and Kalla--a young boy and a fledgling dragonbird spirit--take on a quest in hopes the reward will solve all of their problems.
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.
Discussion (105) ¬
Kiss seen in 5…4…3…
Wow…. with that kind of willpower, sometimes I wonder if he doesn’t have a little bit of Monk in him. Or Jedi. Or both?
and he’s a fighter, maybe a barberyn, he should have nothing for a will save, and he has not shown a high wisdom
Stereotypes aren’t always right. I believe we’ve already seen he’s a bit more than a big dumb ‘zerker.
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What are you talking about he hasn’t shown high wisdom? Have you been reading the comic? Next to Gravedust he’s got the highest wisdom in the party.
I don’t recall seeing any note of which system this comic is using, or if it’s using a game system at all. Really, there’s precious little in real life that means you have to have a dump stat, or that says everyone’s sum total of stats is the same.
It could be Byron just won the genetic lottery, or rolled a high wisdom if you will, and happens to have a strong willpower. Alternately, he could have spent the time he was recovering from physical exercise exercising his wits and vice versa.
Will save success!
And without him muttering, “Must…unnh…fight it,” Silver Age comic book style.
So I see all kinds of “When’s he gonna lose it? We Want Berserk!” re: Byron, but this comic strongly reinforces the impression I’ve had for a while: Byron is not trained as a berserker, he’s naturally one and this fact terrifies him. Remember that scene of the trashed village, with corpses all over? My guess is, he did that as a teen, and when he came to his senses he was crippled with guilt. He’s got “…the Berserker” on his name as a constant reminder, personal mark of shame, not as a job description. He’s spent decades since then training himself to keep his cool, to avoid the rage. And that’s the only reason he doesn’t snap Syr’Nj’s neck in panel three.
Agreed. Berserking, pretty much by definition, is…not good.
Berserking … not good, maybe, but it gets shit done.
That was my thinking too. It doesn’t change the fact I wanted to see him flip out for ages.
As counterpoint, it may be that the slaughter of the village was what caused him to flip out, or that it caused him to flip out and he couldn’t stop even when all the attackers were dead. We can’t say for sure, but I agree with your general point.
Though he does use it as a job description.
I had the feeling the cult is responsible for the whole thing. Like, they were the ones who cursed Byron to become a berserker in the first place. Which is why he hates them so much.
And just now the seer tried to use him as a directed killing machine…
Berserking isnit a CURSE.
It’s a way of life!!!
Clearly you’ve never read some of the grimmer stuff about berserkers. Go, educate yourself, sonny.
He’s pretty hot, though. For is it not said… I am like to making fuck beserker.
You know what other class is not taken seriously enough in fantasy stories. Rogues. Thieves and murderers, every last one of them.
Everyone stop what you are doing and educate yourselves.
Depends on which version of “rogue” you look at. Technically Indiana Jones could qualify as a rogue. Possibly a multiclassed rogue, but still.
Of course, narrow definitions are FTW! (sarcasm button)
I have to say, I wouldn’t see Indy as anything but a Rogue class. He just maxed out his ranks in a bunch of knowledge skills and chose CON over DEX.
He’s got at least one level of barbarian, I think. Indy does have a POWERFUL rage when provoked.
What are you all talking about?? Indy is CLEARLY a 1st ed Monk! He has a little bit of thief skills, and can trigger massive traps but take no damage with a single saving through. He can also fall great distances with no ill effects!
I always saw him as a rogue/swashbuckler myself. Maybe he dipped into fighter, but.
For me, I’ve always encountered Berserker types as either happy violence junkies or mouth frothing maniacs. For me, this will be the first work to deconstruct it.
YEAH THATS why he doesn’t kill humans, it would SET HIM OFF
Kill.
Kill, KILL!
Dear Syr’inj looks adorable vulnerable in that last panel.
She also looks rather…”zonked on fairy dust” in panel 2
She also just got choked by the guy she trusted
No, she didn’t. I think.
I just have one thing to say. Where there is a will, there is a way.
……………….Go on and kiss the girl! Sha-la-la-la-la-la! Don’t stop now! Don’t try to hide it how! You wanna kiss the girl! >.>
At the current 2 strips per arc progression it will be a while.\\- 2 strips on Frigg + 2 on Gravedust * Bandit –
It’s the period that makes the difference:
“Kill” –> doin’ it wrong
“Kill.” –> professionally direct and concise.
