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Bruno The Bandit is a humorous web-based comic strip that has been running since 1998. Despite having been around for the past 7 years, it still has a rather small following compared to other comics of a similar age. This is somewhat surprising, as it is a very high-quality comic.
Bruno is written and drawn by Ian McDonald. Recently, it has also been colored by Lynn Blackson. Blackson's coloring is a welcome addition to the comic, but the early black-and-white strips are also of high quality.
One interesting thing about Bruno is that Mr. McDonald writes very long story arcs. Despite being a humor comic he rarely, if ever, has gag-a-day type material between his stories. Unfortunately, I believe this may be one of the things that keeps the comic from becoming as popular as others. One of the ways that I get my friends hooked on the comics I read is by sending them humorous stand-alone comics. While much of Bruno's humor comes from puns and sly political commentary, some of it also relies on previous knowledge of the story, or something that's been building up for the past few strips.
Bruno The Bandit takes place in an anachronistic fantasy setting. The characters live in a medieval city, the wear armor and fight with swords, etc... but they also have television, a modern-day style obsession with the rich and famous, marketing gimmicks, protesters, and more. A lot of the humor comes from this, but not in a "ha ha! He's a medieval guy watching a soap!" sort of way... the writing cleverly pokes fun at many of today's cultures flaws and hang-ups.
The main character in this story is Bruno, a conniving crook. Bruno is always scheming to gain more wealth and prestige, and usually failing miserably. Early on in the comic, Bruno gets a mini-dragon sidekick named Fiona. Fiona serves as the oft-ignored voice of reason. Also factoring heavily in the comic are Bruno's family, which has grown over the years. There's a cast of lesser characters who show up from time to time, including the royal family, recurring villains, and Bruno's buddies down at the Belching Hydra tavern.
And did I mention that Bruno's mother is an aging warrior hotty?
The best thing that I can say about the story, however, is that it changes. Many comics are locked into a status quo... the characters can never grow up, the star-crossed lovers can never get together, and no one ever changes! Ian McDonald isn't afraid to let characters change or to otherwise shake things up a little bit. It makes the stories much more interesting when you know that things won't always go right back to normal in the end.
If there is one thing that I enjoy even more than the story in Bruno the Bandit, it's the regular updates. Currently the comic is on a 5-days-a-week schedule. I've been reading since probably back in 2001, and this comic has ALWAYS updated on time. Even when Ian goes on vacation, he has some sort of filler up by 12:30 EST every scheduled update day. Such dedication and adherence to schedule are increasingly rare in today's web comics.
Although 7 years of archives mean that you have a lot of catching up to do, I whole-heartedly recommend that you go check Bruno out RIGHT NOW! The archives are free to view and full of great laughs.
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