Page 926
New page! And the end of chapter 5! I was going to try to conclude the dungeon arc in Ch5 but this chapter is already kind of monsterous in size and there’s still a lot more to get through, so I decided this would make a good chapter break.
Rath and the others are on the very cusp of setting out into the wider world beyond the village of Gubkin as the Raven Knight holds a meeting for the great and the good(?) of the realm to discuss the Galanesh stones, Meg and her pals are at Thunder-ten-Tronckh -The citadel of the steam knights (which Romulus Volke gallops towards) and our villainous gnoll are all in various states of peril in the catacombs of the dread queen Mortubera!
Ch6 should be fun! I’ll be starting things of with Rath and the others (it’ll be nice to draw some people outside again after so long spent undergound). I’m going to have a break from updates for the next few weeks. Perhaps all of March-Though I will continue to work during that period. I hope to add a few new features to the site and also to get at least a few pages under my belt before the updates begin again 🙂
If you can afford to and you’d like some bonus content, then please consider backing my work on Patreon. Those Patreon dollars buy me the time I need to make the comic-It really does make a massive difference 🙂
Patreon- https://www.patreon.com/ByTheBook
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I’m thinking that Hathoraz’s fire spell did work. It seems Domina has some kind of control implant at the base of her neck and I’d wager that fire burnt it out enough. Her acting the way she is can be explained by the fact she is surrounded by enemies and if they knew the control over her was broken they’d just drag her back with them to have her put back under control.
Domina is certainly a cool customer. You might be on to something, there 😉
That’s what I was thinkin’ as well, continue to look the part so you can do better for them later.
That would be the smart way to play it (and Domina is no dummy) 🙂
Le what ??? 0_o
Hathoraz was ready to fight ; and finally , she lets herself to be tied without defend ?
Hathoraz isn’t a very powerful warrior. She’s more an advisor and mentor to the three gnoll nobles. She gave it a shot with trying to snap Domina out of it but when that didn’t work she didn’t have much of a chance against 3 super strong feral vampires, two high level gnoll monks, a high level half elf wizard and a whole team of adventurers 😉 If you remember she got captured pretty quickly right at the start of this situation as well. She’s far from helpless, but against these odds she was in an impossible situation.
I suppose she might have been able to escape rather than attacking Domina, but to do so would have left Moroz in the lurch-So she chose to gamble on gaining an ally by breaking the enchantment.
Why do I have a feeling Domina gave her an out with the hat?
You could be right 😉
Still here, still here, you’re not writing just for yourself. 🙂 I’m just more of a lurker who comes over once every few months and I mostly don’t know what to comment on when the plot is so goofy. I’m still curious as to whether or not you decided to actually bring Mortubera back to life after Lord Darksoul killed the other 3 or if someone is pretending to be her or if she never was dead to begin with. But as far as the juvenile humor goes I’m afraid I might be getting too old for it (I’m 38). Moroz’ tactics were cool to watch though.
Since you announced that Rath and his gang pursuing Vaznev is next on the list, it looks like we’re soon going to have the big reveal as to whether the last remaining character that still has her dignity and her plot intact is gonna get sucked into the vortex of chaotic nakedness or not. Ok, maybe not literally the last one. I might’ve forgotten about that old knight guy and Galanesh himself, but nobody wants to see the former naked and I have no hopes for Galanesh at all. XD
But yeah, you do you, I’ve long since made my peace with how the comic changed since the first chapter.
Eh -The comic has always been pretty crazy and random in the humour department and has always had a large helping of cheesecake. Some of my biggest influences in terms of guiding what can and cannot be done are the likes of Go Nagai (creator of ‘Cutey Honey’ and Keiko Kaimen’ and many others) and to a lesser extent, Crumb (who was one of many that fought against the oppressive ‘Comics code’ in the 60s and 70s). Plus of course Fred Perry, who doesn’t include full nudity in his own comic but certainly doesn’t have a problem with making erotica on the side 😉
There’s definitely more nudity than there was early on, but the story and the characters are still there. I think if I started over I might make something a bit tamer, as unfortunately there aren’t that many people (at least outside Europe and Japan) that are able to look beyond erotic content and see the other qualities something might have. If there’s full frontal nudity then it’s just porn and has no other merits beyond that. Which is kind of a shame as to me, sex and erotica is a big part of the human experience.