Kill?
The expressions in this one are great. The second panel reminds me of sensationalist movie posters or even war propaganda
Also, this would be a pretty good time for the cultist to stick a knife in his back. Just sayin’.
Yes.
I’m curious, who pictures the voice in Byron’s head as his own and who pictures it as belonging to somebody else?
Donald Duck.
Arlo Guthrie.
…C’mon, we already saw Bandit stting on the Group W bench.
…havin fun fillin out the forms and playin’ with the pencils on the bench there?
Wilford Brimley.
It said ‘kill’ not ‘dia-beetus’.
It is Byron’s voice.
The “Kill.”s are in red, red is the color of Byron’s thoughts to himself. I think this is a ‘gimme’.
Still, VERY MYSTERIOUS.
Yep–you beat me to the comment. Ever since Byron’s first appearance, his thoughts have been in red boxes like that. I think I more interesting question, if you would like to discuss the symbolism of speech/thought containers, how about the white-on-black ones he uses before coming to his senses?
I think we can safely say that those are actual noises Byron makes (groaning and the like)
OK, good point, it probably is Byron’s, but in my mind I imagine this horde of angry voices uncontrollably chanting “Kill.” over and over.
I wonder if the cultist a catalyst or a puppeteer to Byron’s beserking.
Yeah, I could definitely imagine a horde of voices–maybe his own, his subconscious/inner voice/whatever, layered and goading him on.
He obviously suffers from Guthrie Syndrome –
And I went up there, I said, “Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL.”
And I started jumpin’ up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL,” and he started jumpin’ up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL.” And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me,sent me down the hall, said, “You’re our boy.”
The Auld Grump
*gets pencil ready for hanging out on group W bench*
My impression is that they are in fact the ones who can trigger his rage. And he was killing her before he snapped out of it. And she just realized why he is called a Berserker. And possibly, she just realized how much she means to him, if he finally managed to stop it before killing her.
Or she just really really enjoyed being choked…
Dammit! So close!
And next time we see them, Syr’nj is smacking Byron upside the head. “What the HELL was that?!?”
Since she may or may not have “heard” all the kill commands.
I mean, for Syr, what did that look like? Certainly she can deduce that the cultist caused Byron’s, uh, outburst, but she’s likely to either demand details (as his physician, you know) or she’s going to be very freaked out and not want him near her for a while. Just in case.
BTW it does not look like his hands have actually contacted her throat, in panel 2, so I don’t think he hurt her. Unless he bruised her wrist when he grabbed her to get her out of there.
Also, where’s that pesky cultist? Syr needs to do science to him!
Byron escapes the cultist’s trap of murderous inTent!
Ooh, a pun in the most unlikely of places. Those jokes just seem to be all the rage nowadays.
cultist = ????
what is a cultist
Someone who’s part of a cult Michiko.
A cult being an organization dedicated to a non-mainstream god, typically very evil ones in fantasy literature.
Of course: define “mainstream.” ‘Cause most assume their deity is.
Whereas those who don’t do deity assume none of them are.
So: good definition, Mutters. :)
No, mate. I’m a lifelong atheist and I still have an idea of the difference between a “mainstream” and a “non-mainstream” god. There’s no clear definition (and it’s obviously a culture based decision), but common sense comes into it somewhere.
Hence the brief humorous jab, rather than a detailed intellectual analysis, shallot. ;)
I’m aware of the difference between “mainstream” and “non-mainstream” cults, too. (Generally speaking: numbers and political influence.)
But I still see pretty much all of them as cults.
A miserable pile of black magic.
They summon monsters that don’t belong in this world.
‘Cause they bad, they BAD, they really really bad
They ain’t no good they don’t do GOOD
They BAD. Shybonk.
By chanting “DRA-AG-GON” over and over again while sitting in a circle . . .
HUGS. Now.
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kiss!
looooooool
That was an excellent will roll.
The obsessive mantra in his head is now “Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.”
-Kill. Kill kill kill, kill kill? Kill kill kill!
-Die die, die — die.
You see, the voice failed because it wasn’t specific. When it said “KILL.” Byron took it to mean “KILL the crazy voice in my head.”
