Page 971…
Hey all!
So I’ve been loving your comments.
And I do want to point out that you will need to give this another week until it makes a bit more sense.
There’s a method to the madness. I promise.
I DID want to make a gag page where Orion says…
“Oh…so you think I’m funny?
Funny how?
Like a clown?
Oh…so I’m a CLOWN now?”
Ha ha.
Sorry…quoting Goodfellas (loosely) and giggling to myself.
And on another note…
We were nominated for a Lulu Award for Gary the Pirate.
Tracy Bailey and I found out yesterday.
http://friendsoflulu.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/2009-lulu-awards-nominees-vote-now/
We’re under…
Leah Adezio Award For Best Kid-Friendly Work
Gary the Pirate, Scott Christian Sava
Fellow Webcomickers Danielle Corsetto and Paul Taylor also got noms too.
So…if you’d like to…we’d appreciate it if you’d email a nomination for Gary the Pirate (and feel free to add in Danielle and Paul if you’re so inclined) at this email address…
VOTING IS NOW OPEN TO THE PUBLIC FOR THE LULU AWARDS!! Email us with your picks (one from each category) at
[email protected]
along with your full name, by Monday, OCTOBER 19. One ballot per person, please.
And on that’s that.
I hope you have a great day. And I will see you all tomorrow.
Scott
Woah. Do NOT get a centaur ticked off at you!
You know, years from now, Orion and Alex will be kicking back with a dreambeer and thinking back to this time, laughing.
Wow Alex, you pushed your luck to far of the cliff.
Oh! I see where this is probably going. You are either going to fly or die at the end of this fall… nice.
Wow… Orion is really angry. Maybe he should just back-kick Alex and be done with it.
Oh, when push comes to shove.
This’ll be very interesting!
I like the expression on Orion’s face in panel two, he really looks angry. Maybe this is the motivation that Alex needs to get serious about learning to fly.
Course, if we’re going for the “Fly or Die” tactic here, he might want to be tossed far enough away so he can’t repeat the trick he did way back when they first met Felicity and just stick his sword in the side of the cliff til he slows down.
No, no, that’s how he treats everyone and everything. Nothing personal.
Oh, and being that the centaur guy jumped instantly to that conclusion, I’m going to guess someone has issues….
Nah. He’s just teaching in a way that is guaranteed to get Alex’s attention. If he was really angry, he wouldn’t be talking anymore, he’d be putting the hurt on.
Note that Orion also puts himself in a safe position here. If Alex decides to attack with his sword, there are no scenarios where he won’t go down the cliff. Even if he wakes up, he’ll go straight down the next time he dreams.
Yeah, he realy got pissed this time…. but i kind of undestand, after Alex talk with Nastaja and then recieving the messege to his brother and all… i though he was really starting to grow up and be more responsable, but he still isn’t taking it seriuous enough…. specialy for a Centaur with little sense of humor! =P
OOooh! I finally figured out how a race of centaurs could get that up on that otherwise unreachable by equine mechanics spire. Young native american kids could fly, ergo, centaurs friends of theirs could fly.
Yes, I am exceedingly quick.
You know, I was thinking of that Goodfellas routine, too.
Scott, you’ve GOT to put that gag page at the back of this book when you release it.
You know I think Alex asked a few pages back if he was gonna throw him off that cliff….. I think he’s getting his answer or Orion was thinking “Now thats a plan!”
I don’t think Orion is actually angry at all. I think he might be annoyed, but that he’s deliberately ramping up Alex’s tension.
Remember, he said kids don’t think about flying, they just do….and for many, when fear reaches a certain height…the mind goes blank.
Who knows, maybe that note Dan sent was “Hey watch your idiot brother, if he shows signs of (insert symptoms here) you might want to wake him up.”
What Orion is doing here is called a “Zen Slap.” Essentially a direct interaction with the student to overcome a blockage in learning. Here’s an example.
