Prologue: Page 13
The Prologue of Beyond the Western Deep is drawing to a close, and in two weeks Chapter One will officially begin!
This page has seen a lot of different revisions since Rachel and I started laying out the story. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve made references to an “old old” version of the comic. In truth, it’s not THAT old – 2009 or so was when the first real sets of pages started coming out, the plan being to put together a nice printed version of the comic and pitch it around. Rachel and I are thankful that didn’t pan out, because in all honesty, Beyond the Western Deep (then simply called “The Four Kingdoms”) was nowhere near ready for prime-time.
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The original version of this page was meant to show a kind of montage-from-a-distance of all the kingdoms and races getting along with their business, no nasty wars, no racial confrontations, etc. In theory it seemed a good idea, but executing something like that properly proved an elusive beast. The top two panels show a Tamian farmer in a wheat field and a couple of Lutren fishing ships on the western seas, and the bottom panel was meant to show a bunch of the races getting along fine in a public spot – but in the end, I don’t think any of these visuals really captured what it was we were going for. For the webcomic, a more simplified, streamlined approach seemed a better way to represent the things we wanted to show.
The same thought process was applied to the original script. As you can see, the narration here was originally a bit more heavy-handed than it is now. Knowing when to trim unnecessary exposition or figuring out ways to consolidate it has been a constant challenge, and our original draft of the script had a LOT of exposition. Figuring out ways to trim and consolidate helped streamline a lot of things, and also kept the story moving along nicely page-by-page.
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A streamlining of the script, the ideas, and the page count led us to the latest version of this page, which used the scroll motif (for the last time in this prologue I should mention) to demonstrate the promise of civilization and recorded history for a world that previously benefitted from neither. The “era of knowledge and understanding” was far better represented by our two scholarly races.
As for whose fire that is in the bottom 2/3 panel… well, those are the evergreen forests on the border of the Northern Wastes. Ermehn territory, I should add! Next week we’ll zoom in a little closer to see who it could be, when our Prologue draws to a close.
Very exciting! I assume we get to see a bit more of our Ermehn member of the main cast. I love how muted the colours are so only the moon and the fire stand out. Really cool.
Lovely, great work.
I really like the last pannel, and I love reading about the revisions and the process.
I can’t wait to see the next one.
Wonderful job! I am most excited to see the next one!
Nice buildup. :D
I love this comic A LOT. You guys should do two things.
1. Start printing this. (I would totally buy it)
2. Fan-art page?
Hi Sawyer! We’re hoping to print the comic and sell a collected volume when we have enough for said volume :)
As for fan-art, I suppose we’ll need to hash out a system for that!
For now, if any reader has fan-art they would live to send our way, send it to thewesterndeep@gmail.com with the name you’d like us to credit it to! We’ll post fan-art with weekly page updates and, if we ever get enough to justify its own page, we’ll put them all up in a Fan Art section!
Cool! I’ve had a Canid based picture I drew I wanted to share for awhile, but I didn’t think I was allowed to send yet. So thanks for telling me! :)
No problem – and yeah, send away! We’d love to see your picture!
Not too much to say about this page. The most impressive thing is the nighttime landscape of the winter woods (or maybe it’s summer and it’s always winter temperature in the North) at nighttime – another really beautiful piece of scenery that draws your eyes to what the authors want you to notice. It will be interesting getting a closer look at some Ermehn next time.
I do have a thing or two to say about your commentary, however. Once again, I love them and I’m glad to get to know how the development of the story came about. Getting to excerpts from the old versions is really cool too, and gives us insight into just how much it has changed over the years.
As an aspiring writer myself, I can definitely sympathize with how difficult it is to tone down exposition and trim out the parts not necessary to understanding what’s going on. When I sent the draft of my first story to Highwing for his commentary, he told me that one thing many new writers possess is a burning need to tell their readers all about the world, they have so much information they really want to share, but the hard lesson you need to learn is that all this stuff you find so interesting and important might simply slow things down for readers and bore them. While I have hardly mastered this lesson, I’ve at least tried to take it to heart and apply it. It’s gladdening to hear that you have also gone through this struggle.
We hope a time of peace is on it’s way
Despite our progr(e)ss…