Odin and Friends

Thanks for checking out this comic. I’m busy working on the website and generating episodes of the comic for your enjoyment. Come back April 1 or subscribe to my RSS feed so you have time to run to the hills before Odin and Friends arrives on your shores.

What began as a simple “Odin head” floating in the clouds and making decidedly medieval comments on human affairs has grown into a pantheon of floating heads expressing their unique views. Baldur and Loki join Odin this week and Thor is not far behind. Tell your friends to check out Odin and Friends and see the adventure unfold. As the Viking gods let their lightning bolts rip on the modern world, there will surely be something to entertain and offend just about everyone.

I spent a good part of the afternoon yesterday working on a couple of new “god heads” to help round out the pantheon, and I’m pretty excited by the results. Here’s a sneak peak at Sif, who will make her debut in the comic sometime in the next few weeks.

For those not up on their Norse mythology, Sif is Thor’s wife, and she’s known for her beauty and fantastic mane of golden hair. Working from mythological sources is great, because virtually every god or goddess is known for some well-defined attribute that can be cartoonized to the fullest.

I’m still working out how she is going to figure into the universe of Odin and Friends, but her hair is going to play an important role. Not a whole lot is known about her from the old myths, other than she has awesome hair and giants lust after her the same way they do Freyja. The proto-comics I’ve constructed so far involve Sif dealing with Thor and his strange attraction to giant women.

That’s right… Odin and Friends is 50 comics old today.

I’m also proud to say that in the two months since it’s inception, Odin and Friends has risen from complete obscurity to become the web’s premiere destination for comics featuring floating Viking god heads.

Thanks for reading!

Odin Bless,

- Vato

The numbers in this report might be exaggerated, but obviously we have some work to do friends…

Loki will be taking the pulpit soon to begin the repaganization of the people.

Odin and Friends turned 150 a month ago and I forgot to roll out the mead barrels to celebrate. That’s 150 episodes of floating head madness. It’s been a crazy few months so I’m pleased — almost surprised — that I manged to maintain my schedule while moving, traveling, building two websites, writing a novel, and preparing to move again (overseas, no less). Thanks to everyone who has been getting their Viking fix by following the modern day adventures of the Norse gods, including you chubby chasers who only come here for the sexy giantess jokes.

Some highlights from the last 50 episodes:

- Technoviking becomes the Norse God of Dance thanks to apotheosis by YouTube.

- Thor and Mjolnir make sure the clouds of Migard stay in in good and working order. Important lesson in meteorology: don’t hook up clouds on a single circuit.

- Odin goes to outer space and encourages you to do the same. Glorious deaths await the brave.

- Freya weighs in on Christmas, Loki explains the Saturnalia, Thor gets hammered on New Years, Baldur upchucks on Halloween.

- And my personal favorite, the massive snowball fight between the Aesir and Giants.

Thanks for continuing to read Odin and Friends. Don’t miss an episode: subscribe by rss or email today!

The Lay of Thrym. Recent Australian translation.

Stone Age Tools in Viking Graves Raise More Questions than Answers

We got some interesting news this week from the folks who get their kicks digging around Viking graves (archaeologists, *sigh*).

Just as today one might be buried with an antique Viking sword for good luck, back in the Days of High Adventure and Not Infrequent Death, Vikings were buried with stone age weapons that they considered special. Namely, flint axes and hammers, which may have been symbols of Thor.

Of course, what scientists are failing to say is exactly who wielded these tools and for what purpose they were welt before the Vikings acquired them. Simply calling the tool “an axe” is not enough, for as we Viking aficionados know, there is more than one purpose for such a device, from chopping firewood to settling a blood feud.

Were these tools used as weapons by badass proto-Vikings against Jotuns? Or did cannibalistic lizard people employ them to crack the skulls of dinosaurs? And who actually made the stones? Blabbering neanderthals or clever dwarves working deep underground?

Truly, the necrophiles have a bit more digging to do before making such bold pronouncements in a trussed up boob rag like National Geographic. But I guess nowadays you take what you can get, and it’s always cool to learn something new about the Vikings from a source other than Odin and Friends.

Complete Article Here

Did the Norse Gods Destroy a Statue of Jesus in Ohio?

News of this event was sent to me by a reader (thanks!) who figured maybe Odin blew Jesus away. But even though Odin tosses lightning bolts on a regular basis in the pages of this comic, I wouldn’t point the finger at him for this kind of thing. Blowing away statues of other deities seems a bit petty for Father of Thor. Loki on the other hand… definitely a suspect!

Of course, maybe Jesus himself blew the statue away. After all, isn’t there something in the Bible about not making “unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth — especially really cheesy ones”?

And then there is another theory, quite controversial and certainly ludicrous, but presented here solely for your amusement. Maybe, just maybe, liquid and ice particles above the freezing level collided and built up a large electrical field in the clouds. Positive and negative charges separated, resulting in a negatively charged cloud in the atmosphere and a positively charged Earth surface below. Soon, a giant “spark” occurred between the positive and negative fields, reducing the charge separation. The spark in this case occurred right between the outstretched hands of the touchdown Jesus. At this point, a mighty clap of thunder shook the land, a flash of lightning cut across the sky, the Jesus statue became hotter than the surface of the sun, and all that carefully wrought metal-and-plastic burned to the ground.

Nah, that’s preposterous…

Either Jesus blew himself away to protest his tacky portrait or Loki did it as a practical joke. Apparently the statue was made in Florida, probably by the same crew that paints faces on coconuts to sell to tourists. I say Jesus did it.

Snow is starting to fall, and you know that what that means… surly frost giants in need of a smackdown. Enjoy!