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Øyvind Thorsby writes webcomics. Also draws them. His comics are marked by logical action puzzles that just keep escalating, excelent writing with regular typos, evolutionary biology and a drawing style that will bleed out your eyes while growing on you, and general insanity of a batshit quality, which might qualify his works for outsider art, but don't take my word for it. He updates on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Transdimensional Brain Ship This one is about a guy who gets an experimental chip on his brain that lets him talk to versions of him from parallel dimensions. It has just started as of this writing, but seems more grounded on situational comedy rather than fantastic situations. We'll see how it goes.  Hitmen for Destiny is complete, so don't worry about getting invested and hitting a narrative wall. It is a modern fantasy comedy series about a pair of Hitmen (for Destiny), the destiny they are trying to protect and the biology of monsters. If the art repels you make sure you persist until Dr. Lostclock appears.  Lies, Sisters and Wives is a short story about the value of lying that would have made the Bard Himself proud. Also complete.  The Accidental Space Spy tells the story of a regular present day Earth guy who is mistaken for a space spy and goes on to meet weird aliens, with well-thought evolutionary reasoning on how their society evolved from their biology. It is finished as well! ZearothK fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Apr 2, 2014 |
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Sep 16, 2012 11:27
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ZearothK posted:If the art repels you make sure you persist until Dr. Lostclock appears. Yes. Yes to the nth degree. The art of Hitmen for Destiny is unappealing at first, but by the time you get to Lostclock, not only you'll get one of the chillest characters in the universe (under most circumstances), the art will fit the crazy monsters Thorsby drew. It's really amazing. toanoradian fucked around with this message at 12:03 on Sep 16, 2012 |
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Sep 16, 2012 12:00
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I love the imagination in the monster designs in Hitmen. Not necessarily how they look, because Thorsby's art is loving atrocious, but how they have bizarre, kind of surreal environmental relationships and symbiosis with other monsters. It reminds me of something I can't quite put my finger on, not quite Fantastic Planet, but sort of similar. The absurdly convoluted play outs of the character's lies and deceits are usually just as good as the monsters. I think the only time reading through it that I got irked at something going over the post and not being clever any more was the "locked in the closet" sequence on the boat
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Sep 16, 2012 13:54
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This guy KNOWS how to write a Comedy of Errors. What's more impressive is that Hitmen for Destiny had a clear path that it followed throughout its run. If I were writing that comic... Man, I wouldn't be able to wait however many hundred comics before writing the whole invisible castle thing.
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Sep 16, 2012 14:52
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I dont think its fair to call Thorsby's art-style "atrocious", its kinda crude yes, but its also really unique and fits well with the doorslamming slapstick comedy of his.
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Sep 16, 2012 14:53
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Loved the first two. Caught up on the third a couple days ago. What I love the most about Accidental Space Spy is every time the characters land on a new planet. They (and you) always have to figure out just what the hell is the deal with the new alien race(s) they encounter in order to get them to cooperate, trying to puzzle out why they do what they do before there is a brief evolutionary biology lesson that explains it. And even after that it's pretty funny what happens. Funky art style or not, these comics are all solid gold for the writing alone.
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Sep 16, 2012 15:40
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This guy's stuff reminds me of Monster Killers. They don't have quite the same level of surrealism, but the world design is similarly detailed and interesting. There's a similar self-awareness that is rather appealing.
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Sep 16, 2012 15:46
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It's been about a year since I first read Hitmen for Destiny. It took a bit to get started, and I was sad when Lostclock died, it was still good. I wish Fusk and Vorte had gotten some kind of real comeuppance. I haven't read the other two. Are they on par with HFD?
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Sep 16, 2012 15:48
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The second is pretty short but really funny; the third is very different, but definitely on par. And I actually really liked how Fusk and Vorte didn't die at the end. They were the kind of villains (but not really? Just really self-interested?) that you actually liked. Seeing them jet out to another dimension at the end just made everything really funny to me, like how Jmyre was rescued by his mom. So many unexpected endings.
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Sep 16, 2012 15:53
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I like that in the end Fusk and Vorte turn out alright. They were really the tragic heroes of the whole thing. The comic started with them making one mistake and the story is really just about how that one mistake can snowball into a catastrophe.
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Sep 16, 2012 17:10
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I really need to start reading The Accidental Space Spy. I read HFD a couple months ago when it was first linked in the TGT thread and fell in love with it. I think I'll watch this thread to remind myself to read it.
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Sep 16, 2012 17:36
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This is seriously one of the best webcomics I have ever seen, even with the art style
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Sep 16, 2012 19:53
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I am a huge Thorsby fan, having found HFD last year. Every goon needs to read HFD.
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Sep 16, 2012 21:29
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It was the boat storyline in HFD that finally did me in. After that I had no reservations. This was surely one of the greatest things ever written on the face of the internet, and its author worthy of a beer should I meet him.
