Chapter 2: Page 55
A rare moment of reflection from Hardin as Ashtor leaves him to his dire work; the proverbial calm before the storm. Only proverbial, of course, as the rain looks like it won’t be letting up anytime soon. And with this, Hardin and Ashtor’s scene draws to a close — but rest assured, this night is just beginning.
This week, we’ve got a great pair of guest art pieces from regular Western Deep reader and contributor, Veigue! In these two pieces, Veigue envisioned Hardin, Caldus, and Dabheid as living in the modern day, far removed from their medieval-inspired world!
In this first piece, Hardin is chilling out on a park bench, listening to some tunes and looking appropriately grumpy at his surroundings. He strikes me here as the visual personification of a grassroots activist or idealistic hipster — somebody who has big plans and little time to suffer fools. I also love that his plaid vest calls back to his kilt from his medieval counterpart!
Now, Caldus and Dabheid seem to be highly-paid, powerful executives at some very big company in the city. I can definitely see this, you know? Dabheid is CEO and Caldus is his right-hand-Tamian — his enforcer! Of BUSINESS! Caldus isn’t Captain of the Royal Guard here, he’s the head of their mergers and acquisition department. Or if they’re a Wall Street-style company, Caldus would be the head honcho on the trading room floor. It’s war in there!
These two pictures have me imagining Western Deep as a modern-day business tale, with Hardin (a young and idealistic youth on the street) needing to infiltrate and dismantle the business of overzealous K-Nid, Inc. to save his eclectic neighborhood of Ermehn from being bought out by the company’s shady real estate investors. Meanwhile, CEO Dabheid, head of SunsGro Co, has young Quinlan fill the role his grandfather left in the company, putting him in as head of mergers and acquisitions despite Quinlan’s lack of a formal business school degree.
As Hardin’s grassroots campaign starts to pick up against K-Nid, Inc, Kenosh (VP of Lutra Co, purveyor of all things fresh and salmon-related) decides to schedule a very important board meeting with K-Nid COO Clovis, bringing along his son, Dakkan (a junior exec caught in the shadow of his father’s accomplishments) and Quinlan as corporate muscle. After all, K-Nid, SunsGro Co, and Lutra Co all have a strategic partnership that must be maintained!
Truly, this is riveting stuff! :)
Awesome. Soon scat will hit the fan. And nice guest art. Though I wonder what Janik will be in the modern world in that setting?
I think Janik would probably be a good fit as lead counsel for corporate law at SunsGro Co, handling all tricky political and legal matters for the company.
Recently, she’s traveled far afield to work alongside Vulpin Technologies at their corporate HQ. She’s in charge of developing a strategic partnership that would see SunsGro and Vulpin more able to share in their company cultures.
It is very interesting that Hardin is still wanting to go through with this attack. I am wondering if he is going to realize that if this battle happens they may not win. I am wondering how who wins this battle will impact the story.
Serious-themed stories re-enacted by animal people: The defining point that separates furry works from normal children works.
Very much agreed. I’m going to steal that definition and use it to explain to others who don’t appreciate the difference.
I am not really sure it is a compliment, though. :P
SunsGro Co. (formerly Tam Inc.)
Lutra Co. has a longtime corporate rivalry with Polcan Industries, who control the shipping of their salmony goodness.
On a related note, in this side story, would Clovis be the literal “Wolf of Wall Street”? I think so.
K-Nid Inc! Hee!
(And, of course, great page! But then, it seems I *always* say that.)
I wonder when we’ll get to see Bevan at work XD
Hardin looks so tired… It must be terribly lonely when everyone expects you to know what to do, and to tell that everything’s going to be okay. I wonder if he ever got cold feet and thought about just walking away, abandoning his grandiose plan?
Oh my, I dont recall submitting those drawings to you guys. But the fact that you found them via my tumblr and got a big kick out of them is such a huge honor!
Thank you so much for sharing them here! and the conceptual stories you developed for them…just brilliant lol.
But the real treat in this page is how we get to see Hardin being somewhat emotional with himself. Panel 3, 4 and 5 to be exact, just having those eyes of his being slanted like that makes such a huge difference.
You really are the best fan artist on this site! (Apologies to Jerome, Sarah and Var.)
Guys, please dont say stuff like that. Everybody here is amazing for the amount of work that is being put into breathing life into the world of BWD. This isnt a one-man team.
I said the best, not the only one. Man, people doesn’t read things carefully anymore!
‘Ey, no offense taken.
