Page 1988…
Happy Thursday!
Also… HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO THE DREAMLAND CHRONICLES!!!!
Today is our 11th year online! Wow!
Thank you all for reading along. Supporting us. Being our friends.
Love you all!
Scott
Happy Thursday!
Also… HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO THE DREAMLAND CHRONICLES!!!!
Today is our 11th year online! Wow!
Thank you all for reading along. Supporting us. Being our friends.
Love you all!
Scott
Hope they don’t run into any R.O.U.S.’s.
Shouldn’t the King and Queen have some arrows to go with those bows?
Can you imagine passing them on the road?
“Are they going to a convention? … or a hockey match? Or… like… nerd hockey…”
Magic. We saw this with Nastajia’s bow, the arrow forms when the string is drawn back.
Congats, Scott! It’s been a great journey so far. Thanks for taking us along.
It tickles me, somehow, to see the King and Queen of the Elves wearing seatbelts. 🙂
(If they’d have run into the Woman in White (although she’s more a Japanese ghost than American) or any of the other beasties that haunt lonely, spooky stretches of road in the middle of nowhere, they could have invited her / them along. The more, the merrier!)
Ha! Called it. =)
Hmm. It looks awfully dark in there, and ominously quiet. Watch your backs, guys, there’s woods on both sides of that road.
Wow this comic has been online for 11 years! Holy Cow! Congratulations Scott! I remember when my dad introduced this comic back in 2013. Dang
At first, I thought the king was the one driving because of his hand positions and that I forgot that Americans have the driver on the other side of the car.
Happy Anniversary!!
Thanks for the journey so far <3
Congratulations on 11 years. I think the first strip I read was Alex as a child flying over the Teddy Bear Village.
I look forward to the end and future projects.
Looks right to me.
And the Europe, Russia…
What good is a hockey stick to Nicole???
I hope we see the teddy bears again….
Well, it worked well for Casey Jones… (TMNT)
She’s already brained a beastie with a lamp. A hockey stick should give her a Critical Hit bonus. 🙂
11 Years? Already?! Um… Wasn’t the 10th year anniversary like… yesterday?
Aww man… I might be getting old… 😛
Congrats!
It’s longer that baseball bat?
Happy Anniversary!!
Getting old has its advantages.
People expect you to forget things, so you can make promises you’ve no intention of keeping.
You’re expected to go a bit loopy, so you can have lots of fun at everyone else’s expense.
Finally, don’t forget to look after yourself… so you live long enough to become a problem for your kids.
i thought he said she didn’t need hockey armor?
Someone lied.
This webcomic… This is going to get wordy. Brace yourselves, or scroll to the next post. Also, I am posting this direction into the comment space. Forgive any grammatical errors I make.
I first discovered this comic when I was in the midst of a possible career choice. It was the second to last stable job I had, sometime in 2006, I believe. I was working as a Polysomnography Technologist. Same thing Nicole does. One did not need a degree to do the job at the time. It paid pretty well for someone who had not gone to school. I did take a course from an expert in that field, though.
More about Nicole. I took an interest in her pretty quickly because of my work. I tried to be helpful and explain things in the forums, back when those were still popular. I thought her romance with Daniel was interesting. Not really a big deal, except for how odd the idea of a white man dating a black woman was. Normally, interracial couples are white women and black men.
As I said earlier, the job paid fairly well. I was able to afford nicer things, like a pre-order of the first book when it came out. The Dreamland world really sparked my imagination, since sleep was a major part of my life back then. I almost became a pretty big fanboy, even offering Chris some pages of an actual sleep study that had no personal information on it so he could use it in merchandise. He declined. Initially, I was a little upset, but getting over things is the best way to go, so I did that.
As good as being a PSGT is, the schedule caused me to burn out pretty bad. I quit the job without any real plans. My health was declining, and I didn’t like where I was going with it.
