Page 1013…
Whew. What a page.
Both in it’s impact to the world of Dreamland…and for how difficult it was to produce the art.
I hope I’ve succeeded in showing Gardenia and Ashendel burning in a way that works. A LOT of photoshop time yesterday.
Also…I guess I hadn’t thought about the impact this would do to us visiting both cities later on in the story.
How badly are things burnt? How are repair efforts coming along?
Yikes.
As Thistle mentioned…this is what Nicodemus has been up to for the last few weeks.
Tracking down the other tablets and destroying them one by one.
Oh boy. You’ve gotta love his persistence.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these pages…and don’t worry…much more to come over the next 8 pages.
Stay tuned.
Scott
Wow… Ashendel burning… It’s quite… striking!
Oh…. Wow….. um….. well crap.
That’s not good. As far as the tablets are concerned, at least they saw the one at ashendel already.
O_O Nick always makes a great entrance, and now he’s making one heck of an entrance without even being there.
Yeah, the tablet, right… Nicodemus was angered by Thistle’s capri pants. Though if he went after Gardenia first, with all those smoking magic mushrooms, I am surprised he could fly straight long enough to get to Ashendale.
Silly elves! They let the waterfall continue when they need the water to put out the fires!
YIKES! Double YIKES!
Meaning that the story has taken a surprising turn that I wasn’t quite ready for yet and
Holy Jumpin’ Moses that musta been a LOT of work to produce that kind of detail – smoke, fire, shadows, the lighting – how many hours did that take? What incredible dedication.
You know, it only just occurred to me to wonder what Thistle’s pixie dust looks like. I mean, Kiwi’s looks like butterflies, but that would be just a little bit too, um, fairy, for a boy pixie, at least to my way of thinking.
So I went back and looked at the last couple of pages, and sure enough, his sparkles are not butterflies; they look like maple leaves to me.
What? Oh, right, the current page. Sorry. (I believe that was the “obsessive” part of OCD … )
The fires look great, Scott! I imagine that Gardenia can be rebuilt fairly quickly (mushrooms grow quickly), so the fairies should be in decent shape (not counting lives lost, which is another whole story … ). Ashendel, though … how long do you suppose a gigantic tree like that takes to grow, even with Elven magic to help it? I don’t expect even Nick’s fire can burn it to the ground, but it sure looks like he did enough damage to kill the tree, unless the surviving elves can get the fires out and pull off a miracle of regrowth in a very short time.
A dark day for Dreamland. Especially under the plume of smoke from Ashendel.
😯
😥
Striking images today. It seems the war has come to Dreamland, ready or not.
Good luck with that, Alex.
That’s it, I’m hooked on this comic now. The Gutter Talk interview enticed me over here and this current storyline is compelling.
So, maybe the fires are indiscriminate attempts to destroy the tablets by destroying the capitols? If the tablets couldn’t be easily found, then maybe just burn everything.
I dunno. Being ruler of dreamland doesn’t really give him ultimate power. The moment word leaks out that he’s “randomly” attacking cities without provocation, he’s likely to start an all-out war against him. You can’t really go around destroying civilizations without some sort of repercussions.
The Tablets would be meaningless if he turns all of dreamland against him anyway.
Those last two panels look absolutely fantastic. I did a nice good jawdrop upon seeing them.
*whew*
Been awhile since I’ve been around–about a month or so…^///^
EXCELLENT run of pages!!!
After waaaay too many weeks without a working power source for the comp I’m using, this is a brilliant way to get back into the comic-reading-groove!
Things have really been set in motion–I really enjoyed the pages showing “as time passes” with the letters as backdrops, it seemed particularly poignant. (And another reminder that this would definitely make for a kick-ass movie.)
I think you did a wonderful job on the burning scenes, they look pretty disastrous and bleak. (You got that effect down pat.) O,O
OH GOODNESS! D:
Amazing and shocking page, tomorrow can’t come fast enough. 😉
Yikes! Ol’Nick is on one hell of a rampage! I do hope he gets his *** kicked soon, or at least that they get back that amulet…
And the Gardenia Tablet seems to be busted right now, so that’s a real bummer! What are they gonna do then? Man, this is gonna hurt!
Great work on the two last panels, Ashendel looks REALLY out. As for Gardenia, well… I know it’s cruel to say such things, but, Giant burning mushrooms? Lotsa smoke from the burning mushrooms? Nicodemus just made paradise for the hippies ^^!
This smoke and fire looks great! BURN!
Nooo Ashenvale!
I mean Ashendel!
That was mean, Nick! Mean! No dessert for you! D<
I, for one, do /not/ want to view Nastajia's face after this little bombshell. She's gonna go psycho on some dragon hide.
and there hencefort…the war began.
lol i caught that. Night Elves say What? lol on another note..
OMG NOT ASHENDEL, OMG NOT GARDENIA TOO!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
i can just see Kiwi going all revenge like ” THEN LET US WAGE WAR UPON THE FALSE KING!!!!!!!!!”