No worries. We’re all enjoying each others’ interpretation of BWD here :)
(I realize this reply is almost 3 months late. I was just randomly scrolling through pages and comments because I’m bored out of my mind, then I saw you addressed me in your comment X) )
Now I’m wondering what happened at Lake Felnach. But I appreciate the reference to the Hardin-Ashtor backstory. Hardin reminiscing on a battle that began under similar circumstances, but with lower stakes?
At least this won’t be like that fourth Indiana Jones movie (The One Which Shall Not Be Named), where every one of the dozen-plus adventures alluded to by Indy would have all made for a better story.
They’re not reminiscing, lake Felnach is their meeting place.
That actually makes a lot of sense, but I can’t remember them referencing that before now.
Page 49, fourth panel.
Found it. Thanks!
Usually I reread the last few comics before I read the new one, but I skimped today.
Is Ashy being stubborn and only asking for three guards in the fourth panel there? It looks as if he is only holding up three fingers, but his thumb is sort of up. It’s just that you usually don’t count the thumb when you do the whole finger-reping-numbers thing and I could see Ashtor doing something like that.
Haha, no, he’s asking for the full four — it’s just trickier to see when they have four digits per hand :)
the art is cool i’m thankful that all of you are see good art as i do and is still cool!
Not so composed now, are you, Hardin? But it really is nice to see some of his insecurities and doubts leaking through; he does have emotion, and he’s not as unshakable as he first appeared. Hardin just pretends he is completely secure in what he’s doing, so people follow him. Seeing his character layers get slowly peeled back and revealed over the past chapter has been entertaining and very well done, both on the writing and art, so kudos to both Alex and Rachel for pulling it off. x)
And of course, speaking of art, we can’t overlook the absolutely gorgeous fan art. Veigue, you’re a color palette ninja; you nail it every time. Teach me your ways?
A question for the authors:
Could we get some rough estimates as to how many Ermehn warriors Hardin has (not counting the Sratha-Din) and how many Canid soldiers Clovis has at Deltrada?
It’s always nice to get estimates of force before a battle. We’ll have a better understanding of the odds against Hardin and his followers. Their chief advantage is surprise.
To quote David Weber’s Honor Harrington series:
“. . . we’ll possess information. And information is the second most dangerous weapon known to man.”
“What’s the first?”
“Surprise. And we already have that one.”
Without getting into specifics, let’s just say that the Canid have both numbers and experience on their side.
Isn’t attacking a superior foe holding a fortified position with lesser numbers like a really bad idea? I wonder what Hardin is really after, everybody assumes that it’s assassinating Clovis but he hasn’t actually said so yet… Kidnapping his kids instead? Stealing the garrison payroll? Vandalizing the rug?
The importance of that rug cannot be understated. It really, you know, pulls the whole garrison together.
That rug supports the Canid morale far more than anyone will ever know.
Tronn: It worked for Robert E. Lee at Chancellorsville.
Lee: Let’s divide our army in the face of a superior force!
Generals: Great idea, commander! What could possibly go wrong?
I would like to know the estimates as well.
Hey, thanks for your support in trying to weasel out the technical details.
(Yes, terrible pun, I know, I apologize).
Shame on you; you should ferret out some better puns.
I really otter.
You stoatally should.
Try as you might,you cat outfox me.
Bear with me as I do; I have plenty of bad puns squirreled away.
Rats! I wasn’t fast enough to use a squirrel pun before Saraa stole it. But that’s okay- I won’t be shrewish about it.
What can I say? I use all puns I’m sable to. I should marten up and stop while I’m ahead, though.
There’s no porpoise to this anymore. It’s just cervine to boost our egos and kill time until the next comic.
That doesn’t mean that I won’t fight back with the best I can mouseter, though. Just making a point, not trying to dog anyone out.
The puns are running rabbit. Soon we will all be stark raven’ mad!
I love you guys. You’ve all crow-n into a great fandom.
We’re just doing owl we can to make the most of our BWD experience.
And we egret nothing.
oh brother.
As always, the art is beautiful and the character development astounding. Hardin’s isolation from the other Ermehn is really well illustrated by his physical distance from them in the fourth panel.
Also, I thought it was interesting how earlier, Hardin scathingly commented that the gods were *not* at work here, but now he expresses doubts that he can do this without their help.
Seeing how he’s acting now, away from Ashtor, we can see how much he really respects the guy, maybe even looks up to him and wants to impress him. Perhaps that was part of what led to some of his harsher statements when talking to Ashtor- like a teenager who desperately wants approval from their parents but doesn’t quite know how to get it.