The Hopeless Adventures of Willy is a 369 page pencilled comic book written by Larry Joly and Daniel Hyland, and illustrated by Larry Joly.
A personal project developed the Summer of '07 by the artist Larry Joly desiring to develop and commit to a larger scale comic book than his earlier works. The initial crude ideals and vision of the project were then fleshed out over time in collaboration with the writer, and his friend, Daniel Hyland and others. This grew into a comic book telling the story of the rise of a hero, divided into ten chapters, featuring several parallel storylines and plots, set in the backdrop of a mythical location in the medieval era; Hinnipa. It was finished and finally made available to the public in September 2010, when they made use of the self publishing website Lulu to print the book.
The central story of The Hopeless Adventures of Willy (or HAW) revolves around a witless peasant named Willy who accidently gains the favour of the senile King, Alfred, by saving him from an assassin. The story then follows his journey to Lira, a city at the edge of the Kingdom, where he is sent by the King to slay a feared Dragon. Accompanying him is Sir Harold, the greatest Knight in the land. A lover of bar brawls and generally all forms of fighting, he must journey with Willy to help him slay the beast, hoping to regain his honoured role as personal bodyguard to the King since his failure to stop the assassin himself. This journey is filled with mishaps as Willy is constantly under attack from the creatures of the woods such as wolves, cyclops, griffins, cats and of course, Harold himself, as he moves closer to the inevitable battle with the giant monster. The story of a nobody forced to be a hero through circumstance.
The book also tells the tales of many other characters, including the King himself, and features plotlines driven by revenge, love, fear and honour throughout. But though a serious element exists and is quite prominent in places, the focus is always on the humourous. This tale is in its majority, a comedy.
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