King of RPGs Volume 1

College freshman Shesh has a slightly deranged alter ego with a dangerous taste for role playing games. Now that he's been introduced to the university's craziest game master, nobody is safe!

With its endless stream of geeky jokes and wildly exaggerated gaming scenes that easily rival the most outrageous shonen sports manga, King of RPGs barely comes up for air as it races to the end of its intense first volume. Crafted with deep and obvious affection, this comic is a love letter to gamers and manga fans everywhere.

Shesh Maccabee has a big gaming problem -- massively multiplayer online role play gaming (MMORPGs) to be exact. Shesh's obsession with online gaming got so bad, it led to his hospitalization and a court-ordered Internet ban.

Now after months of therapy, Shesh sets off for college to begin a life free of online gaming. Joining him is his friend Mike, who is determined to keep Shesh on the straight-and-narrow. All goes well until they encounter the university's gaming club, where they are roped into a game of Mages & Monsters run by a fanatical GM (game master) named Theodore Dudek.

Theodore takes tabletop role-playing gaming to new extremes, introducing simulated dungeon drip, live snakes, and Sri Lankan cave roaches. The intensity of the game awakens Shesh's maniacal alter ego and generates so much mayhem, the club gets a visit from the campus police. Shesh is brought to the attention of student policewoman, Rona Orzak who is determined to rid her town of gaming once and for all.

King of RPGs can best be described as "dense," a term applicable to every aspect of its storytelling. From dialogue to artwork (and everything in between), this comic is stuffed to the gills with inside jokes, geek fantasy, and pure kinetic energy. Overall, this relentless intensity is one of the volume's greatest strengths, creating an engaging, madcap universe as capable of devouring the mind as one of Theodore's "immersive" RP adventures.

Its pages are thick with jokes and references for gamers (or spouses of gamers) and given Jason Thompson's background as a former Shonen Jump Magazine editor and author of Manga, The Complete Guide, it shouldn't be surprising that there are quite a few gems for manga fans as well.

If the story's premise seems over-the-top, its characters are even more so, with each grounded in just enough reality to ring perfectly true. The one exception is Orzak who, late in the volume, orders her over-zealous police force to open fire on a crowd of vampire cosplayers, taking the book's "anything can happen" vibe a bit too far to be genuinely funny.

What never fails is Thompson's dialogue, which is at its funniest when it's sincere. "Each one is its own world!" exclaims Theodore, amidst a passionate soliloquy on the splendor of RPGs. "They just need players, like frozen pierogi waiting to be reheated and given life!"

Where the comic's dedication to excess sometimes causes it to stumble is in its artwork. Though Victor Hao's expressively drawn characters and sense of whimsy are key in establishing the series' reckless feel, overcrowded panels and excessive screen tone make some pages just look sloppy, working against the organized chaos of the volume as a whole. That said, with just a bit of expert restraint, this comic could be nearly unstoppable.

Fast-paced, fun, and gleefully self-mocking, King of RPGs is a real treat for gamers and those who love them.

Melinda Beasi writes manga reviews for her blog, Manga Bookshelf, and Pop Culture Shock.

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.