A student undertook to study swordsmanship with a master, who did not give the student a moment’s peace. At any time the student might be subject to a blow from the master’s stick – while he was asleep, while he was cooking, any time. After a long time, the student’s awareness was heightened to the point he could avoid any blow. One day, the student noticed the master had laid his stick down to check a pot of stew that was cooking over the fire. He picked up the stick, quietly snuck up behind the master, and attacked. But the master parried the blow with the lid of the pot. At that moment the student was enlightened. The master said, “Go find yourself another master; I have nothing more to teach you.”
i think i seen this before, orion is trying to scare him into understanding that they need him and alex just doesnt understand his destiny to rule dreamland, since alex has the sword and there supposed to be a human on the throne..
scott this is great storyline keep it up, what i dont get is orion doesn’t seem to remember he’s a adult if he didnt have the sword necklace that his mother sent to him in that box, he wouldn’t be able to project himself into dreamland..
so the answer to orion’s saying you think we are imaginary creatures and fade into nothingness when he wakes.
they do.. and they see the same thing, he fades from there world… so yes i would think that he does think this to some degree..
but orion does have vaild point alex needs to start becoming the hero he supposed to be and stop acting like clown.
Dude, Orion is INTENSE.
Indeed, Daniel Jackson. 😉
The life of a Repo-man is always intense.
Come on guys…this is basically how a bird teaches it’s young to fly…they push them out of the nest. It elicits a fight or FLIGHT response heh heh.
still glad that someone besides nastaja is willing to put Alex in his place.
DROP HIM! DROP HIM! DROP HIM! DROP HIM!
“Are we still imaginary creatures ? Is this cliff imaginary ? Yes ? Great, then there’s no reason to fall from it …”
A dreambeer… we should make that a new brand! It’s just too funny. 😀
(Even though having a dreambeer inside a place called Dreamland is probably a bit over the top; after all, you don’t call beer from the U.S. USbeer… ah, well. It’s still funny!)
I agree! The expression on Orion’s face is fierce! Very well done.
All I can think of is a page from a very early Dr. Radium comic book by Scott Saavedra (basically, the good guys were trying to figure out how to recognize the aliens–they bounced like balls; so they grab the human wearing the alien costume instead and throw him off the building…)
the dialog was:
“Did he bounce?”
“Just once… not very high, though…”
I was thinking the same thing. Especially, after he promised Orion he’d take it more seriously. He should have known better than that!
Well, it’s an interesting way to cut things short, in any case. Like this it won’t take a lot of time for him to learn it and the story will be driven on to new adventures.
I still think that the one “destined to rule” is Dan. If they discover just how he gets “blocked out”.
Hmm… I wouldn’t say that. I didn’t even think of that either. And I bet other people didn’t.
GO ORION! 😀
(Not that I dislike Alex. He just needs a good dose of reality, and Orion’s ready to shove the whole bottle down his throat. )
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/7803/dreamlandclown.jpg
hope you like it ^^
Scott, Scott, Scott… Why on God’s green earth did you not go for the Goodfellas reference?! Yeah, it would have been a little out of character for Orion, but it would have been fracking hilarious! I like the Zen Slap idea; it does make me wonder if that’s what Orion is trying to do. Keep up the good work!
I was hoping for a better response from Alex. Such as the attack warranting a swift boot to Orion’s head followed by a large sharp and pointy object being used for self defense.
“THIS IS DREAMLAND!”
“WE ARE REAAAAAL!”
This two things came to my mind as i read this 🙂
Orion: “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”
Alex really does not have any reactions, last fight I was in I don’t remember the first punch I threw…guy punched me and I only knew I punched him back because I felt the impact on my hand. Someone hiuts you, you hit them back and then you think.
Orion is quite lucky to not have a broken nose considering Alex’s armour has brass (maybe even are brass from the colour) knuckles on the gauntlet. Or maybe that is why he is so angry, he wanted Alex to show him some warrior fire!
I am with you on that one.
I’m betting it’s being treated as ‘inferior’ by humans. 😉
A good dose of reality, in an imaginary place.
(now can’t get the song “Busdriver” out of my head
I have a sick feeling that Friday shall be a literal cliffhanger.
I think Orion is taking serious lessons from Teal’c
I’m kinda hoping that Orion is gonna scare the flying into him. Hell hold Alex there till he chokes or cannot breathe and therefore the fight or FLIGHT ability will kick in. Alex will start hovering above Orion’s hand and and realize he can still fly and then figure out how to control it.
What Orion’s saying is.
Alex still believes that Orion and Dreamland don’t even exist.
That when Alex wakes up…Dreamland…and its inhabitants simply…disappear until Alex “dreams them up” again.
Not disappear like from sight. But disappear as if they were just figments of Alex’s imagination.
Ha!
That’s a great line!
