T w e n t y S i d e d
I would like to thank all of the following:
Huge thanks goes to Pixy Misa for letting me host my images on Mu.Nu. This was a much-needed resource that came when the comic got too big for my current webhost.
Roxysteve, Scarlet Knight, Carl the Bold, AngiePen, Browncoat, Telas, David V.S., brassbaboon, Deoxy, and all of the other commenters, too numerous to list.I’m not at all ashamed to admit that many times the comment threads were more entertaining than the comic itself. We talked about quantum mechanics, encumbrance, attacks of opportunity, how to convert a d20 to percent, and techniques for breeding Trolls and Balrogs . We’ve had some geeky, geeky conversations. You folks are a smart bunch. Thanks for sticking around and having clever things to say.
Peter JacksonWe’ve savaged his adaptation and nitpicked the book-to-movie conversion to death, but I have to hand it to him that the movies are a gorgeous piece of cinema, wonderfully cast and beautifully scored. After making this comic, I doubt I’ll ever be able to watch them again, but I will give Peter Jackson credit for doing a tough job for a demanding crowd.
Taken alone, the movies are wonderful. The fact that the movies fall short of one of the greatest works of fiction from the 20th century is not a great sin. For us die-hard fans of the book they could have been better, but they could also have been far worse. For everyone. I’m glad they were made.
New Line CinemaI don’t know if they didn’t notice or didn’t care, but I am so glad they didn’t unleash the lawyers and spoil our fun.
Dan, Adam, Chad, John, Luke, and TexThanks for the interview, the great gaming conversations, and for making Chainmail Bikini possible.
Overthinking Zombies
Let's ruin everyone's fun by listing all the ways in which zombies can't work, couldn't happen, and don't make sense.
Video Compression Gone Wrong
How does image compression work, and why does it create those ugly spots all over some videos and not others?
Diablo III Retrospective
We were so upset by the server problems and real money auction that we overlooked just how terrible everything else is.
This is Why We Can’t Have Short Criticism
Here's how this site grew from short essays to novel-length quasi-analytical retrospectives.
Twelve Years
Even allegedly smart people can make life-changing blunders that seem very, very obvious in retrospect.
Thanks Shamus!
Wow looks like this was finished more then two years ago and I only now have found it. This was a great web-comic I read the whole thing beginning to end the same day I stumbled upon it.
I even read a chunk of the comments and had to leave one,I don’t usually post comments either. Shamus thank you. I will more of your site now and have book marked and I will probably even remember the name shamus for awhile and who knows, if the rest of your site is this good I’ll probably be recommending anything made by shamus to all the people I know.
I hope this all goes to your head and you get a big inflated ego, lol. although I’m sure you have gotten even better compliments then this. Lol I even spell checked my comment before finishing hows that as a compliment?
I was just linked to this webcomic… I read the whole thing in one go and it is incredible. Thank you!
a frend showed me this site and the comic was awsom i must admit tho i have been just like those players in the past
Hmm. How come all of a sudden you’re getting comments in 2010? And has anyone that’s found it recently NOT read it in one sitting? Anyways, Awesome, Epic comic and I’m definitely going to see what else I can find here.
Third time I’ve run through it and it’s still far more entertaining than it ought to be at this point. Very-late-kudos.
Because, we’re reading Darths and Droids, which links us here.. or TVtropes… or any of a number of sites!
and it took me 3 sittings (don’t have much of an attention span even for amazing comics).
Also, I’d like to note that this is one of the better webcomics I’ve read; I’ve read quite a lot, too.
My brother, however, would like to garrot you for giving me *new* lyrics to sing along to the camelot song.
Yeah, I was pulled here by Darths and Droids. Which I got pulled to when I was on Tvtropes.org, looking up Plot Armor. I really do love these comics, and I did spend six hours reading this. Great work, Shamus!
Darths and Droids via Epbot via CakeWrecks. Yup. I came from a site dedicated to displaying the worst of the worst professionally decorated cakes.
Cheers.
Same here, Jessie. Thanks, Shamus for a sleepless night of Tolkienian laughter!
TVTropes linked here and made me spend an entire evening reading your comic. Words cannot convey the gratitude I feel. I’ll never be able to see LotR the same way. Never! Now is that good or bad? “Well, there are compensations…”
This was just SOO good!
Thank you soo much.
Since people are necroposting and talking about how they got here… I may add that I got sent here by Tvtropes as well.
Greetings from 7 years after the comic was originally written.
Absolutely hilarious! Read the entire thing in two sittings, and have shared it on FB. Will explore more of your work right away!
p.s. if you’re into online rpg’s, you should really read “The Noob” if you’re not already doing so. Epic stuff!
http://www.thenoobcomic.com
No, it’s not mine or by one of my friends. It’s just great!
i READ IT IN 2 SITTINGS
Well, I’m reading this at work while I’m supposed to be, you know, working, so no I didn’t get to read the whole thing at once; my boss would have noticed. I did have to interrupt the critical tasks that my co-workers were performing a couple of times, though, to share some of the best strips. “Well, we got rid of that annoying wizard guy!”
You, too? Man, I was only informed of the existence of this comic yesterday. It is a FINE piece of internet webcomickery, and it was a genuine pleasure to read one of my favorite fantasy trilogies as interpreted by a windbag DM and a bunch of hapless players. Read it all in one go, too. XD Oops. One of these days, I’ll have to go back in and read all the comments that you fine folks contributed. ‘Til then, though, happy trails, and thank you, Shamus, for bringing us all together. You can DM a campaign for me any day!
4 years late, but… I’m finally done! (I only started a few days ago :P)
Whoa! I really feel like a slowpoke. Yesterday I started reading and end came so abruptly. Great job!
Excellent job! I was getting badgered by my husband to read this, and now I see why. Thank you for the entertainment!
Well Shamus,
We’ll just say that you made your save vs. New Line Cinema lawyers. Thankfully you were able to move the comic to completion. Congrats!
…and thanks for all the fish!
What’s got to be my favorite quotation from that is the six-pack line in the lobby of Megadodo Publications
“No, just a Zaphod Beeblebrox. Didn’t you hear we come in six-packs?”42! also it was hilarious when Arthur tried teaching neanderthals how to play Scrabble, it is also fun to hit people with the hardcover Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, has all five novels and 1 story that are in the trilogy (I just refuse to question the trilogy part)
I, too, doubt I’ll ever be able to watch LotR again without lines about PhP, Tony Hawks and combat rolls, but all the laughs were sure worth it ;) Here’s one reader that will definetely continue with Chainmail Bikini… I’m in so many forums already, that one really won’t make a difference.
Wow, my name in lights! Well, LCD, anyway… ;)
Seriously, Thank YOU, Shamus!
Your sense of humor, passion for the webcomic, and writing have made this a success. Like many, I came for the webcomic, and stayed for the blog. Keep writing and producing stuff like this, I’ll keep coming back.
Thanks again,
Telas
Thanks, Shamus. It’s been a fun comic. I’m already hooked after only one CB so I guess I’ll be seeing you around. :-)
Thank you, thank you, and thank you again Shamus. For the laughs, for the interaction, and for seeing it through.
Oh, and one more thank you, for the line that will stick with me for years to come: The “invisible leather TARDIS.”
By the way, I’ll bet the reason that nobody said anything is that it’s satire, and people are allowed to satirize movies, books, and anything else without infringing on copyright.
Thanks Shamus for all the laughs!
Thanks back to you for doing this for all of us. I can’t even begin to imagine the effort it must’ve taken, just pulling all the screen caps out and keeping them sorted and organized so you could find what you needed when you needed it, much less the actual writing and construction of the graphic story. [boggle] It’s been awesome from this end too. {{{}}}
Angie
Thanks for everything! I admit, I’m still rather sad that your new offering won’t be screencap-based, because you’re so amazingly good at it (and I’m still hoping you’ll put it to good use again eventually)… but that doesn’t mean I won’t still be avidly reading Chainmail Bikini.
You know you want to give it a break, and then start on Star Wars like we all want you to. :p
Shamus, thanks for such an awesome comic. I haven’t really been keeping my site up and running, but I’ll pimp your new comic wherever I get the chance to.
*sniff* They grow up so fast.
Well, I’ll still be able to watch the movies the same way I always did, but only because I already had friends who kept calling out suggested DEX check DCs while Leggomyass was fighting the Oliphaunts. :)
And adding my voice to the chorus of congratulations, Shamus! (Now, if only I could figure out the keyword to search up your videos on YouTube…)
oh no.. thank _you_! I gave a thanks somewhere in the 260s of #144..
Your thanks to Peter Jackson reminded me of a geeky gripe.. Everyone loves his adaptation.. but nobody seems to notice that his script and even his camera angles are almost identical to the animated version done years earlier. Even the casting .. the actors look _a lot_ like those in the animated movie.. it was like Peter just used the animated movie as a story board for his.
Anyway.. I just always wonder why everyone gushes over his adaptation.. yes.. the ordeal of getting it all on film is worth gushing.. but in my book he blatantly ripped off the animated movie.
Wait, doesn’t everyone call out the skill & ability rolls?
In fact, when we went & saw the first movie, within the first few minutes, my husband & I turned to eachother & said ‘someone critically failed his hide check. Is that even possible for a halfling?’
While watching Return of the King, I tried to stop laughing during Denethor’s death scene. But all I could think was WHILE ON FIRE!!!
Wow, I’ve never been publicly thanke for anything. Carl needs to be thanked publicly. :)
Thanks for making such a good comic. Really, past year was much brighter for me because of those laughs.
Are you going to publish a PDF of the comic somewhere, you used to talk about that… I’d download it for sure
Please!
I’m gonna miss this comic, although it made me feel old, it brought back a great many good memories (and some painful ones.)
Many thanks from me
and Bob the Wizard
(My first AD&D character, he lasted 2 hrs – died of system shock when his brownie familiar died)
Good that you gave credit to the source material. It wasn’t perfect, but nothing is. And I agree. The movies were awesome.
Hope you’ll keep making one-shot screencap pinups though. You do them so well.
By the way, I'll bet the reason that nobody said anything is that it's satire, and people are allowed to satirize movies, books, and anything else without infringing on copyright.
You can parody things – e.g. the people who did The Gamers could do a spoof of Peter Jackson’s movies, using bits of the original scripts and imitations of important scenes. But you can be prevented from using the original copyrighted material (vidcaps themselves) and just pasting words over them, as in DM of the Rings. Another example: Mel Brooks could certainly make Spaceballs, but he couldn’t just take a print of Star Wars and dub a parody soundtrack over it.
Frankly, I’d lean more towards the copyright holder simply not having noticed, which means that DMotR might disappear someday if they do.
This is not legal advice.
It’s not just about whether or not it’s parody or satire, it’s usually also about “Are you trying to make a Buck with it?”. Anyone can make a work of parody, and as long as it is freely distributed and avoids libel, you are pretty much free to do as you choose. Charge for the work, and the original copyright holder has an immense advantage in going to court, as that’s “their money”.
You left someone out of your list of thanks. There’s this guy Shamus who, from what I can tell, had a brilliant premise and injected all manner of awesome humor. I think we all owe him a debt of gratitude.
Seriously, thanks for all the laughs! I’m looking forward to many more in Chainmail Bikini.
You can use the original copyrighted material up to a point; the point is based a lot on how much you use and whether it was necessary for the intent.
A few hundred screencaps from a 10-hour trilogy? Minute sampling. And since the intent of the work was to show the LotR movie as a D&D game, Shamus could not have done the same thing with artwork.
I would think Shamus is fine, but IANAL either.
Either way, thank you, Shamus, for all the laughs!
If I can make a suggestion, maybe you should link chainmail bikini near the site’s banner, or on the sidebar.
Wow, 15 seconds of fame!
Ok, now that THAT’s done, thanks again to Shamus, who made an awesome comic!
And to follow on what you said about Peter Jackson: For us die-hard fans of the book they could have been better, but they could also have been far worse, and all the previous attempts by others pretty much have been.
(And no, I don’t really think it’s much of a rip-off of the animated movies. They weren’t very good, either.)
I’ll echo Deoxy’s comment. All you have to do to know that it could have been worse is to watch some of the animated versions that came before. They were pretty much universally awful.