Exactly my thoughts… wasn’t one of the main purpose of finding the tablets – and the one that annoys nicodemus the most – to show that nic is a false and very bad king? His action just proved himself to be a very bad king…. and considering there’s a nightmare realm for bad creatures like him, it’s not hard for people to start wondering if he’s a false king. And anyways, false or not, if he’s crazy, people should be opposed to it anyways >.>
Guess then we don’t get to know the full history of Dreamland… but practically, we now all know that Nic is crazy… written tablets may not be believed or understood by the general populace.. crazy ruler burning city == bad is easy to see and understand >.>
nice work on portraying burning cities, Scott! But I can’t believe you let this happen to Ashendel… meanie!! *cry*
Good Morning all!
So glad you liked the page.
It did take me all day yesterday. A LOT of fire and smoke.
I painted most of it.
Now…on to tomorrow’s page today. Lot’s to do. Lot’s to do.
🙂
Thank you all again.
I think Scott was sitting around, drinking a beer one day, and thought, “You know, I don’t want to have this crew find ALL NINE of the tablets. That’s just too much time traipsing all around Dreamland. How can I fix this? Hmmmmmmm……” 🙂
That is quite shocking! It must be terrible for Kiwi and Nastajia to hear about their cities burning… 🙁 I can`t wait to see where this is going!
It’s happened in real life. When Herod ordered the execution of all the babies in Bethlehem, it wasn’t the first time he’d done something like it.
I agree first he turned the dwarves against him and now he is going around attacking “his” kingdom. Seems like a setup for revolt to me. Viva la revolution!
Hi All! Don’t these pages look AMAZING! I just thought I would pop on and tell you Scott spent SO many hours tweeking everything yesterday to make it look just right…he was working on it up until the last minute before posting! IMHO…he has done an amazing job of making the cities look like they are on fire…and it winds so well into the story line! I have the advantage of knowing what’s coming the next few days…and I can only say…Hold on to your seats people!!!!!!
Thanks SO MUCH for reading…you make his (and my) day!
Hugs and Merry Christmas!
Donna
WOW!!! This page looks amazing. You have really outdone yourself this time Scott!
i hate nicodomius… stupid dragon!
why hurt the fairies? why not hurt the unbelievable, ugly trollz or something…?
And… things finally got real. Those are some of our favorite characters’ homes! The photoshopping looks awesome.
Wow! Guess I should have known that a usurper would resort to drastic measures when pressured. Sometimes panic and desperation manifests itself into fury and rage from powerful characters. As to whether this leads to revolution or not remains to be seen. Sometimes the hero who tries to lead the people to freedom gets blamed for stirring up the anger of a powerful ruler. Politics can be… complicated…
Incredible work, Scott! Love the detail!
You commented that you hoped you portrayed the flames well. I didn’t even think to examine them until I read your comment. That’s how well done they are.
The Photoshop efforts in creating the fires in the two villages are excellent. The only observation I have is ‘Wow! There must be a lot of highly flammable materials in both Gardenia & Ashendel since there is so much smoke!’
This is why you keep backups–preferably in a different state. Or two states.
Yes, but one good effect of this would be to unify and motivate the opposition to Nicodemus. You don’t want to get the fairies and elves, the dwarves and rock giants, and all the others mad at you.
Wow. I’m very impressed with the last two panels. I’ll admit one of my biggest, and only (emphasis on ONLY), gripes about the comic is that it seems to kinda chug (the one speech bubble per panel thing really kills the pacing). Given the level of detail and work that goes into each comic, its completely understandable, but it is nice to see more panels that feel less static and more story-moving.
Keep up the fantastic work. 🙂
I wish there was an edit button… Just some quick clarification before I get yelled at: when I say the comic chugs, I mean only occasionally. The past few comics have been moving along very nicely, but looking back through the archives there are more than a couple occasions where the events of one week could have probably been told in a day. Again, only a minor complaint, and is really only a scratch an otherwise flawless comic.
Well, that was predictable… I mean who thought he wouls just sit around waiting for them to find them all ?
um, Scott? Just so you know, I subscribe to this on the Google RSS reader, which teases the first two or three lines of text and not the art. So this morning I read THIS, and only this, before even being able to click the link:
“Whew. What a page. Both in it’s impact to the world of Dreamland…and for how difficult it was to produce the art. I hope I’ve succeeded in showing Gardenia and Ashendel burning in a…”
This has happened before many times, where I get the page spoilered for me in the reader preview, but it was never a big deal. But today’s was a DOOZY considering the buildup you were looking for. You might want to consider NOT describing the page action in the post from now on, and maybe just respond to it in the comments.
Oh wow, Arlene. I never knew.
That is a GREAT thing for me to know.
Thank you very much. I’m sorry for today’s spoiler.
And I’ll make sure I don’t mention anything important on the first few lines from now on.
Thank you again
No explanation necessary.
It’s my style. And while it works for some. It doesn’t work for others.
