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.

 

Well folks, the new patch is hot around the corner, with promises of a sample spoon of the glorious ice cream that is Northrend. We’re gonna cram in some news on the classes as much as we can, until it becomes old news when 3.0.2 hits. Until then, it is time for you, dear reader, to…

Meet the Mage!


What’s new about the mage come Wrath time? A boatload of things. Not as large of a boat as some of the other classes, like the shaman. They have more of a cruise ship, and we’ve got the S.S. Minnow. But beneath the small group of changes are some core power changes that are just all around pleasing.

Arcane
There’s a lot of new changes here, both early on in the tree, and towards the bottom. Up near the top we have
Focus Magic- A buff that increases the chance to hit with all spells by 3%, and an additionally 3% for ten seconds after scoring a critical hit. This is a nice buff for any caster in the party, and the fact that an arcane mage could toss a battle buff on someone is quite a new utility indeed.
Incanter’s Absorption- When you absorb a spell, you gain a portion of that spell’s power as temporary spell damage. This, among other arcane talents, really adds to the utility of an arcane mage being an anti-caster caster class.
Arcane Barrage- Arcane Missile’s older brother. This is an instant cast, single target blast of damage with a high mana cost and low cooldown. This is sort of the arcane mage’s Fire Blast, but much less spammable. It’s great for some quick burst damage when mana isn’t an issue. Overuse it, and you’ll be empty faster than a liquor bottle on St. Patrick’s day.

Fire
World in Flames- Increases the critical strike chance of a couple of major spells from each school by 6%. One of the problems with mages is that their talent trees do NOT lend themselves towards hybrid point spending. Lots of people put 99% of their points in the same tree, because the other trees do nothing for the spells they mostly cast. This is one of the new early tree talents to counterbalance that, making sure that once your done with your tree of choice, you’ve still got a lil something to look forward to.
Firestarter- Critical hits from Dragon’s Breath or Blast Wave make your next Flame Strike an instant cast. I don’t know about the rest of you fire mages, but I rarely ever use Flame Strike. Why should I spend time casting a spell when I can instant cast things to death before they even touch me? With this new talent, Flame Strike can now safely slide it’s way into the instant cast rotation, making it a much sexier choice for the mage on the go.


Living Bomb- A debuff that lights a target on fire, and then makes them explode after a chunk of time. Totally awesome. “HELP! I’m on FIRE!” “NO! Don’t run over here you idi-KABOOOOOOM!” It used to have an effect where it would knock people upwards into the air from the explosion, but that has sadly been removed. Too bad, because the thought of launching people skyward with an explosion was too cool for school.

Frost
Fingers of Frost- Any spells with a chilling component have a chance to grant you the ‘fingers of frost’ effect, making your spells against them count as if they were frozen solid. What’s this mean? Well, frost talents and spells grant ungodly damage against frozen targets, so having a target count as being frozen means the target should count on getting its ass frozen to the wall.
Deep Freeze- Stuns the target for 5 seconds. Only works on frozen targets. A deadly new addition to the frost mage’s already formidable pvp arsenal. Stuns are the bane of many classes, as they mean that you are pretty much stuck getting hammered for the next few seconds, or that your opponent has a few free seconds to bandage his or herself. It’s an awesome getaway spell for pve, too. Freeze them, stun them, blink, and get the heck outta dodge.

 

With the move away from equipping gear that boosts a specific element, mage talents are also moving away from providing 0% synchronicity with each other, to the joy of mages everywhere.


Got somethin’ to say? Sling it my way.

-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.