Beck and Rook seem to be more apprised of the situation than the two diplomats, which is unfortunate because what just happened in Cenolau was totally a diplomatic incident of tremendous proportions. Of course we saw what happened when Janik tried to reason her case with those canid assassins. Something is rotten in the state of  ̶D̶e̶n̶m̶a̶r̶k̶  Cenolau, and one has to imagine you can’t just massacre an entire diplomatic envoy and get away with it.

Right?

Well, war can be a confusing thing. So let’s change the subject to something completely different that’s less morose–heck, let’s change the subject to something that’s totally awesome: our incredible guest artists who have sent us some truly wonderful pieces, even when the comic was in partial hiatus over the last two months!

This piece comes to us from Ezioauditore97, who posted this piece to our comic Discord server a little while ago:

It’s Isa! Our favorite Nessian scholar appears to be taking a break during her sailing trip out into the Western Seas, catching up on some much-deserved relaxation with a book that I have to imagine isn’t one of her own (though if she’s re-reading her own material for fun I can’t fault her–I imagine she’s a pretty great author to be doing what she does)!

Thank you SO much for the great guest art, Ezio! Isa is a very fun character, and both Leah and I are excited to do another story with her and Nora sometime in the future. She has certainly earned her place in the Western Deep canon, and now that she’s getting guest art, we have to assume that means readers like her too!

I’m going to close this post out with a Kickstarter update!

First order of business: After analyzing the physical proofs, we decided to switch from matte interior pages to glossy pages, matching those of our first printed book. I was absolutely enamored by matte pages after seeing David Petersen’s work on Wind in the Willows, but the Western Deep style doesn’t lend itself the same way as a more illustrative piece might, so glossy feels much better. With that change, we have APPROVED both standard and limited edition books for full production!

Second, the enamel pins arrived at Make That Thing HQ recently, and they snapped us a picture of them to show how well they came out:

Which is to say: HOLY SCHALAMOLY they came out great! I can’t wait to get my hands on these babies!

These will be going out to backers along with everything else once the books are printed up and shipped, so we can organize all orders at once. If you missed out, you still have time to order some if you head to our Backerkit preorder store right here. Special thanks to Make That Thing for facilitating the enamel pin creation–we’re SUPER happy with how they turned out.