Who is Rocket Llama? "The world's oldest webcomic - since 1916." Tongue-in-cheek tales of a high-flying llama, a sword-swinging cat, and a rocket as loyal as a cowboy hero's horse. With time traveling cavedogs, a persnickety penguin, and surprise parodies of Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, and more. Creators have presented their work at Internation Comic-Con Comicon International in San Diego, California, with Danny Fingeroth (The Amazing Spider-Man, Dazzler, Superman on the Couch, Disguised as Clark Kent), and WonderCon Wonder-Con in San Francisco, California, as part of the Comics Arts Conference a.k.a. Comic Arts Conference; and Wizard World Texas, the Wizard World University Texas academic meetings in Arlington, Texas, near Six Flags Over Texas, with Phil Hester (Green Arrow and Clerks with Kevin Smith), Jason Henderson (The Sword of Dracula, Dracula Wars #1), Ben Templesmith (30 Days of Night with Steve Niles, Fell), Jacen Burrows (Crossed with Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis), Ethan Van Sciver (Green Lanter).
Keywords: Webcomic webcomics cartoon cartoons all-ages family entertainment comics comic books comic strips sequential art quirky humor funny furry fun anthropomorphic animals satire comedy science fiction fantasy historical history pseudohistorical pseudohistory.

 

The Force Underwhelming & News from the Tundra

 

It’s been a bit of a slow week, internet wise. Rock Band 2 hit the shelves and immediately rocked so hard that copies of the game flew off, as if some unseen undulating rock rhythm was calling them home.

The rumor mill ground out that some blizzard employee said that more people are working on Diablo III than Starcraft II. Some have taken this to mean that DIII will hit the shelves first. I think it just means that SC II is closer to finished. I mean, there’s some major playable demos of SC II floating about the gaming conventions as of late, so I find it hard to believe that it’d be pushed back by the big D.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed also hit the shelves this week. If you recall, we previewed this title a few weeks back ala our trip to Comic-Con. Well, unfortunately it looks like the game is a pretty mixed bag, with much stronger bad than good. I am officially bummed at this, as I was seriously looking forward to playing this game.

Now, for the meat of our article: Wrath of the Lich King news! The Warrior has been seeing many major overhauls as of late, and I thought I’d run you guys through them.

 

MEET THE WARRIOR


Here’s the talents and abilities that are changing the Warrior as we know him/her. More war, less filling!

Protection- Shockwave. Now, I haven’t personally dinked around with this bad boy, but this move one of many new flavor moves for tanks to make tanking more fun and solo play more doable. Shockwave fires off a cone of destruction, dealing damage and stunning all who oppose the mighty warrior. This is great news for prot warriors, as they can fly solo now without having to take twice as long to kill an enemy as say, a rogue.

Fury- Heroic Leap. Heroic Leap was a buggy, bizarre, and really cool ability wherein the warrior would leap through the air and smack the bajeezus out of his target. Unfortunately, this lil move has been deemed too buggy and has gone the way of the dodo. So sad. Instead, Fury warriors now get-

Heroic Fury- Removes immobilize effects and refreshes intercept. Pretty much only useful in PVP. I think it’s pretty lame, but that’s partly cause I thought Heroic Leap was so cool.

Titan’s Grip- You can dual wield two handers. Yeah, that’s right. Two two-handed weapons, just like the ol’ Barbarian in Diablo II. The only penalty is a 15% miss chance on all your moves, but who cares? You get ridonkulous stats from these bad boys, and let’s face it you look just plain cool.


Arms: First of all, Arms has a major emphasis on both Execute and Overpower, trying to make it where those abilities have new, special situations that allow you to use them. Groovy. But wait, what new ability to the Arms people get? Well-

Bladestorm- This bad boy pulses aoe weapon damage once a second for six seconds while you move around like a whirling dervish of death.


This is one of the few abilities that made me flat out feel like a God, and I immediately decided to spec my own warrior arms once Wrath hits.

So there you have it, some of the most major highlights of the warrior. What all will be different about them by the time Wrath hits the shelves? Who knows, but I know for certain that it’s gonna be pretty friggin’ cool.

 


-Alex L.

 

© 2008 Rocket Llama World Headquarters, LLC. All rights reserved.

