Whatever Happened to Dork Tower?

That’s a misleading headline, since Dork Tower by John Kovalic is alive and well as a webcomic. I hadn’t thought much about it since, oh, about 2007, though, when the last of the print comic book collections, Dork Decade, came out.

Although Dork Tower is quite successful as a gag strip about gamers and related nerditry, I read the comic because the space allowed for longer stories, which gave the cast more character, particularly when it come to the never-quite-right relationship between normal guy Matt and Gilly the Perky Goth.

I had good reason to go hunting through my shelves for the print books last week, since the author (who lives here) was making an appearance at my local comic book store to promote the launch of the Munchkin comic. I had him sign my copy of Livin’ La Vida Dorka, since it’s the most Dork Tower-y to me, being the first collection of the various comic strips. He even drew a sketch of Carson the Muskrat for me:

I realized, when I stopped reading the series, that I never found out what happened with Matt and Gilly. Turns out I didn’t miss anything, since there wasn’t ever a resolution. There’s still planned to be one, though — Kovalic is talking about maybe doing a Kickstarter at some point. I checked in at the website, and I discovered that the latest strip even references her, in another of those “oh, no, they just missed each other!” moments.