I am also on the side of the people who were hoping for the makeouts.
You’re not alone.
Nevertheless I don’t expect we’ll get a kiss in the next strip. GA is way to unconventional for that. Or is it?
Byron: Damn that Cultist!
Syr’nj: What was his name?
Byron: Bill. We must find him… We must KILL… BILL.
Syr’nj: (reaching into her bag) I have just the jumpsuit… *zziiiip*
(Would make for a bad-ass drawing I must say…)
they held hands! oooOOOooOOOoooh!
One thing you guys haven’t asked yet, what was Syr’nj hearing in her head?
If the Cultist was trying to get them to kill each other, I wouldn’t be surprise to see a dagger from Syr’nj’s Bag-O-Plenty sticking out from Byron side in the next page.
Killing has such finality to it, it seems like there’d be less resistance to less…brutal suggestions. Perhaps the cultist should have started with “maim” or “wound”, or really scaled it down and tried “poke” as a warm up.
This would be called the foot in the door technique! Or wait, was that the low-ball technique? IDK, I DIDN’T DO SO WELL ON MY PSYCH TEST.
I think “poke” might be too vague. I can imagine alot of ways that wouldn’t involve violence at all
Poke. Poke poke poke, poke. Poke poke! POKE! POKE POKE!! POKE!!!
Picturing all the kills in this comic replaced with poke has me cracking up
I love how scared/desperate Byron seems in panel 5–like he’s afraid the Berserk!Blackness will follow him out…
All the repetitions of “kill” make me think that a bard will turn this into an epic verse of Syr’ynj’s Restaurant.
Yeah, I had that same reaction when I first saw The Crawling Eye…
Come to think of it, this cultist’s religious symbol looks a bit like the crawling eye…
My god… it’s a cult of Crawling Eye worshipers… What madness do they seek to unleash upon the world?
OK, this is something I’ve been thinking about that I don’t think anyone’s pointed out yet: There has been some speculation on the meaning of the Cultist’s “fairy dust”–now, is it me, or in the last panel, after Byron and Syr’nj’s exit from the tent, is the background distinctly un-town-like?
Love the comic, guys–I was finally inspired to comments since the comments section is always fun to read. Also wanted to remark that as a former gamer who never liked and rarely played D&D, I’m not reading this in gaming terms or wondering if it’s meant to parallel any actual game–I’m just enjoying it as a good story with some anachronistic/internet/meta humor.
isn’t the background the ripped up tent still standing on it’s poles?
Soo, in just a few pages we’ve had Bandit’s most adorable expression yet, and then Syr’nj’s most adorable/beautiful expression yet.
And pretty darn good story on top of it. I may squee.
Byron: founder of Adrenaholics Anonymous.
In the last couple of comics there have been plenty of “kill, kill, kill”‘s, but no “ka, ka, ka”‘s. Can you have kill, kill, kill without ka, ka, ka following it?
Actually, it looks to me like Byron didn’t actually choke Syringe. If you look at the panels, looks like he’s about to – but he manages to pull his hand back just short of it. So at least there’s that.
Is it odd that I saw the last panel as Byron looking lovingly at Syr’nj and whispering into her ear
softly,
seductively
…
Kill.
Byron: Normally I only choke, the chicken…
Of course, being a warrior at all takes tremendous mental willpower: we saw this with Frigg, to, and her resisting torture so adamantly.
Secondly, someone recommended “training his wits.” While Byron is obviously intelligent, intelligence does not willpower make. There are a huge amount of beta scientists. INT doesn’t equal WIS doesn’t equal CHA.
(And the D&D system has some huge incongruences if you apply it to real life ™, which this comic seems to be using as it’s default platform (save magic). For example, I’m an above-average endurance athlete. This should indicate that I have a high Constitution, right? Well, I’m also very prone to stomach aches and cramps, things that would be easily shaken off by a nice Fort. save. So, you know, odd…)
Holy crap… I just realized, not only did Byron resist his rage, but he pulled Syr out of the tent of doom.
Way to go, man.
The art style from these earlier comics is very cool and stylized. Is it the same artist?
Given how Byron has been acting so far and the flashes of carnage we’ve seen, I assume he sucks at fighting normally, but when he gets bloodthirsty, armies fall at his feet