The Dreadful -- Chapter 13: Old Holden
 

254

Charsi really wants Kit to speak with Dewbreen for some reason...


Note: The reason for the title of this thread will come up later in the chapter.

Great looks in frames 4 and 7. And what is it with Drewbreen?!?

Ancient Mystical Trees are generally full of wisdom...and secrets...and sap.

Kit's legs look a bit peculiar in that first frame. They seem to taper almost to twigs.

Your work on faces is becoming quite amazing though. I've seen vast improvement over when Kit first grew lips.

That might just be a perspective thing, since you wouldn't be able to see her calves from the front.

All knowing... tree. I swear, you breathe sentience into a large plant and they start flaunting their age at you. Then you got the younger folks buying the spiel and then you have something akin to a quasi-religion/mystical cult deal.

I assumed the first frame was just stylized differently. I thought it look fine, but definitely different proportions.

Oh, come on, Kit, won't you progress the plot for us? Pleeeeaaase? That tree must have important information for you. All sage trees do. I bet it could tell you what happens every time you use the Dreadful. No, I won't bet money on that. That'd be crazy. :sweatdrop

Kit is progressing the plot. Stealing a horse and going back to Swan's Gate to confront Jeanne and "save" Poe is the faster way of achieving her goal than going on a side-track and talking to a tree she wants nothing to do with.

(I'd put money on Kit getting side-tracked again though)

But we already saw how she confronted Jeanne, and that didn't work out. She needs the wisdom of the sage tree. Or something like that. Because it's dangerous to go alone? It's like she's passing a room with a key to go bang her head against a locked door.

...

What do you mean 'she's not playing a computer game?' :raise:

Oh well. Go Kit! Shoot first, and shoot often! :dance:

Uhm... yeah... except the "sage tree" is going to try to turn her into a pawn.... And Sabueso is going to be back any minute trying to capture her.... plus there is that zombie pooping spider mutant wandering around the dessert....

Don't forget sociopath ninja and a deranged fortune teller and a robot kid.

What's funny is there are a few things I haven't even revealed yet.

Lots of stuff going on in this comic.

I'm pretty sure deranged fortune teller is dead, right? Though that certainly won't stop her from interfering with the present.

There is also a friendly minotaur and a kid who's kinda got the hots for Poe. Plus whatever Liz plans to do with that ring before it drives her insane. I think there are some corrupt politicians too, but they never quite became integral.

;- )

255

SABUESOOOOoooo

No way he's gonna tell her what this is all about.

Enter the Big Man. Boom! Who can argue with that chest hair?

HE-llo. Somebody knows Kitdad.

Wasn't his name...Adams something? Jordan Adams?

In Update 247 she said he's dangerous. I guess his interests turned into obessions in time.

I had forgotten about Jordan Adams and page 247.

And page 247 pointed back to 241, where the details of Dewbreen puppetry were explained. Which I had also forgotten about. :sweatdrop

Well, it's what a forum is partially for: Explaining things to me when I'm too lazy to keep track of stuff. ::V:

But surely Sabueso is going to tell the truth, right? No? Oh well.

Due to the slow way the comic is updated, as well as the way the archives are on this site, I try to always point out references I make in the comic via captions.

Sometimes I forget though, and/or I take for granted readers are going to remember everything.

I was working on a Dreadful FAQ/Character guide, and one of these days I'll get it posted. The issue is that I keep progressing the story, so I never seem to be "done" with the FAQ.

Maybe I should just make it really really basic. That shouldn't be too hard. The story of The Dreadful is a lot more simple than some people seem to think it is.

256!

Kit probably should've just shot him.

Noooo Kit! Don't shoot the exposition! (even if it's possibly faked) You'll never catch Jeanne that way!

Hehe; now this is getting interesting. Sabueso is full of tricks. He makes the comic 15% more awesome with every panel in which he appears. :dance:

Loranna

Sabueso does like his toys...

"Where does he get those wonderful toys?"