Well done Shamus. I wasn’t here from the beginning, but I did show up around strip 12 and stayed to the end. You did a fantastic job.
You’re welcome,Shamus. I admit it feels funny saying that when all I did was read your comic, laugh alot, use it to make my kids laugh, & once in a while add a comment I thought others might like ( all the while hoping people wouldn’t say:” Um, noooo…”)
If I do not respond to Chainmail Bikini, it won’t be because I’m not reading or enjoying it, but I may have trouble figuring out how to do so in the new format.
Shamus, great work my friend. Thanks for all the joy you’ve wrought with this endeavor. I look forward to Chainmail Bikini with great anticipation. Good luck.
Thank you very much
Nice of you to claim that I’m not crazy, but most of the voices in my head seem to differ (the others aren’t coherent enough for me to know how they feel about this topic).
But… but… what about the “Unusable” strip you had planned for when they first left Fangorn? That belongs in this “Deleted Scenes” collection, too!
“Ladies and Gentlemen, (the) Elvis (of webcomics) has left the building” … and my Wednesday will be all the poorer for it.
Monday and Friday, I’ll be over at Fear the Boot, catching up.
Thanks Shamus.
Just wanted to say thanks again – this being the final FINAL page of the comic. Your work here was awesome and appreciated!
[slow-mo matrix ripoff]TTHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNKKKKKKKK YYYOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU SHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSS!!!!![/ripoff]
Hey, I’m a part of geek immortality! Heh. Thanks Shamus for the thank you. This has been more than just a webcomic, it’s been a community and although I appreciate you recognizing many of your more frequent posters, it’s all about you and the work you did. It’s a shame that it’s over, but on the other hand IT’S OVER! One thing I hate is a story that never ends. This one was great all the way through. I’m checking on CB as well, but haven’t posted there yet.
So…you aren’t going to thank Tolkien at all? ;)
to Sartorius:
the Goblin, of Russia, does exactly that: writes parody soundtracks. The catch is that he distributes ONLY the soundtracks, without the videos. That leaves a question of how he manages to get the *music* copyright holders not to sue him.
Shamus, it’s been a real pleasure. You’ve made me laugh and you’ve made me cry (with laughter), and the friends I’ve pointed at you have had a great time too. I don’t even remember how I got here, but I’m very pleased that I did.
Here’s to more success in the future. Will you be using your new free time for one of those ‘life’ things I’ve been reading about in the popular press?
(PS: First post! Mine, that is, not the page’s, but I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me by.)
Loved the comic, really. I also showed some of the comics to my girlfriend, who is a heavy LotR fan, and she loved it. This comic, combined with the thingy where they replaced lots of important words with the word pants, heavily affect our current watching of the Special Extendeds, but it certainly was worth it and makes the movies even more fun.
I’m currently reading through the books again, and while there are so many differences I can quite understand many of the changes, since this way a certain matter of excitement, heavily required for a good movie, was needed.
Now the perfect way of finishing this lovely experience is of course by watching the Badger-scene and the Catapult images. ^^
Just, thanks for it all really. Truly worth the use of the word Awesome and while it’s sad to know I’ll not be scurrying to click here three times a week there is some recompense in the perfection of a completely finished saga.
Thank you.
=0! Where was my metion Shamus? WHERE? [/sillyrant]
Thanks again for the Comic shamus, i hope your funny gland stays strong for Chainmail bikini. ^^
Dude! You Rock!
Thanks Again
Drow64 Says:”TTHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNKKKKKKKK YYYOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU SHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!”
Hey, Drow, I didn’t know you spoke ‘whale’ !
Shamus,
As someone who has just about everything Tolkien (both) ever wrote, you have given me a priceless gift. I have found another way to enjoy his work. Humor is terrific in that it contains truth.
Last summer on a long road trip my wife and I listeded to the trilogy on CD as we drove along. The text, spoken, has some pretty funny moments which, I am sure, were not intended.
Your strip has only added to the fun.
Regards
Huzzah! Thank you Shamus.
Lawyers ? This is a work of parody and as such not submitted to the conventional copyrights.
Anyway thank you for having me laugh to tears.
GG Shamus
Thanks Shamus.
awwwwwwwww i’m gonna sorely miss new updates. atleast there’s always the archives.
So this IS the end of ends eh?
I’m surprised you didn’t make a: this is only the end of the beginning joke XD
looking forward to chainmail bikini registering on Onlinecomics.
that was a hint.
;D
Thank you, Shamus. How well you have captured the truth that no matter how long a group is playing together, it is only very, very rarely that everyone is on the same page. If you are lucky you -might- be playing out of the same book.
Not left a message before, but wanted to add my thanks for a very humerous, skillful and superbly entertaining comic strip. I started reading when you had about 30 done – and I’ve followed it ever since – checking every week or so to see what’s been added.
Again, MANY THANKS!
Matthew
After reading your entire comic, and how the players talk over the DM, this is how this closing goes in my head:
Shamus says: Thank you all for read–
Everyone else: Oh my god this thing is over! LOTR is cool! Comics about LOTR are cool, too! Peter Jackson is a geek! I had a lvl99 mage once! We’re immortal!
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeNOBODY EXPECTS oh bugger!
Cardinal Steve
thanks so much for the great comic shamus!
Thank you :) It was great experience to read all this.
In many ways, the movies are *much* better than the book, and I say this as a thirty-five-year fan. Jackson took a marvelous literary exercise, a fake historical epic, and turned it into a “mere” action-adventure film(s). He still did a magnificent job at it.
I prefer the book because there’s more to it, but my wife, who never really got into the book, adores the movies. In my head, I imagine that the movies are the way things really happened, and the novel is the legend that survived.
It’s precisely because the movies are so terrific that they deserve the utter trashing you gave them, Shamus. Thank you! Brilliant work!
While I’m saddened to see it come to a close, I can always return here and chuckle at some of the funniest comics I’ve seen in years. The strip that made it look like Gimli was in a game of Diablo II was probably the funniest, as you can just about feel the rapid mouse-clicking that would be the battle of Helm’s Deep.
Man, I’m going to miss this comic…
Thanks Shamus, for the year of laughs!
