Webcomics recommendation: Digger

[trochee]

On a somewhat lighter and less personal note than some of my recent entries, I want to pass on a recommendation I discovered via scans_daily, the Digger comic. (I posted this on del.icio.us yesterday, so read on if you've seen it and don't care.)

I am totally charmed by this comic. It owes a lot to Jeff Smith's Bone, and shares much of its sensibility; in particular, its completely infectious blending of informative, silly, and beautiful. Digger, a wombat, gets lost in a "magic hole", and comes up under a statue of Ganesh, with whom he she [see ETA below] has a metaphysical conversation and then decides to move on.

He She spends the night in an abandoned cave, but when the cave's proper owner shows up (and tries to eat him her) he she winds up making friends in a somewhat unlikely way. Where I am right now, Digger is granting "It" a name. Best dialogue ever:

Digger: Err. Is there something I can call you then?
It: It.
Digger, arms folded: Look, I can't call you "It". It'd play havoc with the pronouns. Can I -- I dunno, give you a nickname or something?
It: A name? Digger-mousie can do this?
Digger: Sure, why not? Um, uh, I'm not good with names. My pet mole was "Mr. Mole" and my fish was "Mr. Fishy." Uh... How about "Ed?"

I might also add that the commentary on each page is also fun; each one is like a blog-entry about the lives of the story teller. From the page linked above:

Like Digger, I am terrible with names. .... (As a small child, I had a goldfish named "And Justice For All" and I think that expended all my naming energy in one fell swoop.)
If I do manage to come up with a scheme, however, I stick to it, which is why my cats are named after gods--Loki and Athena, who are, respectively, absolutely straightforward and affectionate, and dumber than dirt. I learned my lesson. I will name my next cat "Satan" or "Marduk" or something, thereby ensuring a kind, gentle beast who treats my upholstry like a shrine.

I really hope that she keeps up with this quality through the whole thing.

Another lovely linguistics nod to overeducated knowledge geeks in the dialogue:
Digger, to Librarian:Ya got any dwarf maps?
Librarian: Dwarvish maps? God, yes. Every traveller for six centuries brought one back as a cheap souvenir of the Mysterious West. They're all in Dwarvish, of course.
Digger: Er. Do you speak Dwarvish?
Librarian: After a fashion. I can't do the clicks, mind you.

ETA I just finished the first volume of it and I had a lovely Delaney-reading-Starship Troopers moment realizing that Digger is female -- and there's no reason she shouldn't be. Awesome.

Comments

[kirinqueen.livejournal.com]

Digger's author is ursulav. She rules.

[kirinqueen.livejournal.com]

More Ursula Vernon links: Elfwood
Metal and Magic

[bwb-archive.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm in.

[writeanya.livejournal.com]

oh man, me too!

and i've never owned a comic.

where, how, when do i obtain said items? comic store? online? edumacate me! (please?)

[trochee.livejournal.com]

just follow the link to Digger (also above!).

It's great. and you can't find it anywhere but online (well, you can find the first book, but that's all), and it's still FREE online while it's up for an Eisner award (highly deserved, I think!).

[evan.livejournal.com]

But it spontaneously stops right in the middle. :(

[trochee.livejournal.com]

you mean "right in the middle" like 300 pages in?

well, she's still writing! and drawing, too.

serial art form: tricky stuff. I wanna know what happens when they try to convince the shrew troll ex-pirate to cut the rope bridge before the robot bird priests get them too! And is Grim Eyes okay?

(heh, that summary gives away nothing and everything at the same time...)

[evan.livejournal.com]

Clearly, the bigger trolls are gonna come out and kick some ass. This was foreshadowed by the shrew talking about how they're faster/more savage at night.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

agreed. I was looking forward to that.

[evan.livejournal.com]

Hah! There's already another panel up from when I was reading this before. I won't ruin it for you.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thursday morning updates must be Eastern time, 'cause it's still Wednesday night here.

[writeanya.livejournal.com]

well, duh. thanks!

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

Trochee will make you like comics. He just will. It's one of his gifts.
He finds the one that will get you hooked based on your personality and it works.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

yay!

It's my secret superpower.

[lapartera.livejournal.com]

Ok, I'm supposed to be grading papers but thought I'd read LJ first. Now it's an hour later and I'm still reading Digger. I love her!! Great graphics, lovely bits of fact and fiction.

Thanks! I guess . . . .

[trochee.livejournal.com]

mwahahah!

mission accomplished.

[q-pheevr.livejournal.com]

That's quite wonderful! (I had no idea Dwarvish had clicks, though; I guess I had always imagined it as a Germanic language. (Probably East Germanic, if you asked me to narrow it down any further—a mythic missing sibling of Gothic.))

dwarvish clicks

[trochee.livejournal.com]

yeah, me neither!

I figure the clicks are an areal feature from the bat people -- sonar, dontcha know.

[ctseawa.livejournal.com]

damn you and your addictive findings.

damn you, I say.

Here, have some luggage, only slightly used. Don't mind the feet.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

um,

i think that luggage belongs to you. anyway, it keeps following you around. Sapient pearwood, did you say?

heh. I thought you might like this one too.