Castle Horsetooth

July 27, 2024 Castle Horsetooth is a webcomic created by Oren Otter and Eala Dubh, the creative team behind the comic Room For One More. It was introduced in issue #1 of the webzine Anthro, in 2005, and as of 2007 is mirrored on its own site on the Moonbase comics webportal.

Background
The comic is a zany comedy featuring stylized characters, puns, and cultural references in the tradition of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, the TV series from the 1960s. Oren gave a nod to Ward's work by naming the kingdom in which the primary characters live "Jaywardia."

Characters
To date, there are three principal characters and a number of supporting cast, as follows:

Fluren - A knight in shining armor. Handsome but not very well-built, enthusiastic but inexperienced and hopelessly naive.

Briarwood - Fluren's faithful steed. The more level-headed one of the pair. She also happens to be a funny animal and prefers to walk upright.

Morrison - A minstrel bat with enormous thick Penfold glasses and a propensity for speaking in Olde English thees and thous. In the tradition of winged funny-animal characters, his wing-claws double as makeshift fingers.

Cason and Yzma - A 'rival' knight and horse team. Cason is supremely arrogant in his superiority; Yzma, put bluntly, is a slut. Briarwood and Yzma cannot stand each other, Cason and Fluren would doubtless do likewise if Fluren wasn't so blissfully unaware.

The Duke - Fluren's 'boss' at Castle Horsetooth. Accompanied by his own retinue of courtiers, including Chuckles the jester (a manic mouse), Rufus the guard captain (a long-eared dog with prominent brows), Potts the cook (a rat with a thick Peter Falk voice), Chancellor Aldershot (an owl), and an unnamed court wizard presently turned into a mushroom.

Other inhabitants of the castle include:

Durins - an older, heavily moustached knight whose clear grasp on any given situation usually goes unreceived by the naive and innocent Fluren.

Redmane - Durins' horse, a personal friend of Briarwood.

Janric - an friendly, eager young knight with sleepy eyes.

Ivan - The overly-muscled strong-man of the knights.

Og the Frog - A frog who lives in the dungeon and brews tea from moat scum. Og is said to be descended from goblins.

Leolar - The leader of the blackbird choir.

Gribbich - The kindly moat monster.

Dragon - Yes, that's his name. He pretends to be fearsome and dark, but he's actually a softie who loves plush animals.

Story
Castle Horsetooth is a spinoff of Room For One More, occurring in the same location but many years in the past. Both comic series are set in the locale of what in the real world would be Fort Collins, Colorado. Many readers will recognize the familiar shape of the famous Mt. Horsetooth in the background of Room For One More. Castle Horsetooth, located near what would eventually become Frye's mansion, sits directly in front of the tooth-shaped summit.

In its first story, the comic is followed the old song "Sing a Song of Sixpence" detective-style, involving a put-upon baker and his nervous breakdown at the hands of a choir of songbirds.

The current story, as of this revision, follows a brand new interpretation of the song "Ring Around the Rosie", as a mysterious plague hits the castle in the middle of a gardening competition.