Page 1017 & 1018…
Happy Monday all!
I’d been wanting to do this page for almost a year now. It came out pretty close to how I imagined it.
I guess in my head…it was SO COOL MY HEAD WOULD EXPLODE.
My head hasn’t exploded yet…but I’m still happy with it.
🙂
And finally…
We have all of the sketchcards up for the First Book Charity Auction!
Please go here for more!
http://thedreamlandchronicles.com/2009/12/13/first-book-charity-auction-going-on-now/
Please check it out. And have a wonderful day!
Scott
WOW that is an awesome Page!!!
woo-hoo first post!
the full shot is spectacular!!! I am just imagining that scene on the big screen. or IMax
WHOA
…that is all.
OH NOEZ! D:
Awesome page…the full page is absolutely fantastic.
haha, nice profile pic for that reaction XD
the more I think about it Nick is not too bright… I mean if he destroyed all the tablets covertly that would work, but to attack openly, who really cares what the tablets say. I mean I was being attacked I would fight back King, fake King, or any one else. (but of course then we wouldn’t have this dramatic image)
Scott, on the full page, there is something on the right that looks like a second tail. I am assuming that it’s the bottom part of his wing, but it kind of looks out of proportion.
full page definitely awesome… =O well, awesome for the comic and awesome work for Scott (and whoever else that may be involved)… not awesome for our heroes D=
oh poo. the double page definitely deserves its place.
and i agree with Joey: Nick’s an idiot.
I didn’t quite appreciate how large Nicodemus was until now.
this give a little prospective (and another great fire shot)
http://thedreamlandchronicles.com/2007/03/14/todays-dreamland-chronicles-358/
-silenced-
O. M. G. Cool (saves fullscreen for desktop background)
Oh, man!!
Where did that dragon get beans from?!?
The question I have is: Did Alex manage to read the tablet before it got destroyed?
So, tell me again… why didn’t he go and retrieve that tablet FROM THE MOMENT HE COULD FLY?
As it has been flowlessly exibited in “The Hobbit”, you do not enrage a dragon, unless you can kill it… I guess the time to strike against Nick is nigh…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdT9oq7VBDA
I say it’s about time to slay the mighty dragon.
I think the picture from the vote page is just amazing.
O.O
Couldn’t have said it better.
About the second tail thing. Its one of the supporting structures, sort of like how a bird skeleton has “fingers” where the wing should be. Think of it as a second pair of hands with really long fingers and thin skin stretched between them. Four armed fire spitting ptearadactyl (spelling?) is all that I will to say to roughly describe all dragons.
NICKY’S BAACK~ YAAY
I love that Evil Dragon
Keep up the great work Scott =D
Good Morning and thank you all!
I’m so sorry we couldn’t get the double page splash working today. But thanks for checking it out at Topwebcomics.
how eerie… with the first glance I thought that spiky thing on his wing was his head, and I was like “hmmm…didn’t Nicodemus look different last time?”
Must of robbed all of Mexico blind, and maybe several Latino-centric towns in the U.S. for good measure.
do you think: did Nic read the tablet before he destroyed it? would the tablets survive the attack?
hahah i thought the same thing… he blew himself up with that last attack…
The perfect way to wake up on a Monday. I guess it’s sufficent for Alex to just know the tablets from the elves, mermaids, and dwarves, I never expected the war to come so soon. Still, quite awesome. 🙂
Are you referring to his wing tip that comes into the foreground at the bottom right?
Great page! This will look amazing in print.
A-W-E-S-O-M-E-N-E-S-S-!-!-!-!-!-!
P-U-R-E
A-W-E-S-O-M-E-N-E-S-S
Even with that link, Nicodemus still seems massive (well, even more massive) here… I dunno. Could just be an illusion since there isn’t much to reference him against, other than a stone pillar with a structure of unknown size on top, or maybe I’m just going crazy.
Course, what matters most in the long run is that this page is awesome. Fantastic work.
Topwebcomics says there is an error. Wah.