It seems like we have become so used to being served up bland, corporate (easily merchandised) mush that when most of us are confronted with something that pushes the boundaries, we can’t deal with it and retreat to safer ground. Not that I think everything should be wall to wall erotica, but I think it’s okay to include sex and nudity in a comedy adventure comic that’s not for kids. I somethimes worry that I may have taken it too far, but then I think about the fact that so many people are trying to ape the current mainstream. Why would I want to be like everyone else? Not that I’m the only artist drawing erotica. Some of us are just more open about it than others 😉
Anyway-Just my thoughts on the subject of erotica in art. A lot of people attacked my comic for going too far back in the early days, when the comic was first starting to gain more of an audience. Back before it ‘changed’ (note-I don’t think you’re ‘attacking’ it-I respect your opinion. I’m just pointing out that there were people that thought it was too naughty even in the early days).
I suppose everyone has a limit as to what they can accept when it comes to erotic content. Some people’s bar is VERY low indeed (even the suggestion of a female form or a certain pose is too much for example). I find it interesting that we seem to have taken a few steps back in recent times. A lot of modern comic books are so bland and safe. Even sexy costumes for super heroes are off the table.
I try to provide something a bit differtent from that squeeky clean mainstream content. Not out of some desire to rebel, but because I like sex and nudity and stupid jokes. Hopefully some other people out there do as well 😉
Maybe next time I’ll go without the nudity and have a lot more death and violence. Mass slaughter is fine as long as there are no female nipples on show, right? That’s a whole different kettle of fish (though I do feel tired at having to defend erotica while extreme violence invariably gets a free pass-Or is even seen as something to boast about).
Again-These are just my thoughts on the matter. The main point being, it’s possible to have a good story and fun characters and also include a lot of nudity and sex. Erotica has always been a pillar of the arts throughout all of human existence. I was hoping modern society would grow to embrace this idea (things seemed to be heading in that direction 10 years ago), but the opposite now appears to be true (we as a collective grow more repressed and infantalised and ignorant by the day). Ah well. I tried. And I’ll keep trying. That’s one thing you can say of me. I’m always very trying. And driven. If I can afford the cab fare 🙂
PS-Not having a go at you, SirBananaPie. I want to make that clear (since some of my ranting might come across as a trifle bitter). The very fact that you’re here and that you bothered to comment shows that you have a more open mind than most.
With that all said, the few pages I’ve made for Ch6 so far are definitely less rampant with the nudity than these recent Ch5 pages. Gotta build up to that stuff 😉 So if you prefer the sex appeal to be more subtle, ch6 may be more for you.
Don’t worry, I didn’t think you attacked me, even if you hadn’t started out by saying “outside of Europe and Japan”, because I’m not sure if you know that I’m German. 😀
Anyway, I think I caused a misunderstanding on what I wanted to criticise when I said “chaotic nakedness”. I am fine with comics using erotica (though BTB can sometimes become too blunt for my tastes), but it’s mostly just that almost every single character is so goofy that I don’t feel any tension anymore even though we’re currently having a dramatic reveal where the backstabbers were backstabbed and are taken away to be eaten at this supposed cliff-hanger. It just doesn’t feel like anyone’s in any danger at all. Character depth is also suffering, e.g. you say that Moroz is full of sorrow, resentment and ambition (p921), but does that serve any other purpose than explaining her personality? I do understand why that would be a rare dish though, because of said wide-spread goofiness. I know that feeling all too well. 😉
For me, stories work better when the atmosphere changes back and forth. It’s like how humans feel changes in temperature rather than an absolute value. Same goes for smell, i.e. try entering a room with stale air vs. making it go stale by being in there for an hour. And professional comedians go as far as inserting lame jokes to make the good ones have more impact. So for me, this applies to constant erotica as well. Yeshka’s smoke-kiss however was hot. 🙂
On that note: I do like that by now not everyone has the same huge breast size anymore. I pointed that out back then because I prefer Yeshka’s original size and you told me at that time that time was the reason everyone had balloon-like breasts. Is time also the reason why all the characters are jacked like crazy? It would be nice in my opinion if some characters could have more “feminine” features (preferrably women). Maybe at least that researcher dude who “fought” Goret could appear again? But it’s ok if varying body types this much is too much to ask time-wise, because not every artist has to cover all bases.