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Sep 16, 2012 21:34
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Rulebook Heavily posted:It was the boat storyline in HFD that finally did me in. After that I had no reservations. This was surely one of the greatest things ever written on the face of the internet, and its author worthy of a beer should I meet him. Also the most civil mexican standoff ever. Especially when they started discussing game theory in a roundabout way, I lost my poo poo.
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Sep 16, 2012 21:35
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Yeah, the TGT thread directed me toward Hitmen For Destiny a few months back and I absolutely couldn't stand the art style at first. When it started getting interesting I just really didn't care about the art anymore. I'm caught up with Accidental Space Spy now and it's actually grown on me quite a bit.
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Sep 17, 2012 01:31
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I'm on Hitmen for Destiny right now, and I don't see anything wrong with the art style. It's crude but more or less consistent, which makes it no different from South Park, Home Movies, or anything else. It's easier on the eyes than the Dark Knight Returns.
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Sep 17, 2012 04:01
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Did Hitmen for Destiny remind anyone else of the nightmarish yet adventuresome dreams you used to have as a kid? Like, something absolutely horrendous will happen, but then 15 minutes later it kind of resolves itself and you just never want it to end.
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Sep 17, 2012 05:02
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Just finished Lies, Sisters, and Wives. It reminds me a lot of Neil Simon's play "Rumours." I'd love to perform it on stage.
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Sep 17, 2012 06:59
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The art style was kind of hard to look at at first, but it's grown on me. The copy/pasting can be obvious in spots (any scene where the characters are standing in one spot having a conversation) but I really don't care. The world building for Space Spy has consistently been interesting. It's fun seeing how the various alien races and ecosystems were the end result of some minor event in a species' natural or culturally affected evolution. The explanation for why the Srunners sometimes stood upside-down came way too late.
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Sep 17, 2012 08:34
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I did a marathon through a good amount of Hitmen a few days ago. I'm starting to get lost at the part where Anette goes on a goblin-killing rampage inside the invisible castle, but this comic is still loving hilarious, the insanity never ends and it's hard to stop reading. It was slow at first, but it was the building fight with the acid-spewing portal frogs that sold it for me. The fights are definitely the best parts of the comic for me. They're so dynamic that you never really feel that you're being dragged along, no matter how long they go on. Zotwoz fucked around with this message at 09:05 on Sep 17, 2012 |
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Sep 17, 2012 08:37
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I'm glad to see a thread about Thorsby's comics so we can discuss them without bugging people in the TGT thread. Over the weekend, I got caught up with The Accidental Space Spy, and while it has yet to reach the heights of Professor Dripkettle's angry rant about why ghosts are bullshit, it's easily my favorite ongoing webcomic right now.
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Sep 17, 2012 10:06
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Yeah, after chewing my way through a good chunk of Hitmen and a few chapters of Accidental Space Spy, I can only echo the general sentiment. His comics have amazing concepts, generally good (and some great) writing with some sloppy typos, and very amateurish art. It's a very pleasant surprise all around. Guess you shouldn't just a comic by it's cover - or the first few pages, for that matter - either.
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Sep 17, 2012 14:43
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Waffnuffly posted:The second is pretty short but really funny; the third is very different, but definitely on par. You know, my favourite bit of the entire comic comes right at the end when you find out about Jmyre's con He was my favourite character by far and it was really great when it all came together.
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Sep 17, 2012 15:06
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 That is all.
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Sep 17, 2012 15:09
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A thing about HFD is if you know Norwegian it has some small fun details, like for example you can see "RBK" spray painted on a wall which is the acronym for a popular Norwegian football (soccer) team. And also the names, Vorte means "wart" and Fusk means "cheat/cheating"
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Sep 17, 2012 15:29
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Farmland Park posted:A thing about HFD is if you know Norwegian it has some small fun details, like for example you can see "RBK" spray painted on a wall which is the acronym for a popular Norwegian football (soccer) team. And also the names, Vorte means "wart" and Fusk means "cheat/cheating" Are the things that the monster in the dream sequences says Norwegian too?
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Sep 17, 2012 16:00
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Nope, that's pure nonsense.
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Sep 17, 2012 17:48
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There is a spot in HfD where Norwegian turns out to be the language of magic, though.
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Sep 17, 2012 18:23
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Rulebook Heavily posted:There is a spot in HfD where Norwegian turns out to be the language of magic, though. Vorte and Fusk talk about the Language Fiend, who Rolf Rust is destined to kill. He's been controlling and altering the Finnish language so that its everyday use includes various magic incantations that strengthen him and give him soldiers. Some cool good wizards have been introducing good spells into Finnish over the years to counter the Language Fiend. I loved this whole thing because it's explained in one comic and really never touched upon again. It's some insane worldbuilding just for fun.
