Myth Adventures!
By Phil Foglio
Same humour of Girl Genius, but pre-dating it. (I read it online, but it's now indefinitely been taken off.) Totally worth reading whilst waiting to continue the GG series. (It's based on a book so I'll try to read after, most likely. Even with taking long breaks; I've been busy, I can fall right back into the story-line, remembering all the funny dialogue and characters.) The apprentice Skeeve is taught a short cut in how to travel dimensions after the demise of his previous master Garkin when a "demon" named Ahhz, who Garkin had history with was summoned and it had gone awry. (It's making me curious about the original book.) It becomes more of a romp when discovering the dimension traveler lost his wizarding powers when he was summoned and now he has to use the apprentice's few powers to help him get back to his own time.
Ahhz then offers to take Skeeve on as his apprentice, which Skeeve quickly accepts since Ahhz makes him believe his chances of learning enough to help him overthrow another dimension "bully" are favorable. It's starting to bring to mind The Animaniacs, as well. With some of the reactions to physical comedy. This is easy to read through quickly. It's well written and funny, I'm quite satisfied by Foglio's work thus far. Ahhz also lets Skeeve know he plans on keeping him on as his apprentice since he takes learning magic seriously, to Skeeve's great relief.
Between the aforementioned though, they are still being tracked by demon assassins and so they make a deal with another deevil to deal with it and make a trade involving them getting into more trouble in a funny way. We then get to wonder whether they'll escape this mess before even getting out of the previous one. They ensnare the deevil's help and follow Garkin's assassins to another dimension to square off. They take said deevil for a chump, but rightly so and continue on their way to locate the assassins.
Skeeve then gets to experience an alternate dimension in Deva's bizarre (which is the perfect distraction to no more Douglas Adams). Whilst Ahhz takes in a Pervish meal, he sends Skeeve to go browse some dragons. He gets some trouble there by being molested by a cute friendly one, but also gets himself out of it rather deviously. It's the kind of story to bring me back to Howl's Moving Castle world, as well, which is another I do reminisce about sporadically.
It's nice to have another off-world funny adventure to immerse myself into after this start to an interesting comic introduction. We then are introduced to a female assassin similar to Zeetha in GG. After everyone regroups, and are introduced, we get a flashback of explanations how Tanda (Assassin) knows Ahhz and everyone else involved. It's inter-woven and easy to follow.
Isstvan reminds me of Adventure Time's Ice King, but looks like The Grinch. Hilarious. Not disappointed, more excited to begin the series by Robert Asprin.