The Ongoing Adventures of Rocket Llama[1] is a webcomic starring "a high-flying llama, a sword-swinging cat, and a rocket as loyal as a cowboy hero's horse."[2] Created by Alex Langley while he was a student at Henderson State University, the comic first appeared in a comic book titled The Workday Comic. For the Workday comics anthology, a spin-off of Scott McCloud's 24-Hour Comics, comics creators each wrote and drew their own eight-page stories in eight hours in April, 2007, on Friday the 13th[3], which turned into an ongoing publication.[4]  Co-presenting with comics author and scholar Danny Fingeroth (Dazzler, Spider-Man, Superman on the Couch), the creators described the webcomic's evolution as members of a Comics Arts Conference panel at 2008's Comic-Con International in San Diego, California.[5][6][7]  Contents [hide] 1 Debut  2 Webcomic  3 References  4 External links      [edit] Debut The full title of Rocket Llama's debut story in The Workday Comic #1 (spring, 2007) was "The Ongoing Adventures of Rocket Llama #112: 'Trouble in Paradise'".[8] The story introduced the taciturn hero Rocket Llama and his talkative sidekick, an anthropomorphic cat named Bartholomew Meowsenhausen, who find themselves stranded on an island after a battle with an enemy called Jetpack Dog. Spherical islanders capture them and then challenge them to combat. A villain named Böwser vön Überdog arrives with Jetpack Dog and, in a sudden Star Wars parody, summons a giant robot known as the Super Robot Dog Walker which blasts a volcano to bits. Before it can fire a second blast, Rocket Llama destroys it by getting it to swallow a pot of water and backfire. The story ends with Böwser tied up and the heroes using the giant robot dog head as a boat to get themselves home, with the promise of the next story to be titled, "Yuck! Yukon!"[9][10]  Whether despite the original story's childlike art or because of it, the Rocket Llama story proved to be the most popular in the 2007 anthology collection of the eight-hour comics.[11] After comic artist Stephen R. Bissette, an instructor at the Center for Cartoon Studies and comic book artist best known for his work on Swamp Thing with Alan Moore, read all of the stories in the first volume of The Workday Comic, he remarked, "That llama's gonna stick with me."[12]   [edit] Webcomic Nick Langley redrew the story with a less childlike drawing style in webcomic form for online publication[13] as the flagship title for the website rocketllama.com which grew into an affiliation of websites featuring webcomics, art, entertainment reviews, and scholarly studies of comics.[14] The online story featured a new cover[15] and omitted a one-page gag, a preview for an unrelated Stealth Potato comic, which had appeared as an intermission in the middle of the original story.[16] The original story also appeared online as the comic's "ashcan copy."[17]  The authors present the Rocket Llama stories metafictionally as the world's oldest comic book, established in 1916, which they allegedly rediscovered and are adapting into webcomics. "Deep underground, in an archaic vault we searched until we found the fabled tales. As both the current production team behind The Ongoing Adventures of Rocket Llama and appreciators of such groundbreaking literature, we have taken it upon ourselves to restore these classic issues to a glory more befitting a modern, digital age."[18]  Although every "issue" is presented with panels and screens in the correct order for each story, the issues are presented out of order as if readers were discovering old issues of a classic comic book in a seemingly haphazard order, however they come to find them. After the redrawn number 112's online publication came the serialized time travel story #136-137, "Time Flies When You're on the Run," appearing one page at a time throughout each week.[19][20] Special Rocket Llama Says bonus features appear only in "ashcan" form drawn by the original creator.[21]   [edit] References ^ Rocket Llama World Headquarters  ^ You are here.  ^ Waddles, Joshua. (2007, April 2). Comic book club puts in a full day's work. The Oracle vol. 99 (25), p. 3.  ^ Beard, Sarah. (2008, August 25). Comic Arts Club offers excitment. The Oracle, vol. 101 (1), p. 5.  ^ T. Langley & R. Duncan, panel moderators, with respondent Danny Fingeroth. (2008, July). "Capes and Tights, Caps and Gowns." Panel presented at the Comics Arts Conference, Comic-Con International. San Diego, California.  ^ Recent and Upcoming Research Presentations  ^ Pannell, E. (2008, July 27). Comic communication part of professors' classes. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, T-1, T-4.  ^ Page 1.  ^ The Workday Comic #1. Spring, 2007.[1]  ^ The Workday Comic - online edition.  ^ Sorrell, M. (2008, April 14).Club produces second annual workday comic. The Oracle, vol. 100.  ^ Quoted in "The Workday Comic: Not Just One Third of a 24-Hour Comic." Comics Arts Conference, Comic-Con International. San Diego, California. July 27, 2008.  ^ The Ongoing Adventures of Rocket Llama #112: "Trouble in Paradise." Script: Alex Langley. Art: Nick Langley.  ^ You are here.  ^ #137-Cover.  ^ Sneak Peak at Stealth Potato #75.  ^ Rocket Llama Ashcan Copy.  ^ Who Is Rocket Llama?  ^ "Time Flies When You're on the Run, Part 1." Script: Alex Langley. Art: Nick Langley.  ^ "Time Flies When You're on the Run, Part 2." Script: Alex Langley. Art: Nick Langley.  ^ e.g., "Tanks a Lot." Rocket Llama Says #8. Script and art: Alex Langley.