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Dork Tower #10
Tao of Igor
Dork Tower is back! The fan-favorite, critically acclaimed comic returns with the eagerly awaited The Tao of Igor! It's the big day - Mud Con! But is its new director, Igor, ready? Or even awake? And what of Matt, Gilly, Carson, Ken, Sujata, and the rest of the gang? Great for new readers, a delight for long-time fans, The Tao of Igor is the Dork Tower Collection you've LITERALLY been waiting for!
224 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2022
15 people want to read
About the author
John Kovalic
121 books22 followersJohn Kovalic’s cartoons have appeared everywhere from his hometown WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL (Madison, WI) to the NEW YORK TIMES and DRAGON MAGAZINE. His creations include the sell-out comic book sensation DORK TOWER and “DR. BLINK: SUPERHERO SHRINK,” as well as SNAPDRAGONS, NEWBIES, WILD LIFE, BEACHED, and panel cartoons including MURPHY’S RULES, THE UNSPEAKABLE OAF and others.
A co-founder and co-owner of Out of the Box Games, and a cartoonist for Steve Jackson Games, John has illustrated over 100 games and game supplements, and is at least in part responsible for best-sellers like APPLES TO APPLES (A GAMES Magazine Hall of Fame inductee) , MUNCHKIN, CHEZ GEEK and BLINK. He is closing in on 4,000 MUNCHKIN cards drawn, and boy, are his arms tired.
He was the first cartoonist inducted into the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) Hall of Fame. In his spare time, John searches for spare time.
You can also read about how he got his wife into the National Enquirer.
The lovely and talented JUDITH, BTW, is world-famous now that she works at Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know.
A co-founder and co-owner of Out of the Box Games, and a cartoonist for Steve Jackson Games, John has illustrated over 100 games and game supplements, and is at least in part responsible for best-sellers like APPLES TO APPLES (A GAMES Magazine Hall of Fame inductee) , MUNCHKIN, CHEZ GEEK and BLINK. He is closing in on 4,000 MUNCHKIN cards drawn, and boy, are his arms tired.
He was the first cartoonist inducted into the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) Hall of Fame. In his spare time, John searches for spare time.
You can also read about how he got his wife into the National Enquirer.
The lovely and talented JUDITH, BTW, is world-famous now that she works at Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 18, 2022
A romcom about a concom!
Hilarious, and a must-read for anyone who's ever served on a convention committee (even more so for anyone who hasn't but is contemplating it). Funnier if you've been reading Dork Tower long enough to know the characters, but if you know gamers or sf fans at all, you'll get enough of the jokes to make it worth your time.
Hilarious, and a must-read for anyone who's ever served on a convention committee (even more so for anyone who hasn't but is contemplating it). Funnier if you've been reading Dork Tower long enough to know the characters, but if you know gamers or sf fans at all, you'll get enough of the jokes to make it worth your time.
May 22, 2024
This might have been a 4 or 5, but I took too long. This review will only make sense to some people - the rest will probably hate it and are free to ignore it.
You have to understand, I longed for this volume ever since I read the previous ten (that is including the anniversary one), again and again. Dork Tower got me through some dark, dark times, and I will always be grateful to Kovalic for it.
When vol. 10 came out as a Kickstarter, it was a no-brainer backing. With all the vicissitudes of COVID, it took a long time to get to my hands and then, well, life happened, other reads were prioritized etc. Meanwhile, Kovalic started posting regular new strips again, moving the story along, and I could not help but keep reading.
And much to my heart-rending disappointment, Matt and Gilly's long-awaited (promised even) romance was not deferred this time but, as far as I can tell, written off. It was sacrificed in the name of woke representation, by adding Stell and making her Gilly's very openly romantic interest and partner, while Matt was given back to abusive, hateful, unlikable Kayleigh. It might seem silly, but it broke my heart.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against representation per se. In fact I can empathize with Stell on many things, especially her book hoarding. But making her Gilly's girlfriend made me feel cheated.
You see, Kovalic's characters are basically real - people we were, people some of us still are, people we empathized with because we had similar experiences and usually similar burdens. After a million storms, Igor "made" Mud Con a smashing success simply by trumping the universal dice, while the trade-off was his never actually seeing it. Matt made a successful comic book, which boosted his self-esteem, while actually not earning him but a dollar. Ken got his improbable happy ending.
And then? Then the new culture wars broke out, sides were picked, fingers were shaken in the face of readers and the magic was broken - and the "promise" made to us some 15 years ago, the relationship we were cheering on against all odds, seems like it will never happen. I decided to go through Tao of Igor quite recently, rather listlessly. I can still see what I loved about it, but I can no longer enjoy it.
Kovalic is an excellent cartoonist and his humor is generally inspired, but his taking up the agenda has left a bitter taste in my mouth.
