Mini Review: The Guild Graphic Novels Volumes 1 & 2

Title: The Guild
Author: Felicia Day, Jim Rugg, Dan Jackson
Series: The Guild, Vol. 1
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Publication Date: 2010
Pages: 83
Format/Source: Paperback Graphic Novel/Library

Age Group/Genre: Adult/Contemporary, Gaming

Internet phenomenon The Guild comes to comics, courtesy of series creator, writer, and star Felicia Day (Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog)! Chronicling the hilarious on- and offline lives of a group of Internet role-playing gamers, the Knights of Good, The Guild has become a cult hit, and is the winner of numerous awards from SXSW, YouTube, Yahoo, and the Streamys. Now, Day brings the wit and heart of the show to this graphic-novel prequel. In this origin tale of the Knights of Good, we learn about Cyd’s life before joining the guild, how she became Codex, her awful breakup with boyfriend Trevor, and how she began to meet the other players who would eventually become her teammates.

Title: The Guild: Knights of Good
Author: Felicia Day, et al
Series: The Guild, Vol. 2
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Publication Date: 2012
Pages: 128
Format/Source: Paperback Graphic Novel/Library

Age Group/Genre: Adult/Contemporary, Gaming

Set before the first season of the show, these hilarious stories delighted fans and newbies alike and introduced plots that influenced the show itself, including season 5’s backstory of Tink, originally hinted at in these pages. Featuring a huge variety of comics’ best artists as well as many of the talents key to the web series, and leading directly to the moment Zaboo unexpectedly appears at a startled Codex’s front door in episode 1, this collection comprises a true season of The Guild! Collects the one-shots The Guild: Vork, The Guild: Tink, The Guild: Bladezz, The Guild: Clara, and The Guild: Zaboo.

* Written by Felicia Day, with the series director, producer, and actors!

* Featuring art by Darick Robertson, Becky Cloonan, Kristian Donaldson, and more!

* Leads directly into The Guild Season 1! (Cover and synopsis from Goodreads.)

I really LOVED these books, but I didn’t write a whole bunch in my notes, so I’m just going to make this a mini review and share some of my notes with you:

I LOVE The Guild web series! I didn’t want it to end, so I’m SO glad there are these comics! And I love how this is a prequel to the web series, so we get to see what goes on in everyone’s lives before the show.
I’m just a little confused as to why Cyd doesn’t know who Nirvana is… IRL, Felicia Day is less than a year older than me, and we were teens when Nirvana was extremely popular. So the character of Cyd should be near our age. Even if she’s supposed to be 5 years younger, I’d think she should know about Nirvana.
I LOVE the humor in both volumes. Cyd is really funny in a dry way in the first volume, and Vork and Dena crack me up in the second volume. (Can I just give a shout out to Dena?? She’s my FAVORITE.)
I love a lot of the artwork. Many of the drawings of these characters look exactly like the actors who played them. But a few of the covers are really strange. Like, why is Tink drawn as a monkey on her variant cover? And why is Clara’s face really ugly on the cover of her issue? It really bothers me.

The rest of the art was really cool, but these just really didn’t sit well with me. (These covers via Dark Horse.)
I thought each character was really well represented in both volumes, with Cyd being the focus of the first volume and the rest of the Knights of Good having their own issues, which were bound together to make the second volume. I just loved a lot of the little things that revealed parts of each character, like how Tink is secretly a book nerd and has books all over her room, and how Dena has a whole bunch of doll heads (because of course she does).
I think my favorite issue is The Guild: Bladezz, which is included in the second volume. The humor was so great, and of course, it had my favorite: Dena!