Looking for Group is actually a popular MMO-themed web comic.  It's popular enough to have it's own hardcover collection and apparently an animated feature is in the works. But I read this collection without knowing any of this, only discovering these facts after thumbing through this volume in an afternoon.

Success stories like this -- a free online comic being published in hardcover -- aren't common. I can think of only a handful that have made that particular leap but considering the "inspiration" material stretches from Lord of the Rings to World of WarCraft it shouldn't be surprising since the potential audience for this specific

comic is so large. (Subscribers to World of WarCraft is north of 10 million.) But if you keep your eyes open and you have a little pop culture knowledge there are plenty of other references outside those two sources.

The comics are all available for free online so the hardcover needs to have a draw outside of simply being a book. Well, apart from

introductions and some sketches in the book that you won't find online, if you want to save your $15US (or less) just flip through the pages online at lfgcomic.com. The cover and pages are of good quality; I know this because the book spent a week in my 10-year old's room and emerged nearly unscathed. (The fabric bookmark was hopelessly frayed.)

Like a lot of web comics, aside from the Half-Life 2 inspired Concerned, the humor is hit and miss from page to page though I imagine that response has to do with investment in the characters. The principle players are the elven hunter Cale'Anon Vatay, the straight man to the undead warlock Richard. Krunch (the tank), Benn'Joon (the healer), and Pella (the engineer) round out the main roster.  For a web comic, there's a surprising amount of character development throughout the book, but some of the callbacks to previous comics (found in the first collection) lost me until I went through the online archive to catch up.

I like the fact there's an overarching story -- uncovering a plot, girding for a massive battle, Star Trek-like tribunals -- and it's not just a collection of unconnected situations. It demonstrates a level of planning on the writer's part even if some of the actual dialogue is actually pretty silly.

As I mentioned, it's a pretty quick read but I was amused and it didn't feel like I'd wasted my time reading it.  Maybe the best indicator of my opinion of Look for Group was that I've been keeping up with the latest comics online; a recommendation to be sure.

- Aaron Simmer

(January 8, 2010)