Thank you, Shamus, for a delightful comic that has had me laughing until I cried on more than one occasion. Your writing is brilliant, and I hope you keep up the good work on [i]Chainmail Bikini[/i] for a long time to come. If you ever wanted to publish DMotR as a book, I would so buy it.
Thanks again, Shamus! You rock! Can I kiss you? (I’m a woman)
A friend of mine turned me on to this site a week ago and I have laughed so hard reading these. Not just the fact that you used such great material, but that it reminds me of when I used to game when I was young. Thank you so much for the needed distraction from school (and my kids).
Love the DMotR! I am now a faithfull reader of chainmail bikini. Hope you have great succes with it!
Thanks Shamus for all the laughs that u have given me over the time reading it.
Thanks Shamus. The fact that you had the vision and the skills necessary to do this AND that you saw it through to the end is a massive and praiseworthy achievement. Well done!
THANK YOU! I HAVE TO EXPRESS MY PRAISE IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE YOU ARE SO AWESOME THAT LESSER WORDS WOULD NOT DO!
I just discovered your site today and read through all the strips in basically two sittings. I have laughed so hard that my sides ache. Thank you so much for sharing your unique vision and humor. Indeed I was so moved that I simply had to post your praises for all (that and we couldn’t leave the number of posts at 66, could we?). Thanks again and the best of luck in all you do, R
Thanks Shamus! You were right on every time with every comment and nuance regarding roleplaying, specifically D&D. I’ve already read through your first six bikini comics and I’m loving it! Thanks for the laughs and keep up the good work.
Pablo
Great work Shamus, reading this comic brought back many great memories. Keep up the good work with the chainmail bikini :D
Right on! I was laughing so hard and like a good book I couldn’t put the strip down all day today… Nice job!
Best fan lit I’ve ever read.
And that’s all I have to say for now.
It’s been an honour and a priviledge to read DMotR.
DW
Probably the best fan fiction I have ever read.
Not just probably, It is, absolutely, the best.
Love it man, hate that it’s over, but you know.
“All good things”
The Honor, she is mine.
Thanks for your hard work,
Hollis
Shamus,
Thanks for this great moment spent (at work :) ), laughing at my computer screen.
So Nice.
Thanks Shamus! A hysterical adventure to say the least! Quivers of mini-walking sticks are now one of the most requested shopping items in the campaign I’m involved in, and called shots to the eye occur in nearly every encounter (I want to stab another one in the eye! ;)
Reading chain-mail bikini these days too, no LARPing, LOL! Reminds me of the first DMOTR I read, “Sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to roll initiative”. (or something like that ;)
I don’t know what the steps necessary would be to put your satire into graphic novel form, or PDF, but if the powers that be ever force you to take things down…I for one would like to know this work has been archived for internet historical reference! Clearly this ranks up there among the greatst, debates will surely rage as to which best defines the RPG community…it’s either this or gazebos. ;)
peace
~JC
Started reading this yesterday, finished it today. Most definately going to miss it – but hey, it was many hours of great fun! Shamus, you are a comedic genius!
Bravo Shamus Bravo! u put a lot of work into this, and it was totally worth it. once again, BRAVO!
I might’ve missed something, but how come you spelt Rivendell Rivendale at every point? I probably missed it, and I’ll scan it through, but in the meanwhile…?
On another note, incredible job you did. Had some of the best time of my life reading this.
cool good comic, by the way fear the boot is really good.
Word. You are a rock star. Seriously.
Merci Shamus, j’ai passé de trà¨s bons moments à lire ce webcomicstrip !!
Je pense que tu pourrais faire la màªme chose sur des films comme Willow, y’a quelque chose à faire … ;)
Encore merci !!
I have just lost an entire working day reading this. I must say, it’s one of the funniest things I’ve read on the internet. Good show.
The entire series was completely and utterly awesome. You, sir, are a genius.
Wow new look for the website….
Any reason why?
I hope he’s still doing other things that could have been done if not for the fact it was centered around the PC’s. Like the banter between Aoewyn and the Witch King.
And again?
I lost track of this halfway through, and came back today and read through them all again from the top. This truly is a magnificent achievement. Best of luck with your future endeavours.
*Bows to the Master* this was truely an enjoyble comic to follow and was well worth the wait mate. I wish I could have been around and talked more with you crazy folk, BUT I just had to settel for shareing the comic with as meny of my friends as I could….BTW they all think I’m nutz! figour;s lol
XoX
thanks so much for this
there were points where i recognised my own players in that and my b/f turned round and said thats you as a dm at times especally the bomb
excelent work
Just read through all of them in a day. As someone who knows nothing of D&D but adores LotR in both mediums, all I can say is Bravo! Brilliant work, Seamus, and thank you for it.
“Give me your name, horse-fu__er!!!” :D
Oh, and apologies for misspelling your name just now. My brain went straight to the Harry Potter character’s spelling, and I knew I’d screwed up as soon as I clicked Submit.
Absolutely brilliant, wonderful jokes
very well done, shamus
Hey Shamus. Never wrote something here so far. Discovered the comic when they were in Rohan, and spent five hours by reading all the episodes, twice, almost died laughing. “Thy fate sucketh” is my absolute favourite. Thank you very, very much for this comic, we owe you one.
A real piece of art, and not only because i’m d20 and LOTR fan , but because i’m also an art professor ^^ Thanks for all the laughs Shamus
Shamus,i loved your comic,but i have just one question:WHY THE HELL did u leave the hobbit players??!!I mean i loved the beginning,it was so smooth,and thanks to the hobbits it was perfect.Part of the fun of the comic was destroyed for me when the hobbits left the campaign.Still,thanks for a great comic.Still,i miss the hobbits…
Just discovered DM of the Rings last week and have now worked my way through the whole thing. 30 years ago (gasp!) after playing in half a dozen D&D games, it was exactly this sort of thing that made me realize that it’s MUCH better to listen to the summary of the campaign afterwards than to sit through the whole dice-rolling, DM-abusing thing. I laughed my head off reading your version, which makes it hard to do real work. Thanks ever so much for a great time.
Thank you Shamus!