Dunno how to say Batman in Spanish. I could probably google it, buuuuut...I'm a busy man!

It's still "Batman."

It's not like... El Muchacho Murcielago?

Because that sounds a lot cooler.

Oh, like you're one to talk, impossibly-cute-kitface.

Bet you've never had a beau in your life.

257!

This was originally four pages (which is why it says pages 9-12), but I didn't think one of them worked, so I cut the entire page out except for the panel where Charsi says "Chastity is important for maintaining a healthy, balanced spirit."

Well played Sabueso, well played. :3:
Looks like Kit's enemies (and allies) are not the only ones to fall for bullshit. :D

Hahah! Nice.
 

Beat me to it.

Oh Snap!

He knows his opponent.
.

Also being able to see into the future probably helps. Sabueso definitely has an edge here.

Or at least he probably thinks he does. Kit's pretty goddamn tough.

That was what I was thinking. I was also thinking that this is the first time in a long while I've seen her without the lips. A cute reminder of the Original Recipe. :)

I started reading the dreadful back when it began in 2011, but after 20 pages or so life happened and I had gotten very far behind. As of yesterday I read the entire thing to the current issue and man, what a ride; I enjoyed every bit of it. Favorite scenario had to be Liz and Chinami apprehending Sabueso's crazy ass horse. Did not expect that.

Here's to hoping Kit gets the better of Sabueso.

Glad you liked it! Welcome back to The Dreadfulverse :)

Thanks Matt, and awesome work! This might be a bit premature but do you have any plans to someday release Dreadful in print form? I'd be all over that.

I'd like to have The Dreadful printed. Whether I do or not depends on how high of a demand there is for it. I know a few people who would like a copy, but I'm not sure there are enough to make the hassle of getting it printed worth the time/money/effort.

If more people start commenting in the forums, join the facebook page, follow me on twitter, email me, etc, then it might seem worth pursuing.

Right now it feels like I have maybe 10-15 active readers so... I'm not really convinced The Dreadful's all that lucrative. I think the comic has a lot of potential, so I'm not giving up just yet. I still wanna finish it. But beyond that is up in the air.

Basically thank you
 

Been gone for quite some time from the mainsite so when I come back to check me some comics, it was such a nice surprise that this comic is running wild (in many ways that's the correct term).

It seems to me that Speroni has grown as an artist. The anatomy looks better and more correct to my eyes than couple years ago, and for this comic black and white is just the nazz. Fits the story's feel better. And the story is good mix of insanity and drama.

Oh, and Sabueso might be favourite character. For now anyway. Let's see what the future tracks to us.

So keep up with the good work. (:

Thanks for taking the time to read it!

You can +1 your estimate. I'm just typically not active on forums or social media, in general.

#258
 

The art in this page continues to improve.

However... the dialogue seems stilted somehow. Forced. I suppose I could see how Charsi is somewhat incoherent, but Sabueso seems to be answering dialogue that was left on the cutting room floor, somewhere.

Charsi: "I didn't want that to happen! You tricked me!"

Sabueso: "Because you knights are softer'n fish turds these days, Miss Parker!"

Kakashi: "Dafuq did I just miss?"

I suppose what I'm saying is that Sabueso's response seems to come from nowhere and lead to nowhere. That could simply be part of his character, though.

Edit: Also, the buildings behind Charsi in panels 5 and 7 seem to have sprung up from nowhere.

I don't know. It made sense to me:
In regard to inadvertently charging the wand by holding it.

Because the Knights don't do the things they used to do: purges, mass executions, public humilation, etc. (referenced on page 5 of the chapter). Charsi is too trusting now, but the implication is that if the Knights were on top of their game, like they used to be, she would trust no one. Especially not Sabueso.

Then again, even Kit got taken in, so Sabueso's massive and improbable bulk clearly hasn't squeezed all of the brains out of his head.

Anyway, longtime lurker, but I've been enoying the sci-fantasy-western vibe of the story!

