Wormy

Wormy is a fantasy comic created by David A. Trampier. Tramp, as he signed his work, was the top illustrator for then fledgling TSR and designed much of the look for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Despite this, Wormy has only a loose association with Dungeons and Dragons, drawing more on early Tabletop War Games.

More specifically, Wormy was the lead character. A charming, intelligent, streetwise dragon in a baseball cap who'd rather hustle pool than kidnap maidens. His closest companion is the imp Irving, who lives in Wormy's rather immense underground home. But Wormy's got enemies too, enemies that will stop at nothing to get their claws around his neck...

One interesting note is that almost all of the characters are giants in some form or another. This gives Tramp great opportunities to play with perspective and resulted in some very handsome scenery.

A Wormy archive can be found here.


 * Author Existence Failure - He's Just Hiding. For real.
 * All Trolls Are Different - Fairly close to the D&D troll. The biggest contributor to their survival is their Healing Factor. But they must beware flames. Also, their flesh is poisonous.
 * Big Name Fan - Rich Burlew
 * Breath Weapon - Wormy's breath weapon is a force to be reckoned with.
 * The Chessmaster - Wormy
 * Cerebus Syndrome - Done well.
 * Charm Person
 * Comedic Sociopathy - In the third page Wormy smashes a bunch of dwarves he had robbed.
 * Deadpan Snarker - Many characters, including Solomoriah the Shadowcat - a legendary flying panther summoned by the Wizard Gremorly.
 * Funetik Aksent - Almost everybody.
 * Geometric Magic - Necessary to make portals.
 * Giant Flyer - Wormy, obviously
 * Good Smoking, Evil Smoking - Wormy's cigar functions as both. When he's being charming it emphasizes his unpretentious nature. When he's being morally ambiguous, it emphasizes that instead.
 * Good Thing You Can Heal: trolls
 * Interspecies Romance - Irving dreams of having a romance with a Horse Woman with wings.
 * I Thought That Was - Confusion with the SpongeBob SquarePants episode of the same name.
 * Kudzu Plot - Pretty close to one. But there are often many plot lines going at once.
 * Language of Magic - Gremorly speaks in runes to cast spells.
 * Let's Get Dangerous - Wormy spends the earliest strips lazing about messing with Irving. When it comes time to test the orbs he had stolen he does so by dropping one into a well of Banshees. The demon inside the ball comes screaming out to escape the ghosts of the well. Wormy destroys them all with one well timed blast of his fire Breath Weapon. His first of many Crowning Moments Of Awesome, and the first one to show what he was capable of.
 * Left Hanging
 * Lower Deck Episode - Many multi-page segments don't feature the titular dragon at all! This is, oddly enough, one of the strengths of the series.
 * Orphaned Series
 * Our Dragons Are Different - Wormy has a fairly basic package, but lacks the royal stuffiness associated with powerful Dragons.
 * Reclusive Artist - Dave Trampier.
 * Trapped in Another World - Gremorly. It isn't pleasant.
 * Villain Protagonist - it can be difficult to remember how bad Wormy is, considering the lengths his enemies go to stop him and the plethora of bad guys in the other stories.