I just found this and just finished it. My eyes are sore and my bum hurts, but thank your Shamus anyway!
You are my hero.
I have read through all of this in about two weeks of reading it when I wasn’t doing my work in my computer classes at school.
I am sad it is over. I’m not sure what I’ll do during class now.
I guess I’ll have to check out this new comic, eh?
So… When can we expect “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe?”
Oh dear, that was very funny, but much longer than I expected. I got through the whole lot on Christmas eve in the office and did far less work than expected. I’ve never played D&D but my sons do. Now I have a much better idea of what they get up to!
Hullo,
Good show. I don’t do gaming, but know enough to chuckle more than once.
We needed a couple gamers along when we went to Middle-earth [New Zealand] in 04. The Fellowship is talking about going back in 11 after the two hobbit films are done.
Again, a loverly strip.
I shall be passing it on to other hobbit heads!
Elen sàla làºmenn’ omentielvo!
Pippin, the wandering hobbit
Thain Peregrin Took II
Great Smials
Tookborough, The Shire
Loved the comic!
ROTFLMAO at the end of the following sequences:
“OATH-BREAKERS! As King of the New Menorians, I command you… TELL ME WHERE YOU’RE HIDING THE TREASURE!!”
“Do I LOOK like I’m kidding?”
“They were in the saddlebags.”
“You totally suck, Aragorn.”
Found the reverse link to your site from Irregular Webcomic and read it right through.
Thanks for all your hard work!
Thanks for the laughs over the last few weeks! (I’ve been busy, otherwise it would have been less time). Now for Chainmail Bikini!
“Parley” is the French word for “everyone else is flat-footed and bare-handed”
I only found out about this comic yesterday. And now I’ve read it all.
And it really held me back from doing serious and important stuff. But I liked it! :-D I even had to laugh out loud a couple of times, which is quite rare if I just sit in front of my computer all alone.
Nevermind. What I actually wanted to say is: thank you for several really, REALLY amusing hours!
i spent the whole damn day reading. WHY IS THIS SO ADDICTIVE!?! whatever. many thanks for a day of laughter. pitty it’s over :(. it was great!
Thank you very much Shamus for this wonderful comics. I feel sad when it is over :( .
Huh… Read the whole, posted only 2 or 3 times…
IT’S AWESOME MAN! THANK YOU!!!!
Really never laughed this much on one thing… It’s even better when someone doesn’t have to wait… It took me 2 days altogether. My “favourites” are in a mess too – a real lot of DMotR is in. have to tidy it someday.
Good work!
…
oresome xD
I salute you, sir. I loved the walking sticks, and how much of myself I see in Legolas at times, especially on that Final Roll of the d20. :)
This is my first, and last, post here. Thank you for teh laughs.
Wow, the anti-spam word was pretty… unexpected!
Whatever, I’ve gone through a lot of webcomics as of lately, as it’s the best break I’ve found being unable to go out while at work and:
This is the very first time I see a webcomic actually reaching an end :p
Thanks a lot for this piece of pure humor, it has given me mad laughs that my mates will forever remember.
I’m not that much of a fan of the LotR stuff, but I really enjoyed every part of your work.
I wish I was able to make you laugh as much as you did, but I’m afraid there wont be any pay back on this.
As a french folk I’ll just tell you your humor is universal, at least for D&D gamers.
Let’s hope you like flattery.
See you around.
Thankyou, thankyou!! I loved this comic so much, I saved all of it for future reading. I am in your debt. Mwah!! :D
I miss this comic…
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I started playing D&D when I was in junior high school, and many happy hours were spent listening to my buddies kibbitzing around the table, throwing dice, drawing rude pictures of the NPCs, and driving the DM to distraction. I just sat and read this whole thing in one sitting! There were so many classic laugh-moments in here.
I have an odd question: May I “keep” this as a Word doc in my computer, just in case you get bored and take it off line like the chick who created the DomLand Caribou did? (I’m so glad I ganked her stuff; she got into anime and flushed it, darn her.) But I’d like to have a copy of this in case your site goes castors-up. If you object, that’s OK; I’ve already bookmarked your site and sent the URL to all my buds, so I’ve “spread the love” enough, methinks.
Again: thanks for the laffs! I LOL’ed.
Oropher: Help yourself. Thanks for reading.
This story was so cool.
I almost laughed to death.
Shamus, I thank you deeply and sincerely for a wondrous ride through your imagination.
Long time reader, first time poster, I think. I found your comic a little after it had started, and I don’t rightly recall just how now, random surfing of links I think. One of the best clicks I ever made.
And now it’s done and ended. I rationed myself over the year and some, just a few episodes a week, to better savor it, knowing the campaign would end, hoping there would be another. Near the end though I cheated, lured on by the climax, and saddened to hear of your health problems and hoping you’d get better and continue.
But it’s not all bad news. You will continue with a new comic, and I’ll be following that AND spreading the word of it too.
Carry on…
Edit:
Heh, comment 117, didn’t notice that till I posted. That number keeps coming up in my life, or I simply notice it for it’s Chief significance in another story I like…
As a Tolkien fangurl for 42 years and a tabletop gamer for 22, I’ve been cracking up over this and linking it in chat. Thanks. I’ll never reread LotR quite the same way again.
I just the other day found this comic, and I just had to keep reading it til I was done…took me so long because the comments were often so good, I had to at least read some of them off of each one!
I only wish that I could have been here when you first started this, and enjoyed it with everyone else! Anyway, I’m going to keep reading Chainmail Bikini, and will probably poke around at the rest of your site, too. Thanks for making me laugh!
Oh, and at least for the moment…LAST POST!
An epic webcomic indeed. I kind of wish I had known about it sooner so I could watch it as it progressed instead of just reading the archives.
Triangleth post!
Yo wtf? I spent all this time readin each strip to see no naked women? What kind of a porno is this?
Shamus, thank you so much for the great, great story. I really wish it had more panels with it. Thanks a bunch its like you’ve changed my life ( and you did!)Thank you so much. We all owe you one.
Aragorn. PS I hope you can respond. Thank you.
One more thing…Thanks for not putting Shelob in the story. Shelob gives me nightmares.