Yeah it reads okay to me too, but I wrote it so I've probably got a biased opinion :)

Sabueso's "Because you knights are softern' fish turds!" is him explaining to Charsi why he tricked her, even though she didn't really ask why, he wanted to tell her anyway so he could rub it in.

Cool :)



Thanks!

I interpreted it slightly differently: If she'd been tougher on Devilkin, Sabueso could've let her in on his plan to have her charge the wand to zap Kit, and she would've agreed to do it. But with her being soft on 'beasts', he had to trick her.

Yeah, I could see that, too. In any case, Sabueso is less than impressed with everyone but himself.

It'll be interesting to see whether and how Charsi intervenes, though it won't really be necessary. Kit's more than a match for everything about Sabueso but his ego.

Well... Kit is more than a match for lots of things... when she isn't too busy writhing in pain. I doubt Sabueso would have left his plan hinging on something that didn't have enough juice to keep her down for at least a short while.

It might be nice if something distracted him for a bit while Kit had a chance to recover.

Kit's had a really long day too. I mean, earlier in the afternoon she got pummeled by Jeanne and dropped off a cliff. This was after she got slammed against a tree by a giant zombie. And this was after she got shot in the gut by a double barreled shotgun :D

I figure by now she's probably pretty exhausted!

(and the day's not over yet!)

259!

Y'know I don't know what Sabueso and the JDA have in store for Kit* but they probably ought to do whatever they're gonna do NOW before she gets a second wind.

*actually I do.

So... why is "blueberry" a highly derogatory term for Devikin when they aren't even blue? Mike Blueberry? Cavalry uniforms? What? You yellow-bellied, green-horn, blueberry, redskin...

If you look at some of the colored pictures I've done of Kit (not that there are many of them), you'll notice that parts of her are purple/blueish in color.

So that's where the name comes from.

And they better do it before the knight starts decides to intervene. Not that Sabueso couldn't fight back, but the other two are gonna be toast.

Also, this seems a bit dark for Sabueso... we just went a step beyond normal rivalry.

Ah, I hadn't seen a coloured picture of the lips, which I now saw in your deviant art gallery. That's the only part of her that even remotely resembles a blueberry, at least as far as I can tell. Well, maybe her tail has that colour too, in that older picture where she doesn't have lips to speak of. Lips, lips, lips... Oh, now I think I get it. The other lips are that colour too, and that's why it's highly derogatory? :raise:

Racism is stupid and vulgar, so it could be for that reason.

By the way.... I've been meaning to mention how annoying it is that the URLs use the calendar date in them. For example, how the hell am I supposed to get back to page 246 without clicking a really annoying number of times. (I don't actually need to in this case, but every so often I want to jump back to check something, but it is really a pain.) Even a "skip 10" button or something would be REALLY helpful.

Also there's the thing where you've established most devikin are prostitutes, which increases the odds that such a nickname would reference genitals.

I mean that's what I figured it was about as well.

Referring to the race by their sexual organs in a derogatory manner because it's also reducing them to just that organ. Which makes sense for a racism in a society where they're outcast to the point where prostitution and criminal activities seem to be all they're able to really get jobs doing.

Well, altering the way the site looks/functions is Brian's job. I don't have a way to tweak the archiving system, so the calender's not going anywhere unless Brian decides to change it (and I doubt that's going to happen).

Someone on TVTropes's Dreadful Forums divided the comic into sections, and it worked pretty well.

I might put a special thread on NPF that does something like it.

I have a small suggestion: I think the footnotes are a bit distracting and give the reader too little credit. The flashback in the panel was a nice touch, but putting an asterisk telling where the reader saw that scene before is a little much. It was only 13 pages ago.

Look at the big punchline at the conclusion of 8BT: There wasn't a footnote saying "See page 7 for the setup to this joke!"

Having a footnote for a word like "blueberry" is also a bit overt. The real meaning of that word in this world should be conveying through information like which characters use it, and how other characters react. Reminds me a bit of this XKCD comic.

Love the comic otherwise!

