Arthur, King of Time and Space is a "gag-a-day" web comic by Paul Gadzikowski, based on Arthurian legend. The strip started on May 21, 2004, with Arthur pulling the sword Excalibur from the stone while Merlin looked on, and is projected to continue more or less in realtime, with the characters aging and the plot progressing one year for each year of the strip's run.

The premise of the strip is that Arthur's destiny is too great to be contained within a single lifetime, and that Arthur and his associates exist at multiple points in space and time. This allows Gadzikowski to tell a number of parallel but contrasting versions of the story in different settings, switching between them for dramatic, humorous, or rhetorical effect.

There are three major settings/story arcs:

• The "fairy tale arc", a straight (allowing for the fact that it's a humor strip) retelling of the legend. At the current point in the story, Arthur has yet to meet Lancelot, and only been briefly introduced to Guenevere. Arthur is the High King of Britain in a time that's nominally the fifth century A.D. but is laced with anachronisms and fantasy. Merlin, Arthur's trusted advisor, is a wizard and knows the future, but Arthur never heeds his warnings.
• The "space arc", a space opera re-envisioning of the legend with Star Trek and Star Wars influences. Arthur is the High King of all British space during the decline of the Roman interstellar empire, and commanding officer of the starship Excalibur, which is the largest and best ship left in British space. Guenevere and Lancelot are members of his crew. Merlin, Arthur's trusted advisor, is from an advanced alien race, the Avalonians, and knows the future because he's been there (the Avalonians have time travel), but Arthur never heeds his warnings.
• The "contemporary arc". Arthur is a US high school student - since (as the strip makes a point of mentioning) the age of majority in the modern US is higher than in fifth century England, it will be some time before he becomes this arc's version of High King - who has an after-school job at the comics shop owned by his art teacher, Merlin, and spends the rest of his free time playing online role-playing games in which he teams up with Guenevere and Lancelot (he has not yet met Lancelot in the real world, but has met Guenevere). Merlin draws a web comic, opening the way for metahumor, and has a young ward, Nimue; if he knows the future, he's not letting on.

In addition to the three major arcs, there are a number of secondary arcs, which appear less often and don't parallel the overall plot as closely. So far these include:

• The western arc, in which Arthur is sheriff in an old west town, with Lancelot et al. as his deputies. The western arc follows the overall arc in the broad outlines (while the newly-crowned king has trouble gaining the respect of his subject kings, the newly-appointed sheriff has trouble gaining the respect of the local ranchers), but not in all the details (Arthur, Guenevere, and Lancelot begin as adults, unlike the major arcs, where they start out in their teens).
• The movie parody arcs. These arcs, while containing character and situational parallels, completely ignore the overall plot arc, instead running through the plot of the relevant movie in slightly over a week. Movie parody arcs to date have included:
  • The Lord of the Rings, with Arthur-as-Frodo Baggins bound to destroy the "One Grail" with the aid of Merlin-as-Gandalf, Lancelot-as-Aragorn, etc.
  • Star Wars, with Arthur as Luke Skywalker and Merlin as Obi-Wan Kenobi (and a "behind-the-scenes" joke with several female characters protesting the cartoonist's casting of Princess Leia).
• The MASH arc, in which Arthur and his friends are doctors in a mobile army surgical hospital in the Korean War. Although clearly based on M*A*S*H, with Arthur as Hawkeye Pierce, Guinevere as Hot Lips Houlihan etc., this is not simply another movie parody, but a "full" secondary arc. An interesting aspect of this arc is that Morgan and Nimue are male, taking the roles of Trapper John McIntyre and Radar O'Reilly.

Other settings - such as the prehistoric setting in which Arthur is a caveman and Excalibur is a pointy rock - have made one-off appearances to support specific jokes.

Other characters that have featured in the major arcs so far include:

• Kay: Arthur's adoptive brother, the son of Ector. In the space arc, he is running things while Arthur's away on the Excalibur. In the contemporary arc he attends high school and (unlike Arthur) can't wait to be an adult. In both these arcs he has a relationship with Bedivere (who's female).
• Morgan: In the fairy tale arc, Morgan le Fay is a sorceress allied with Faerie, plotting against Arthur. In the space arc, Morgan (who is married to King Uriens of Gore) is allied with the otherdimensional Fae, and has a grudge against Arthur, but is unable to act against him because of a time paradox - a younger version of herself, who is still Merlin's apprentice and only beginning to think of allying with the Fae, is a crewmember on the Excalibur and a rival with Guenevere for Arthur's affections. In the contemporary arc, Morgan Cornwall (who is engaged to Uriens Gore, a Senior Vice-President at Excalicorp), is Arthur's drama teacher, who had a relationship with Merlin as a student.
• Lot of Orkney: In both the fairy tale and space arcs, Lot is a petty king opposed to Arthur's rule. He is married to Morgan's sister Morgause and has an idealistic son, Gawain, whose loyalty to Arthur drives him to despair. He has not yet appeared in the contemporary arc.
• Leodegrance: Guenevere's father. In the fairy tale and space arcs he is king of Cameliard, and very keen on Guenevere becoming High Queen, something she herself, despite her attraction to Arthur, is undecided about. In the fairy tale arc he has an illegitimate daughter, identical to Guenevere, and also named Guenevere (the "false Guenevere"). In the contemporary arc Guenevere and the false Guenevere are full sisters and the false Guenevere is named Fasha (from the Mabinogion's Gwenhwyvach, "Gwen the lesser"). The contemporary Leodegrance and his family are nudists.
• Tristram: In the fairy tale arc, Tristram has been sent to Camelot by his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall to keep him away from the King's wife Isolde. He is openly antagonistic to Merlin (this not being part of the original legend). In the contemporary arc Tristam (as "sadslacker") joined Arthur's online RPG group while Lancelot ("lakeboi") was absent, and remained on his return. It was recently revealed that the contemporary Tristam's uncle is the CEO of a large company, and is married to a doctor whom Tristam loves. More recently, it was revealed that, in both the space and contemporary arcs, Tristram is female (Gadzikowski acknowledges the similarity to Camelot 3000, but has his own reasons for the gender-change). Apparently the space and contemporary Marks are unaware of her mutual attraction to Isolde, although space Mark believes Isolde's having an affair with someone, but thinks it's another man. In all three arcs Tristram is a musician, enabling jokes about the creative process.

External links

• Arthur, King of Time and Space Main Page