Woo hoo! Congrats on the Lulu Nom! that’s awesome 😀 You know what else is awesome? Saying “Lulu Nom” out loud ;D
Ha ha. I do. I love it!
THIS IS SPAAAARTAAAAAA!!!!!
Orion’s gonna let go…and Alex is gonna think he’s still on the ground…and Alex is gonna fly without even knowing it…it’s like sorcery from the Belgariad. If you think you can do it, you probably can. And if you don’t you can’t, it’ll probably work.
NOM NOM NOM!
DO IT DO IT DO IT!!! It’ll knock some sense into him if he falls!! XD Sorry Alex, no sympathy for you here. You were asking for it 😉
Eep! But Orion’s right.
Nice.
Orion just might be the one to get through Alex’s thick head!! I bet it’ll be nice to have the print version to really get the full impact of this lesson. 😀
Cool! Didn’t know the public could vote in the Lulu Awards! I’ll so vote. And Alex’s expression in panel one is fabulous.
I have never posted before so first- thanks for making this story. Now for my hypothesis: this reaction from Mr. Centaur here is due to something from the letter exchange he had with Dan.
Ironic icon there.
Quick, Alex! Tell Orion how he can get a once-in-a-lifetime tax writeoff by giving money to his wife! It worked for Andy Dufresne.
congratz on your nomination for lulu
Thanks Lora!
Your having to much fun with this, congrats on the nom, and thank you for the great artistic display you put out every week Scott, I have enjoyed sharing it with my kid that I havent seen for years,…W. coast/ E.coast, my personal dreamland, that I never thought would happen thanks
Hi Toe.
Welcome.
Good thought. But…no.
But good try.
He’s gonna drop ’em… and since he don’t wanna die THEN he’ll fly.. but then he’ll be all like “HEY! You coulda killed me!”
But he’ll be like “Naaah! It was safe the whole time see? I put ah trampoline down there just in case! :D”
… B) My predictions anyways
AHHH! Come back from a couple of weeks overseas and this is a twist. Love it.
If so, I guess Alex was right when he said Orion was going to toss him off the cliff. 😉
And now I suspect that part of being able to fly, for Alex, will be based on taking Dreamland seriously. If kids can fly because they believe they can fly, Alex has to at least believe in Dreamland to the same degree that kids do.
I mean, he knows it’s real in the sense that things are correlating back and forth, Nicole/Dan… he has enough invested in it being real to try and convince the awake people that he’s not crazy. But that’s not necessarily the same as REALLY believing it in your gut.
I dunno. Didn’t they already say that kids who are afraid of falling to death, do in fact fall? They can’t fly in that case.
Unless it’s somehow the opposite for adults… hmm.
I love Alec’s expression in the first panel… a very *gulp* moment (either that or “oh s**t!”. but being a G rated comment… I think the *gulp* is more appropriate!)
I’m sorry, I’m looking at this and thinking “Man grow a spine why don’t you!” Alexander seems to keep getting his behind handed to him by everyone in dreamland! Ah well, it’s still a very enjoyable story.
Sorry Orion, but you’re wearing a small cat on your head and have been known to walk around with a feather . . . let’s just say inappropriately placed. You’ve gotta expect that someone will eventually smart off at you.
Oh my god. I was terrified of Orion yesterday, and I’m still scared today. That centaur is enough to give me nightmares now. *hides under bed*
On the other hand we do have the Brooklyn Brewery, in Brooklyn, that makes Brooklyn Ale, and Brooklyn Lager, and probably Brooklyn Stout. So it’s not exactly unknown. 😉
How could he though? He has never seen an adult human before (Unless he is VERY old). No one has.
Orion NEEDS to be intense: flying can be dangerous if you fool around. Oh well, if the cliff is a few thousand feet, at least Alex has ten or more seconds to learn to fly…
I thought of this (From Addams Family Values)
“Pugsley, the baby weighs 10 pounds. The cannonball weighs 20 pounds. Which will hit the stone walkway first?”
“I’m still on fractions.”
“Which do you think?”
“The cannonball?”
“Very good. But which one will bounce?”
“The baby?”
“There’s only one way to find out. Ready?”
I’ll vouch for that too, my dears. 😛
Honestly, Scott got the expression sinthethysing everything: how important it’s for Alex to learn to grow stronger, how important it’s for Orion that he does that, and finally, how he must learn to push through his boundaries and see over his giant-sized puber ego.
