Some warmup sketches from the last couple days!

The new Star Trek actually has me more excited about what J.J. Abrams could do to make some good Star Wars movies again. More importantly, Disney now technically has the power to remake those terrible, terrible prequels!

With that in mind, I thought I’d share again my old project, Star Wars 1999, which re-imagines a prequel trilogy only using canon material before Lucas’s actual (awful) prequels were made. Also, the visuals are based almost entirely on Ralph McQuarrie’s early and/or discarded designs from the original trilogy.

Check out the link for more details, I wrote quite a lot!

http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/tagged/star-wars

So guys, the Dresden Codak Kickstarter has been doing way, way better than I ever anticipated. We reached the original goal in less than an hour, and a couple days ago it became the 4th most funded comic Kickstarter ever.  It’s bonkers, people, utterly bonkers!

If you know how Kickstarter works, there are often stretch goals, but all the amazing Dresden Codak fans burned through the ones I planned in two days, so I’ve had to come up with new ones!  If you go to the site, you can see them all, but the big prize is this: if we hit $800k, I can update Dresden Codak biweekly for one year.

How does that work? Essentially, it will allow me to hire an assistant to handle all the non-drawing/writing parts of Dresden Codak (which is about 50% of my workload), and free me up to make more comics. Anyone who’s ever run their own business knows the innumerable small duties that can take away from the creative process, and seeing now that I have way more fans and supporters than I’d ever imagined, I want to up my game and deliver more of what people want.

Obviously I’ll do whatever I can to increase my content frequency regardless of the money, but the $800k benchmark is where I can officially make that promise and follow through.

Thanks so much, guys, and we’ve still got 21 days to go!

“Silmarillion Chapter 4: Of Thingol and Melian”

“Then an enchantment fell on him, and he stood still still; and afar off beyond the voices of the lómelindi he heard the voice of Melian, and it filled all his heart with wonder and desire. He forgot utterly all his people and the purposes of his mind, and following the birds under the shadow of the trees he passed deep into Nan Elmoth and was lost. But he came at last to a glade open to the stars, and there Melian stood; and out of the darkness he looked at her, and the light of Aman was in her face.”

Thingol and Melian are the High King and Queen of Beleriand, and functionally all of Middle-Earth in their day.  Melian is a Maia, the race of spirits that include Sauron.  Tolkien gives very little description of her, so I decided to keep a slightly otherworldly appearance, with horns like a faun or forest spirit. She’s actually much wiser than her husband and much more joyful, so I wanted to make sure that imagery held.

Thingol is the King of the Sindar, the “Grey Elves” who stayed in Middle-Earth (though Thingol himself made the journey to Aman once).  As the tallest of the Men and Elves and one of the mightiest in battle, I wanted to keep his form larger and imposing.  Older Elves can grow beards, and I’ve decided that any male Elf who was among the first to awaken (this includes Thingol) will be sporting a beard.

 Previous Silmarillion entries:

1. Ainulindalë - The Music of the Ainur
2. Valaquenta - Account of the Valar and Maiar in according to the lore of the Eldar
3. The Monsters of Middle-Earth
4. The Free Peoples of the First Age
5. Silmarillion Chapter 1 - Of the Beginning of Days
6. Silmarillion Chapter 2 - Of Aulë and Yavanna
7. Silmarillion Chapter 3 - Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor