Chapter 2 Intermission: Sean Wang Book Art
Hi everyone!
Apologies for the lack of a page update this week, but the delay is for a very good reason: we are LOCKED on the book! That’s right — the book is DONE, and the files will be sent off to the printers come Monday.
For that final level of polish to happen, we decided to push through and focus on the book tweaks exclusively this week, which meant there was no time to get the page finalized. Still, we did have one remaining ace up our sleeve: a wonderful piece of art from Sean Wang, creator of Runners. I’ve recommended his comic a few times here, but if you haven’t checked it out yet, you can do so by clicking the link in the sidebar, or just clicking this conspicuously-colored text!
(For the record, no, this scene is most definitely NOT canon. There are no roving bands of barbarian squid wandering the plains north of the Western Deep, and Quinlan/Dakkan/Kenosh did NOT fight them in between scenes and then forget to mention it later :)
This is the third guest art piece that will be featured in the upcoming book, along with a wonderfully-written forward penned by none other than Sean Rubin, illustrator for the Redwall series and the upcoming Archaia/Boom graphic novel Bolivar, which you might have noticed a teaser for if you picked up Archaia’s hardcover Free Comic Book Day issue.
Oh, but wouldn’t it have been great if this *was* canon! Sushi for everyone!
Also great news about Sean doing the forward, as well as his “Bolivar” project, which I’ve anticipated for many years now. Can’t wait for that OR for the “BWD” book! Lotsa good stuff coming down the pike!
Well yeah of course there’s no roving bands of squid mongols mugging the cast every time they’re offscreen.
Those are clearly octopi.
And of course there are no humans in the Western Deep world: We will invade in spaceships!
Dakkan needs to stop embellishing tales of their travels after a few pints; things get odd.
yes, I can very easily see him doing that
…Things looked bad for our trio valiantly fighting the horde of cranky calamari, when suddenly, out of the depths of the adjacent sea, rose a submarine of the type crafted by the nautical nautiluses of Nautilite…
“I’m so hungry, I could eat an octorok!”
Bad jokes aside, I’m loving the different art styles the guest artists are giving with the cast. I really love the idea of seeing the characters in battles (which makes me eager when we eventually get to see combat in the comic) ever since I read on the old blog with how their creation for them were crafted from basic RPG archetypes, such as Quinlan being a Scout/Ranger, Dakkan being a Warrior Monk of some sort and then Kenosh being the Holy Knight/Paladin. And just for fun, I’ll assume that Janik will fit as a White Archer, Clovis and Tosch both being either Defenders or Rune Knights, Hardin a Dualist, Roshyn a Sniper, Bevan a Thief/Assassin, Eira a Cleric, Ashtor a Sage and Rathik a Martial Artist….wow I know have the temptation to draw that out…BUT I DIGRESS!
This is a lovely piece of art! I like the cartoony detail and style and I beg to question where the idea of giant barbaric octopi came from lol.
Isn’t a holy knight and a warrior monk the same thing?
Well, Holy Knights/Paladins are more along the lines of being defensive while protecting or aiding a party with Sacred skills or healing.With Warrior Monks, I want to say that they’re just regular warriors that fight with lighter weapons (such as using short swords or staffs in this case) and gear with a balance of offensive and defensive skills. At least that’s my interpretation for it.
To be honest, I think class abilities and what they do in general are usually mixed around a lot from media to media. So like how I described Paladins being defensive on one hand could be more offensive on the other.
The people of the Four Kingdoms had always known that the new world in which they lived was as fragile as a dream. A tenuous peace grown from the poor soil of unhappy compromise. Too much history remained unforgotten, too many crimes unreconciled. They knew in their heart of hearts that sooner or later it would all come crashing down around their ears. Probably sooner.
The fractious ermehn shivered in their snowy prison all the while plotting and preparing to reclaim their ancestral home.
The canid spoke warmly of their new allies with toothy grins and grand words, all the while hungrily eyeing the rich lands of their neighbours.
The sunsgrovians, who may somehow have achieved a modicum of true brotherhood were nonetheless beset by vicious raiders from without and savage beasts from within.
The vulpin in their paradisiacal oasis and the felis in their ivory tower were content to observe and philosophise upon the travails of the wider world as a enthusiast might commentate on a game of chess. Aloof and isolated, it was not for them to interfere.
Absorbed as they were in their own troubles the peoples of the Four Kingdoms could not possibly have foreseen the true harbinger of societal destruction, the true threat to the teetering folly of civilisation! An new enemy was stirring, unobserved and unguessed at among the trenches and gullies of the sea floor. Long had they waited, watching the unruly scrabble of the land-bound with cold dispassion. But the age of inaction was at an end! Now the cephalopod adversary would rise up and take the Dryland as their own. The lesser creatures would drown in a tsunami of death, cut down by myriad weapons held in myriad arms and their only warning would be the squelching of a billion suction cups. The time of the Octopi had come!
Ha! Okay, that was pretty awesome :)
So at last it has been revealed what drove the Polcan from their ancestral home.
Indubitably!
But, um … with those huge mouths (and presumably large brains somewhere above their eyes), where are the rest of their internal organs? They’re more like heads with tentacles. Speaking of which, how many here have seen the original 1953 “Invaders from Mars,” with its tentacle-headed Martian leader in its glass bubble?
Is that a plagiarism of the war of the worlds novel or just a very early draft of Kan and Kodos?
Met Sean at C2E2, real nice guy!