And since we’re on an honest streak here, if you make Orion fly, i’m going to have some serious praying to do. 😀 You’d make me sooooo happy man…
that would REALLY be a canon breaker (you know, Centaurs, wise, yet incapable of mutating or interacting with any other element that’s not earthly based…).
Which, points to another q: what. is. really. Dreamland?
Do humans come from Dreamland?
Oh Tom, you just made me laugh.
Woo Orion came to the same conclusion that I did!!! Alex still partially thinks of all this as being a dream, thus his foolishness constantly…
I bet the next thing that happens is that Alex tries to apologise, but Orion’s all like… “Too late.” [drops Alex off cliff]
“I’ll get you next time, Orion!!!”
I think he will wake up just as he was about to fall.
If I saw someone wearing a small cat skin on his head I wouldn’t want to smart off to them, rather I think I’d walk the long way around them.
Thank YOU!
🙂
that still leaves him with the problem that he’ll reappear in the exact same place when he falls asleep again. he’d fall anyway. 😉
makes me wonder… if he wakes up while being in an area that’s being flooded, will he reappear under water and drown when he falls asleep? poor guy. 😀
LOL! More and more like boot camp!
Oh, and CONGRATULATIONS on the Nomination!
Good question. Also, is it something like Phantásien (see “The Neverending Story”)? Where the limit is the imagination of the people that visit. If so, we are only seeing a very tiny part of Dreamland – the part dealing with the typical kind of fantasy world (elves, dwarves etc.), but other parts which are rather different may be there too. I’d like to think that there’s a surreal part of Dreamland, or what about a sci-fi part. And a lot more. After all, human imagination is not restricted to fantasy. But that’s just me pondering… ^^;
Well there goes my theory from earlier as well.
Like early on, when he woke up while falling down Nicodemus’s tower…
As usual, Scott is going to leave us with a cliffhanger for the weekend…
Orion drops him off the cliff, Alex is in the air and we don’t know if Alex has learned his lesson of how to fly once more. (Until Monday…)
“A joke? THIS! IS! DREAMLAAAND!”
EPIC. You win. XD
Sequel! I smell a Dreamland Chronicles Sequel! 🙂
I think Orion is used to teaching hard-headed adolescent centaurs. I expect he uses the same “strong gripped” teaching technique with them, too!
When I have a dream where something dangerous is about to happen, I often wake up. Will this happen to Alex?
I agree that it would be a bad idea for Alex to do so right now.
With faith like a child…
So I just read the whole archive, from starter to behind the scenes to today’s post, in two days sitting here at work… I have to say, I cried just a little when I realized I couldn’t click the next button…
This is a really Fan-flippin’-tastic comic… and it’s FREE!! Holy Cow! It’s like Christmas everyday in July, with sledding in the snow and a nice warm swimming pool both!
Daniel as the one destined to rule is what I thought in the beginning, too. Perhaps he is not being permitted there in order to keep him safe from Nicodemus.
Excellent editing!! Photoshop FTW (at least, I assume you used that to edit it).
Excellent reference! That is one of my favorite movies (and probably the only one that Steven King wrote- but didn’t write as a book first- that did well)!
Is it just me, or is Alex PROFOUNDLY stupid? I understood exactly what Orion was trying to say.
finally, he is rebuked! yay! btw, when is the night scene? i only ever see the day scene
Come at night. 8pm CST to 8am CST.
🙂
Thank you. And welcome to Dreamland.
Yeah. But for once…it’s actually a CLIFF HANGER!
A real live cliff…and someone hanging. Right?
That’s a first.
Alex Alex Alex… we all told you this was to happen, didn’t we? That’s what you get for being stupid and not listening to those who are smarter! 🙂
It’s going great so far! I can only hope that when I start my own web comic some day that it could be half as good as yours! 😀
Oh, yeah, Alex is SO getting chucked off the cliff.
Yeah, and it’s a pretty awesome night scene, too. I LOVE the automatic day/night layout. I’ve never seen that before.
Well, well, well. Looks like you went from one dream world to another, eh? Love your comic too, Lora!
Scott,
If you ever get too much time on your hands, you could make 6 more scenes for night/day for the different seasons.
And that’s when he throws Alex over the never-ending cliff.
And the other centaurs fight other humens epically.
Paint actually. ^^;
Scott another beautiful strip. this should teach alex to piss off a centaur. cant wait to see what happens. thanks again for bringing felicity back. she reminds me of my old imaginary friend.