You know, several people have called Nicodemus an idiot, but I disagree.
Consider the tablets that he has destroyed openly:
– The Dwarves: well, no doubt there that they were already a lost cause to Nic.
– The Elves: he’s well aware that Nastajia, the current leader of the elves, is helping Alex and working against him. He also probably knows that her parents were looking for the tablets before her. So no doubt in his mind that the elves were already against him.
– The Fairies: he captured Kiwi for a time, and knows she was rescued by Alex (and company). Since her “Grandpa Pistachio” appears to be the leader of the Fairies, it’s a pretty safe guess that the fairies are already against him too.
– and now, The Centaurs: this one’s a little trickier, as the centaurs haven’t worked openly against Nic that we’ve seen (at least that we know Nic is aware of). But if we assume that Nic is highly intelligent (a trait often ascribed to dragons), then there is probably sufficient evidence for him to suspect the centaurs are already against him. And there’s no reason Nic couldn’t have done a high flyover, where he was just a spec in the sky, but his superior dragonish eyesight could make out the figures on the ground below, and seen Orion training Alex. Just a glimpse of this would be enough to convince him that the centaurs are already lost to him.
So really, I don’t think Nicodemus is an idiot at all. He’s not starting a revolution – he’s trying to kill one before it gets moving. And if there are any races/nations left that still support Nic, or are still undecided, this move may very well help them decide that opposing him is far too dangerous. Most good leaders won’t risk the lives of their people on a high risk gamble, no matter how good and noble the cause.
*steps down from soap box*
That said, I thoroughly agree about this page’s epic awesomeness! I, too, have saved it (the full screen vote-incentive version) for use as a wallpaper …
And speaking of that … VOTE, people! There’s an AWESOME new vote incentive up! http://topwebcomics.com/vote/4274/default.aspx
Alex: “Okay…how exactly is he going to get enough heat to liquefy stone?”
Orion: “Conventional physics don’t always work here!”
Nastajia: “Yeah but it’s stone! Ask a dwarf sometime! Stone is supposed to be incredibly heat-resistant!”
Orion: “Okay, good point…but Nicodemus may still finish the job with his fist.”
Alex: “Then I’ll wake up and google the Dreamland online strategy guide.”
Nicodemus: “CURSES! This is why I hate humans and their Google!”
Works fine here…
Try again; it worked for me on the second try.
I think they may be struggling with the volume of Dreamland voters …
(Maybe wishful thinking, but a pleasant thought nonetheless … )
😉
Humans and their blasted GOOGLE!
*shakes fist in the air angrily*
The vote link is not working no matter how often I try… I even registered to see if going in a different way would do it. But it just says there’s an error. This same problem prevented me from getting to one of the letter backgrounds during the montage. 🙁
Of course it worked the NEXT time I tried it. So, now I know. If it doesn’t work, post a complaint and then it will 🙂
sigh…
I asked this the other day and Scott said they were saving it as something to work toward.
As I recall they don’t really need the tablet anyway — all it says is “look out, Nicodemus is bad” eh?
Definitely an ‘oh shi-!’ moment for them 🙂
I think they programmed it that way.
🙂
Question: if what Alex can do in Dreamland is limited only by what he BELIEVES he can do, could he, conceivably, be able to simply think Nicodemus out of existence?
yes…
Same problem here. So here’s my complaint to see if it works.
Nope. Ah, well, then I’ll see the other half tomorrow…
If that were how the powers work…yes.
But it isn’t.
Yeah, I had to get it on the second try, as well…
COOL PAGE!! Or maybe I should say HOT HOT HOT! Very dramatic, Scott!
Amazing!!! 😀
I love the full version of it!! It’s my desktop background. ^_^
This is getting so exciting!
As Scott mentioned last week. The answer is “Nope.”
Reading the tablet was to be kind of an incentive. A graduation ceremony, if you will. None of the party members thought about Nick going after the tablets.
