Okay Geek Farm
WebComic of the Week - Looking for Group
Tyler Maroudas
“Before Lord of the Rings, before World of Warcraft… there were these guys. Their adventures aren’t pretty, but it’s there”, is the brief descrition that aptly sums up Looking for Group. Its author, Ryan Sohmers, and its artist, Lar DeSouza, who also work together on the popular humorous comic Least I Could Do, are a part of Blind Ferret Entertament, a grouping of well made comics. The other comics that are a part of Blind Ferret are fairly popular, but it seems to me that Looking For Group is slightly left out of the mega circle. Which begs the question, “why?” Seeing as fans all over think that the series highly deserves to be thrown in with the other big boys.
Each comic is one page long, about the length of an average comic book page. Each section of the storyline is broken up into an “issue” that has a fairly obvious beginning and close. The storyline itself starts off by playing on fairly standard MMO stereotypes, hence the name being Looking for Group, or (LFG), a common shout-out in online games. Stereotypes like the ominous and violent warlock, an innocent elf, a tough-as-nails female mage, and an evil empire that our unlikely group of heroes attempt to defeat. Even though this all seems like a stale as airline peanuts plotline, Sohmer transitions from this to fully exploring each and every character, and evolving each of them into their core essence, and developing them in unlikely ways, such has taking forever childlike Cale, and making him into a smart and tactical leader. Another example of this is how he takes dark Richard, making both the comedic relief, and a major object of mystery.