You have to understand, I longed for this volume ever since I read the previous ten (that is including the anniversary one), again and again. Dork Tower got me through some dark, dark times, and I will always be grateful to Kovalic for it.
When vol. 10 came out as a Kickstarter, it was a no-brainer backing. With all the vicissitudes of COVID, it took a long time to get to my hands and then, well, life happened, other reads were prioritized etc. Meanwhile, Kovalic started posting regular new strips again, moving the story along, and I could not help but keep reading.
And much to my heart-rending disappointment, Matt and Gilly's long-awaited (promised even) romance was not deferred this time but, as far as I can tell, written off. It was sacrificed in the name of woke representation, by adding Stell and making her Gilly's very openly romantic interest and partner, while Matt was given back to abusive, hateful, unlikable Kayleigh. It might seem silly, but it broke my heart.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against representation per se. In fact I can empathize with Stell on many things, especially her book hoarding. But making her Gilly's girlfriend made me feel cheated.
You see, Kovalic's characters are basically real - people we were, people some of us still are, people we empathized with because we had similar experiences and usually similar burdens. After a million storms, Igor "made" Mud Con a smashing success simply by trumping the universal dice, while the trade-off was his never actually seeing it. Matt made a successful comic book, which boosted his self-esteem, while actually not earning him but a dollar. Ken got his improbable happy ending.
And then? Then the new culture wars broke out, sides were picked, fingers were shaken in the face of readers and the magic was broken - and the "promise" made to us some 15 years ago, the relationship we were cheering on against all odds, seems like it will never happen. I decided to go through Tao of Igor quite recently, rather listlessly. I can still see what I loved about it, but I can no longer enjoy it.
Kovalic is an excellent cartoonist and his humor is generally inspired, but his taking up the agenda has left a bitter taste in my mouth.
August 11, 2022
It's been fifteen years since Vol 9. came out (something alluded to in the comic itself) but here we are with another collection of the Dork Tower comic strip. Unusually, it's mostly a single story, albeit one that ends on a minor cliffhanger, and includes some new material not previously published. There are just a couple of sections in the middle that move away from the plot - one a Christmas special and the other a comic-strip history of gaming. But they don't detract from what's an enjoyable piece of work that pokes fun at the organisation of gaming conventions and comic-strip production as well as giving Ken a romantic subplot and the usual jokes about gamers in general. Fifteen years might be a long time to wait, but I'm glad we finally got there.
January 16, 2023
4.5 I admit I've been a little disappointed during first part since I didn't realise how long the lead-up to the actual new material was (and the interruptions!), but it was all worth it in the end. This is a slightly mixed-up, fifteen years in the making, time-skipped and heartfelt love-song to the varied weirdness of gamers.
The graphic novel is a fair starting point for all Dork Tower newcomers who only know the web strips, but, of course, it helps a lot if you read the main storyline. It's a bit of a self-contained story though if you can take a hint or two.
For the oldies: There are about 40 brand-new pages some other material too. And for extra heartbreak the introduction is by Andrew Hackard, whose death couldn't have been long after he penned these lines.
The graphic novel is a fair starting point for all Dork Tower newcomers who only know the web strips, but, of course, it helps a lot if you read the main storyline. It's a bit of a self-contained story though if you can take a hint or two.
For the oldies: There are about 40 brand-new pages some other material too. And for extra heartbreak the introduction is by Andrew Hackard, whose death couldn't have been long after he penned these lines.
July 18, 2022
No filler*, just one continuous stream of nothing but comic book issues! While the story arcs aren't all wrapped up, it does feel like a conclusion of sorts. There's also a self-referential look at the comic that kind of hit up all my complaints about the previous volumes, and that alone helped me bump my rating up to a full five stars.
*There were two issues that were asides, and slowed down some of the momentum, but there were no online comic reprints!
*There were two issues that were asides, and slowed down some of the momentum, but there were no online comic reprints!
August 16, 2024
I found two or three issues of this series at a local store and loved everything about it. I ordered book one and loved it even more. It is a hilarious recap of what life was like for gamers and goths against society that isn't copacetic with such interests.
I believe I waited ten years from the time I read the previous book until my wife bought me a copy of this book. I love this book. The story line continues, but leads back to Kovalic's website. It is beautiful.
I believe I waited ten years from the time I read the previous book until my wife bought me a copy of this book. I love this book. The story line continues, but leads back to Kovalic's website. It is beautiful.
October 28, 2022
The first couple of issues in this collection made me wish I would have re-read the previous volumes before starting Tao, but it didn't take me long to get right into things. Great geeky fun, overall, and so nice to be able to catch up on the character's lives in a more in-depth way than we can get in the online strips.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews