Chapter 3: Page 87
To paraphrase a scene from The West Wing:
“You know that line you’re not supposed to cross with your commanding officer?”
“Am I coming up on it?”
“No no, look behind you.”
The expression work in this page is among my favorites in recent memory. Tosch’s “That thing you said was absolutely the wrong thing to say right now, but I’m also trying-not-trying to hide it” expression in panel 4 is emoticon worthy, in my humble opinion. As is Sigrid’s “nope nope sorry I’m mentally taking it all back” look in P5.
My trip to Emerald City Comic Con earlier today was an illuminating one, I think. I normally don’t like going to comic conventions anymore, unless it’s in a professional capacity (like working a table in Artist Alley), but one thing that I can’t deny is that seeing all the wonderful comics and unique stories being told by artists gets me more excited than ever about the future of Beyond the Western Deep.
Speaking of which, we received a very nice shout-out from author Samuel Chapman over at Tor.com. On the topic of anthropomorphic stories like Redwall and Mouse Guard, Western Deep also got singled out as a “holy grail of worldbuilding” (d’aaaw!) — you can check out the full story here: https://www.tor.com/2019/03/11/why-anthropomorphic-animals-will-always-have-a-place-in-fantasy/
One element of the article that I’m particularly impressed/terrified by is this:
“It’s been almost a decade since the final Redwall novel, and while we do still have Warriors and Mouse Guard installments to look forward to, I’ve got a feeling there’s something big coming around the bend—a tale massive in scope and diverse in zoology, a Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn of mice, squirrels, and toads. It could be Beyond the Western Deep, or something totally new and unexpected—either way, I’ll be playing Everdell until the time comes for my next literary trip to the Gates of Dawn.”
Well, I know everyone on the creative team building stories in our universe have been working incredibly hard to make it “the next big thing.” Right now, we’re just focusing on what’s next: fulfilling the Kickstarter rewards, San Diego Comic Con, and getting our next chapter ready for everyone!
KICKSTARTER FRIEND ALERT!
Speaking of Kickstarter, I wanted to give a quick shoutout to another Kickstarter that’s going on right as I type this! We had the pleasure of meeting Aaron Alexovich while tabling at one of our very first comic conventions (I’m going to say it was either in Baltimore or Chicago–they’re kind of a blur in my brain). He was tabling across the aisle from us, and I was astonished to see none other than INVADER ZIM on his placard! As a big Zim fan myself, we hit it off pretty quickly, and it’s been a joy to see him at subsequent shows turning out incredible work both on Zim and his personal projects.
Right now, Aaron’s latest project is a children’s book/app called “It’s Not Scary!” and I absolutely love the cheesy-adorable cartoony approach he’s taken with it. You can check it out right here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1445954278/its-not-scary
For guest art this week, I wanted to share this incredible piece by artist Travis Fam, who’s done some wonderful Armello-themed fan art in the past that I’ve absolutely loved. He surprised us recently with this really cool rendition of Quinlan!
Doesn’t he look AWESOME? Quinlan definitely looks ready for business here. I absolutely love the energy of the piece, Quin’s expression and pose are fantastic, and I really feel sorry for whoever’s on the receiving end of his arrow!
Thank you SO MUCH for this wonderful piece, Travis!
“Merely the beginning,” Tosch-Tosch?
Be careful what you wish for. You might think war with some of the other kingdoms might be a pushover for the Canid, but in war, anything can happen.
I can’t help but get the feeling that the Canid are biting off more than they can chew. Unlike the war with the Ermehn, the other kingdoms may not back them up in a fight anymore.
Sooo does Tosch have anyone above him in command who could maybe reign him in? I mean, can one general really declare war on an entire nation?
Do the Canid even have a king??
I remember it being discussed in comments that they do have a king, but he basically does whatever Clovis and Tosch tell him to do. I don’t remember seeing that in the comic itself. It may have been something Kenosh mentioned on the trail, but if so I’ve forgotten it.
It was also briefly brought up early in Chapter 3 (page 27 to be specific), albeit by Dakkan shouting about how the Canid king was useless. So it’s not the most well-kept secret.
I think it also came up by Dakka earlier during Kenosh, Dak and Quin’s journey to Deltrada with him saying that the Canid do have a king, but it’s really the two generals in charge.
That said, I wonder how Tosch (or Clovis is he were still alive) would think of Cain and Yurk’s bromance.
I think their reactions would either range from flat-out disbelief that a Canid and a Ermehn could be friends to dismissing Cain as a traitor and/or lunatic outright. Either way, I do hope Cain and Yurk’s story comes into play in the main arc, especially if it involves a scene of them declaring their awesome bromance in the middle of a battle between their respective kingdoms. lol
Wow, Tosch seem to think everybody has the canid way of thinking – creepy.
Also intressting how the events play out.
