Oglaf Book 1 collects the first 199 pages of comics from the website, including alt text and epilogues, in a festival of fantasy smut and madness. There's also bonus extras, never seen before and printed in internet-proof ink, including Ivan's 'doesn't count' kama sutra -- handy if you love somebody but still need to use them as unicorn bait.
This was so deliciously depraved! The first one shot made me snigger so hard that I think I hurt my throat.
Most of the strips were quite mediocre, but some of them? Comedy gold (if you're into crude humour, that is. I know I am; I have the mentality of a twelve-year-old boy.)
[Edit] Apparently I sound homophobic, anti-gay, anti-sex, or just anti-everything. Here's the review everyone seems to want: I loved this book! It was fan-fucking-tastic it's so awesome it can draw demons out of possessed babies, and cure cancer. It might just be the most thought provoking book of our generation regarding sexuality, self-identity, and the boldness of transforming from an "innocent" young man into a worldly and sexually adventurous adult. I gave it 3 stars because that's as high as I can count.
Now that the sarcasm is out of the way we'll progress to blunt honesty. If you have a problem with this book only getting 3 stars fuck you. If you think my opinion isn't valid, or that yours is somehow more valid or of greater worth fuck you. If you are easily upset and don't want honesty than you should stop reading this and go kill yourself before you have to deal with the real world... and fuck you.
I didn't hate this book. I found parts of it to be quite funny. The story was interesting, and I liked roughly 1/2 of the jokes. I got the other half, I just didn't find them all that funny. The book could have gotten a better score if it had focused more on the story and jokes that were funny rather than trying to cram sex and genitalia into as many scenes as possible. It also could have done better if it didn't portray the emissary (one of the only gay characters) as a complete rapist. Yes I know this was a sexually themed comic and sex would be in it, but that doesn't mean it replaces the need to have a coherent story. If all you want to do is draw pictures of people having sex go for it, but don't try to pretend it has a story or makes sense. Likewise if you are going to have a story that incorporates sex into it, go for it! But don't forget it's supposed to be a story.
The author acknowledges that this book started off as the latter before becoming more of a story, but it's glaringly obvious. There are moments where the story disappears for no reason, gratuitous sex scenes that are neither interesting, nor funny, nor plot advancing, and just a general lack of identity. After having to defend my opinion of this book and actually putting some thought into it, I think it'll end up only being a 2.
Ovaj strip *stvarno* nije siguran za posao! Počinje kada začarani spermić otrči da izda vladarici da je Oglaf masturbirao iako mu je ona to izrčito zabranila. Otad postaje samo čudnije.
No, nije NSFW samo zbog eksplicitnih scena seksa i nasilja u raznim maštovitim kombinacijama, nego i zbog nekontroliranih naleta smijeha koji će sigurno uslijediti skoro na svakoj stranici.
Strip se može besplatno pročitati od prve epizode na službenoj stranici: http://oglaf.com/
Is it funny? A decent portion of the time. Is it dirty? Very much so. Is the art good? I like it and it's in full colour.
So why isn't my rating higher?
Well, I can only read shallow pervy humour for so long before I need something more. Either some kind of overarching story that ties everything together, or characters I can grow attached to and want to follow through the strips. While Oglaf does have a handful of recurring characters, none of them seem to go anywhere or develop in any way. They show up, do something that's supposed to amuse you, and then disappear until the next time the creators see fit to bring them back. I guess the whole thing can be summarized with this: it's sort of amusing, but nothing happens. You can open the book to any page and know just as much, or almost as much, as someone who's read from the beginning. You'll also have the same level of investment in the story and characters.
I get it; the strip is extremely low-commitment and it's meant to be silly, no-brains junk food for people who like dirty humour, but please give me a reason to come back for more. If I'd never read the comic in the first place, or never read a new strip ever again, it wouldn't affect me in any way. It's not as funny as Menage a 3, and it certainly doesn't connect with me the way Go Get A Roomie does - and they're all in the same vein when it comes to genre and audience type. I'd rather read either of those series over this one. And that's coming from someone who enjoys this genre.
