Welcome, one and all — to Sword & Sarcasm, a fantasy webstrip by, well, us, John Jackson Miller and Chuck Fiala.
We've known each other for a long time — Chuck illustrated many of John's Longbox Manifesto columns for Comics Buyer's Guide, and one of the Standard Catalog of Comic Book volumes. We've both been active in comics for a lo-o-o-ong time (some of our other stuff is here), and we knew we shared many of the same sensibilities when it came to humor comics. We always wanted to do a project together that would bring together some of the screwball elements we liked into a reader-friendly story with a broader continuity — and, now, Sword & Sarcasm is the result.
The strip follows two main characters in our first story arc: Our protagonist, Duke Benedict, is a hateful popinjay; in our first episode, his long-suffering subjects wisely throw him out on his ear. That doesn't stop him from trying to change the equation, of course — which he does by hiring a traveling mercenary to help him reclaim his power. But Herbert the minotaur (or cow — there’s something fishy in his family tree) is more than the simple warrior he seems — and, well, it’s not exactly a match made in heaven for either of them!
"Farce of Arms" is the first of many planned story arcs, exploring the mysteries that have brought the two together. At least at the beginning, we're planning on posting two strips a week — Monday and Thursday — and we have a pretty good head-start to make that happen. Our first update is March 20. We may also have maps and sketchbook posts as well in our blog.
Bookmark SwordandSarcasm.com and check in with our pilgrims' progress!