Chapter 14 -- The Great Escape
 

268!


Chapter 14 begins with a BANG!

Liz outdrinks even the stoutest of elves.

Don't talk to her... because she's a witch who made him drunk? Because he doesn't appear to be very drunk right now. Either that, or he's calling dibs because he 'loves her' and demands the opportunity to court her properly according to the traditions of his people.

You can sober up to the point where you're functional enough to move around/have conversations/charge out of a bar yelling at people in a relatively short amount of time.

He is a beefy elf, after all.

I took it as a "Wait, don't talk to her about our secrets you morons!" One can still realize that while pretty toasty.

All elves are lightweights, this is indisputable fact and reason why they drink wine instead of real drinks. A high Str score does not mean a high Con score.

Maybe he was raised by dwarfs.

Liberal Hippie Social Justice Fighter Dwarfs of Chaotic Good alignment.

Free-Cheese Dwarven Democrats who would have a lot of Beard Guilt and adopt an elf just so they can feel good about themselves.

And they're all "Hey, let's give a bunch of pothead halflings welfare money."

Lousy Demmycrats.

LOLITICS.

Well, you know, they do like to stand up for the little man.

Ha! He was calling dibs. :dance:

269!

I think Liz is probably out of both their leagues.

Nothing sobers up a guy quite so quickly as utter terror.

The server's being funny and B-dawg's gotta do some traveling this weekend. Not sure if there will be a Dreadful update this week or not.

There might be! I dunno how fixing this stuff goes or how long it takes.

One of the many reasons I've been hesitant to get The Dreadful its own site is because I'm sure every problem I could have with it would happen in like one day and I'd have no idea how to fix it.

If you're using wordpress to manage a website for Dreadful, it really isn't so bad. If you base your design off a pre-existing theme you can have something stable, up and running in a relatively short amount of time.

If you're talking more about server issues though (Apache I'm guessing?), from my own experiences they're usually not as scary as they seem - sometimes you update wordpress and an old, noncompliant plugin is referencing a deprecated jquery function or something of the like. I'd be happy to be a resource if you decided to go down that path, for what it's worth.

270!

Wake up, little rosebud...


I dunno what the issues are with the site or the server. Brian manages 100% of that. I just make pages and mail them to him. :)

I will probably base whatever site I eventually make for The Dreadful (assuming I make a site for The Dreadful) loosely on the design here. I prefer a simpler look/feel to things. Would prefer no adverts or banners. I'd love to sustain myself simply via paypal or patreon donations.

Banners aren't entirely necessary - you can get relatively inexpensive webhosting that's fairly robust without the need to support with ads. I use hostgator for my personal use - costs me about $10 a month which I think is more than affordable. I'd have to look at the bandwidth breakdown but they've been great to me so far. Others have reported success with Dreamhost. I know your plans are really preliminary right now but I just thought I'd throw those out there.

Simple is good. Design isn't my forte but if that were to be a base I think it's a good place to start.

Kick it
 

Throw up a kickstart, put some cool T-shirts on it, let us fund it.

271!

I don't think Liz really cares about Kit's predicament.

Was thinking of doing either that or a patreon.

That's the part Liz didn't bother to say: "Don't wake me, i will be woken by the screams and gunfire when Kit breaks out."

It's gonna be a long night, f'sho.

That was a pickup line? I thought Liz was just making small talk with the guy to get him to warm up and talk more about the situation / Dewbreen

Liz is awesome.

Please - I would love some dreadful t-shirts or nick-nacks.

Considering that she was lying awake in her bed before hearing about Kit, it seemed that the news worked as some sort of sedative. That happens to me sometimes when I can't decide between two different things. One one hand this, on the other hand that, on one hand this, on the other hand that... It's like a loop, and it gets very tiring and usually makes me take a nap to reboot the brain. I really hate making those decisions where there's no clear winner.

Exactly.

Not even in the appropriate building can the man 'defecate' in peace. I would pity the fool, but he brings everything onto himself.

272!

The magical shrinking/expanding power of the Shew Stone explains why Sabueso is able to keep it hidden without needing any kind of special bag/box/pouch.

Though since Sabueso is of a Liefeldian Inspiration, maybe an extra pouch (or 12) would've been apropos.

Yeah... "plotting strategy", a long, hard strategy... and you need to go over it again and again. Now leave me in peace!

Well, you know, sometimes it takes a lot of time and effort to get a plan out.

Should I make it more clear that Sabueso isn't actually using the bathroom but hiding the fact he's "cheating" by using a Shew Stone? :D

I thought that was clear enough, though I can see why people might be confused since he said he was plotting strategy... which given the character could be taken as a euphemism for dropping a deuce.

You know, Liz really does have nice hair when she's not hiding it underneath her cap.

Also, Umami faces. The best faces since Kitfaces!

I think it's funny how much shorter Liz's hair was in the start of the comic.

But a lot has changed art-wise since then!

I think it's funny to imagine the Shew Stone has no special properties, and Sabueso has just been really constipated this whole time.

Edit: And nah, it seems perfectly clear to me.

So many good expressions in this comic and I just want to use them all*. Maybe I'll actually get to advertising The Dreadful on the Myth-Weavers forums. In my signature of course.

*Who should I use though? Might be better to use one from after the art style shift.

273!

Erin and Ith return!

As for the avatar? Probably Kit or Sabueso.

Wooo hooo, the plot is coming back together!

(Also, yeah, the thing with the shrew stone was obvious, but it was fun to wonder what SHE must be thinking, hearing what clearly sounds like an excuse.)
.