There's a couple longer storylines here where things get contrived and weird and really hard to follow - it's really not very good with plot - but the one-or-two-strip sex gags tend to be good.
Dirty, smutty, raunchy, and hilarious. The humour is a much bigger draw than the sex. And there's a lot of sex. Like, seriously a lot of sex. Don't read this if you're at all uncomfortable with sex. Even if you are comfortable with it, you might occasionally be a bit shocked. But you'll also laugh your ass off. The humour ranges from raunchy to slapstick to bizarre. Some of the jokes don't even have anything to do with sex or violence (oh, right, there's also a lot of violence in this book).
Laugh out loud funny, dirty, filthy and full of sex. this was an amazing read! Definitely not something for everyone: if you are even just a little up tight about any kind of sex you should probably avoid this. For the rest of us? This was an amazing read!
Sure, it has a few flaws. But Most of them come from it having been a web comic and are par for that. When you have to pump a story out every week (or more) you are going to have plenty of duds. Plenty of jokes that in hindsight don't make sense, or are just bad. And I know people not used to web comics will really be thrown by the fact there isn't a consistent story and characters are picked up and abandoned regularly, but that is just one of the wonderful quirks of the medium.
Pornographic Fantasy comics are often plagued by a central problem: the writers and artists are trying to take it seriously. Trudy Cooper however writes a narrative that is defined by a central concept: it's porn, have some fun with it. The stories in this book are not about emotional journeys or in-depth character arcs, which is why it's surprising when, as the book came to an end, I discovered that there actually was one. These are stories about a fantasy universe filled with laughable horny people, and rather than being sleazy or gross, this story is fantastic at showing a wide variety of sexualities and reminding the reader that those sexualities, regardless of gender or even species, are something that is ultimately ridiculous.
So laugh it up at the man who ejaculates words or the insatiable snow queen. What's the point of exploring a fantasy universe if you can laugh at people getting laid.
From the webcomic to the printed page, this collection oozes with joy. And other bodily secretions. Utterly pornographic, nothing (legal) is sacred, what happens when reading Oglaf stays with reading Oglaf.
My secret hope upon ordering the first print volume of my favorite webcomic was that there would be extra comics, not shown online, perhaps even explaining what on earth happened to the Apprentice.
There aren't! There are a few pages at the end that aren't found on the website, but that's it. Still, the book was worth every penny I paid for it. One of the extras in particular is wonderful (let's just say, several hilarious drawings of Ivan and Navaan) but really the best thing is that the comics in print are larger than the ones on the website, and so I noticed all the little details I'd overlooked before.
Oglaf is really, really well-drawn. I think it's the only webcomic I've read in which the cartooning style and quality are almost totally consistent all the way back to the beginning of the archive. Trudy Cooper, who has apparently been publishing webcomics since the beginning of Platinum Grit (which I haven't read) in the 1990s, is completely confident in her style. Oglaf has developed slightly since the first strip, but not enough to be jarring when you start reading the collection after seeing the most recent Sunday update.
I am still confused by what happened to the Apprentice, though. The larger pictures have helped me sort out the situation a bit more but I'm not sure I get it. However, confusing things are part of Oglaf's charm -- see Sandoval and the doctor creatures (t'kaa! t'kaa!). And future comics might explain further. (Even if they don't, I hope we see more of Navaan.)
The one drawback to Oglaf is that the creators haven't been completely scrupulous in avoiding rape jokes. For a comic about sex humor, it could have been soooo much worse, but it's far from perfect. Obviously I have managed to forgive it (although there are a few episodes that still bother me) but your mileage may justifiably vary. My impression is that the nonconsenting parties are more likely to be men. Since Oglaf is set in a medieval-fantasy world, most of the situations couldn't happen in real life (e.g. the one with the king who, like Uther, asks the wizard to bespell him to look like a beautiful woman's husband, but then decides it would be simpler for the wizard to bespell himself to look like the beautiful woman) but of course they can still be triggering.
