The Order of The Stick - Publications

Publications

The Order of the Stick books are published by Giant in the Playground Games, a small press publishing company formed by OOTS creator Rich Burlew. The books are widely distributed to online and brick-and-mortar retailers in the hobby game market, as well as to comic book direct retailers. All four books feature an introduction by the author, as well as a preface written in the voice of one of the characters from the strip. The compilation books feature a number of pages of "bonus material", primarily additional strips inserted into various points in the story. The bonus material for Dungeon Crawlin' Fools, for example, includes an nine-page opening to the story that Burlew felt introduced the characters in a more organic way than the online comic's cast page.

On Jan. 22nd, 2012, Burlew launched a Kickstarter campaign to get The Order of the Stick: War and XPs back into print, which eventually raised enough money to reprint the whole book series. The drive was the most funded creative work in Kickstarter up to that point, getting more than twenty times the original goal for a total of $1,254,120. During the reprint drive Burlew committed, as rewards for meeting increasing funding goals, to write eight new short stories either about specific characters or in alternative non-canon settings; the characters for three of these stories were chosen by backers as part of the pledge reward.