It’s not a big loss really. This tablet just had the recipe for the Old Kingdom’s spiked Egg Nog.
Actually, I take that back. Maybe is was a big loss.
I think I’m going to change sides. I’m going to root for the big, scary dragon from now on.
I dream every night and I don’t want to be any more on his bad side in case I end up in his kingdom.
Who else wants a “Nicodemous for Everlasting Overlord” nightshirt?
Nah.
Nick isn’t melting the tablet. He’s just pushing it off of the stone pillar in the most stylish, impressive, fear-inducing way possible.
Plus, this shows off his good side!
I just voted so I could see the full double page and all I can say is: OH SNAP!
I couldn’t get it to work in Firefox, but it did in IE. *shrug* Might be a coincidence.
I, for one, welcome our
robotdragon overlord(s)!😉
(I think that’s a quote from somewhere … )
I don’t think we have seen Nicodemus with his wings open to show how long his wingspan is. He must have stretched them a few times off screen to get the wrinkles out of them, since they must fold several times to fit against his back. O_O
And if it did work that way, Alex wouldn’t have to be the only one to believe Nicodemus out of existence. Every human in Dreamland would have to believe him out of existence, since Alex is not the only player here. (assuming that all humans would have some level of powers that Alex has)
Alex’s powers of believing seem to be limited to affect what he can physically do. He can’t affect the environment around him with his mind (it’s not the Matrix, after all, and even in the Matrix, Neo had limits too).
But we’re only on chapter 14 or 24!
Besides, the “you killed the bad guy but the bad guy’s long hidden son will now go on a revenge quest” trope is so 2008.
Two geek references.
1) Kent Brockman, the reporter on “The Simpsons” uttered the phrase “… And I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.” from the 1994 episode “Deep Space Homer.”
2) Also, popularly seen in Digg for the comment “I for one, welcome our insect overlords” in response to an apparent 120 foot long insect captured on Google Maps in Germany.
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/006283.html
That fire looks so epic.
Me too. XD
Good point! At this rate, most of dreamland will get upset about the tablets going “fwoosh!” XD
Is it just me, or did Nic get bigger? Also, thaaaat’s not a good thing at all.
But the page, especially the full one, looks FANTASTIC.
…or, you know, a Jonathan COulton reference. Tis the season!
that full page is like omg friggin awesome
Yes, Very impressive, Love the combustion effects!
What the heroes are thinking: “Oh fudge”
I was hoping that maybe this (http://thedreamlandchronicles.com/2007/03/16/todays-dreamland-chronicles-360/) would give a better perspective since I remembered that all three of them (Nicodemus, Alex, and Staj) were on the same page, but the angle is all wrong to really get a feel for how large he is. However, as I was posting this, another thought came to me- I went backwards a few more pages. Now, Alex and Staj are too close to the foreground to help give an idea of how big Nicodemus is, but if you look closely, you’ll see a “human” figure running down the street in front of Nicodemus’ left wing (as in his left, in panel 2; http://thedreamlandchronicles.com/2007/03/13/todays-dreamland-chronicles-357/). Another good shot that helps is even further back- http://thedreamlandchronicles.com/2007/03/12/todays-dreamland-chronicles-356/ , http://thedreamlandchronicles.com/2007/03/08/todays-dreamland-chronicles-354/ , especially panel 3).
Granted, it doesn’t do justice to this pic of seeing his all out full wingspan, but they do definitely help us to see how big of a dragon he is.
Yep, totally a screen shot worth saving and has since been made into my desktop background, also.
Well, the tablet is pretty important-
As I recall from my original reading, the tablets contain the history of Dreamland. It’d be like someone going through and rounding up all the history textbooks here in the US and then replacing them with Revisionist History that completely removes battles, wars, religions, cultures, previous forms of government, etc. that could possibly counter a person’s ability to rule over a given area, culture, or even the world.
2 comments:
1) EPIC FULL PAGE!! The first thing I did after voting (I actually voted before coming here) was to save that to my computer and then make it my desktop.
