13/04/2017

Ballads of War 1x22 & 1x23

More tons of text as promised!



I had clear in my mind from the beginning that I didnt't want just a pew pew comic strip. I wanted some more depth. You noticed it last week with the Eldar myth, and you can see it again with all this Eldar lore in a nutshell. Once again it was part of the 'must know' to fully understand the whole story without the reader having to consult other sources. Now we know of the Eldar diaspora and the Harlequin's role in the big scheme. That would prove useful when different Eldar factions made their appearance in the future (spoiler alert: unfortunately that was never achieved, sigh).
You can also get a glimpse of my own interpretation of a Craftworld (we'll get more of that in the future), the Eye of Terror and even why the Slaanesh symbol looks like that. The constellation nonsense was just a dumb idea I got out from nowhere, but I found it fun, and was quite visual too, so... there it stayed :)

The second page takes us directly into action. We see our people finally descending on the surface of Itabirion and getting into the place where we wanted to go from the beginning.
Once again you can see my obsession with stupid details, such as the twins having to adapt to gravity and atmosphere (why is this subject always avoided in movies? All planets are exactly the same, with millimetric precision! No matter if it's Star Wars, Star Trek or whatever, they all can harbour life in the very same conditions. Boooring). I also planned to talk about vaccination and other stuff, but the story asked for some action.
You can also see my footnote system. Unusual for comic language, but useful for my purposes. I really wanted to implement the Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell novel footnote system (what, you haven't read it? Go now!!), with such a delightful metanarrative process. I had some ideas of inner stories within the story that would have given some strenght to the narration. I think you'll have the chance of seeing maybe one or two.

This is it for today. More adventures anytime soon. Cannot tell you what's going to happen, but I can give you a hint. If you are familiar with storytelling expressions, I'll just say that I don't have a Chekhov's gun... I've replaced it by a Harlequin's Kiss ;)

Ahhh, the mistery... :D

All the previous stuff... you know, HERE.

13 comments:

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    1. Thank you! Lots of text this time :P

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  2. Some great shots here, like the ship being ready to land and the story of the Harlequin.
    It does however seem like your Eldar more is pretty outdated, given your explanation of their Dark brethren.
    I also feel like the conversation between the two ends with a cliffhanger and a lot of things unsaid. The Harlequin does seem to avoid her first question altogether, about her own history.

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    1. Lore, not 'more'. Stupid autocorrect.

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    2. Thank you! Yep, totally right. That was my main concern here and it's why I abandoned the project, seeing how the whole 40k fluff was moving towards different directions making my story totally stuck. I need to remake this all in my own setting! :D
      About the conversation, that was intentional, as I didn't want to engage in four or five pages full of conversation, but it was a moment meant to be rescued later on. In a story arc (unfortunately never drawn), Vix met some Dark Eldar (unpleasant meeting, ahem) and much more was to be told about her origins.

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  3. Excellent :-)

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    1. Thanks! Painting acryllics was quite an experience here, hehe

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  4. Hey Suber,

    I've not followed your comic posts, didn't think I'd like it. But I decided on a whim to start reading them and damn! Their great man :) I just caught up with all of your previous posts.

    Do you have the whole story set out, how it's gunna end? How often are you finishing the panels?

    I wish GW did some of this style of comic book back in the day. I know they did stuff in their Inferno publication, but that was strictly canon. Your take on the RT universe is way cool mate.....keep'em comin :)

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    1. Thank you very much! Glad to have a new reader :)
      I think you have benefited from the fact of reading about 20 pages in a row, I think that way of reading is always much more rewarding. I'm trying to rush as much as I can to have all the pages translated as soon as possible (I did it all handmade in my own language). Issue #1 is 48 pages long and I got to draw up to page 30 or so of the second volume.
      Unfortunately I quit it many years ago and never got back to it :(. This is just a puny attempt of these old pages seeing the light. Keep in mind that I started this in 2005; volume 1 was finished by 2007 or so and I think I left volume 2 by 2008-2009 maybe.
      I had a full developed story ready for 8 volumes (48 pages each), covering kind of the full spectre of WH40K (as it was back in the day). If there's any interest, I think I could tell the main plot once I finish publishing what I managed to draw.
      If I had the will/time/skill/etc, I'd really love to restart this all, but in my own setting (not having to worry about other people's IP changing) and digitally painted.
      The magnitude of it currently overwhelms me, but who knows...
      Any inputs or c&c always welcome (including correcting my English, of course!)
      Glad you like it!

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    2. I'd prefer it if you didn't rush it. When it's done it's done :)

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    3. Hehe, well, at this point its just a matter of scanning the pages and translating the ballons with photoshop.
      Unfortunately I only got to draw about 1.5 out of 8 volumes. I haven't done the math, but I'm trying to keep the 2 weekly pages rate, so I don't know when I'll have it all ready.
      That reminds me that I still haven't even started on the following couple of pages, glups!! :(

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  5. Awwwwww ... why not a pew-pew version. Page One ... pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew. Page Two Smoke, The End. ;)

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