2 out of 5

In the back of Chaotic Neutral, there’s a 20+ page guide for an adventure in the comic world, adaptable to (I assume – I probably obviously don’t speak the lingo) D&D rules. While I couldn’t quite piece together everything in the guide – the general “story” seemed to have a couple gaps, and though I understand (or think) that the dungeon master fills in some of that, the areas where there were details versus not sometimes felt discrepant – it’s still an enjoyable read. I went through this first because I’m a veggies-before-dessert type: I figured the guide would be drier than the main contents, and that I might not have the dedication to finish it without the comic as incentive, but it’s goofy, and broken up with illustrations and new scenes / areas enough to entertain. Onto the comic!

…Which is nearly unreadable!

I’m not sure if I’m missing something – I mean, surely all the D&D in-jokes, since this is a somewhat bawdy, crass spin on the genre – but if I hadn’t read the guidebook first, writer Mark Sable and artist Chris Anderson do very, very little to establish characters, or motivation, or setting. Pages veritably fly, panel-by-panel, between different scenes without setup (of stakes, of intention; anything), and when panels do connect, Anderson’s choreography / framing is very defeating, with details all presented on a flat plane such that it’s hard to tell what’s supposed to stand out, or when there’s stuff in the background intended as a cue for a foreground action a moment later, but without consistent eye direction or focus… it’s all rather tough to follow.

In general, though, the loose, cartoonish style features some great character designs, and Sable’s world building fuels an underlying belief that this stuff connects, just the actual representation on the page doesn’t directly fuel that. And, unfortunately, every character shares a kind of generally offhand, jerky tone, so the dialogue doesn’t really differentiate folks too much either. From the guide, I know that the story here has a town beleaguered by monsters, and the townsfolk – kind of jerked around by the politicos for protection fees from said monsters – are fed up with that arrangement, and go to do so slaughterin’ themselves.

But again: getting that context from the comic itself is another matter.

The bonus strip from Ryan Browne (admittedly what lured me in) is funny, and vibes more easily with a D&D riffing I can grasp. Sable’s & Anderson’s version may just be too inside baseball for me, and / or the comic is intended to be part of something larger I’m not aware of, but the book simply violates, to me, some basic storytelling concepts.