I have no idea if I've finished Book One of this mad-cap webcomic. It's different individual comics that have been put together in this book. A lot of them carry on from previous pages but are mixed in here and there to break them up. It's proper crazy at times, funny at others, and admittedly I didn't get some of them.
I'm sure I'll keep reading it at some point but my rating wont change.
In the words of my good friend, I haven't seen so many cocks since I sold my chicken farm (he used to organize gay orgies there). On the one hand, admitting I've read this will bring shame on my family. On the other, it creates a credible paper trail about being someone who appreciates this as an aesthetic art-form rather than titillation, for when I die and they find donkey anal fisting searches on my computer (Baudet de Poitou donkeys obviously, I'm no degenerate, I only like fancy asses). I assume there is credibility even if you came for the porn but stayed for the content.
Reading this on the net was actually nicer because of the hovertext and pithy title comments which were often really good. If only it worked like imgur and the side-arrow worked to scroll next. The characters start off really interesting and since we're here for the character development and th e jokes, it was a bit disappointing that the main universe-building stagnates considerably in favor of spin-off enterprises that are much less unique, taken straight out of a D&D manual without any twists to the tropes of barbarian, rogue, warlock, ranger and paladin. The few times the fantasy tropes are actually turned around, they work effortlessly so it really made me wonder why it wasn't done more often. I guess it's too easy. But not-twisting the tropes is easier still so..
All the men look like Flynn from Tangled. All the women look different, well their faces at least.
Oglaf is one of my favorite webcomics. Not because it's smutty, although it is, but because it's really, really smart. One of the first few comics, which was totally G-rated, dealt with The Fountain Of Self Doubt, and those occasional weird one-off gage about fantasy tropes kept me coming back week after week, through cum sprites, fetish humor, and some wonderfully unspeakable eldritch horrors.
While the collections are absolutely, no-fucken-way, kid friendly, they are more than just sex gags or gross out humor. I will occasionally get sidetracked by life and forget to read Oglaf for months, and it's always a pleasure when I remember and try to go back to where I "lost my place".
I bought the first four volumes from Topacato recently, and I'm excited to experience the whole series over again without having to stare at a screen for hours.
If you enjoy smart fantasy humor that doesn't just hint at naughtiness but bends naughtiness over and pegs it while an eagle uses lazer vision to destroy its mistress's enemies than this is absolutely a series you shoul dive genetalia-first into.
Simply gross. At times I had to hold back with all my might not to destroy this book while reading. It's just basically a parade of genitals and nothing more. It's neither funny nor sensual. It's just a shallow pornographical content with some poorly executed plot which serves as an excuse to draw all these obscenities. It pretends to be comical, actually more comical than pornographical (although you may have serious doubts counting all these penises and vaginas), an attempt at which it fails terribly, because it's simply too vulgar, cheap and nasty instead. I couldn't find even a one single stripe which could at least make me pretend to smile, let alone laugh. If you can find any trace of humour (which is a great challenge), it's mostly extremely childish - quite a paradox for an "adult comic". Potential jokes are in very bad taste.
Raunchy and lewd comic with a lot of fantasy tropes and archetypes. I found the majority of comic strips to be extremely witty/funny. Some were so-so, others I didn't get at all. The story with Ivan was entertaining, but could have been better. Some of the best parts/skits I liked were one offs or only a few pages long. Definitely recommended to anyone with a sense of humor.
Amusingly lewd fantasy webcomic. This first collection covers most of the material from when Oglaf still had a pretence of a central ongoing storyline. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/201...
Recopilatorio con las primeras 200 páginas de Oglaf. Cómic erótico y de humor en un mundo de fantasía: elementales de lefa, fuentes que te convierten en un pibón, libros mágicos que se te follan y vainas de espadas que gimen. Todo tontísimo y pornísimo. Un diez, claro.
Oglaf is hysterical and a gorgeous, erotic, ridiculous, eyebrow raising comic. Not safe for work, perhaps, but absolutely worth putting on your bookshelf regardless!