Well, the main plot of the comic is Kit wanting to kill Jeanne so she can save Poe. All this other stuff is what's getting in her way.

I wanted an uncomplicated idea to hold it together so I could have an excuse for Kit and Crew to go explore the Weird West. Kit wants to kill Jeanne and save* Poe, simple enough, but in the course of doing that, she runs afoul of a bunch of other weird crap, as well as crosses paths with people whose goals get in the way of her own (like Umami and this Shew Stone, or zombies, or the JDA, or Dewbreen and the Dryads, or the Knights).


*Kit has convinced herself Poe needs saving, but Poe may not agree.

If only Erin had a camera she could take pictures of the zombies and get zombie powers, just like in Bioshock. Splice in some zombie genes to get strength and stamina to keep flying forever. Very scientific.

Yup. That's exactly how genetics works.

---------- Post added at 06:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:16 AM ----------

It's been a year, but I made a new post on The Dreadful's much underappreciated tumblr!

Link

It's less genetics and more the weird necromantic magic stuff The Dreadful seems to shoot out. Turning dwarves into weird undead spider brood mother type things.

Oh yeah, the expression I chose for my avatar on Myth-Weavers was the evil (shadowed) grin by Sabueso on page 271. It was that or the pissed off Kit face in the panel below that. I might save that one for later because I don't have paint to work with*. (And I can't into GIMP.)

*Unless someone else wants to lend a hand with that?

BEHOLD MY NEW AVATAR!

(I could probably get you some avatars one of these days. I'd do it now, but I'm not currently where I can make them)

I actually miss the bags under her eyes.

I felt with the more realistic look they'd look more like runny makeup than "tired" bags.

I'm down with Liz in Goth make-up

274!

Umami makes a Jeanne Noelle clone.

No good will come of this.

. . . We must see a confrontation between Jeanne and her "clone" now. Preferably in glorious technicolor, with the honor of Umami's ninja clan riding on the outcome!

:)

Loranna

This brings to mind an internet joke regarding clones:
http://oi57.tinypic.com/2qizpxy.jpg

I am also down with Bikini Jeanne.

Bikini Beach Party "Jeanne" may be sexy, but she isn't gonna fool anyone, especially not the Master of Disaster (El Sabueso).

---------- Post added at 12:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:35 AM ----------

Speaking of El Sabueso!

First appearance.

Well, not if he's already watching all this, but if he's watching something else he'll be too busy to be the one guarding the jail.

Maybe the shew stone crapped out on him.

I don't think the shrew stone can crap out on you... but it does seem to be good at showing things selectively.

Then why was he hiding in the lavatory???

Sabby isn't a pro fortune teller so he needs somewhere he can concentrate. Where better than on the throne?

If there was no internets, and there was a viewing device that showed people... far away stuff they were interested in seeing... I'm pretty sure many people would hide in the lavatory with it.

I'd use it in the shower.

Here I was expecting him to fly away in a tornado.

Sabueso's use of magical tools to get him out of jams is very Linkian.

I was wondering if he would get tornado'ed up to a shadow realm. Alternatively, he could have skipped a few level, maybe gotten closer the castle with the princes in it.

He'd need a magical clarinet for something like that. I don't think a flute is the right sound for that kinda thing.

But a magical oboe would just be overkill.

Where does he get those wonderful toys?

Page 284!!

Is it an angel? Is it Medusa? Is it both?

How was Sabueso able to summon her with a flute?

These are the questions.

Clearly she happened to be flying by and is a fan of flute music.

And the rest is just a case of spontaneous petrification. Happens all the time.

Lousy stoners.

285!

Bad batches of cookies do suck though...

Uh-oh, looks like the angel looked into Kit's soul thing and found some intolerable, damnation worthy sins weighing on it. Like not wanting to commit genocide or reading manga.

Kit likes manga. Particularly the tentacle hentai stuff.

So much of my life makes sense now....

That angel sure is full of herself. What an insufferable monstrosity.

Also noted that all of the women (in this scene) are walking around just fine and not like statues at all.

.

Indeed.

Maybe it was a good thing Charsi fell asleep in the bathroom.

Not that I'm sayin'.

I'm just sayin' maybe.

Well..... that takes care of that.... maybe the Angel should keep her attention a bit more focused next time... if she gets a next time.

Does that mean that this angel is also going to spawn zombiemaking spidercritters?

Definitely a possibility!

Turns out he really didn't want to see what came next.

My theory would be that Zombie-making spider creatures are just one of The Dreadful's possibilities. I'd suggest it's probably a bit more unpredictable (and potentially dangerous) than that. Indeed, my thought is it probably temporarily opens up a portal directly to hell inside of whatever Kit shoots, which is why it's so deadly against pretty much anything, even if they're immortal, and just allows whatever nasty demon beast wants to hop in and eat the soul/body of whatever thing Kit felt the need to use her super gun on.

Happy Halloween. Is that the Judge in the last panel?

Yup. It is her.

Okay, so Sabueso was always a psycho.

Good to know.

Hey, if I lost my sexy twenty-foot tall four-armed spider baroness of a wife to some dopey looking holiday mascot I'd go crazy too.

Did... Did a pair of white-hooded figures just murder a black woman's lover? O.o

I am secretly a radical right winger. PAULA DEEN OLD SOUTH. THIS IS OLD SOUTH. Anti-Miscegenation!!

Hmmm. The entrance to that pumpkin house is rather... yonic.