Chapter 2: Page 71
A dangerous situation unfolding this week, as Quinlan finds himself stuck between a rock and a one-eyed Ermehn! Not the best place to be, of course — especially when your comrade is busy dealing with peeved Ermehn warriors himself!
(Artist Note: Sorry for the unfinished nature of this week’s page, as well. I’m planning to give these all a nice spitshine, when time permits.)
You’ll notice that the Western Deep website has gotten a little bit of a facelift! For the longest time (and by that I mean “since the website was created back in 2012), we’ve been running the same version of ComicPress without fail. There have been some changes since then, but after a time it became clear that an update was needed. The only problem was, the upgrade process near-completely borked the entire site!
One complaint on Twitter later, I found out that Frumph, the creator of ComicPress and all-around awesome guy, was more than willing to single-handedly bring the entire website up to speed. HUGE thanks to Frumph for saving the Western Deep site from languishing in ancient ComicPressdom!
Also, some other news! You might remember a while ago that I mentioned a game called “Armello” that was being developed for PC/Mac/iOS. Well, it’s OUT on Early Access for Steam and Humble Bundle if you’re interested in giving it a try in its post-beta state!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/290340/
I am indeed involved in the game’s development, though I can’t exactly talk about it yet. Suffice it to say, I am a huge fan of this title and if you like strategy games, board games, or dark fantasy stories with animal characters (and really, what reader of this comic isn’t?) then I can recommend checking it out!
Our guest art this week comes from Kogawakenji, who had some fantastic artwork of Dakkan and Kenosh a month or two ago that we loved. However, after Rachel drew Dakkan playing with a pebble like a hacky sack, Koga simply could not get rid of this image:
Now, I love any image of Dakkan or Kenosh that Koga draws, but I love this one specifically because that mid-leap movement is so great! Dakkan’s look of pure determination really sells the whole thing for me. Thank you SO MUCH Koga! I hope you decide to draw our characters again someday! :)
See ya later knife. Don’t accidentally skewer someone we like on the way down.
I’m actually more worried about Dakkan here than Quinlan. I doubt Quinlan will die this early and while it’s unlikely that Dakkan will die here, it’s more likely and there’s always the fun that is injuries. Dakkan hun, stay focused. You can’t help Quinlan if you die.
The body language looks wonderful! I love that Dakkan’s using his foot to attempt to keep the Ermehn at bay.
*Casually adds Armello to wishlist*
Lovely work, Koga!
Quinlan is surprisingly strong for his size, and Dakkan is skilled enough to tangle with two and still manage to pay attention to someone else. These are not ordinary young adults!
Also, Armello looks good and I don’t regret that I funded the kickstarter way back. I’m quivering with anticipation!
“Quinlan is surprisingly strong for his size…”
No disagreement there. He just broke part of the fortress with his spine.
Hopefully when he falls over the edge he breaks the ground instead of vice versa.
He just lost his sword, so blocking fall damage a la Fighter in 8-bit Theater is right out as an acceptable strategy.
He still has his Tesque martial arts to go by, but this is getting a little out of hand for the both of them. I’m hoping either Quinlan either literally flips this around or some random Canid or Kenosh comes in to intervene really quickly.
And I still cant get over the fact that at one point…Kenosh used to be such a playful individual with the whole “rocky sack” thing. I love Dakkan’s determined expression too! This is an awesome drawing Koga!
Yeah I’m betting on the Tesque coming into play. They used up the Kenosh Ex Machina with the bandits.
Don’t even get me started on pre-Olan Uprising Kenosh (Whoops too late)
“pre-Oran uprising Kenosh” first of all how dare you
Because parallels and I like breaking hearts.
Quin! Backflip into a kick to One-Eye’s Chin! You can balance on the ramparts afterwards!
Aw Tesque- if any of the elite Sratha-Din showed up, they’d really be in trouble.
Lucky for them, it’s a couple mooks and One-Eye.
His current allies have already been named Katar-Ermehn and Axe-Ermehn, but if we ever see him commanding other Ermehn I will take your suggestion.
(The term Kenosh secretly uses to refer to Dakkan is “Pumpkin” though)
“Jitterbug”would probably be more apt.
In which Quinlan’s phone is a jitterbug and Dakkan’s is a tracphone.
“See when a squirrel and an otter love each other very much…”
“…and that is why it is an abomination in the eyes of LORD. Any questions, Pumpkin?”
“actually, yes- If Pokemon are an abomination, why do you have a deck under your pillow?”
If I’m not mistaken, this is page 150 (not counting title pages). Big congratulations to Rachel and Alex, and may the next 150 be every bit as great!
Nice sense of movement in the first line of panels there. I like that the ermehn’s counter and force reads so well.
Also, is how the comments are available from the front page is a comic press thing? I have been mighty curious about it, since I can’t figure out how to do it with Webcomic.
Thanks for the kind words, James! I love how the action tracks on that top line as well :)
As for the comments, I think it’s a WordPress thing, but I’m not sure. It could be a part of ComicPress/ComicEasel — I know the “tilted comment avatars” thing was a ComicPress option and not a WordPress one, for example.
Kudos for Quinlan for straightening all those crooked frames.
“I FIXED IT! I FINALLY FIXED IT!”
No problem. :) I guess I’ll have to do a little research for the comicpress then.
I seriously love the pages that are full of action. They’re always fast-paced and you can see the individual styles of fighting in the characters. The facial expressions take the cake too.I can’t stop looking at One-Eye’s expression in the top right corner, you can just feel how motivated he is to take out Quin.
Dak’s little foot-push-kung-pow move there is pretty funny too. I like to think all that dexterity came with his hacky sack practice.
Or from slipping out of his dad’s grasp after mischief gone wrong. OBSTACLE COURSE GO
I may be interpreting that wrongly, but when you said “OBSTACLE COURSE GO”, I just thought of a young Dak building a makeshift and very dangerous obstacle course out of rocks and Kenosh’s old armor and when Kenosh sees it he’s just like “Pumpkin,NO, you’ll hurt yourself”.
And so that’s how Dakkan lost his first baby tooth.
More likely that’s how he lost all of his front baby teeth at once.
here I was thinking “obstacle course through house in an attempt to escape father’s wrath” and the teeth miight be from the table.
Pumpkin sounds like a tamian thing to me, Dakkan was probably either a cuttlefish b/c the little scamp hides everywhere or squall because sudden storm of destruction out of nowhere.