The king is mad, the court unstable, and the truce with England is fragile at best. It’s the turn of the fifteenth century—the midst of the Hundred Years’ War—and a desperate France needed heroes.

It got something else.

Recently arrived, Gektar and his enslaved manservant, Heinrich, navigate their way through the disloyal nobles, ambitious courtiers, and countless anachronisms that make up the court of King Charles the Mad. The kingdom is a web of intrigue and insanity, but its only hope rests in a cheerfully unaware German and his meek and depressed companion.

Fortune's Fools is a serial webcomic in the court of King Charles the Mad during the One Hundred Years' War. The creation of Mel Olm (Script and Art) and MJ Almon (Script and Story), it went live at fortunesfools.comicgenesis.com on April 1st, 2006. In September 2008 it moved to the Rampage Network at www.ffools.com.

The webcomic is updated bi-weekly, normally on Tuesdays (give or take). May at times contain scenes with adult language and situations.

It is presently in midst of the second chapter of its first story arc, starting here. Gektar, newly appointed Captain of the King's Guard, and his servant Heinrich have been only a few weeks at the court of King Charles after a long journey through much of western and central Europe. All seems quiet in Paris, but a plot is brewing beneath their noses that threatens the peace and stability of the entire kingdom.

Fortune's Fools is a comedic melodrama, with elements more like an Astérix et Obélix than it is a BBC documentary. Having said this, the creators did (and continue to do) quite a bit of research and have compiled a significant amount of information before completely disregarding it.

The artist sums up nicely our view on character dress / fashion of the time period:

"I KNEW right off the bat that there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I would be adhering to the fashion consensus of that time period."

So while there are historically accurate elements (the king was indeed a tad insane), please do not feel that this is a substitute for researching for your class on French medieval history. Fortune's Fools, as a historical source, is only slightly more acceptable in an academic setting than wikipedia*.

There was a King Charles. He was crazy. And some of the events do conform to the historical timeline. Everything else is fair game.

* Seriously, stop citing wikipedia in your papers. I'm not claiming the majority of the information in it is wrong, but use it as a jumping off point only. And don't come crying when your assignment is covered in red ink. It demeans us both.

Mel Olm is the artistic talent behind Fortune's Fools. She works as an animator 26 hours a day (somehow she manages to find time to this hobby as well) and subsists on the dreams of the young, hopeful and naive rather than give in to sleep. Sleep is for the weak!