It's not so much that I don't give the reader's credit, it's more that I'm still not used to the fact people are paying attention to my story enough to remember things that happened weeks ago.

8-bit had a gazillion readers and wikis and a rabidly active fanbase and all that jazz so it makes sense to me why it wouldn't need those kinds of captions.

The other day someone in a chat mentioned "Dewbreen" to me and I was like "Wow, you actually know the name of a character from my story that hasn't even appeared on panel yet?"

Maybe I oughta have a bit more confidence in this comic!

Wait, dew what now?

Dewbreen. The tree person that is creating the dryads and who Charsi wants Kit to speak with.

The "anthropomorphic uppity asshole tree person" that the JDA agent is talking about in the recent update.

Wait wait, there's a tree person?

Kind of.

So far he has been kept behind the scenes. Dewbreen will show up in force relatively soon.

I'm just wondering how long before you realize I'm fucking with you.
 

Also what's this JDA thing you're talking about?

Who are Charsi and Kit? :confused:

260

Y'all hit like scrawny little elf babies.

At least there aren't any rocks around for her to use to cave in more JDA skulls.

"If it's not broke, don't fix it" is something Kit seems to put to very practical use. Everytime they so much as slightly let go of her, she turns the tables on them very quickly. Love it. You certainly never have to worry about her feeling stressed out!

Please do. Both the writing and the art are a cut above. The characters are memorable, unique, and tons of fun to follow and wonder what they'll do next. I don't know what we need to do to give this comic more exposure but it deserves it.

In reference to the previous poster complaining about the way the URL's are set up, there is actually a way for the site admin to change that (this is a wordpress site, after all). Change permalink structure to "post name" rather than "date" and that should do it. Again, needs Brian for that to happen, and he doesn't seem terribly active here anymore.

Thanks for the praise, Kirby Lab!

261!

Never thought when I started this "Western Fantasy" comic I'd have a character beat a group of people up with tonfa-jutsu, but I guess sometimes things just sorta happen.

This is the strip I most look forward to every week
 

Really loving the current story. I think the artwork is wonderful in the latest strip, Kit's expressions are so cleverly done I had to come here and sing your praises! The boobies seem to be less er... overtly enormous too, it's a more sophisticated design imo.

Best strip on teh internetz (in my ever so 'umble opinionion)

Thanks! Glad you are enjoying it :)

Oh dear. This is one of those cases where Sabueso (Sabo so so? Sabu sez so!) was telling the God's honest truth, wasn't he?

I worry for Poe. Even though I suspect she's nowhere near innocent.

On the other hand, one would think Sabueso (Sab-you-ese-su? Sabu . . . OSO!) would be used to Kit refusing to go down, no matter the odds. Heck, he even had divination on his side! And manly chest hair! And an action hero beard to put all others to shame! Plus I like his hat.

Ah well. It's a wild, weird west . . . and I'm loving every minute of it :) Props to you, MS.

Loranna

Poe is for "pwned". :smug:

I think it's "Sah-bweh-so" but my Spanish is...not great.

That's what I got as well, but I speak English and French (Though my French has lapsed a bit), so take my word with a grain of salt.

I know he wasn't expecting it... but Saab-oo'eso should certainly be able to put up a better fight than that.

I have also been pronouncing it that way. Don't know much about Spanish, though...

I looked it up online and found an audio sample of someone saying it.

It's how I thought it was pronounced, so that's good.

It's not like it is with "Jeanne". I can't get myself to say her name correctly. I'm aware it's pronounced something along the lines of "juhn" (like in French), but whenever I say it I always pronounce it "Jean" (rhyming with "bean" or "mean" or "spleen").

Hmmm... I assumed it was crude Americanized pernunciations all the way around, with Mexican accents where appropriate. I was hearing "Jeen'ny". When you make a movie, and all this stuff gets spoken, some of the fans are going to be really confused. ;- )
.

Would be nice to see The Dreadful as a movie...

262!

More tonfa action!

Kit looks ready to rumble.