WELCOME TO MUD BAY AND DORK TOWER!
DORK TOWER is the award-winning fan-favorite comic strip and comic book about five gamers, and the real world.
Sure, it’s also about the worlds they create, the games they play, the technologies they abuse and misuse and the conventions they road-trip to. But it’s a comic for everybody, geeks or otherwise. You don’t have to know Dungeons and Dragons, the music of Jonathan Coulton, the latest social networking phenomenon or the hippest meme to get it. All you need to know is that Geek if the new Mainstream, and pretty much everyone has the same hopes and fears, whether you’re a dork, a nerd, or a mundane.
DORK TOWER has been published in print and online since 1997, when it was first in the pages of Shadis Magazine, and later in Dragon. The comic book has sold nearly a half-million copies, and is collected in 9 award-winning trade paperbacks that have been published in English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Polish…and soon Portuguese.
Games such as CHEZ DORK and DORK TOWER (Steve Jackson Games) and WARHAMSTER RALLY (Jolly Roger Games) have brought the comic’s cast to life over the gaming table. The characters also make frequent appearances in MUNCHKIN (Steve Jackson Games), which DORK TOWER John Kovalic also illustrates.
DORK TOWER is the story of Matt, Igor, Ken, Carson the Muskrat (yes, he’s a muskrat) and Gilly, the Perky Goth.
And they’re human. Just like you.
Even the muskrat.
Welcome to DORK TOWER.
WHO’S WHO IN MUD BAY
- Matt
- Matt McLimore is Dork Tower’s everygamer, and the person most likely to be in the middle of things. Gaming is in Matt’s blood — he was born to live La Vida Dorka, and worships the game Warhamster. Still, he tries to reconcile his love of gaming and popular culture with a desire to function in Society. Society appears to be on the losing end of that proposition more often than not. Friendly, unassuming, and sometimes personally insecure about his role in the world, Matt will thus always manage to be at Ground Zero for the fanboy excesses of his Mud Bay pals, such as…
- Igor
- To Igor, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. He throws himself into every new game, comic, craze, hobby and pastime with an overwhelming enthusiasm that has made him the official poster boy for Reckless Abandon. As the Power Gamer’s Power Gamer, Igor Olman is a die-hard, take-no-prisoners action junkie. He is in love with Apollo Smile. He is a god to min-maxing RPG munchkins everywhere, and a gamemaster’s worst nightmare. His presence in this group of friends is slightly balanced by…
- Ken
- Ken Mills is the Thinking Man’s Fanboy, often providing a much-needed Voice of Reason. Nonetheless, Ken is 110 percent Dork (and we mean that in the nicest way), as capable of exceeding the legal limit for pop culture in-jokes and marathon game-and-junk-food consumption as anyone in Mud Bay. Even so, he appears to be closer to what Society deems Normal, when compared to…
- Carson the Muskrat
- Sweet-natured and easygoing, Carson is everyone’s friend and seems to fit in everywhere — which is somewhat surprising in itself because Carson is a muskrat. He is equally at home rolling dice in Matt’s various roleplaying games, playing the latest console combat extravaganza, or just surfing the web. More a follower than a leader, Carson trustingly goes into roleplaying situations secure in the knowledge that his boon companions will probably end up using him for a battering ram or attracting the attention of a hungry beastie who will suddenly develop a craving for Muskrat Surprise. As a part-time worker at the local Internet cafe, he has made the acquaintance of…
- Gilly, the Perky Goth
- Gilly Woods is Goth by design and perky by nature, a combination which is a constant embarrassment to her brother Walden, the Dark Lord of Mud Bay’s Goth community. Though close friends with Igor, it was a long time before she actually got to meet Igor’s buddy Matt. Once they did encounter one another Matt was immediately smitten, and the pretty Perky Goth and the shaky but sincere young gamer appear to have a great deal in common — including chronic datelessness and a feeling of not quite fitting in. Timing is everything, however, and Matt’s was characteristically bad, meeting Gilly only days after hooking back up with his ex-girlfriend…
- Kayleigh
- If there was ever an Odd Couple for the new millennium, it is Kayleigh and Matt. Kayleigh Hardcastle is prim, sensible, conservative, and can’t understand what Matt sees in games, science fiction, pop culture — and, especially, his dorky friends. Nonetheless, she’s decided to give it a chance, joining Matt’s gaming group. Ken is amused. Igor is appalled. And Matt is stuck in the middle because Gilly has joined the group, too. Torn between his commitment to Kayleigh and his attraction to Gilly, Matt’s only remaining refuge is in the friendly confines of the game shop run by…
- Bill
- As the ever-suffering proprietor of Pegasaurus Games, Bill Blyden has the thankless and often daunting task of catering to the far-flung fannish whims of the Mud Bay gaming community. Like most merchants who pursue this sort of market, Bill walks the line between satisfaction at meeting the needs of his eager customers and chagrin at the fact that his store is always in the middle of every fanboy controversy and difference of opinion.
Special thanks to Guy “Matt’s Cousin” McLimore for his assistance.