After taking a single semester of college, jumping around in a few odd jobs for three years, and dating a nice girl who had no intentions of marrying me, I decided to start school in a town far from my home. I pulled up roots, broke up with my girlfriend (she didn’t want a long-distance relationship), and sold my house.
Even though I had taken a hiatus from reading the webcomic, I have come back. I hope I can get a decent enough job to get in on one last kickstarter that will fetch me all of the books in one go. Kickstarter isn’t as prevalent as it once was, but I hope something comes about.
I wasn’t here for Bognok’s introduction. I wasn’t here for Alex’s training under the centaur, either. There’s still quite a bit of the comic I want to catch up on, but would rather fill in the gaps with printed media.
Just as an aside, I liked my girlfriend. However, later reflection about her revealed I never wanted a girlfriend. I wanted a wife.
Back to the point. I’ve moved to a new town, and I finally start at university. It’s the first day of the first class at this university. I’m studying in the aviation field, so there aren’t very many women in the class. I want to take a look around and see who they are before class starts when I get a thought.
“Let’s make a game of this! Before you look and see what women are here, why don’t you listen to their name during roll call, decide what you think, and then look at who they are.”
So, class starts, and instructor begins calling roll. The first woman’s name is called. “Hmm, yeah. Sounds cute, but I’m not really getting any kind of vibe from it.” I take a look. Yes, she’s good-looking, but I’m already about ten years older, and am not looking for that sort of thing. I look forward and start listening for the next name.
This happens three more times. Nice name, cute young girl, but there’s really no spark.
Close to the end of roll call, another woman’s name is called. “Ooooh! Okay, that one strikes a chord!” I eagerly begin looking around. The instructor calls her name again, and again. She’s not here! “Great, the one name I like, and they’re not here… Probably dropped out before they even started. Oh well, it was a dumb game, anyway.”
The instructor finishes calling roll, having only named five women. He’s organizing his papers to begin class when I begin to see a woman appear in the window by the door. I’m a little surprised, but she catches my attention. Sure enough, she comes into the classroom. My ears perk up, trying to see if I can catch her name in the conversation between her and the instructor.
“Yes, that’s me, sorry I’m late!”
I’m not happy or excited to see her. I’m actually shocked. In my mind, I can only think one thing, “A black girl?!”
Trying to decide what girl I like based off of names begins to seem like the stupidest idea I’ve had in a very long time.
Later that day, after the university’s chapel service, I happen to pass by her. I say hi, and get a better look at her. You know, she’s actually kind of cute! She’s also not as old as she looked from a distance. I remember that I did like her name, so I start coming up with some kind of pretense for properly introducing myself to her.
Just a couple of days later, one of the instructors is hounding her about getting an assignment in. I figure that’s my chance! I introduce myself, and offer to help her with the assignment. I won’t do the work for her, but I will help her get it done if she wants my help. She agrees.
Later that day, the class is working on the paperwork side of one of our projects in the computer lab. She finds me absently staring at her hair. Thinking that I am a normal guy, she offers to let me touch her hair. She is expecting me to turn her down because that would be weird and a little awkward. Later, I find out how uncomfortable she is being the only black woman in a computer lab with a white guy playing with a strand of her hair. She felt like all eyes were on her.
A week or two later, we’re in the library, working on one of our projects. While we’re talking, I tell her, “I would never date you.” I can’t remember what in the world compelled me to tell her that. Seeing her reaction took me by surprise, but, it only lasted a moment. We continued as if nothing had happened.
She and I still spend much of our time at school together. We are attending a predominantly white university in an area of Texas where there is still not a great deal of acceptance for black people. She’s not making many friends, and there’s no threat from a guy who will be her friend, and isn’t interested in dating her.
The first summer after we started school, I’m visiting with her at one of the on-campus quads. One of her quad-mates is from South Korea. This quad is filled with internationally-minded girls. Her roommate is from Amsterdam, and the last girl is a Malaysian with full Chinese blood. Even though she is from Miami, FL, her mother and father were born and raised in the Republic of Haiti, so she has been raised as a Haitian, rather than an African American.