I haven’t read modern comic books, but I know from YellowFlash2 (on Youtube) how those have been getting dominated HARD by Manga. I honestly don’t think that those can still call themselves “mainstream” really. My theory is that they can hire only talentless hacks and ankle-biters because
1) the actually talented people prefer to do their own thing on the internet instead and
2) Comic company contracts are probably not artist-favored because they still live in the past in their own social filter bubbles detached from reality, so the only people willing to work under these conditions are those who want the additional benefit of pushing their own political agenda on the public.
Before I found out about modern woke comics I totally thought that the trend was still going towards more sex, because in Germany Trash TV is still so often about shallow sex dramas and generally women who don’t wear much clothing (e.g. Germany’s Next Top Model). Also there’s the top of TWC. There used to be Replay and NAV at the very top, but by now more and more erotica-heavy comics fill up the Top 10.
Regarding mass slaughters:
There are all kinds of different target audiences, so changing from erotica to violence would just switch one audience with another one (i.e. you’d have to rebuild part of your audience). Extreme violence is not for me. I prefer how e.g. El Goonish Shive goes back and forth between serious high-tension stuff and silly transformation shenanigans. That comic made my cry manly tears twice, once at the peak of that fight against the wizard who trespassed the school, and the second time was the finale of a fight involving Pandora’s big scene.
Anyway, looking forward to Ch 6 then. You building up to erotica stuff instead of just making all clothing disappear within no more than 1 page is something I haven’t seen in quite a while. 😉 The Rhino-warrior vs. Goret maybe, but I generally did start to wonder why they don’t all just start wearing Gnoll war-paint instead. Apropos: Why aren’t any Gnoll wearing that right now? Hathoraz’s costumes shouldn’t affect that all that much.
Ah yes-Lots of good points. I suppose it’s about expectations. While I definitely want to have some moments with more character depth and tragedy, the comic was always heavily influenced by the crazier stuff such as ‘Dr Slump’ or ‘Ghastly Prince Enma Burning Up’ rather than ‘Berserk’. So yes, most of the characters are unlikely to be in any real danger most of the time. Perilous situations, but you can be fairly certain things will turn out okay in the end. Maybe I have a problem in that I often find it hard to kill characters (death is so final and there’s more than enough of it in the real world as it is ;)).
As far as everyone being ripped, I have been trying to have a bit more variety. Hathoraz is less muscular than the norm and Linnea is fit but not buff for example. Not that logic has much of a place in this comic, but it always made sense to me that adventurers would probably be pretty jacked (male and female). Plus I enjoy drawing muscular bodies. Variety is nice though and I’ll continue to try to vary bodies, races and breasts size and shape as I go 🙂 Most clerics and fighters and monks will be buff while mages are more likely to be less ripped or may even be…out of shape! (the horror!) 😀
Maybe part of the reason I over do the erotica and nudity (and thus reduce the impact) is also down to the fact that drawing naked characters is fun (and easier) plus I really enjoy the Darkstalkers style costume destruction in my battles. They say you should keep costume simple for comic and animation characters, but I often make my costumes quite elaborate and then simplify them by having the character lose that costume in short order. I should probably reign that in a bit, though it gives me a lot of pleasure and it’s a handy damage indicator in fights 🙂 I get what you mean. If eveyone’s naked 90% of the time it loses all impact.
I know Dr Slump and just looked into Enma. It looks fun, I’ll give it a try. ^^ It’s fine to not kill characters and just have fun instead.
Anyway, thanks for listening to my rambling. 🙂