Just so you know, Scott, you still have the “expand to 2 page spread on mouse-over” template set for this page. It needs to be returned to the “one page only” template.
Sounds like Artie is feeling a lack of self-confidence here. Remembering from the Camelot musical, that sounds accurate during Camelot’s final days. Does anyone know from the other sources on King Arthur if that was true for the stories as well?
Nevermind skinny… looking at his face in the third panel, I’d even go with “gaunt”…
(Then again, I guess wizards were probably not the most athletic-minded people around… 😛 )
The Legend of Prince Valiant brought that out quite well, also. You see a great man who is great not because he was truly indeed great, but because he was humble enough to recognize his own failings- particularly in regards to his previous friendship with Prince Malagant.
hmmm, and here we have a very logical reason for nic to go against arthur. makes me wonder about his current evilness. then again, if he wasn’t evil then, when and why would he have changed in the meantime?
and is it just me, or are merlin’s ears looks rather pointy? more speculations here. 😀
It looked like that to me at first, but then I realized that this is probably an artifact of the lighting, especially in panel 2. The light is mostly coming from one source: the window off screen. Therefore, the faces of the characters won’t look as photogenic as a multi-source lighted area would be. I think if the area was as well lit as, say, Astoria, the characters would not look as flat.
However, I believe that this lighting is intentional. Camelot is apparently not as bright as Astoria, and if you think about it, that reflects the worries that Arthur has about Camelot and his kingdom. Not to mention that there is no internal lighting at all back in the 14th century. Plus, the walls in Camelot aren’t white like the walls in Astoria, so there is not as much light reflecting off the walls, keeping half of Arthur’s face mostly in the shadows.
Keep in mind that even in the present time, Nicks main goal seems to be erasing any trace of human presence from dreamland. I would guess that Nick has already come to that conclusion that humans are a bad influence on dreamland, and Arthur is about to push him into doing something about it.
I was just wondering – how can the sword know what’s happening outside of Dreamland? Or is it aware of what happens when it’s in its necklace form as well?
true that.
though getting ALL humans out of dreamland is a little over the top. without children coming to the land while dreaming, what would become of the land? would it still exist?
seems like nic’s got a very narrow tunnel view here. 😉
I think Merlin called it in the fourth panel, that Arthur will force Nick’s hand (claw?) and be the reason that makes Nick completely snap and trap him to prevent the next human king from coming to Dreamland. So I guess Nick isn’t *entirely* the villian here, that Arthur shares in a small percentage of the blame. That Is AWESOME!
I like Merlin’s look as much as I like Arthur’s, well done. Merlin looks believable, a vizier and wizard ought to look old and even frail yet, somehow powerful. Ya nailed it.
I’m guessing here, but I suspect that the sword is still connected to its king in some manner in the waking world. Perhaps just as a passive observer.
I am curious if the sword disappeared in Dreamland when King Arthur wakes up. I’m assuming that the “sword on a necklace” did not manifest itself until Alex woke up after first finding the sword. Perhaps we’ll learn about that as well.
Maybe the simplest explanation is that Arthur has the sword and necklace with him even here, 600 years ago. He just has it hidden. When the king dies, the sword and necklace would fade away as he entered his “final sleep.”
OK, I’m surprised noone has commented on this yet. The assumption going in was that only kings could weild the sword, but Arthur mentions Cleopatra. So queens can rule Dreamland as well, providing they have sufficient renown.
I guess it just the royal first born, it doesn’t matter if it is boy or girl. Cleopatra must have given Nick quite a few headaches. I totally agree with Merlin,but more importantly, I hope you feel well soon Scott!
I think Scott had said something about there being a few queens back in the history of Dreamland before on the forum. However, in the past most rulers were men and out of the hundreds that Nicodemus has met I wouldn’t be surprised if only a handful were queens.
Someone doesn’t have to be the first born to rule Dreamland, although the way the title is passed isn’t clear yet. The first born issue is related to whatever spell is keeping Daniel out and wouldn’t have mattered until after it got cast around the end of Arthur’s reign.
I think, you could rerender the texture of the clothes again. Could you make them a bit more ‘rough’? In my opinion that’d look much better (has Arthur bare thighs in Panel 1???). Merlins’ beard is also a bit flat, even compared to some previous ones like the dwarfen king: http://thedreamlandchronicles.com/the-dreamland-chronicles/chapter-13/.
If you need more power for rendering, just ask. I’ve got a i7 920/gf 275 and others might very well have better computers that can render some of your images with more details.
Oh, I’ve just seen two other strange things:
Arthurs robe is just ending at the floor. not above or ‘below’ it. Don’t you think that it would end at his shoes (or above them) when it’s designed to barely hit the ground when he’s walking?
In Panel 1, the stonewall texture changes. The stones are much more detailed on the left side of Merlin, than on his right side. The wall on the left side of Arthur is merging with the floor a bit.
IE8 & IE9 are fine browsers. The newer one also speeds out the Fox in the sun spider benchmark.
Back in the days when IE8 was new, it could render many sites properly that you coudn’t view in other browsers – The Fox passed only one in three of the X000+ CSS2.1 tests that were created to ensure proper CSS-support in IE.
Merlin: “…should you put him in a position where he must choose between his king and his country he may turn you on.”
Arthur: “wait, what?”
Merlin: “Turn on you! I said ‘turn on you!'”
Nicodemus mentioned earlier that he had advised Caesar in the past. When used as a name, ‘Caesar’ usually refers to the Roman named Julius Caesar, who lived from about 100BC to 44BC when he was assassinated. Also what many people know as ‘Cleopatra’ was actually Cleopatra VII (it was one of those repeating names), who lived from I think 70BC to 30BC. If these are indeed the individuals Nicodemus and Arthur are referring to, it would seem that their reign’s in Dreamland would overlap. However, it is possible that Caesar could have abdicated the throne in Dreamlands to focus on his plans in this world, or that he somehow passed the crown of Dreamlands on to Cleopatra when they were together. Hmm…the First Century BC may have been as chaotic in Dreamlands as it was in Rome. On the other hand, ‘Caesar’ could be referring to the title used by subsequent rulers (in which case, way to be ambiguous), or even more subtle, it could be an earlier Cleopatra. However, the fact that this has not been pointed out in the two years this comic has been up leads me to believe that it is not a big deal.
Consider that in most RPG’s (D&D comes to mind), wizards have the smallest hit dice (a 4-sided). Which means that they have been spending so much time studying magic that they are the least physically developed character type. Compare to a fighter (ten-sided) or barbarian (twelve-sided). Now [b] those [/b] guys are beefy!
Then again, it is also possible that while Caesar was King of Dreamland, Cleopatra was unable to enter (as an adult), and this, until Caesar died. At that point, Cleopatra would have been allowed into Dreamland again, now as an adult, and was crowned Queen of Dreamland. Much like Prince Charles, Prince Andrew and Prince William can’t accede to the throne of England while Queen Elizabeth II is still queen.
This way, while Cleopatra might have been pinpointed as the next potential monarch, she doesn’t start her monarchy of Dreamland as a child, but has had time to grow up, mature, learn about the world’s ways of affairs, politics, etc. Otherwise, if they had to wait for the king to die before the next generation’s first born gets selected, they would end up with a child king that knows nothing about anything…
Something like that, anyway… (It all made sense in my head… And the voices mostly agreed with me, too… 😉 )
Woohoo! first post!
Is it me, or does Merlin look rather skinny?
Either way, I think he just nailed it…
Just so you know, Scott, you still have the “expand to 2 page spread on mouse-over” template set for this page. It needs to be returned to the “one page only” template.
Sounds like Artie is feeling a lack of self-confidence here. Remembering from the Camelot musical, that sounds accurate during Camelot’s final days. Does anyone know from the other sources on King Arthur if that was true for the stories as well?
Nevermind skinny… looking at his face in the third panel, I’d even go with “gaunt”…
(Then again, I guess wizards were probably not the most athletic-minded people around… 😛 )
I’m using IE8, and it expanded the previous page just fine, but does not erroneously expand this page. A problem with your browser?
Get to feeling better scott!!
Perhaps it’s a caching issue? Shift+F5 to reload the entire page.
get well and relax 🙂 *huggles*
Hope you don’t get sick Scott, or have you already? Guess we will know tomorrow how well you are doing.
Appears to be fixed now.
Absolutely. Arthur’s self-doubt is a constant in just about every version that includes the fall of Camelot.
The Legend of Prince Valiant brought that out quite well, also. You see a great man who is great not because he was truly indeed great, but because he was humble enough to recognize his own failings- particularly in regards to his previous friendship with Prince Malagant.
Firefox 3.6.3 on Mac, cleared my cache, still getting the 2 page spread pop up stuffs.