2) Amazing how that one little tidbit of incentive made it so you went from 21 to 11 in a day, eh? lol Clearly, people are making conscious choice as to whether or not to vote.
Considering we jumped from 21 to 11, and went up about 3,000 votes since I voted last night, I have no doubts that it created some additional unforeseen traffic.
I got it to work in Chrome, but it’s possible I may have hit it when there wasn’t as much traffic demand for it.
Perhaps his destruction of the tablets and just all out and out exhibiting his evilness is helping to grow in stature? I did post some links in an earlier comment in regards to some other shots in which we don’t fully get to appreciate Nicodemus’ size, but I think he’s bigger than we thought him to be before this shot. It’s just that it’s been so long since we saw him, we forgot about how big he is (which reminds me to go looking through the dwarf caverns stuff and see if one of those shots might help in determining how big the dragon is).
ROFLOL
Nick’s wingspan is impressive, never seen it fully extended before, it makes him much scarier *wimper wimper*. Amazing fire, supreme burnination. I wonder if the table is fall proof?
Tablet! Darrgg! I fail at spelling :(.
O.O … XD sweeeeet!
You might also want to check the page where he pinned kid-Felicity under his … er, claw, I suppose.
Unfortunately I’m not up for an archive dive tonight …
😕
http://thedreamlandchronicles.com/archive/
Something for everyone to consider on Nicodemus’ wingspan: all of the most believable dragons are drawn with HUGE wings. It’s a matter of physics, and the ratio of body wait to lifting surface area on the wings (sorry, I don’t know the exact figures). Look at larger birds such as hawks, eagles, and most notably the albatross for great examples: their wingspans are MUCH greater than the length of their bodies.
The same would have to be true of dragons, unless you use a corny cop-out such as magic, or some weird lighter-than-air gas bladder thing … (ever seen Flight of Dragons?)
So with that in mind, I think Scott did a masterful job here on Nic’s proportions …
Argh! Now I know I’m not feeling too good. “body wait” should be “body weight“.
*sigh*
I’m going back to bed …
😕
I usually check out your page in the morning, so I’ve been seeing the ballons, I opened it tonight and with the page you have up and the fireworks, it took my breath away! Awesome job! Thank you!
Yay! The Olympic torch has been lit!
All. If you roll-over the pic, it expands into the full size picture.
Scott, do you plan to do this same treatment to all previous 2 page spreads in the Archive?
All. If you roll-over the pic (as of today, 12/15), it expands into the full size picture.
Scott, do you plan to do this same treatment to all previous 2 page spreads in the Archive?
You evil, evil tempter! Now my OCD won’t let me go back to bed without diving into the archive first …
😉
Okay, here it is: http://thedreamlandchronicles.com/2009/02/20/page-840/
On this page, and the next couple after it, we can see Nicodemus as compared to kid-Felicity and kid-Nicole. Granted, we don’t know how tall they were then compared to their current height, but we can assume 1/2 or 1/3 and go from there. Either way, Nicodemus is a pretty big dragon – rough estimate, 60-80 feet from nose to tail, which would probably require at least twice that in wingspan.
Okay, I’m really going to bed now … again …
Worked fine in Firefox for me – but I didn’t vote till after the big rush.
I’ve seen this problem a few times before. Usually at work. I find I can always get around it by going to the top level of the site (http://topwebcomics.com/) and then finding Dreamland in the list and voting from there. Works for me, hopefully it can help others too.
JakesDad, you shouldn’t have said that – we want people to vote to see it!
Just kidding – anyone who reads down this far is probably a gung-ho voter anyway.
Anyway, as long as we’re discussing dragon anatomy…
The nearest analogue to these dragon wings I can think of are pterodactlish, but Nic seems to lack the wing ‘elbow’ joint. Also, given the much heavier body mass, I would expect the wing arms & shoulders to be at least as massive as his regular arms.
My opinions don’t really pertain though, since given the nature of Dreamland (with centaurs, sprites, rock giants, etc.), Scott can design his own creations as he likes.
