Chapter 4: Page 44
Unfortunately it would seem that Rathik cannot single-handedly overpower a group of trained canid soldiers–especially with all those wounds of his collected from his (now very much former) allies and friends. This should not have surprised anyone, least of all Rathik himself, but perhaps that wasn’t the purpose of it? Could Rathik have been motivated by something other than blind rage and the urge to kill as many canid as possible?
It seems that we’re likely to never find out, as the parts of Rathik that would do the speaking seem destined to vacate the part of his body that keeps said parts operational.
I said it a few weeks ago, but one thing I’m consistently impressed by is Rachel’s ability to portray these really visceral, violent moments where the stakes are highest and characters are willing to do horrible things to each other achieve their goals–all without breaking our goal of keeping the comic in that PG-13 wheelhouse. I know that folks who are blood-averse may be troubled by scenes like this, but I hope we’ve been able to straddle the line of showing what’s ‘necessary’ to sell the impact of the actions on the page without leaning too far into the gratuitous.
Based on some comments over the last couple pages, Shay actually decided to fulfill their requests and draw Rathik like a cartoon character who’s been poked full of holes and gushing like a water balloon:
As you can clearly see, Rathik is deeply concerned with his life choices and would like to please speak with his manager at the earliest possible convenience.
Sorry Rathik. This one’s on you, bud.
THANK YOU to Shay for the consistently amazing (and in this case, darkly hilarious) guest artwork! The readers (and I) deeply appreciate it. Even if Rathik probably doesn’t :)
Rathik……..
“Stop! Listen! I have to MONOLOGUE”
But, will it be a spoken monologue, or an internal one? (For that matter, is Rathik even capable of an internal monologue?)
Irrelevant… they could perfectly and accurately zero in on his musings spoken out loud through the holes poked into him. :y
Gosh, The art in this comic is so very good!
Great mud, great metal, the rain is somehow in front of the action without drawing the viewer’s focus (how?!). All the folds and rumples in the cloth seem right. All the actions look like they have weight (chok, KRNCH!). The light from that little patch of open sky in the last panel is lighting up the inside of Ol’ Squinty’s cloak and draws the eye to the top-right of the frame. Gosh!
And that’s why I hate war hammers and maces. A nasty, shameful and cowardly kind of weapon.
Well, what to say more. Rachel is indeed a master of operating the emotions of the characters faces and everything else in drawing as we have emphasized more than once; but today, this last dramatic panel, especially for me the photographer, composed with this beautifull game of light, is truly truly fantastic. My heart hurts to see Rathik predicted defeat against a group of nasty canids. I think this is really the end of his long hurtfull torment. However, let’s not forget that he still has this end of the (female?) canid spear in right hand, and maybe at the last moment he will decide to go to valhalla with her, without selling His fur too cheaply. We will see.
For all dead Ermehns in this terrible extermination-war – All honor the memory of the Ermehn heroes and victims
*salute
(O_O)7
O7 ;-;
It looks like this is the end of the line for Rathik, very fitting for such an intense sequence. Also, as a side note, he appears to be not only stronger than the average Ermehn but also at least on par with the average Canid soldier. Too bad the Ermehn have few warriors like him and with no armor to boast about. It would be a much more even fight if that was the case.
Any update on Patreon? excited to be able to help support the comic!
Thanks, Andy! We’re still figuring out the details–things have been a little delayed thanks to some unfortunately timed current IRL crunch happening right now–but once that’s weathered we’re hoping to at least get a couple low-level Patreon tiers off the ground for folks. More news hopefully coming soon!
I feel like this is the time for Rathik to yell “FREEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!” in one last act of defiance before the blade falls.
Between the kilts and Kenosh’s leather-wrapped longsword, there’s a lot of “Braveheart” jokes that need to be made in this comic.
time to get boromired