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Sep 17, 2012 19:12
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I loved the explanation for why everyone could speak English in TASS. It never even occurred to me until the characters brought it up. 
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Sep 17, 2012 21:07
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Sindai posted:I loved the explanation for why everyone could speak English in TASS. It never even occurred to me until the characters brought it up. I just figured it was a Hitchhiker's Guide babel fish kind of thing going on. The actual explanation caught me off guard and was really great.
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Sep 17, 2012 21:16
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If you are wondering what the reference is when Anette is singing about Rasputin and the Russian queen... I'll just leave this link right here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmjdZKfumEI
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Sep 18, 2012 03:33
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I read Hitmen for Destiny way back when it was linked in the TGT thread and it's absolutely amazing. Once you get past the simplistic art, it's honestly one of the best written and thought out webcomics I've ever seen. Same thing for Lies, Sisters and Wives. It's obvious that the author has a long, detailed and incredibly convoluted plan for how everything is going to work, and the way he chooses to write everything to reveal that plan bit by bit is amazing. Plus all the bizarre evolutionary biology stuff where he goes on ten-comic long tangents about why the creature about to kill them all is the way it is and how it evolved to be that way, are amazing and hilarious all at once. The Accidental Space Spy is also really good, though I have to be honest and say that I appreciate these comics way more when I can read dozens of them in a row and stop when I've had enough than when I actually have to read them as he releases them. And I have nothing against the art. Many, many people have very little artistic talent but I'd much rather read these stories in the webcomic format (especially necessary for all the bizarre creatures) than have him just try to express everything in words, which would be impossible and probably incredibly boring. What would be amazing would be if he teamed up with some really talented artist who can't write to save his life, and the two could create the greatest webcomic of all time.
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Sep 18, 2012 04:07
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vyelkin posted:And I have nothing against the art. Many, many people have very little artistic talent but I'd much rather read these stories in the webcomic format (especially necessary for all the bizarre creatures) than have him just try to express everything in words, which would be impossible and probably incredibly boring. What would be amazing would be if he teamed up with some really talented artist who can't write to save his life, and the two could create the greatest webcomic of all time. I actually feel a little bad when I read these comics, because his writing is so ingenious but the presentation format (a simplistically drawn MSPaint word comic) feels like its kind of wasting his writing talent and guarantees that it won't be anything more than a niche thing that people discover on the internet. I really hope he gets discovered and is able to create something for Adult Swim or something equivalent like that, or at least is able to form a partnership with a talented comic artist. bbf2 fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Sep 18, 2012 |
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Sep 18, 2012 08:19
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bbf2 posted:I actually feel a little bad when I read these comics, because his writing is so ingenious but the presentation format (a simplistically drawn MSPaint word comic) feels like its kind of wasting his writing talent and guarantees that it won't be anything more than a niche thing that people discover on the internet. I really hope he gets discovered and is able to create something for Adult Swim or something equivalent like that, or at least is able to form a partnership with a talented comic artist. Yeah, his comics are very much diamonds in the rough right now. If he had a talented artist and a proofreader on his team? Instant classic. Little Mac posted:Just finished Lies, Sisters, and Wives. It reminds me a lot of Neil Simon's play "Rumours." I'd love to perform it on stage. That too. It would really make a wonderful stage production. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 12:59 on Sep 18, 2012 |
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Sep 18, 2012 12:47
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Little Mac posted:Just finished Lies, Sisters, and Wives. It reminds me a lot of Neil Simon's play "Rumours." I'd love to perform it on stage. Dominic White posted:That too. It would really make a wonderful stage production. I knew I wasn't the only one. It'd be absurdly easy to do as well, it literally only takes place in one room.
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Sep 18, 2012 14:44
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The artwork didn't really matter one bit to me. The basics are all there, despite not being refined enough for some of you. He conjures unique environments, ridiculously well designed creatures and human emotion really effectively. The first thing I really noticed about how effective the art was; the grin on Anettes face as she kills loving everything. There have been plenty of very pretty and very lovely games and movies. The story carries all and it doesn't matter what it looks like. People will be reading this stuff for years. 
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Sep 18, 2012 15:43
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I haven't read the others at all, but I think Hitmen for Destiny's art does a really, really great job of supporting the madness of the narrative. The particular sort of insanity and surrealism that it has wouldn't be totally present if the art weren't so sloppy and unrealistic. Thorsby might not be good at drawing in any other context, but HiD's art absolutely does what comic art is supposed to, in that it works well with the writing to enhance the reader's experience. Plus, even if everything else is poorly-drawn, the facial expressions are always on point.
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Sep 18, 2012 16:07
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I'm all caught up on TASS and dying for more. Trying to figure out the little biological quirks of a new planet's species is a surprisingly fun puzzle.
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Sep 18, 2012 17:08
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