Very cool, can’t wait for more :)
Wonderfully-done facial expressions aside, this one moment with Sigrid is incredibly telling. Tosch’s version of events are, from what I’m reading, the conclusions that he’s drawing from incomplete information and paranoia (and who knows what else) – but he’s still the canid in charge. Sigrid clearly doubts his reasoning for declaring war, but Tosch is clearly someone who you just don’t challenge.
My point being, having Sigrid in this scene to further illustrate what kind of person Tosch is was a very good idea, and I do not envy her one bit.
Uh oh “Our declaration of war WAS only the beginning Commander”?!? We knew that war was coming but its official now with that past tense there. As a war buff I look forward, with anticipation, for the war to come. I put my money on the Canid getting wrecked in the Forest of the Western/Eastern deep. Treewalkers can really take a “bite” out of your forces.
I wonder what makes him think Dabheid ordered it? Other than the fact that Kenosh stopped in Terria?
Also from West Wing,
“Post hoc ergo propter hoc.”
After, therefore, because of it. That, it seems, is this General’s logic.
So, this is how you mourn your brother, Tosch, you go to war with everyone? Brilliant. Obviously, the Canid leadership has been spoiling for a major campaign for a long time. Awfully convenient that Tosch’s brother was killed, it gives him the perfect excuse to do anything in the name of “defending the realm”.
Someone is a little delusional
.
Bit late to this particular party, but after my rambling like a huge nerd about political alliances in the next page’s comment thread, I was reminded of something pertinent to the discussion of anthropomorphic animals in fiction.
One important thing that anthros can do is to put some distance between the characters and human history. If you have fictional human civilizations, they’re probably going to have realistic human races. So if you want to tell a story like this about injustice between peoples, you’re going to see people drawing parallels between the story and real-world historical (or current) conflicts between real-world ethnic or other groups. Populate BtWD’s world with humans, and people are going to see the ermhen (or whatever they’d be called) as stand-ins for American Indians or Jews or someone else. Not just people having the same issue those real-world groups had, but as somehow representing those groups themselves.
Switching the races around won’t help. Want to have fantasy slavery and not immediately call to mind the American south? Having fantasy black people enslave fantasy white people is possibly the worst thing you can do because then readers will just think you’re trying to make some kind of point in relation to American slavery–or worse, race relations in present-day America–rather than just avoid the comparison.
Even including fantasy races may not help much if they’re still more or less human, like elves, dwarves, etc. After all, as much as Tolkein hated allegory, people still read The Lord of the Rings as an allegory for World War II. I’m not aware of a whole lot of people saying his elves are this real-world race, dwarves are that one, etc., though, so it definitely still can put a distance there. (Or maybe people are just too into the WWII thing to look to closely at race relations, or maybe I just haven’t seen it.) The same applies to really human-like aliens like Vulcans or Jaffa, by the way.
For that matter, even using anthros is not a sure bet. After all, some authors intentionally use anthros to represent real-world cultures. The obvious example is Art Spiegelman’s Maus, which depicts Jews as mice and Nazis as cats. A better example would be An American Tail, in which the characters really are mice (not just humans represented figuratively), but not only do the mice represent Jews, they’re pretty obviously Jewish mice. Even in BtWD, it doesn’t take much to see the similarities between the ermhen’s situation and, for instance, the Trail of Tears.
But the advantage of anthros is that real-world human races and civilizations aren’t the only things we recognize in them. We also see them as representing the animals they’re based on. In BtWD, we have wolf-people oppressing stoat-people and bullying otter-people and squirrel-people and trying to bully the fox-people and cat-people. It’s easy to see this as dogs or wolves showing dominance and territoriality behaviors toward other animals not as high on the food chain.
This is enhanced when the characters already have traits drawn from the real animals. BtWD’s squirrel-people are conflict-avoidant, observant, and at home in the trees. The otter-people are at home in the water and may not be particularly militaristic but if you mess with them they can mess you up. The cat-people are defined by their curiosity, and also they have a huge tower. The wolf-people have the most structured military society, befitting pack hunters, and their caste system is based on the old alphas-and-betas stereotype about wolf pack hierarchies.
Another example is Disney making Robin Hood a fox, a creature associated with cleverness and thieving.
So you can look at the races of BtWD, and other anthropomorphic animal stories, and they’ll trigger the “I recognize that from the real world” part of your fiction-reading brain in more ways than just drawing parallels to real-world cultures and conflicts.
This is an advantage over space aliens: If you don’t want Vulcans, then you have to make them weird. Space blob creatures won’t automatically read as Jews, they also won’t have the other built-in points of familiarity. You can solve this by making the aliens resemble other earth life forms, but at that point you’re halfway back to anthros.
An interesting and insightful comment.
I apologise that I have nothing substantive to add except to assert that your idea that the Tower of Gair is a giant cat-tree is wonderful and hilarious.