Bruno the Bandit

Bruno the Bandit was a webcomic drawn by Ian McDonald about an incompetent bandit in a fantasy setting. The strip began on July 20, 1998, and a new strip was posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday until October 23, 2009. It is published online by Keenspot, and in print by Plan 9 Publishing. Bruno the Bandit was nominated for Best Fantasy Comic in the 2002 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards.[3] McDonald is currently on indefinite hiatus.

Bruno the Bandit
Author(s)Ian McDonald
Websitewww.brunothebandit.com
Current status/scheduleEnded
Launch dateJuly 20, 1998 (1998-07-20)[1]
End dateOctober 23, 2009 (2009-10-23)[2]
Publisher(s)Keenspot
Genre(s)Humor / Fantasy

McDonald developed the comic starting from his parody strip "What if Conan the Barbarian Was Garfield's Owner?", Conan becoming Bruno and Garfield becoming the microdragon sidekick.[4][5] It began as three or four panels in black and white and laid out horizontally, published six days a week. Strips also appeared laid out vertically, with varying numbers of mixed orientation panels. Double-height strips and occasional solid colors appeared in 2001, at the end of which posting changed to thrice weekly. The strips were colored from April 4, 2003 until April 16, 2003 by Dominic and from May 30, 2005 to December 14, 2007 by colorist Lynn Blackson. The strips from the launch until July 5, 2001 have been translated into German.[6]

The comic's plots often leverage anachronistic elements: technologies such as such as cell phones, cameras, and televisions exist without drawing comment, and books of great evil are released in paperback, "for the benefit of evil wizards everywhere." There are many homages to other comics, such as Garfield (the most referenced), Peanuts, Sandman, Conan, and others.

The strip was organized in short story arcs. Some of the stories last for only 6 strips. The longest one as of late 2005 took 72 strips. There is continuity between the sagas, but gags drive the story more than long-term plot development.

Religion and Philosophy

Bruno's world has a complex history (often retrofitted onto Bruno's ancestry), springing from an elaborate religion founded by an ancient and wise prophet named "Ailix". Combining aspects of Buddha, Mohammed, and Jesus this peaceful and enlightened system of justice and non-violence has led to as much conflict as real world religions.

So the greater the gulf in time and philosophy between Bruno, his victims and accomplices, the greater the distinctions between his endless corruption and their enlightenment. Bruno stubbornly clings to his evil ways (which include torture, murder, investment fraud, and clubbing baby seals) in the face of overwhelming evidence of the Machiavellian power of enlightened self-interest.

The Enemy of Ailix is a demon god named "Xu'buxx" and his crafty Hench-bird named "The Bluebird of Happiness". Both use Bruno and others for their own ends.

Main characters

The main characters are:

Bruno
A strong and ambitious thief. Not very bright, but has gathered some fame as a bandit over the years. Currently, Bruno is 38 years old. He wields the "Sword Of The Truth," a magical sword found in the caves beneath Mt.Grislydeth in the land of Maliceria, according to Milo

According to Bruno, his sword was one of many mass-produced in the factories of Asuton. (Still, it is a lethal weapon, and also has a digital alarm clock.)

Fiona
Bruno's sidekick. A micro-dragon, she tricked Bruno into becoming her boss. She acts as the conscience/brain of Bruno, but will betray him for her own benefit on any opportunity. There's a running gag where Fiona mistakenly gets referred to as a baby dragon, which annoys her.
Maledict
An evil wizard, he is one of Bruno's many foes. However, since Bruno is not exactly good, they have allied (and betrayed each other) many times in the strip. In fact, Bruno meets Fiona for the first time during a mission for Maledict.
Eunyce
Bruno's mother. While initially presented as a grounded older woman, she was eventually revealed to have been a Warrior hottie in her youth. From time to time, she dons her old outfit to help her son.
Ambrose
Bruno's father, and the parent from whom he has taken his moral code. Ambrose was a bandit until recently. He lost an arm before the strip began (making him a literal "one-armed bandit"); a bonus story in one of the printed books explains the story behind the loss. He is married to Eunyce.
Constable Oswold
Bruno's least favorite representative of the elite Rothland Imperial Guard. Rothland's above-ground institutions hobble themselves with ineffective and corrupt laws and regulations. Oswold's narrow-minded focus on obeying the law frequently prevents him from dealing with even the simplest of petty crimes, committed right under his nose.
The Fame Vampires
Beautiful, undead, talented creatures whose life energy depends on the constant adulation of fans. If they lose their fan-base, and if the number of cameras on them reduces to zero, they dissolve into a grey powder, but can be reconstituted with the utterance of the correct punch-line into a normal Human, a Häzbin, a Warrior Hottie, a Stage Mother, or a Fame Vulture. The latter crave infamy, and their life energy depends on continuous tabloid-oriented scandal and public opprobrium.
Demons
Evil, often inept creatures from beyond known dimensions of space and time. One, a Dread Lord known as Num'thkul (numbskull), works as a bartender in Bruno's hometown. His ex-wife, a hideous female demon known as Shub Megawrath, has ten thousand children sired by Num'thkul, child number 666 being the most well-known and evil, possibly due to his name being a satanic number.

Printed collections
  • Bruno the Bandit (Plan 9 Publishing) ISBN 978-0-9660676-7-5
  • Bruno the Bandit: Most Wanted (Plan 9 Publishing) ISBN 978-1-929462-22-3

Notes
  1. "Comic Strips - Bruno the Bandit © 2000 Ian McDonald".
  2. "Comic Strips - Bruno the Bandit © 2000 Ian McDonald".
  3. The 2002 Cartoonist's Choice Awards Archived December 8, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  4. "This Bruno Is A Barbarian". Comixpedia. February 2006. Archived from the original on May 21, 2011. Retrieved February 22, 2008.
  5. "The Conan/Garfield parody that started it all". brunothebandit.com. 2000 or earlier. Retrieved 2008-02-22. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. Bruno der Bandit, Heike Brand, comicstrips.de, (german)
gollark: All manufacturers' laptops come with dead pixels or what?
gollark: You can formally verify stuff, but good luck formally verifying an entire modern software stack and also all the formal verification toolchain.
gollark: The best way, though, is to use a totally side-effect-free language. That way there may still be bugs, but they can not have any observable effect so they effectively aren't real.
gollark: The giant C runtime isn't typechecked or whatever, though.
gollark: > Which is probably never

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