Wow…I hope Orion is just doing this to prove a point or teach Alex a lesson! I didn’t think he was a mean guy!
Well, Now Alex has to face the reality of the situation, whether he believes that dreamland is a real place, existing in an alternate dimension (oe wherever) of all in his mind, . He know in his heart that Dreamland exists whether he does or not, but hasn’t come to terms with it in mind yet. I don’t believe that Orion will throw him off the cliff, he already said that if hes does that Alex will die (and is a little cliche), it is probably a “Zen slap” or something, I do believe that Scott will leave us on Friday with a literal cliff-hanger though. KEEP IT UP SCOTT, I LOVE EVERY PAGE OF IT!!!!
HAHAHAHA :D!!!!
Looks like Orion is going to toss him off the cliff to relearn to fly the hard way after all. But wasn’t that supposed to be bad?
AH, but when the maind goes blank with fear, the kids can’t fly anymore. That was mentioned a ways back
Or for the different city capitals throughout the lands…
Anybody for that he just scared him into flying and Orion keeps yelling at him as they walk/fly to the rock tower thingy?
ah i see now it was kind a confusing at first but when you explained it a little better.
I’ve found that, most of the time, people generally only accuse others of treating them as inferiors when they themselves believe that they are….
In any case, my opinion of Orion has fallen several points with that one sentence. Its shrieks of insecurity.
haha, that just makes it harder for us to wait for next week. 😉
yeah, that.
can’t exactly remember how that went anymore, but if he doesn’t reappear with the same momentum and is already most of the way down, he might have a chance. 😉
you know what might be funny to watch from the POV of a dreamlander? alex drifting in and out of sleep while falling… XD
Yes I understand how Orion could feel hurt to have their existence questioned or even neglected.
I just spend an hour wearing my cat on my head and walking around the mall. No one gave me anything resembling respect. Weird. 😉
lol, love that scene.
lol sounds like a good explanation to what’s happening here.
Personally, I think Alex would have been within his rights to make himself a handhold– by pulling his knife and shanking it through the “shaman’s” arm.
Hey, you want proof he takes this reality seriously, drawing blood on someone who threatens your life pretty much qualifies.
Of course this is me, and I’ve got a temper.
Yeah, Alex is being careless and flippant, but let’s consider the possibility that he’s acting that way to keep from going nuts.
Let’s review: He’s a college slacker— no great point of pride, but not exactly a crime, either— who’s spent, what, the past several weeks/months of his life split between two worlds, one of which is full of creatures and people and things that all the experience of his life tell him should not, do not and even cannot exist, and the other which would not hesitate to lock him up in an asylum for insisting his experiences in the first were real. He has spent most of that time trying to convince just two other people in the Waking world that Dreamworld even exists— again, mind you, at risk of losing everything and ending up riding the happy-pill train the rest of his life. Meanwhile, the Dreamworld has slapped armor, a sword, and a prophecy on his back and has been throwing soldiers, pirates, monsters, and Dragons headlong at him nonstop. His “friends” in the waking world don’t believe what he’s going through, and consider him an idiot; his “friends” in the Dreamworld can’t understand what he’s going through and consider him an overgrown child. He has no comparable training or background in battle or leadership yet he is expected to instantly become a full-blown warrior and King of Dreamland(!)….
And now some short-tempered ersatz Indian with a horse growing out of his ass, who has spent the past several days mouthing Yoda-isms at him, has throttled him and called him “selfish” because he jokes around and refuses to walk off a cliff.
Grab any one of us and put us through the same nonsense and I assure you, we would either snap like gingerbread or develop a seriously nasty temper…. or simply fall flat on our faces, utterly useless failures. The fact Alex has stuck to it as he has done and kept his laid back personality, rather than going postal, is a better outcome than the situation warrants.
rofl!
I could totally see that!
“Aaaaahhh! ……….. Aaaaaaaaahhhhh! ……….. aaaah! … AAAAAaaaaaaaahhh! …….. aaah -*SPLAT*”
😆
Well put. You forgot one point, though. Alex hasn’t had any truly restful sleep for quite some time now. That’s bound to wear anyone down …
😉
This is were you get pissed off; take his head, then you realize half the city guard is after you and you lost reputation points.
So you load a previous save.
No wait…
that’s Baldur’s Gate
He’s gonna drop him!!! And I’m still laughing at all the comments that make this scene hilarious!