One more thing…Thanks for not putting Shelob in the story. Shelob gives me nightmares.opps…2 comments at once.. anyone know how to deleate one of em?
All in all. I started this last night and finished this over the afternoon. Great stuff. Its a great rendition of a D&D group and its a back-handed homage to Tolkien.
My favorite scenes were Aragorn looking away from Weathertop and saying ‘screw that.’ It was early in the comic, but a great addition.
Likewise, I am showing the following quote of your’s to my players next session:
While planning your gameworld, it should be noted that no matter what you do, the players are going to route around
those aspects of the world into which you have poured the most detail and filled with the most interesting
characters. They will skip right past those locations and insist on exploring the blank areas of the map.
Then they will grumble about the threadbare nature of the campaign.
If you prevent them from doing this, they will accuse you of railroading them.
Thank You.
From all us gamers down in the tru Middlearth (New Zealand) many thanks for a wonderful comic.
Next time i see Peter Jackson, i’ll pat him on the back for ya.
righto!!
Hey!
I kind of stumbled over this comic and spent the last hours reading it without pausing once, although I should have learned or at least slept.
It’s simply brilliant! I loved every part of it and am going to advertise it when next meeting my RPG-group.
Thanks a lot, you’ve made my day,
ai
I only now just finished reading all these. I have to say this was some of the funniest shit I have read in a long time. I could barely contain my gigglefests here at work. Thank you so much. How you find time to do all this stuff is incredible. This strip is so funny because its true, I’ve experienced pretty much everything you’ve made fun of in my AD&D gaming sessions of the past.
There should be a warning on these for people reading them in the archives all at once… if you read these to quickly you may die of laughter. Have an ale on me brotha
Thanks.
That was… the best comic I have ever read. I took a look at chainmail bikini, and it isn’t really my thing, so I switched to the Star Wars comic. Thanks.
Archive binging through the whole thing makes me realizing something both sad and sort of inspiring: The epic grandeur of Lord of the Rings would probably fit into a two month game meeting weekly, MAYBE three if you add in Pippin and Merry’s small sub-arcs and Frodo and Sam. While the comic did end up leaving out some of the narrative, of course, most of the left out stuff would be ignored by a GM too. Helm’s Deep? One, MAYBE two session encounter. Even adding in the books doesn’t give you too much more: Old Man Willow, Bombadil… Lots of that sum up to “You’re captured. You find loot. You get out.”
Now, of course, writing a full story and creating an entertaining world to GM in are two totally different tasks, even when using some similar skill sets. Details that matter in a book don’t in a game. And, of course, Tolkien’s original material is beautiful, with elegant and expansive mythology that can be ignored if necessary. It’s writing at it’s best. But still: Think about the amount of work that might go into a 10 year game. The number of maps, encounters, dungeons, NPCs (both with backstories and without), interrelations between characters, inside jokes, nuances of rules and skill checks… If devoted to prose, even the most mediocre long-running campaign might take up more space than Tolkien even with the tersest style. Sort of cool.
You said that you envied rich burlew in one of your footnotes, but believe me, he has got nothing on you! this is the single funniest thing that I have found on the internet, and so I just hope that the rest of whats on your site holds up to that standard.
Aw it’s over :( and I was having so much fun reading.
Great comic though, immensely funny.
thanks those were awsum
…
These were awesome! XD You are brilliant and amazing. I’m glad I came after you finished this though, I’d have gone crazy if I actually had to wait for this awesome hilarity.
^_^
Just finished the whole thing. Almost a year after the fact. Still good. I’ll never look at Viggo the same way. Not that I ever did, of course.
Whatever that means.
you have no idea how many office man hours i spent just reading these comics! enjoyed every one of them!
First!
(…Yeah. What can I say but that I’ve always wanted to do this. I find people who post ‘first’ to be annoying and I have a strange sense of humor. Shouting ‘first!’ almost an entire year after the first post, at the very END of a long comic, amused me.)
More on topic, I found out about this comic yesterday and I have been unable to stop reading it whenever I’ve been able to until point. Bravo! Very well done! I have spent many a moment giggling hysterically (in a manly manner, of course :o) ) over one superb joke or another.
…I suppose now I’ll have to read the whole thing again, only this time also reading all the readers comments? :o)
Great Job Shamus, this is one of the gems of the internet. Also, Thanks for putting in the link to Darths & droids, they may not be as good as you, but their still worth a laugh.
I was just sent the link for this comic yesterday. Couldn’t stop reading! My kids have been wondering whats wrong with me- I sit here for hours with brief interludes of falling off my chair laughing hard enough to cry. My husband DM’s and I love Tolkien. SO funny- latecomming comments I know, but just wanted to say Job Well Done!
Umm, having some site difficulty, I cannot actually see any of the images, all I get are the words “Aragorn uses his pack.” for the first comic, similar for subsequent. A buddy sent me to here telling me great tales of the awesomeness herein, but I see none. Sadness ensued.
EDIT: Also, when I right-click to “View Image”, I get a broken link. Which makes me think that the comic has ceased to exist and it’s not just firefox being odd. None of the links to the new host, “Pixy Misa and Mu.Nu” work either.
Don’t know why your having trouble Dr_H?? I was sent the link to this 3 days ago and have wasted countless hours now at work reading through every last one and all I can say is THANKS for some of the funniest and most spot on stuff I’ve seen! The fact that I’ve “played with these guys” just made it all the richer.
That is incredible. Because I can’t see the comics, and right-clicking to “View image” 404’s, and I’ve tried loading in both Firefox and (shudders) IE, to no avail.
I’ve never had this problem with any other webcomic…
I can see every other image on the page…
I dunno, I’m gonna send some friends here and see if they have the same problems, if I’m not the only one then maybe it will get fixed.
You are the man!
On the Fear the boot hyperlink… the ‘f’ isn’t part of it…
Um… GREAT COMIC!
Wow, just read the whole thing and am still laughing.
When are you putting out The Two Towers and Return Of The King? XD
wait a second…troll and balrog breeding? where is that at?!?!?!
i came to this comic very late, but i still loved it. Thank you very much for all the time and effort you put into it. i’m very sad that the funnay ended.
funny, funny, amazing stuff!!
Thank you so much Shamus..
