Celebrating Twenty Years of ‘Order of the Stick’

Over the past half decade we’ll say, Dungeons & Dragons has been a mass resurgence in the public zeitgeist. Part of this can clearly be attributed to the success of Netflix’s Stranger Things re-familiarizing the masses with the game and having the main monster christened the Demogorgon. But we can also look to the success of Critical Role with its absolutely star studded cast, Wizards of the Coast’s own efforts to revitalize game culminating in retools of D&D 5e and the Dungeons & Dragons movie, the global pandemic having many groups looking for some sort of digital interaction that could be easily conducted over video calls, and even to the super recent Baldur’s Gate III.  And I’m not here to talk about any of these in the slightest. I’m here to bring attention to my personal favorite D&D inspired piece of media. With all of this talk about fantasy tropes and role-playing conventions, it’s due time that I discuss one of the longest running 3.5e campaign I’ve had the pleasure of following for many, many years: The Order of the Stick.

With the first pages posted way back in September 2003, Rich Burlew’s Order of the Stick is one of the longest running webcomics. It was released the same year alongside Ryan North’s Dinosaur Comics and Jeph Jacques’s Questionable Content. It has received various accolades over the years in webcomics spaces during its first years of online publication and also was featured in NYC’s Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art demonstrating …