Durp, should mention I get it on the home page. Not on this comic specific page.
hmmm, and here we have a very logical reason for nic to go against arthur. makes me wonder about his current evilness. then again, if he wasn’t evil then, when and why would he have changed in the meantime?
and is it just me, or are merlin’s ears looks rather pointy? more speculations here. 😀
Is it me or are Merlin and Arthur kind of blocky, compared to our main characters?
They look slightly more 2D to me than 3D…
Great storyline though.
Feel Better.
A.
As usual, Merlin is no fool. He’s realised something that I don’t think Arthur has yet…
I can confirm that this phenomenon happens on the home page, but not on this web page (the only one where you can see this comment).
It looked like that to me at first, but then I realized that this is probably an artifact of the lighting, especially in panel 2. The light is mostly coming from one source: the window off screen. Therefore, the faces of the characters won’t look as photogenic as a multi-source lighted area would be. I think if the area was as well lit as, say, Astoria, the characters would not look as flat.
However, I believe that this lighting is intentional. Camelot is apparently not as bright as Astoria, and if you think about it, that reflects the worries that Arthur has about Camelot and his kingdom. Not to mention that there is no internal lighting at all back in the 14th century. Plus, the walls in Camelot aren’t white like the walls in Astoria, so there is not as much light reflecting off the walls, keeping half of Arthur’s face mostly in the shadows.
Keep in mind that even in the present time, Nicks main goal seems to be erasing any trace of human presence from dreamland. I would guess that Nick has already come to that conclusion that humans are a bad influence on dreamland, and Arthur is about to push him into doing something about it.
I, for one, think Arthur and Merlin look great. Possibly even … vote incentive worthy?
😉
On that note, don’t forget to VOTE, everyone!
I was just wondering – how can the sword know what’s happening outside of Dreamland? Or is it aware of what happens when it’s in its necklace form as well?
You got the early middle-ages look excellently accurate. Cheers!
Firefox 3.6.3 on Windows 7 64-bit. I’m also getting the mouse-over problems on the main page. Tried Shift-F5, but that didn’t seem to help.
In my mind, for some reason, this Merlin sounds like Muten Roshi (funimation dub of Dragonball).
Every time someone doesn’t heed Merlin’s words, they regret it.
Cheer up Scott!
Take a walk outside on a park, especially if there is a sunny day 🙂
true that.
though getting ALL humans out of dreamland is a little over the top. without children coming to the land while dreaming, what would become of the land? would it still exist?
seems like nic’s got a very narrow tunnel view here. 😉
great page. hope you fell better soon.
Nope, not fixed.
…and @ lake_wrangler:
MSIE is not a web browser, it is a disease, so it does not count if something works with that.
Ah well, maybe something was cached after all. TWO cache clearings seems to maybe have solved it, at least temporarily.
Hope you’re feeling better soon, Scott. Btw, my 1/1 print arrived. It’s smashing! Thanks!
Great page look, the medieval stone and wood work look great, especially the candle chandeliers. Well done scott ^^ hope you feel better!
I think Merlin called it in the fourth panel, that Arthur will force Nick’s hand (claw?) and be the reason that makes Nick completely snap and trap him to prevent the next human king from coming to Dreamland. So I guess Nick isn’t *entirely* the villian here, that Arthur shares in a small percentage of the blame. That Is AWESOME!
IE 8 is a web browser, 6 & 7 were a plague, I’ll grant you that.
Nice page Scott, hope you are feeling better.
So I’m guessing that Merlin seals the human kings out of dreamland to protect them? The plot thickens…
Feel better soon, Scott.
I like Merlin’s look as much as I like Arthur’s, well done. Merlin looks believable, a vizier and wizard ought to look old and even frail yet, somehow powerful. Ya nailed it.
And best wishes on a quick recovery Scott!
I’m guessing here, but I suspect that the sword is still connected to its king in some manner in the waking world. Perhaps just as a passive observer.
I am curious if the sword disappeared in Dreamland when King Arthur wakes up. I’m assuming that the “sword on a necklace” did not manifest itself until Alex woke up after first finding the sword. Perhaps we’ll learn about that as well.
Maybe the simplest explanation is that Arthur has the sword and necklace with him even here, 600 years ago. He just has it hidden. When the king dies, the sword and necklace would fade away as he entered his “final sleep.”
OK, I’m surprised noone has commented on this yet. The assumption going in was that only kings could weild the sword, but Arthur mentions Cleopatra. So queens can rule Dreamland as well, providing they have sufficient renown.
I like how he appears vaguely oriental, and certainly not generic Anglo-Saxon.