I grew up on Stan Lee style writing. So you think I’d have tons going on in a small amount of pages like he did.
But my years in animation got me hooked on seeing “beats of time”.
And I guess I’ve grown to see comics as storyboards more than traditional comic storytelling.
For better or worse.
🙂
Thanks for the kind words…and hope you continue to enjoy.
Scott
What about all the kids from the human world that were in those cities? Since it’s pretty obvious that the kids actually GO to Dreamland, did they just have a nightmare or were any of them hurt? Wow, geeze. I kinda hope we get to go back sooner rather than later to see how bad the damage is
Thistle: “Then Nicodemus attacked Nairoobi.” *Panel shows the merfolk city on fire*
Alex: “Wait, what?”
Orion: “A fire that can do that had to be extremely hot.”
Thistle: “Then he went to other places…” *Successive panels show Alex’s College, an Acela train, and a peasant village in the low middle ages, all on fire. In the last panel, Nicodemus is flying overhead…*
Nicodemus: “Burninated. Lol.”
Burninating all the peasants burninating all the countrysides burninating all the peoples and the thatched roofed cottages ’cause he was TROGDOOOOOOORRR!! Oops, I mean Nicodiumus. The fires are amazing but it’s so sad that all those lovely places are being destroyed :cry:. I hope the damage isn’t too bad but… I’m still sad :(.
And I meant to type “Nicodemus”; sorry, I should be more careful.
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n238/Chunkboi/Motivators/BurninationMotivator.jpg
Scott, thanks for the fantastic work. You’ve done what alot of others couldnt, made us feel part of the world. Drawn us in, made the characters believable, and maybe believe in magic being possible. Well just a little. Mainly having your young and older readers wanting more.
Thank you
BEAUTIFUL COLOR on the pages!!!!
Ok. The comic itself is Epically moving, and this… is fun. But total props Random for the ‘random’ obscure reference. 😀
This page is intense. I’d say awesome, but freak- Ashendale and Gardenia are BURNING. Not awesome
If you want Scott, I can teach you to use a ton of words and not really say anything. That’ll help you avoid that and it’s something I’m good at. Wife says so anyhow.
HA! New Dreamland word for the Dreamlanomicon!
Excellent burnings – fantastic devastation, wonderful anihillation! 😉
Though I hope that many elves and fairies have survived and now are desperately eager to support our heroes in their war against the destroyer of dreamland!
Another factor to keep in mind: here we get one page per day, five per week. (Thanks, Scott!) However, in the books, they are all right there, so the pacing is rather quicker. You don’t have that 24 hour wait between pages — unless you really want to, and have lots more self-control than I do. 😉
Nicodemus you son of a… scale.
Honestly *sharpening broad-sword*. Anyone has a spare NativeAmerican bag? I just want to borrow it for a few days…
(You just pushed my buttons all at the same time. Waaaay to go mister!!!)
The longer I read this, the more I am convinced that Dreamland would make a *very* good video game.
Ha!
Thank you all!
True. Reading these in book form is optimal.
¡Gracias a tí, caballerísimo!
😉
Heh, the “Massacre of Innocents” as they called it is believed to be fiction, and is pointedly missing from all the other histories at the time.
When this sort of thing happens in real life revolutions tend to happen.
Hmm yeah I figured would do that…
I mean I figured Nick would do that *kicks self for typo*
I use the Google RSS reader too, but I haven’t noticed the spoilers because I usually don’t read past the link that says “show original item” before clicking through to this page …
😉
VOTE!
Did I say that yet? *looks* 😯
Nope. Okay. VOTE!! http://topwebcomics.com/vote/4274/default.aspx
Already voted, thanks. Though don’t let that stop the rest of you!
Looking at the conflagrations again, it seems like there is a lot of tree left untouched, though the city atop it is might toasty. Anyway, trees are tough, so it will probably come through OK, though with a lot of charring/scarring – maybe the elves can help with that.
Gardenia’s fires seem less intense – perhaps because Nic had a better idea where their tablet was or because their watery architecture just doesn’t burn well. Or maybe Ashendel just got hit harder because Nic knows he’s inciting war and figures as long as he’s lighting fires he might as well take away the elves stronghold. And payback for those darn elven rulers, who never gave him the respect he deserved…
Thank you ^^.
WIN!:D!
…no…THAT TREE KILLER!
The work of art is superb!
HOWEVER…
Considering the size of the mushroom houses, the size of the fire in panel 3, house closest to the camera can’t be much bigger than 1-3 matches lighting up. If Nic had gone roast-a-bout on the village, there ought to be much bigger flames, all over the houses, not just here and there from parts of the mushroom tops… right?
Or maybe he used a gas stove lighter to cinder this village, that villain? ;-D
No…!
Well, the king’s popularity rate ain’t rising with this!
why go for good cites but why go for faries
Given that there are probably other human children around, as someone mentioned above, there must have been many depressed kids around the world the past few days.
Also, great way to throw us back into the action.