Warning: This comic contains content that will upset prudes, homophobes, the squeamish, and bosses, as well as cause little children to ask awkward questions to parents who honestly didn’t expect them to walk into the room when some of the images were up on the screen. Viewer discretion is advised, and for the sake of your job, don’t view this at work. Any links I include will initially lead to safe pages.
Normally I tend not to review webcomics that focus on sexually explicit matter. While I can enjoy the artistry of pornographic webcomics, the majority of them tend toward bare-bones stories that lead to chronological depictions of sexual acts. Needless to say, finding something to talk about for four or more paragraphs can be… difficult. But while the fantasy webcomic Oglaf.com may contain frequent depictions of sex, Oglaf.com is first and foremost a humor comic that just happens to have frequent depictions of sex or sexual situations in it. Or in other words, I was able to find something other than drawn depictions of nudity and sex to talk about.
One thing I found interesting about Oglaf.com was its use of serial contiguous storytelling that focuses on a half dozen separate recurring characters and a plethora of other one-shot characters and situations. The Apprentice is very likely the character most often depicted in the comic, with his Mistress and various people in her Court doing their best to torment him by not allowing him to have sex (not even with himself, though he finds ways to subvert that policy). Fortunately for the Apprentice, he’s smart enough that he doesn’t always get tricked by the shenanigans of the Court (I especially enjoyed how he was able to avoid the Door trap).
For the most part there’s little crossover between the recurring characters in Oglaf.com, though the female mercenary who satiates the Snow Queen later shows up in another comic (the Snow Queen actually seems like a nice enough lass but has a problem in that her body chemistry is cold enough to… well, let’s just say there are places you don’t want frostbite. I oddly felt a bit of sympathy for her as she obviously was torn up by the unfortunate side effects that happened if some guy did try to sleep with her (and it apparently was required for spring to come about)), while the Skull King ends up meeting Kronar the Barbarian (who is perhaps one of the stranger characters of the comic, part of an all-male barbarian tribe that even includes all-male barbarian reproduction – don’t ask, I found it most surreal and a bit disturbing to be honest).
To be honest, while the sexual humor is amusing enough, the comic works fine without it. Such work-safe comics as Frog, Sharks vs. Jets, and Northerner show that the cartoonist doesn’t need sexual jokes in order to make the comic amusing. But the real strength of the comic lies with its recurring characters, who not only establish a loose continuity for the comic, but give readers a reason to read beyond simple jokes and situational humor. While I’d enjoy seeing more of certain characters over the Apprentice (and feel some other recurring characters who’ve fallen off the face of the comic deserve more screen time), he does work as the central character fans can root for. Given the content of Oglaf.com, I can’t recommend it for everyone. But if pornography in comics doesn’t bother you and you consider yourself fairly tolerant, then you will likely enjoy Oglaf.com.