Gunnerkrigg Court, by Tom Siddell. Volume One: Orientation

[rachelmanija]

A paper collection of the first 20 chapters of the webcomic, which is also available for free online.

An oddball, inventive steampunkish fantasy set in a bizarre boarding school, combining tropes from… well, basically everything ever, but most prominently the English boarding school story and world mythology.

A rather peculiar girl, Antimony Carver, who grew up in a hospital where she hung out with all the psychopomps who came to escort the spirits of the dead, is sent to a boarding school in which students build robots and bring the Minotaur to class to do a presentation on himself, counsel ghosts on the best methods of terrifying unsuspecting students, and have romances end tragically when one of them turns into a bird.

Somewhat surreal and often funny, this reminds me a bit of the earlier volumes of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. At first I had a hard time with the art, especially the bizarrely angled heads, but it improves as it goes along. By the end of the volume, I liked it a lot, and the characters and story as well. I’m having a hard time describing this, but I enjoyed it and will read the rest online rather than wait for the next volume to come out in print.

Thanks to the multiple people who recommended this.

Gunnerkrigg Court

Comments

[yeloson]

Yeah, I really love the series, it took awhile for me to get into it, but the creepy magic stuff got me and the fun use of deities.

[boundbooks]

I love this series! There are so many neat twists and turns, and the art does improve startlingly over the course of the work.

[movingfinger]

I love this one. The writer, Tom Siddell, is giving us beautifully nuanced characterization---all shades of grey---and has an excellent sense of narrative timing---not just timing within the story, but timing of the reader's experience with a thrice-weekly web serial. It's not dragging like some webcomics, and it's not speeding past the interesting stuff either.

[skygiants]

But I like this so much better than even the early volumes of Sandman, because competent, adventurous teenaged girls are infinitely more relevant to my interests than broody, manpainy godthings!

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

It seriously gets better and better. The only problem is that once you're caught up, it's only 3 days a week!

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

It just keeps getting better. Volume two exists in print format, by the way; three should fairly soon.

[jennifergale.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm so glad you like Gunnerkrigg Court. :) It really is a fantastic comic...I've been following it almost since it came out and have been consistently impressed.

[opheliastorn.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you like Gunnerkrigg Court! And it keeps getting better and better - including the art, which I guess you'll have noticed if you've flicked past the latest pages on the website.