His nose is a piece of work, though. Now we konw where Gandalf got his big honker! Ya got into too many fights in your youth, big guy! 🙂
I guess it just the royal first born, it doesn’t matter if it is boy or girl. Cleopatra must have given Nick quite a few headaches. I totally agree with Merlin,but more importantly, I hope you feel well soon Scott!
I think Scott had said something about there being a few queens back in the history of Dreamland before on the forum. However, in the past most rulers were men and out of the hundreds that Nicodemus has met I wouldn’t be surprised if only a handful were queens.
Someone doesn’t have to be the first born to rule Dreamland, although the way the title is passed isn’t clear yet. The first born issue is related to whatever spell is keeping Daniel out and wouldn’t have mattered until after it got cast around the end of Arthur’s reign.
I think, you could rerender the texture of the clothes again. Could you make them a bit more ‘rough’? In my opinion that’d look much better (has Arthur bare thighs in Panel 1???). Merlins’ beard is also a bit flat, even compared to some previous ones like the dwarfen king: http://thedreamlandchronicles.com/the-dreamland-chronicles/chapter-13/.
If you need more power for rendering, just ask. I’ve got a i7 920/gf 275 and others might very well have better computers that can render some of your images with more details.
Oh, I’ve just seen two other strange things:
Arthurs robe is just ending at the floor. not above or ‘below’ it. Don’t you think that it would end at his shoes (or above them) when it’s designed to barely hit the ground when he’s walking?
In Panel 1, the stonewall texture changes. The stones are much more detailed on the left side of Merlin, than on his right side. The wall on the left side of Arthur is merging with the floor a bit.
IE8 & IE9 are fine browsers. The newer one also speeds out the Fox in the sun spider benchmark.
Back in the days when IE8 was new, it could render many sites properly that you coudn’t view in other browsers – The Fox passed only one in three of the X000+ CSS2.1 tests that were created to ensure proper CSS-support in IE.
I’ve never got any display problems with DC. Not in Fox and not in any Version of IE (used 6-9).
Oh, and get well soon. You know, you can count on us.
Update: this appears to be fixed now.
now appears fixed. If it tries to bug up again for Tuesday’s update, will make mention.
I like merlin’s profile on the last panel
Merlin’s ears? Pointy? Huh…that explains things, he’s a half-elf!
Merlin: “…should you put him in a position where he must choose between his king and his country he may turn you on.”
Arthur: “wait, what?”
Merlin: “Turn on you! I said ‘turn on you!'”
Agreed. I remember it well.
Nicodemus mentioned earlier that he had advised Caesar in the past. When used as a name, ‘Caesar’ usually refers to the Roman named Julius Caesar, who lived from about 100BC to 44BC when he was assassinated. Also what many people know as ‘Cleopatra’ was actually Cleopatra VII (it was one of those repeating names), who lived from I think 70BC to 30BC. If these are indeed the individuals Nicodemus and Arthur are referring to, it would seem that their reign’s in Dreamland would overlap. However, it is possible that Caesar could have abdicated the throne in Dreamlands to focus on his plans in this world, or that he somehow passed the crown of Dreamlands on to Cleopatra when they were together. Hmm…the First Century BC may have been as chaotic in Dreamlands as it was in Rome. On the other hand, ‘Caesar’ could be referring to the title used by subsequent rulers (in which case, way to be ambiguous), or even more subtle, it could be an earlier Cleopatra. However, the fact that this has not been pointed out in the two years this comic has been up leads me to believe that it is not a big deal.
Consider that in most RPG’s (D&D comes to mind), wizards have the smallest hit dice (a 4-sided). Which means that they have been spending so much time studying magic that they are the least physically developed character type. Compare to a fighter (ten-sided) or barbarian (twelve-sided). Now [b] those [/b] guys are beefy!
Rats. I meant to bold that word. Oh well.
Then again, it is also possible that while Caesar was King of Dreamland, Cleopatra was unable to enter (as an adult), and this, until Caesar died. At that point, Cleopatra would have been allowed into Dreamland again, now as an adult, and was crowned Queen of Dreamland. Much like Prince Charles, Prince Andrew and Prince William can’t accede to the throne of England while Queen Elizabeth II is still queen.
This way, while Cleopatra might have been pinpointed as the next potential monarch, she doesn’t start her monarchy of Dreamland as a child, but has had time to grow up, mature, learn about the world’s ways of affairs, politics, etc. Otherwise, if they had to wait for the king to die before the next generation’s first born gets selected, they would end up with a child king that knows nothing about anything…
Something like that, anyway… (It all made sense in my head… And the voices mostly agreed with me, too… 😉 )