The Abyssal Dunes: Page 49
All’s well that ends well, I always say! As dawn breaks, Cain and Yurk return to Nessa with the treasure acquired and their future well in hand…at least until another misadventure pulls them back into shenaniganland!
An extra-special thanks to Jerome Jacinto for really going above and beyond the call of duty with this story. He wanted to flex his artistic muscles with this, and I think he has in more ways than I can properly calculate. And of course thanks as well to Rachel for handling the lettering, and Varuna for providing some much-appreciated concepting and editorial for the page art!
Hard to believe, but it’s been a little over a year since we started this romp with Cain and Yurk, which stemmed of course from our alternating Western Deep story schedule that sees main story chapters punctuated by side stories that take place throughout Dunia and help build out both the world and the characters.
When we finished Chapter 1 waaaay back in June of 2013, we had a few weeks of intermission pages, but kicked off Chapter 2 before the month was out. This over-aggressive schedule resulted in numerous intermissions throughout Chapter 2 that culminated in a pretty nasty bout of creative burnout near the conclusion of Chapter 2.
This is why, going forward, we will always schedule longer side-stories after the completion of a full chapter, and shorter 10-ish page stories in between chapters to allow for a proper break. This time isn’t just for recuperation, but also helps in the script editing, thumbnailing, and general research for visuals and tone before any art is ever completed.
This is really just my long way of saying thank you to all of our collaborative partners and to our readers for joining us on these fun side stories, which go a long way to help us continue the story of Beyond the Western Deep!
This week’s guest art is from reader Cameron Kuni, who posted this awesome triptych-style collection of several Western Deep characters! They all look pretty concerned, but I think given the direction the story’s gone, they have every right to be.
Thank you so much for this wonderful artwork, Cameron! We’ll be rejoining all of these characters throughout Chapter 4, so this is a nice preview of things to come :)
Have a great 4th of July weekend!
What a fun romp all around. It’ll be good to get back to the main story, but this was something nice and relatively lighthearted (yes, even with the horror elements).
Side note: “Hard to believe […] it’s been a little over a year since we started this romp with Cain and Yurk” – Not when you update with one page a week, it’s not. :P But I’m aware of how much time can go into making comic pages, so I understand. (I don’t intend to come off as mean-spirited or anything!)
We return to the main part of the story. Something is going on all the time and the Cends plan to fall under the skin of another race, I hope the boys are safe. Ps who is on the side of Erhen and who on the side of Ceind.
What a fun story. I love Cain and Yurk, and I look forward to seeing their cameos whenever they show up!
“…it’s been a little over a year since we started this romp with Cain and Yurk…”
WHAT!!!?!