Chapter 2: Page 60
Some nice shots of Lutra this week, helping to do away with its reputation as “Sir Not Appearing In This Film.” As for what’s happening in and around Lutra here — some readers asked a while ago (on more than one occasion) about Dakkan’s mother, Quin’s parents, and other various unanswered questions.
While it’s always easy to reveal the specifics of these things in the comic notes, I find much greater pleasure in having things be revealed properly in-comic than just explaining how or why something is the way it is. Wanting the comic to stand on its own means working all pertinent information into the story itself, which is why we waited for this scene to come up naturally, with the right characters and the right environment and the right context.
On the topic of last week’s reveal of “young Kenosh,” we actually had the pleasure of seeing some fun fan art from longtime reader and Western Deep contributor Saraa Luna!
As was said in the comments of this particular piece of art, “After somebody’s eyebrow game reaches a certain point it becomes law for me to draw them.” Well, Saraa, Kenosh certainly has eyebrows to spare, no matter what age he is!
I like how for the most part Lutra seems to be a simpler place.
Quin looks amazing in the last panel, too.
The little round huts and steep, rocky coastline remind me of The Skelligs. Lutra has the definite advantage of not being an island, groovier public statuary and (considering the general dearth of shirts) a more temperate climate.
Oh my…I feel bad for Kenosh and Dakkan, even though it was expected for his wife to have perished by now, perhaps Quinlan’s parents shared a similar fate. I’m seriously diggin younger Kenosh and how great his old uniform looked, same thing goes to Saraa for making such an awesome artwork in such short notice!
But now I’m curious to know exactly what happened to Kenosh while he was a prisoner by the Ermehn. It’s odd….the Ermehn doesnt strike me as the type of people to even take prisoners, so why even bother keeping Kenosh alive, unless Oran’s party originally used him for some type of ransom, or maybe even wanting to have an outsider to know of their struggle.
Interestingly enough, I can see that Kenosh was wearing some Ermehn style cloth that resembles Ashtor’s cloak.. I hope Kenosh covers it in a story time later in the future. But yeah, seeing more of Lutra, little Dakkan, Young Kenosh and his wife (maybe?) in this update made the wait so worth it. Thanks guys!
Took me a few moments to realize that little tyke was probably supposed to be Dakkan as a precocious young kid, I was so overwhelmed with the cuteness of it all. Great page! Even if I was expecting the flashback to last a bit longer …
While I like getting to see young Dakkan and his mother, my favorite person in that panel is the old lady behind him – because I can identify her as ‘old’ and ‘female’ even though she’s not a human. That’s some real skill at use of slight visual cues!
This page makes my heart hurt.
Hey, it’s not THAT ugly!
Also, it took me reading your drawing’s description to realize that was Kenosh and not Dakkan posing for the camera all cheery-like.
Funny, I always assumed that Kenosh sank into his usual semi-depressed state because of his wife’s death, but it’s clear now that is was instead triggered by something that happened while he was among the Ermehn.
Love seeing Dakkan’s Mother, young Dakkan, the Lord of the Rings-esque Lutren stone statue in the first panel, and another look at young Kenosh!
One thing I did want to know–are there last names in Dunia? So far, everyone’s been addressed by a first name. Even when the characters discuss parents (Quin talking about Caldus, the reference to Janik’s father in the tavern scene, and now), they’ve only used clarifying terms, never any names. The only named relatives of any of the characters are Caldus (to Quin), and Kenosh (to Dakkan, though I’m not sure how much this really counts since Kenosh is more or less his own character anyway). Clovis and Tosch were always referred to by thier first names and never as “General Lastname”.
Anyway, just curious as to if last names are used in this world. I’m starting to think not as I expect we would have caught some inkling of them by now. At the same time, I can’t imagine all the opportunities for confusion if people only had one name. Clovis implied that Dakkan is a well-known Lutren name. Imagine the horror of a horde of young Lutren boys playing about who all share the same name (or any other race, for that matter).
Maybe that’s how Dakkan’s mother died. Dakkan went to play with the other Dakkans and she couldn’t sort out which one was him and thought he was lost and suffered a heart attack.
. . . or not, it sounded like she died of an extended illness. Oh well.
She died of a broken heart when she realized that her husband had died and was replaced by an Ermehn impostor!
*gasp* The horror.
I recall asking this long ago as well because I was wondering the same thing. I think Alex said that concerning the world of BWD, the characters dont use last names and instead refer to each other by titles instead. Such as for example, people would refer to Dak as Dakkan, son of Kenosh or Quin as Captain Quinlan of the Royal Guard.
That makes sense, but it still begs the question of “do they just not use their last names?” or “do they not possess them at all?”
Dunian society isn’t quite at the point where last names are any different from their titles or heritage. Remember that many last names we have today come from either titles (Mason, Smith, etc) or heritages (anybody with a name derived from an O’Reilly, Williamson, etc).
Fair enough.
Huh. Looks like Oran and his lot might be an offshoot of Clan Campbell.
Is that a hammock bed in the third panel? It looks really comfortable. …or maybe I’m just suffering from sleep deprivation.
Yeah dood that looks like a hammock bed to me!!! Probably a lot more comfortable than what I’m sleeping on right now!!
Ditto (“what I’m sleeping on right now” = the floor).
Hammock beds aren’t very comfortable for sleeping or other activities (like reading), but they would be easy to keep clean of mites and other pests. That’s a big deal for people with pelts!
Looking back at the page where we saw inside Quinlan’s home, it doesn’t look like he has a hammock bed, but it is really hard to tell (the angle’s all wrong).
On an unrelated note, I’m noticing that there has been a marked improvement in the art between then and now. Not that the art was ever bad, per se, like certain comics, but the characters especially are even more detailed and lifelike now than they were then.
People with Pelts would be a good band name.
That is all.