Wow… totally what I said when I saw it 😀
Amazing, really
Absolutely!
It was a matter of Tyler coding this for the site.
Now i have work to do.
🙂
Gah!! Careful with that red pen, Scott! In all seriousness, I would recommend that you switch the red text to white. It will be much easier on the eyes.
I love your comic. I’m on it for a year now and this page is another really awesome one ^_^
I just have to say: Such a large fire wouldn’t create such a sharp shadow. Just softing out that shadow on his wing would make it even more perfect.
Yes, same comment here.
The font colour is certainly eye-catching, but a bit over the top. If that was the intention though, it’s ok, I guess.
Otherwise, this page is simply breathtaking!
I wonder if there is some other way to learning about the history of Dreamland without the tablets…
And: I have to pluck myself up to vote more often!
great Job. I went to see it through vote though. just wandering are we going to get a tuesday page? If not that is ok I guesses but I was just wandering.
Whoa…nice artwork…but one thing puzzles me.
Ok, he’s supposed to be destroying the tablets, right? By breathing flames at them.
So, how exactly is he going to set fire to *stone* tablets?
You’ve gotta wonder about these ancients who placed the tablets. They wanted to warn people about Nick’s usurpation of the throne, so they naturally store the tablets in a spot that ONLY Nicodemus can get to. Brilliant.
Sorry for being a wing anatomy freak, but a bat’s wing would be a better analogy ( but with no elbow and one less finger). Bird’s don’t actually have fingers within the wings. And pterodactyls only have one finger supporting the whole wing where the rest of the fingers make up a claw. Here is a nice image http://virtuallaboratory.colorado.edu/Biofundamentals/lectureNotes/AllGraphics/Wings.jpg
But I do like how the massive his wings are with the curved in section being blurred because it’s so much closer to the camera. It means he’s in mid flap, so the left wing (his right) is also curved so when fully extended it’d be much longer. So his wingspan’s probably a bit wider than that picture implies.
Fact: Stone (even tablets of it) are VERY heavy. Moving them via a firestream would require ENORMOUS force.
Fact: Stone is one of the most difficult things to melt, requiring some of the highest temperatures known….and heat transfer takes time.
Fact: If the stone tablets were COLD, and suddenly had extreme heat applied, the sudden heat gradient through the stone would likely cause them to SHATTER.
So, while Nic can undoubtably roast a human being, or an elf, or a dwarf, or a centaur……stone giants aren’t going to be particularly worried about his fire breathing. And unless they let him sit there and breathe fire on the tablets for the better part of an hour, they are NOT going to melt. Shatter, sure. But they wouldn’t go into bajillion pieces, but more likely 10-50 large fragments.
Okay, yeah, I’m bringing real-world physics into dreamland. Most of the physics seem to work the same already, with a few noted exceptions……
And with them knowing Nic was after the tablets, and had a means to track them down…..why on earth would Orion hold back on letting Alex go read them the moment he could? Sure, the lesson ‘reward’ sounds good, given his ‘old zen master’ personality, but he also seems intelligent enough to know when time is of the essence…
We’ve seen him with his full wing span but a single page couldn’t cover it.
http://thedreamlandchronicles.com/2007/09/11/todays-dreamland-chronicles-487/
is there a link with the full pic? when i rollover it all it does is move around but it doesnt change.
So maybe Nick’s an idiot during his fanacticism about the tablets, as he strikes me as scared, acknowledging that Alex is a threat worth taking seriously, he abandoned Ashendel, the faeries, and now Aethos (after proceeding to burn the rest of it it) and flies off, and the 10-50 stone fragments fit like a puzzle (with a few edges cut off) and they read it,’
But something tells me that Nick will Alex and the gang and a fight will begin, so abandoning Aethos isn’t as simple as the others.
http://topwebcomics.com/vote/4274/default.aspx The full pic is a vote incentive.
