The webcomic that inspired
the novel.
the novel.
And the Story of the Story
About the Cast
About Stuff of Legends
About Stuff of Legends
Stuff of Legends began in 2003 as one more fantasy webcomic in a sea of misguided adventurers bumbling through wacky situations; the gimmick was that Jordan the Red, the hero, had retired and was happy to be out of the game (in his own cynical, curmudgeonly way). His number one fan and foil, Eliott, was responsible for bringing most of the adventures down on Jordan's head, or trying to.
After two years, the comic lost steam, went on hiatus, returned, and then sank into discontinuation again. But like Elder Gods lurking beneath a farmer's field, the character concepts and the underlying humour of the premise lived on.
In 2008, I revived the ideas of Jordan the Red, Eliott the Annoying, elvish babysitters and scheming star-makers, and began adapting them into a new format: Stuff of Legends, the novel.
Naturally, there were changes. Characters disappeared, redefined themselves, ret-conned their entire history, or otherwise took off in completely unanticipated directions. But at the core, Stuff of Legends remained what it had always been: a funny, silly, tongue-in-cheek look at the nature of heroism and celebrity, merrily skewering traditional fantasy stories and clichés.
In 2009, Stuff of Legends was picked up for publication by Penguin's fantasy imprint, Ace Books, after being a finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. As of July 27, 2010, it is available in mass market paperback. I hope you'll enjoy it, and this archive of the webcomic it came from.
Sincerely,
~Ian Gibson
About the AuthorIan Gibson is a Canadian author and erstwhile webcartoonist. His background is in theatre, as is his day job. He has no formal training in art, but a long-standing love of fantasy stories and The Funny, which so far has served him well. He is married, has two cats (neither of which breath fire, but still manage to cause plenty of trouble), and lives on Vancouver Island. Stuff of Legends was his first webcomic, his debut novel, and is still the world his brain dives into when it needs a laugh.
