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If you aren't familiar with the Order of the Stick, the great thing is that you can go read all the strips for free, since it's a webcomic. Go to http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript, check some of them out, and then come back here. (#34 is one of my favorites.) Even on the Web the strips are full size (700x900), in full color.

The Order of the Stick is the humorous adventures of a typical D&D 3.5e adventuring party. The team roster consists of Roy the smart fighter, Durkon the dwarven cleric, Elan the useless bard (aren't they all?), Haley the greedy but cute rogue, Vaarsuvius the ambiguously gendered elf wizard, and Belkar the insanely homicidal halfling ranger. Whether they're casting "Evan's Spiked Tentacles of Forced Intrusion" on an attacking chimera or being hassled by WotC lawyers because they're fighting what looks suspiciously like a mind flayer, their travels to defeat the lich Xykon are hilarious.

Why buy the book, if it's a free webcomic? Well, for one, the book is beautiful. 160 pages of full 8"x10" glossy color on heavy pages and good binding. The graphic design is top flight. There's a foreword by James Wyatt and 15 bonus strips and striplets not available on the Web site, as well as random commentaries from Rich Burlew, the artist, detailing how he came up with the characters and plotlines and suchlike. And you can read it on the can.

The book is self-published by Burlew and for sale only on his Web site, which is strange to me - this is such a great book, higher quality than any of your average Dork Tower, Nodwick, etc. collections, that I'm surprised it's not under distribution. I feel like I got a lot more for my $25 than with pretty much any comic paperback purchase in the recent past - when's the last time you got anything that was 160 pages of full glossy color for that?

So, normally with my reviews I'm a bit more restrained - but in this case, I am telling you you need to buy this book. It's funny, pretty, and pretty funny.