With Boston Comic Con approaching (NEXT WEEK!) and a looming deadline just ahead, we’ve decided to forgo a page this week so Rachel and I can get our proverbial houses in order before breaking for the week. Next week we’ll likely put up one of our “here’s a map of the convention floor and where our table is” posts, and the next page of Chapter 2 will go up the following week.

SO! To help tide everyone over until then, I figured I would lift the lid a little bit more regarding both Song of the Eastern Sands and the short comic that we’ll be featuring in front of it, starring Cain and Yurk.

The Ermehn you see in the featured image above is Asha — the final member of the main quartet starring in Song of the Eastern Sands.

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Above, one of the first collections by Jerome of the full cast, done in September of last year. A lot has changed since then, of course, but the overall script, story, and character backgrounds have remained. The only major differences now are related to the character designs themselves, which have been cleaned up, tweaked, and improved to better reflect both their backgrounds and personalities.

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But, as can be the case when you’re working on a story like this, there can be surprises! This was the case with Cain and Yurk, two previously unnamed characters that made their reveal in a mood piece that Jerome did very early on (shown in the very first reveal). Jerome expressed a desire to put those two front and center in their own side story, so we hashed out a simple four-page tale that captures just one of what we imagine is many many absurd adventures.

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Before we begin publishing Song of the Eastern Sands here, we’ll be posting up the Cain and Yurk story — think of it as a fun first glimpse into everyday life in Nessa.

Anyway, next week we’ll be posting up something related to Boston Comic Con, and then we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled program with a fresh new page on August 8th. Until then, see you in the comments! :)