If you are a gamer and prepared to be mocked check out Game Night by Jonny Nexus.
A novel, so very different from what Shamus has achieved here but very funny! :)
just spent 6 hours reading the complete comic strip
tears are rolling down my face ,so guess i enjoyed it :D
think ill go watch the films now
thanks for the giggles:D
Awesome strip. Just got pointed here recently and I read them all. Thanks so much. Now I am off to check out Stolen Pixels.
Finished the whole comic in about five days, read moderately. Thank you very much Shamus, for your good work in this, and inspiring me to DM to the best of my ability, and watch LotR again…. and more.
Maybe I’ll play Return of the King again too.
Think you might try to get this published? By contacting the rights holders of LotR or something?
Thanks Shamus for an excellent effort, just powered through the entire thing over the last couple of days at work. Well worth the lack of billable hours!! This was just what i needed to tide me over untill LOTR comes out on BluRay!
Hope these links never die…
Darn you Shamus for making me snigger uncontrollably at work. What an amazing effort. And when are you doing Star Wars IV, V, and VI ?
Lupus- I forget what strip it’s on, (I’m pretty sure it was one of the ones at the Black Gate though), but in the comments someone made a joke about something being 1/3 Balrog… which immediately sparked a whole series of debate on how one could actually create a creature with 1/3 anything. (My favorite was the half-demon half-dragon orc… apparently the DM got a little confused applying templates… ^_^)
Stretched my read of this strip out as long as possible, months and months (a couple of years, to be more honest), and still I want more. Maybe I’ll just have to start over. Enormously entertaining. Thanks, Shamus.
Just came across this two days ago.
Thanks for all your hard work, both here and on Stolen Pixels.
Stumbled across it again after checking my bookmarks. It’s just great. Many moments when I had a deja vu, being a game master myself (RoleMaster) and a player (D&D).
Great job you did here.
I love the D&D twist comics, this one was extremely good, I found Darths & Droids first, then found a link here. Like I said, I quite enjoy these, and I’m just starting D&D myself thanks to these comics. I would like to do one of my own, but I’m not near good enough, and my favorite movies have been taken.
I have just spent the last few hours reading this absolutely hilarious comic. I was laughing so much, people were coming in to see if i was ok. This is the funniest thing i have read in years. Please, please, please do more of this type of thing. i will be sending the link to this to all my roleplaying and LotR pals. You are the greatest Shamus
This was an epic bit of work and hilariously amusing for a formed DM like me. I’ve seen all the horrible situations that made DMing an unique challenge pass by here and boy does it bring back good memories. Thank you for this.
I just spent a few hours reading the whole thing, beginning to end. (Thanks to boingboing) Hilarious. I laughed and laughed and laughed! Thanks, Shamus :)
I read this entire thing in a grand total of 2 sittings. I laughed so hard my guts, cheeks, neck, and everything else hurt… And I only realized you had a forum when you mentioned it at the end. Thank you!
A friend told me of this a couple weeks ago, and this is where I spend my lunch breaks. I’m glad my phone does not have a data cap as I think I would have killed it long ago. I too will always remember the leather tardis, and hope to see something of this ilk from you or someone with the same humour soon.
May your enemies be killed by a flumpf!
And a hearty peng to those without the sense to find this funny!
I was just go through some old boingboing posts on a Sunday morning. Now Sunday is just about shot… And my gut is sore with laughter and my gf thinks I’m weirder than she did this morning.
Thank you for your great web-comic.
Two years on, but I couldn’t resist coming back here to post a link to a list of the seven sexiest women of fantasy which includes a little something that will be appreciated by DM of the Ring fans.
This was awesome, thank you!
Wow… I don’t know how I didn’t hear about this before, but I’m glad it was pointed out to me. I just read the whole thing in one sitting, and my only regret is that there’s no more to read now. This is an amazing piece of work. Seriously, I was laughing so hard through most of it, I think my neighbors became even more convinced the guy in the next apartment is a madman than they already were. Thanks for doing this. I hope you don’t mind if I steal a little bit of your comedy gold here to inflict on my D&D group this Saturday.
this was great
I am sad that I just discovered this today — but I read everyone and I’m so glad I did.
These were brilliant!!!
You rock!
I can’t wait to check out the rest of your stuff — and your newest work.
NOS!!!! IT BE OVER!!! T_T
Thank you for being one of the awesomest most geeky people ever!! The world needs more people like you, Shamus.
* LAST *
(well, someone had to do it :-)
Thank you so much. I only found it after it was finished, and I am sure my history teacher will kill you if he ever meets you, lol, but seriously, as a professed addict to tolkein, this is one of the few spoofs/parodys ive found that doesn’t spoil it ;)
Thank you again and i will be hunting down chaimail bikini soon.
bye!
:-)
HAHAHA omg
Only just discovered this about a week ago
And it is AMAZING!!
Great work!!
I found these thanks to a shout-out in a old podcast over at RPPR. After a few days and many laughs and much wasted time (mostly at work, but don’t tell the bosses that…), I finally made it through the entire series. Brilliant. Legendary.
One of these days, I’ll actually go back and re-read the series, AND the comments threads too (I skipped those this time through).
Your comic is wonderful! Solid gold from the beginning to the end. Thank you so much for writing it.
This comic was awesome – like many people, I read the entire thing in the day that I was linked to it. Not sure if that’s a testament to your awesomeness or that fact that I have too much time on my hands :P
It was very fun. I’m very glad that you exist, that you had this idea, that you continued beyond what you originally planned, etc. No one else in the world could have made this comic just the way that you did. :)
You’ve improved a lot of people’s lives you know! So many people have been just that much happier because of the amusement you provided them with.
Anyways, I hope your current projects are going just as well. Time to go explore the rest of your site! :)
-Orange.
Hey! Congratulations for the comic, cool and funny!
Greetings from Brasil!
See ya!
Bloody brilliant.
Looooove your comics! Sorry for not having anything clever to say, but it was damn funny, and thank you for sharing this brilliant piece of lol!
Well, I just made it to the end and I must say…. It was great! I know that’s lame, but what the hey.. I’m not the word-smith.