I’m not sure Alex is really “the one.” That and do we really want to see Nicodemus empty his treasure hoard to finance the purchase of black suits, sunglasses, and ties for all of the nightmare realm baddies?
And can Scott really afford to have Lawrence Fishburne voice Orion?
0_0
o-o
*-*“
*_*
‘
‘
‘
I HATE YOU SCOTT. 🙁 This isn’t fair at all. 🙁 🙁 🙁
Now, if that boy is not up in the air in 2 scs whooping that things tail we’re going to cross strong words… you dig?
*sniff…*
[On a lighter note, I tip my hat to you, that dramatic movement of the body to show off a full blast with mighty power has made my day totally. 🙂 It’s nice to see someone loving the craftmanship].
The folds in the tail look unnatural. I was expecting it to be a bit more uniform with the tail.
Argh! that dragon is such a jerk!
hm… everyone’s saying epic….
dont you mean, ‘Hot’? xP
wow, nice work locating all the examples =D
Not sure why though when I click on your link for page 357, it keeps taking me to page 29… All the other links work though and when I scroll over it, the address that pops up at the bottom left of my browser is correct… weird…
but good job ^__^
I agree, probably a lot of people vote because of incentive.. but another reason might be because only when Scott has new incentive does he put the voting link anywhere visible… it’s harder to remember and sometimes can be very tedious to find the voting page otherwise =/
ooooh, what a creeper…
And he is kind of an idiot. He could have just taken off and nuked the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
The only way this page could be cooler is if Haruhi Suzumiya flew in and had a battle with Nicodimus(but, good luck with that… great page though!)
I don’t know if it’s been mentioned (I’m to lazy to read through all the comments) but Nick’s left foot looks exactly like his right. I don’t know if this is on purpose or not, but it’s definately odd.
Huh. That is quite weird; I can confirm this observed behavior. Scott, your web folks may want to take a look at this …
❓
Orbit might be a bit difficult to achieve, even for Nicodemus. Yes, he’s a powerful dragon, but out of all the dragon stories I’ve read (and there have been hundreds) I can only remember two in which the dragons were capable of spaceflight. (One was the Pern series; I can’t remember the other one specifically, but ironically, it also had the dragons with two different kinds of fire: one they used on other creatures, which was hot but basically normal fire, and a second much hotter kind, on the level of lava or plasma, that they generally used in combat with each other. I say this is ironic, because the second, hotter, type of fire would be more than capable of melting a couple of stone tablets with a single FWOOSH.)
I really need to start weaning myself off of parentheses …
😉
I just wanted to say THANK YOU Scott for making his wingspan so awesomely big. It’s always been a pet peeve of mine when illustrators make dragons with wings that are not nearly big enough to actually create enough lift to keep it aloft.
Wotta bastard. He’s got some serious bad karma racking up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooeeUN-o10Y
-Nicodemus’ boss theme.
Wait wait wait wait wait…
Either that place is REALLY tiny, or Nicodemus has gotten REALLY huge…
Seriously, that’s one big dragon.
Hello
It is my first time here. I just wanted to say hi!
Welcome fellow Dreamer!
Only a few of us monitor pages this far back in the archives, I suspect, so be sure to introduce yourself when you catch up to the current page! (I’ll probably welcome you again there; it’s very likely the author will as well!)
And be sure to show Scott your support along the way by voting at TWC (click my name for the link)!
are you making a reference to Order of the stick page 651?
if so, good job!
wow. is it just me or does dragon nick look less plastic-y and more OMG-HE’LL-BURN-MY-EYES-OUT!!! ish.
friggin sw33t p4g3
i cant help but think that dragons hide would make a nice carpet.
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like omg! real fire afects
Fact: MAGIC.
…Bugger.
Epic splash page is EPIC!!!!!
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You stole my name. Give it back…
They’re made of stone, so I don’t see what fire is supposed to do to it.
His chest isn’t really oriented right. If this is a fire “breath”, it should show him exhaling as much as he can. Right now, it just looks like he’s sighing.
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