GawainProject: The Darkest Hour, 70-73

[sigune]

"Now will we do well, said Ulfius, our king is a lusty knight and wifeless, and my lady Igraine is a passing fair lady; it were great joy unto us all, an it might please the king to make her his queen. Unto that they were all well accorded and moved it to the king."
- The Romance of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table,
abridged from Malory's Morte d'Arthur by Alfred W. Pollard (1917)



This week has been such a turbulent one that I feared I might not be able to update at all. But here I am, despite misfortunes of all kinds and a whimsical Internet connection, with four pages for your delectation (...I hope) and an exciting piece of news.

The news is that I have found, via my friend bettyboop_comic, a professional comics artist who has taken it upon himself to draw the Prologue of The Darkest Hour :D! WOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Isn't that amazing? The young man's name is Bartel Bruneel. Have a look at his work here. Of course when he has done the Prologue I'm going to abuse his generosity and beg him to do the as yet unwritten Epilogue as well, for reasons of symmetry, your know? ;P But shhhh, he doesn't know that yet... *wide, evil grin*

Now - the drawback of having a real, fab artist do a part of my story is of course that my poor readers might be a touch disenchanted when they turn page four and find my scribbles from page five onwards :/. But you'll just have to count yourselves happy that you've been given a special treat in the opening (and, fingers crossed, closing?) pages. Right?

A few updates ago, I estimated that TDH might end around page 75. Um. Since we have reached page 73 today and three important events haven't happened yet, that is less than likely. I'm guessing 90 might be more realistic... That seems like an awful lot, especially when the hero is still not born yet. But on the other hand, the story looks longer than it actually is. I have been using a manga-like format that just takes all the space it needs in order to tell its tale, but if you read through the whole, it doesn't actually take long. And on that glorious day in the far, uncertain future when I reach the apotheosis of Gawain's tale, you will all understand why I took my time to tell Ygraine's story at length and did my best to develop its characters ;P.

Back to the present, then :-). I hope you enjoy the new pages. By all means leave me concrit if you have some!

What went before
Ygraine is forced to go to King Uther and ask him some serious favours in the interest of Cornwall. In view of the circumstances of her husband's death and Uther's presence at Tintagil, she is little inclined to deference or humility. Instead, she makes several bold accusations. How will the King react to that?

The Darkest Hour 1-3, The Darkest Hour 4-6, The Darkest Hour 7-9, The Darkest Hour 10-12, The Darkest Hour 13-15, The Darkest Hour 16-18, The Darkest Hour 19-21, The Darkest Hour 22-24, The Darkest Hour 25-27, The Darkest Hour 28-31, The Darkest Hour 32-35, The Darkest Hour 36-40, The Darkest Hour 41-44, The Darkest Hour 45-47, The Darkest Hour 48-50, The Darkest Hour 51-53, The Darkest Hour 54-57, The Darkest Hour 58-60, The Darkest Hour 61-64, The Darkest Hour 65-66, The Darkest Hour 67-69

Comments

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Holy cow. This is just so creepy and amazing. I love the last page--brilliant.

I do have only one teensy thing to point out. I am only pointing it out because it made me pause. The panel with Uther where he says "Don't"--for some reason his pose looked very modern and it kind of threw me out for a moment. Just a moment, and that might just be me. :)

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Glad you like the last page! It was great fun drawing it, and I seem to be getting the hang of working with brush pens. It feels nice :-).

Pose? Modern? I didn't realise that... Must edit. Originally I had him point at her in one long panel, but I decided to cut the panel in two to give Ygraine the opportunity to reply. I still wanted Uther to make some movement to shut her up. I'll think it over.

Thanks!

[branquignole.livejournal.com]

Whoo, I love so many panels here to bits! I agree that the last page is really stunning, their facial expressions are so amazing! What else? Oh yeah, second page, first panel. Awe-some.

[sigune.livejournal.com]

You can always tell which parts I inked at home instead of on the train, can't you? ;-)
I always feel guilty when I give in to my passion for close-ups, but as long as my enthusiasm is carried over to the reader, I'm thinking that it's perhaps not a problem... *grins*

Thank you!

[death-ofme.livejournal.com]

FUCK YOU UTHER SO VERY FUCKING MUCH.

Grudgingly, I will say though that the clean rendering of his face particularly in these pages make him look very handsome. I love that sort of desperate lean he has in the first panel of the second page.

But still - he's a creep! KICK HIM YGRAINE KICK HIM!

[sigune.livejournal.com]

*g*
I like to make my creepy characters handsome. I guess I have read too many comics in which you can spot a vilain at first sight by his sinister looks... :-)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_grainne_/]

ARGH! Not the "W" word! *recoils in horror*

I love Ygraine's expression at the end, and the way her fingers linger at the edge of the panel, as if--if she only could--she would like to crawl out of it and escape.

[sigune.livejournal.com]

Poor Ygraine. I felt bad, subjecting her to all this... :(

[ysilme]

Ah, what a fate.... My heart goes out to her.