I did have a few questions though. (not sure you still check back on this, but just in case.) Is there a working line to the Chainmail Bikini strip you moved on to? And is it ok to grab some of the cool shots you posted here for use as a background? I’ve seen a couple I’d really like to use.
Thanks for this Shamus, it’s been a very fun read, and the comments added a good bit to it as well. Oh and Last!! Had to be done!! :-)
Sad that I couldn’t be around when this was being made. Hilarious comic, I read it all the way through. Noticed you around the Escapist Shamus, and I’d just like to say I’m a fan.
I posted on the last comic but I’ll post here too: Thank you so much for this comic, Shamus! It was amazingly funny. Much enjoyed, even by someone who has never played D+D, though I have decided I have to now. I’m joining a group, and I will attempt to respect my DM, keeping in mind your comments =)
Good job!
Ara
Just found this. all 149 (inc deleted scenes) in like an hour.
oops make that 5. wow. its that late, really?
:P
anyway this was epic,and makes me want to play a tabletop RPG with a DM and players to talk to, better than Online RPGs where everyones too busy leveling to talk. go figure. speaking of which, LOTRO just went free, and I need to get back to my level 11 loremaster who is in dire need of a better map.
So are these guys going to tackle the Star Wars films next? are they going to use the d20 system or the old west end one?
Thank you shamus, for each and every laugh, and i got ask, now that they’
re making the hobbit, is the DMotR (DMotH) going to continue?
*sigh* reading these 4 years after they were created is the best. i really am gonna miss these things… i was dying of laughter in almost every strip.
Thank you for a wonderfull time!
My partner and I just lost about four hours (including forgetting for an HOUR that we were starving hungry), mostly spent laughing uncontrollably, reading the entire archive. So glad this is still up.
I know that I wont get an answer and that even if i get it, that I wont read it (I’m forgetfull) but I gotta ask, you ARE doing the a comic of The Hobbit are you?
Just discovered this little comic here. Great fun, really amusing and well done. My hat is off, Sir. My hat is off.
I read the whole thing in two days, and I loved it all! Great job! I like the rest of your site too, so I think I’ll stay to read it as well ^-^
Thank you for writing!
Seems I got to this party late but man it was fun while I was here. Read the whole thing in a single sitting and posted links to my gaming group.
Loved it. Thanks for amusing me, Shamus. I laughed so hard it hurt, but thanks anyway :)
Darth&Droids I found via Wookieepedia, from D&D:D I hopped here and after this I dived to the Stolen Pixels (Escapist).
I could say You are definately doing something right. Thanks (if you still get this) from the frozen north of Europe :)
thank you for the great webcomic. read it in 1 go and saved it to usb to reread whenever!
I have read this 3 or 4 times, never has it stopped being funny, when my brother showed my Darths & Droids, DMoTR got me into reading it, I’ve also been reading and rereading your Stolen Pixels comic which i read through before coming to this one
Awesome job, Shamus! I’ve been stuck in a room at work because I am apparently the company photographer now and decided to do read through all of the comic instead of doing actual work. It was so funny that several times I had to stop reading a page to prevent myself from bursting out laughing, only to start laughing again as soon as I came back.
2011 now, almost 2 years since the last comment!
Thanks for all the fun, made my work day less boring. took 2 days to finish it all up
This was an incredibly enjoyable read, Shamus :). Thanks for all the laughs! I’ve recommended this to several friends of mine (going so far as to send them links via e-mail). Now let’s hope they discover the greatness of the comic as I have. Good luck in your future endeavours, you have a great gift for comedy.
I read this series after it was done, and I found it thanks to my bro. But every time I read these strips I still crack up, cackle insanely, and giggle like a little girl. Which is actually very literal. Anyways, I do wish this was still going, but I get that everything must have an ending. Even wonderful, hilarious thing. So good game, everybody, and watch out for scary elves playing poker in Wonderland.
That was random. Let’s see… I believe the proper thing to say at this point is:
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Thank you, and gud night.
…badger.
Great work, read it twice and its taught me all the stuff i know about d and d. 5 years on and still getting commemts, and for good reason
Wow I read this in just a few days! I can’t believe I am so late to this. Thank you for doing this comic and I will be looking through others.
So… now that The Hobbit is going to be coming out at the end of the year, are you guys gonna incorporate that into this most epic webcomic?
:D That would be fucking awesome! Make it happen Shamus!
I third/fourth/hundreth this, while acknowledging we might have to wait a while (at least until two of the three were released). I’d love to see what you could do with The Hobbit.
Here it is 2012 and I have just discovered this! Thank you I laughed so hard and it brought back so many memories of my gaming group!
Great Job.
This was awesome! Thanks for the great laughs and adventure.
Second time through, but it was nice to see something written in English on my trip to Hong Kong!
Hole mackeral… How many years later, and I find my name in lights? (Well, LEDs…)
Thank you, Shamus. You did an excellent job at a difficult and probably frustrating task. I suspect this has given you work moving forward, making it doubly rewarding. Congratulations for making it all the way through.
And a very special thank you for the Edoras song. That’s going to be stuck in my head for a few days…
Telas
Aw, just finished reading the comic again after five years…
I think I hadn’t laughed that much in months. Thank you, Shamus, for these hilarious moments! That was a great ride, an amazing work! :)
May thy D20 roll in your favor a lot more than is statistically appropriate.
Was given the link to this five hours ago, and (apart from a couple of breaks) read it straight through. What an inspired comic! It certainly stands the test of time. I haven’t laughed out loud so much in ages!
I have sent the link to everyone I know. =^_^=
*Gets distracted by the pretty dice and wanders off saying “Ooh! Preciousssssssss!”
this was an amazing read and made me laugh so hard i had tears in my eyes, hope that you will do this after the hobbit is released.
What happened to the images? Did New Line unleash the lawyers after all?
This is good. Another good one is Order of The stick
I’ve read and re-read this many times, but never commented.
It’s 2016, and this is just as great as it was when it was new.
Great work.
Almost 7 years after this comment, I’m back to renew my declaration.
This is a timeless classic.
2019.
And i still came back to this.
I never leave a comment so… with like 10 yearsof latence : Thanks man !
Thanks for all the fun you bring us !
May the force still be with you.