The premise here is light as a feather-- a Dungeons & Dragons-type character is in a videogame setting, in which he’s attempting to ‘exit the game level,’ presumably to take a nice rest. Frequently that involves attempting to rescue a princess along the way.

Altho he’s rather dwarfish in stature, the problem isn’t the hero’s energy, fierceness or ingenuity, but rather that something’s always going wrong. And by ‘going wrong,’ I mean that he typically suffers all variety of gruesome deaths at the hands of the dungeon’s traps. He, the princess, the endless stream of monsters-- just everyone.

Game Over is technically a spinoff series of Midam’s (Michel Ledent of Belgium) Kid Paddle series for kids, but one hardly needs any backstory, even though the full albums (and there are over two dozen) tend to be bookended with Kid Paddle context. To be clear-- these are largely wordless comics that can be consumed in any language.

TBH, I fear that I’m always going to be a bit weirded out by this series, which combines light, kid-like, gaggish elements right next to total gore, in which the characters are seemingly ready to burst in to total pools of eyeballs, bones & blood given the slightest impetus. There’s also the fact that the comics (to me, anyway) are *completely* hit-or-miss, with a lot more duds than successes IMO. Still, it’s a BD classic of sorts, and certainly worth a look as a BD hobbyist.

Btw, I see there’s a big Imgur archive HERE, and happily, those seem to be a kind of ‘best of’ collection. Cheers.

  • JohnnyEnzyme@lemm.eeOPM
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    5 months ago

    I always felt these gags would have worked better as a webcomic…

    I totally agree.
    These are definitely worth seeing, but work much better as a daily or weekly IMO.

    • Horrible_Goblin@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_Paddle

      Looked it up, and apparently kid paddle started out as an editorial in Robbedoes (Spirou) magazine, and went from an ‘a gag a day’ thing to eventually its own comic book. So considering that progression, in combination with 1993 not really being webcomic-era, it all makes a lot of sense really.