Chapter 1: Page 62
Hardin and Ashtor exchange terse words this week! Not much else to say on that front, I suppose!
We’re nearing the end of Chapter 1, folks! But don’t worry – it’s not the end of the story by a longshot! The world of the Western Deep is just starting to take shape and our characters’ stories are just starting to begin, so Chapter 2 is inevitable.
However, to help build up an appropriate page buffer and to give us time to polish up the existing pages for possible publication, Rachel and I will be taking a brief hiatus before we start posting Chapter 2. We will post a special double-page weekend the week after next, and that will conclude Chapter 1 of Beyond the Western Deep.
For the month of June, we will be building up a page buffer for Chapter 2 and going back through Chapter 1 and cleaning up minor errors here and there. Then, on July 6th, we will begin officially posting Chapter 2 of Beyond the Western Deep!
So yes, mark your calendars! Next Saturday will be one page as normal, June 1st will be the penultimate page of Chapter 1, and June 2nd will be a special bonus page to round out chapter. There will be a month hiatus (with perhaps some guest art and teaser images from Rachel), and July 6th is when Chapter 2 will begin!
I am loving Ashtor more and more. Also, super excited for chapter two; I’m sure it will be well worth the wait!
I don’t think Hardin doubts Ashtor’s loyalty but rather his mettle.
The fire rising up behind Hardin in the first cell is very dramatic.
Hardin: ‘So what do you think of my “crazy pose”, it’s pretty good innit?’
While I’m disappointed to hear there’ll be a month-long break with no new chapter pages (although the prospect of occasional filler during that period does sound intriguing) I can fully understand the need for it, and wouldn’t begrudge such a hiatus for the creators who’ve brought us so many wonderful pages so far. And the idea that we’re nearly at the end of Chapter One – with five more to go after that! – is pretty exciting too. Just thinking of all that’s been crammed into this first chapter really does make me wonder how much more lies in store, and just how epic this is all going to be. Can’t wait to find out!
Looking forward to the final Chapter One pages!
Well, I seem to have misjudged the amount of bitterness between Ashtor and Hardin at the current moment. It’s merely an argument and disagreement of ideals after all. I suppose I’ll have to give it a few more chapters if Ashtor really begins to disagree with Hardin to the point of broken trust. I look forward to seeing the teaser and guest art that will appear, and I’ll begin to camp out for July 5! I’ve waited two or three years for the next installment of a series before; a month is nothing.
On another note relating to Hardin and Ashtor, Ashtor’s face in the second panel makes me sad. He’s such an old, scruffy guy, and he’s trying to tell Hardin they still trust him, even when everything is starting to reach its brink, and Ashtor is probably going to see others die before he himself dies… :< No, I'm only making a sad face through an emoticon instead of in real life, really! I swear!
But I did cheer myself up with the thought that Hardin almost looks like he's floating in the final panel, and that his pose in the first could be taken as "well? What're you going to do now?" or "AGGRESSIVE JAZZ HANDS." I personally prefer the latter.
Either way, great art is always, I look forward to seeing the rest of this chapter and the next, and I wish you and Rachel luck with cleaning up the tidbits of the other pages. :)
Guess I’ll have to add Floaty Hardin to the fix list, then, heheh. I got that remark when I bounced this page off my sister, and I guess the changes I made then were insufficient!
I’m laughing at AGGRESSIVE JAZZ HANDS too. Hardin’s meant to be displaying his massively bloodstained front, but if it doesn’t read, it doesn’t read! *note’d*
Maybe have Hardin have his arms straight in a more resigned pose, or alternatively have him point at himself, towards his torso? I have to agree with SaraaLuna, now he reminds me of the Come At Me Anteater.
COME AT ME BROERMEHN.
But I think Hardin needs to be craning forward a little more aggressively while his arms still keep the pose he has. That or– like you suggested, tronn– he can be gesturing or pointing at the huge blood splatter across his chest. Anyway, I did get the actual message he was sending from his pose in panel one quite clear; I was just trying to find something to cheer me up after Ashtor’s face. No! Don’t sink into the Snow of Sadness, Ashtor!