On this day, the Korean girl starts teasing my friend. “Oh! You and him are so cute together! You two would make such a good couple! Oh, have you asked her out as your girlfriend yet? Oh! You two would be so cute!”
Normally, I would ignore such chiding. However, I notice that my friend is acting embarrassed about the razzing she’s getting. Later, I find myself wondering why she would be so bothered by some good-hearted ribbing by a roommate.
This is when the possibility hit me that she might actually make a good wife. This came as a shock to me. Even when I had a paid membership to eHarmony, I checked off every race of girl except black. I had never really thought that I might even date a black girl before.
It took three weeks of reflection and prayer to decide that she would be worth pursuing as a wife. After these three weeks, I decided to visit her. While walking around campus talking with one another, I told her, “I like you.” She didn’t miss a beat, “Oh! I like you, too! That’s sweet! Thanks for telling me!” I realized she didn’t understand what I meant.
“No. I *LIKE* you.” (It was NOT easy being bold enough to reiterate my position.)
This was the summer of 2010. She wore the same expression as she had the day I told her I would never date her. We remained friends, and still hung out, but she put up a lot of defenses. She was very difficult to deal with, and I wanted to quit several times, but I just couldn’t let her go.
In the summer of 2014, following a fair amount of drama, we finally both came to a place where we were both ready to move forward.
After having known her for five and a half years, she and I got married in January of 2015. We just had our second anniversary.
The whole point of this story is to thank Scott for making a webcomic with a strangely diverse cast. There was one other webcomic I read that helped me become more familiar with the way of people whose skin color is different than mine. You can’t imagine how it was in those tumultuous years between 2010 and 2014 that I was frustrated with Daniel’s relationship with Nicole. It came so easily to them. Even so, I stuck it out. I credit The Dreamland Chronicles as one of the outlets that pushed me that much closer to acceptance of someone who now reminds me so much of my own mother (in all the right ways), but has a different skin tone.
So, yes. Thank you, Scott. I married an amazing woman whom I might not have even noticed before partially because you chose to explore an interracial relationship in your webcomic.
The first paragraph… The *VERY* sentence I warn of grammatical errors, there is a typo… This is my life, people! Oh, it’s a good life, but sometimes I really need to look twice.
Oh well. I’m not editing it here. I hope you enjoy(ed) hearing my story!
There’s something adorable about two royal Elves in seat belts. 🙂
Wow! Thank YOU!
What an incredible story!
I’m so happy for you both! May you have MANY MANY happy years together!
🙂
Scott
been with u since 2008.
thx for the wonderful comic!
happy aniversary
cant read… alll… of… it… must… stop…
JK read all of it
wish u some happy years together!
<3
Been here since April 2008, and I’ll gladly stay till the very end. Happy anniversary!
Happy anniversary!! Such an accomplishment!
I can`t remember in what year I started reading but I distinctively remember the most recent page I landed on was Alex having a conversation with Nicole and him going “wait, you think I`m cute?” haha. Oh Alex how far you`ve come, even though you are still your dorkish self. 😛
My favourite part has to be the scene of Daniel meeting Nivienne and Felicity and Nicole meeting through the portal. Not gonna lie: I cried.
All the best for finishing this great story Scott and Tracy!
Thanks Scott, I see you added some arrows. 🙂
Pffft. I don’t believe in those.
lol, nerd hockey…
Great story! Congratulations on your happy revelation!
Your claim that black women don’t often date white men inspired me to do a bit of research and it seems that you’re actually correct at least in term of marriage. It turns out that black men are more than 2x as likely to marry another race than black women statistically.
While everyone has things they’re more inclined to prefer, sometimes you find something (or someONE) outside of that preference that suits you.
As an example, I can’t stand most rap music, but some of the stuff from the 80’s, I really like such as Run DMC and Fresh Prince (aka Will Smith).