Bog Wizards 2: Rise Of The Elder Gods.
by Rob Jackson
To be honest with you, I wasn’t all that enamoured with Bog Wizards 1 when Rob sent it to me as part of a package that I reviewed a while back, in fact I skipped over it rather in favour of some of his other comics. But with Bog Wizards 2 I found myself warming to his style and came away from the comic much appreciating both his rough artwork and his sense of mischievous writing. It’s all to do with the way he’s created a central character that just meanders through the story on his quest without really thinking, or indeed caring about the trouble he’s causing, leaving me with a smile on my face and wanting to see where Rob goes next.
Bog Wizards 2 does follow on from the first issue, but all you really need to know is that our hero is on a quest to remove a family curse. The hero is neither particularly adept or particularly dedicated and frankly, would rather be doing anything else. In short, he’s pretty useless, selfish and not your usual hero type at all. In Bog Wizards 2 our useless hero sets off a series of misunderstandings and bad decisions all coming from the moment on page 2 when the fool mistakes an Elder God’s beard for a bit of grass and uses it as a toilet. Toilet humour perhaps, but bloody funny toilet humour:
Coerced into freeing the Elder God’s friend from their Time Warp prison but trying everything he can to get out of it, our hero blunders his way into the village where the Elder Gods are held and quickly sets about killing all of the guards and the protectors of the Time Warp prison, ignoring all the obvious signs that releasing these Elder Gods might just be a really stupid idea. But our hero doesn’t care, it’s just not his problem.
And once the Elder Gods are freed, things go about as well as we’re all expecting:
There’s funny stuff all the way through, mostly in the conversations between our amoral hero and the victims of his ineptitude and mistakes, but even in the little asides there’s a great bit of comedy, take the little aside from the villagers as our hero passes through:
“People thought we were stupid to build our village here, next to a portal of unspeakable evil…. We used to get lovely cabbages .. and prize winning marrows”
It’s this lightness of touch and the sometime ridiculous twists and turns of the plot that make Bog Wizards 2 a really enjoyable comic and the growing realisation all the way through this that the hero isn’t simply incompetent, but a lazy, amoral and rather nasty piece of work. Rob even sets up the next comic nicely with our self-centered hero on the run from the final Elder God and leaving a trail of innocents dead in his wake.
One great little extra with Bog Wizards 2 is the Bog Wizards board game; 2 full colour A4 pages, monster cards, item cards, magic cards and full rules included. It’s a nice idea with some very silly pieces: “Pervert Elves steal your shoes”, “Ennui” “You Feel Bored” or “Riddle Of The Sphinx: This is easy as everyone knows the answer, surely. Move forward 3 squares”. Much fun and a nice little extra for your money.
Bog Wizards 2 – Rise of the Elder Gods – is being sold for £4 each, pricey for a small press comic perhaps, but worth it when you factor in the board game and playing cards. Rob’s comics are available from the Forbidden Planet British Small Press shop and from his website (www.robjacksoncomics.com) and he has a blog.
Richard Bruton is off to sally forth on an epic quest to reunite his old friends Mr Gin and Mr Tonic.
Related posts:
- Propaganda takes a trip into The Twilight Zone “You’re travelling through another dimension, a dimension not only of...
- Propaganda takes part in Alan’s War Alan’s War – The Memories Of G.I. Alan Cope by...
- The Devil is Epic. Propaganda takes a look back at Grendel. Matt Wagner’s Grendel is over 25 years old this year....
- Propaganda gets Massacred …. Massacre For Boys Presents: Walking Wounded By Chris Denton &...
- Propaganda on the non-comics of Gareth Brookes Both of these comics from Gareth Brookes are part of...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:16 am
I play bog wizards game with My friend Dougals Nobel. It take us 6 hours to finish!