As for the floaty panel, I think it seems that way because Hardin’s legs aren’t as beneath him as they should be, if that makes sense? It seems more like we’re seeing a flatter profile of him rather than viewing him from a perspective, like we are Ashtor. His leading foot needs to be moved a little back towards where the shadow is, I think.
http://tinyurl.com/ab3c6f6
You called?
Has Beyond the Western Deep just given birth to its first meme?
I’ll bet Alex and Rachel are so proud. look at it’s cute little word bubbles. Bless.
…I’m not going to lie, it has a few older siblings. As in, er, more than a few. But let’s just pretend this BTWD reaction gif is the only one that exists, yes?
First time for everything, I suppose! Glad to be of service.
Eh, I’m not going to change my assessment. All this talk about trust only serves to make Ashtor’s betrayal ever so more bitter. You’ll see that I was right in a couple of months when he joins forces with Quinlan.
Internet right!
tronn, my prediction bro, I’m not disagreeing with you; I just think Ashtor needs more time to get bitter and hopeless before he runs out on Hardin to join the slightly-less-murder-inclined trio. Hardin just needs to punt a few more children onto the battlefield or maybe burn a few more bridges before Ashtor throws up his paws and leaves.
Perhaps by Chapter 3 he’ll be making a run for it?
SaraaLuna said: “Hardin almost looks like he’s floating in the final panel”
Hardin: ‘I must go. My people need me.’
Whoooooooooosssshhhhh…..
…*distant sonic boom*
Somewhere out there, a Canid named Laika is fuming at the Ermehn and feeling inescapably cheated for no apparent reason.
*SNORT*
I see what you did there
Exactly how do you tell Hardin and Ashtor apart? I get confused about who is who on occasion.
If my knowledge of fantasy clichés is correct, Hardin’s gonna have it in big-time for Ashtor later on. Hardin’s definitely gonna be doin’ a lot of backstabbing, frontstabbing, head stabbing, or some other sort of stabbing in the near future ;P
Gosh, I kinda wish I was more like one of you other fellas who can post such detailed and scarily insightful comments.
There’s nothing to it, really – it’s not like anyone remembers if you were wrong. Just post whatever comes to your mind, it’s fun!
That and the fact that I’m naturally verbose when I love things, heh. I splurge text walls all the time.
Hmm, I assumed Ashtor’s approach was also because everyone else in the Sratha-din was busy readying the tribe for moving out/arming them, but there’s that thought too. Gotta say, I can’t see Rathik coming to Hardin for anything but permission to crack open heads.
When you think about it in that manner– taking into consideration the fact that Ashtor may be Hardin’s closest equivalent to a godfather or parent or guardian, and thus stayed close to him his whole life– isn’t this whole story really a giant amount of nightmare fuel and despair for both Ashtor and Hardin, especially Ashtor?
Ashtor gets to watch the cub he helped guide and obviously placed so much trust and loyalty into turn into a great leader, yes. But Hardin also turns into someone who is steadily losing control over his choices and preparing to kill/lose plenty of lives in the process… which is the opposite of what Ashtor wanted. For both himself and Hardin’s sake. Even if Ashtor didn’t know him from childhood, he *had* to have known him when Hardin was just a bit more idealistic; when he was just a bit less willing to take this route. Which, as we can see now, is an age that is long past. Toss in the fact that the Ashtor and Hardin’s history might be linked by tribal blood far, far back, and it somehow gets worse; Hardin is pretty much left with the scraps of the broken Sratha-din and Ashtor for blood family, and I don’t think they’re going to be able to stick around too long.
And as respectful and close as the two seem in their own way, there’s a bit of a melancholy air hanging over everything. Something is going to snap in the future. Seeing Hardin is being pushed to new desperate lengths even he doesn’t seem too certain of– but feels he *has* to go through with for survival– he may one day believe that he will have to crop off his respect and relationship with Ashtor to push through successfully.
Of course, I might have just completely misjudged Hardin and Ashtor’s backstory and relationship and threw a text wall at poor VarVau and her theories and everyone for no reason. But writing and rambling way too much about twisted character relationships is kinda my thing (which Laflen Kenway knows plenty about; I don’t know how he tolerates me, haha). Sorry, guys. :P
…aaand on that note, Architects by Rise Against just passed by on my playlist while I splurging about Hardin and Ashtor. Ouch. Taking the lyrics into account, that just made everything a bit more painful. “Are we the generation that we’ve been waiting for” indeed.
