Chapter 4: Page 52 (And Emerald City Comic Con!)
First and foremost, we’re going to be tabling in Artist Alley at Seattle’s very own Emerald City Comic Con this upcoming week, December 2-5th!
I’m quite excited about this one! Well, I’m actually excited for all of the conventions we go to, but this one’s a little special because it’s my local show! After moving here in 2017, I’ve wanted to be able to show off Western Deep at the largest comics show in the Pacific Northwest, and now we finally have that chance!
Rachel and I will be set up in Artist Alley, Table I-06! I’ll let Quin and Dak explain:
… Yeah, Dakkan is going to fit right in here.
We’ll have V1 and V2 books, pins, prints, stickers, and of course a few fun new items. You might remember we had a run on the handful of Wintersdawn in the Deep adventure game collectible floppy diskettes. The game/download code is written on the front, so NO you do not need to dig up an old Windows 3.1 machine to play it :)
Anyway, now we have MORE DISKETTES (with a new gray diskette form factor).
And we also went and created an NES-style cartridge form factor as well, with an appropriately 8-bit retro look by Wintersdawn artist Neil Schultz (aka Holt5) that matches the classic “black label” look of classics like Super Mario Bros. and Metroid.
We even have an updated version of the “Adventure Series” logo in the bottom left corner of the label that is appropriately Quin-ified!
Anyway, onward to the page!
TRADE CONSUL eh? Well, it sounds like a new term has entered the conversation. And isn’t it just like Beck to blurt out something like that and skip to the end of the proverbial tape? She wants to get to the good part and she wants to get there right now.
Even if you don’t want to be there.
Especially if you don’t want to be there.
For readers who haven’t swung by our Twitter account in a while (and you totally should! The link’s over there on the right!) you might be wondering why this page has taken so long to release.
Longtime readers will know that every holiday season, starting right around late October and stretching through early to mid January, we run into a bit of an issue: Rachel Bennett, artist extraordinaire and the one behind 100% of the art you see in these main story chapters (from the thumbnail sketch all the way through to the finished page) has a day job at a big box store that actually dials way up into overdrive every holiday season.
We’ve mitigated this issue before in a few different ways: releasing unfinished pages in whatever state they were in (which didn’t ever look great and took more time to go back and fix), trying to build a buffer before the holiday season (which led to creative burnout), even commissioning side stories to try and bridge the gap (which led to unintended cliffhangers in the middle of chapters).
So, this year, we’ve decided to try a different approach: we’re going to stick to releasing fully completed pages, with no hiatus posts to break up the flow. We’ll be sharing development art and other fun things at our Twitter account (https://twitter.com/TheWesternDeep) and we’ll try to get back to the regular weekly schedule as soon as we can.
We’ve been planning to launch a Patreon as well that will hopefully help alleviate some of these issues in the future–and we’re looking forward to sharing more details about that once this holiday season crunch is past us. Until then, the entire Western Deep team thanks you all for your patience, and we look forward to continuing this story and sharing it with all of you!
Yay! New page! And in the midst of the holiday retail madness! Hooray!
What’s Beck doing in the second panel? Can’t tell if she’s gasping from the exertion of their Quick Getaway or trying to spit sand out of her mouth. And speaking of Beck, it’s amazing how cute she can look in Rachel’s style (although that otter would probably clobber me faster than Judy Hopps for calling her that) and yet her debut all those years ago gave us the enduring nightmare of Beck’s Teeth.
Also love Janik’s stubborn stance in the middle right panel. It’s almost like she’s saying, “I’ve got the biggest tail of anyone here, so I’m not taking another step until you start talking, old fox!”
All in all, another page well worth waiting for. Looking forward to the next, whenever it should appear!
“What’s Beck doing in the second panel?“
Tired from running with everyones saddlebags, I’d say.
Janik and Mitra are too distracted by the Mysterious Figure from a Character’s Past, Returning at an Inopportune Moment and Raising Questions they would Rather Not Answer to offer to share the load. Rude.
I don’t like how the eye shadow lady is smiling. It bodes ill.
Blessed to have met you two at ECCC and discover the beautiful world you created. Like others, I will be diligently tracking and supporting you and your work.
It is especially pleasing that these stories are just as enjoyable for adults as younger readers.
It was wonderful getting to meet you as well, Paul! Thank you for checking out the comic, and for your support! :)
excited to hear about the patreon! i’d love to support you guys!! twitter suspended me (i’m innocent, they just thought i was a bot) so i can’t follow you on there but i hope the holidays aren’t too rough on you.
Thanks, Clare! We’ll be posting any updates re: Patreon here during page updates (which are in a bit of a lower key holiday-centric mode right now admittedly) and hope to have some news about that in the coming year!
Wanted to say it was great seeing you at ECCC, and excited to on the game I picked up from you. The Nintendo feel and look is fantastic.
The pleasure was ours, Christopher! Thank you so much for coming by and picking up Wintersdawn! I hope you enjoy it :)
Just really excited for you guys to announce a Patreon page