Well, I enjoy reading your rambles. With my tented fingers pressed against my chin. >:)
…you and Alex are plotting something, aren’t you? Oh gods, you totally are. Now I have to be paranoid and reread everything VarVau and I wrote and try to make guesses as to what theories hit closer to the truth.
I don’t trust you. Either of you. Because I know my favorite character is bound to die before the story closes, and you’ve already plotted who’s getting out alive or dead. Just saying.
As of now I’m giving the scenarios ‘Ashtor joins Quinlan, volunteers to take down Hardin since he believes it’s his responsibility, fails to do so and dies’ and ‘Ashtor is the only one who survives to tell the tale’ equal odds, place your bets.
I’m pretty sure Hardin lives. Isn’t he the mysterious cloaked figure in the Prologue? As much as I’m fond of Ashtor, I’m not fond of his survival possibilities (though it’s possible; there could be the awful chance of he and Hardin being the only ones of Hardin’s band to survive.) I don’t think either of us were too off track, VarVau, though I’m still a little wary about everything.
Alright, those are some difficult choices to pick between, tronn. I can see both of them happening. Um… can I pick the third option of ‘Ashtor joins Quinlan, volunteers to take down Hardin since he believes it’s his responsibility, fails to do so and is heavily injured– to the point of being considered dead at one point– but lives’?
Well, we can’t see the face of the cloaked mysterious figure so they could be anyone, really. And even if it is Hardin, I don’t see any indication that the trip to the library happens after the events of this story? In fact, since the first scene where we see him (sharpening his knife) uses the same color palette as the scene where he’s ‘properly’ introduced (duel to the death), I’m inclined to think that these are meant to be sequential events – Hardin travels to foreign lands, finds what he needs at the library and returns to hatch his revenge.
Also, it’s a prologue not an epilogue…
Sorry, but I’m pretty sure it’s Hardin. Dunno if it’s intuition or what, but I feel that’s Hardin. There’s only him and one other beast who stick out in the crowd of cats in that scheme: he and a one-eyed otter. (Three guesses as to who I think that is and why it caused me a whole load of distress the instant I formed my theory.) The prologue is one of those “here, let us retell the story after it has happened” prologues, since the narrative delivers a line that almost literally says “we have to record what has occurred so know one forgets it.” It’s a history book that opens up on the events happening now; hence, they have already happened. The Prologue is truly the present time/end of the story.
The Felis are hardly opening and welcoming to others, especially Ermehn, who are hinted to be their slave labor. As it is, Hardin is also currently locked in the Northern Wastelands; it’s the whole reason for his crisis– if he could peel out and sneak off to a much warmer foreign land, then something tells me there would be far less Ermehn up starving in the north. Hardin is only going to end as far down as Gair or the Felis kingdom Kishar if something very, very major has happened. I have no idea what in all blazing hell’s bells he did to get to travel down there, but he did *something* and survived it. That something was the story.
…buuuut now I really fear for Quinlan’s life or the path he takes, for some reason. :<
I’ll go ahead and confirm the prologue time/setting, here. It is indeed a “let me tell you a story” sort of prologue, and it’s also going to get a revamp pass in the near future. Needs moar clarity.
As for the rest of your theories, well. We’ll just see, I guess~
So July fifth is a Friday; are you changing the update day?
Ah, good catch! I put the fifth because that’s when I post it up, but it’s actually 12-midnight the 6th. I’ll edit the post to reflect that.
Since you got some inspiration for this from Redwall, did you get the name Felis from Riggu Felis, the wildcat in “High Rhulain”?
The Felis name actually comes from the Latin source for cat (Felis Catus) – which I’m sure is where Brian Jacques got the surname for Riggu. Many of the race names in BWD are a play on their inspiration’s scientific name :)
Yeah, I noticed that with Lutren (Lutra)!
One big disadvantage of reviewing the comic so late is that any comments I might have on certain pages have already been said by others. In this case, I’m so overwhelmed by the details that Saraa, Tronn, VarVau and the rest of you fellows have provided in your interpretations of the page that I really feel there is nothing I can add. All I can say is that I really like Ashtor, that I really sympathize with him, that I want to find out more about his backstory with Hardin and… other stuff that you have already stated several times over. So I’ll just move on…