Thanks for reading.

4/7/06

This really is Sexual Assault Month. Responses to my request for input on character flaws has come in on the message board, by email and on my LiveJournal where I also discussed this. To condense the several elaborate replies: Lancelot comes off as too self-confident (when not in depressive cycle [an element I haven't paid due attention lately, note to self]) to relate well to others, and Arthur as too passive in his dealing with other people or nations. That aspect of Lancelot is one which I more or less consciously imported from the sources. Arthur's passivity, on the other hand, is something I've been regarding as a flaw in my writing rather than a flaw in the character I meant to recreate. Many modern writers (including me when I transplanted these characters into my Star Trek stories, as one longtime reader pointed out) paint Arthur as a supercharismatic leader of men. Since the intended theme of AKOTAS was best articulated by Ector when he said, "When you're called, you answer," it often troubles me that the Arthur here isn't more like those Arthurs. On the other hand, those Arthurs are largely a byproduct of the "new Matter of Britain", the twentieth century versions of the story that hark to the theoretical historical Arthur who against all odds generaled a disunited Britain into beating back the inevitable Saxon encroachment for a whole generation. I've unapologetically eschewed the historical perspective, choosing instead to take as my sources portrayals of Arthur that range from the passive to the downright foolish. It's no wonder if my Arthur takes after them instead of the more recent, heroic ones. The gripping hand is, as I said somewhere yesterday, the joy and pitfall of working with existing characters you love is that they tend to take over. And I said at the beginning I "did start this strip expecting it to evolve in some ways I hadn't necessarily planned or would not have preferred if asked in advance." I generally am careful what I wish for, and here it is, so I hope you're enjoying the ride too. In other recording of the creative process, the washed-out pastel effect in the second panel is something I was also trying for in the second panel here and at first botched for technical reasons, but have now corrected. (This really is Sexual Assault Month.)

Webcomics I read mornings: Peanuts, General Protection Fault, Achewood, Newshounds, Scary Go Round, Tux & Bunny, College Roommates from Hell!!!, Todd and Penguin, Real Life, Kevin & Kell

Webcomics I read M-W-F mornings: El Goonish Shive, Theater Hopper, Nukees, Girl Genius, Pibgorn, Ctrl+Alt+Del

Webcomics I read Tu-Th-Sa mornings: Digger, Crap I Drew On My Lunch Break, AppleGeeks, Orneryboy, Striptease, Penny Arcade

Webcomics I read middays: Calvin & Hobbes, Least I Could Do, User Friendly, Anywhere But Here, Starslip Crisis, Questionable Content, Biggest Webcomic Loser, Schlock Mercenary, Narbonic

Webcomics I read evenings: LuAnn, Count Your Sheep, Goats, Pearls Before Swine, For Better Or For Worse, Help Desk, American Elf, Loserz, Dandy & Company, Irregular Comic, Bruno, Shortpacked, Boxjam's Doodle, Sluggy Freelance

Webcomics I read M-W-F evenings: Reasoned Cognition, Two Lumps, Alice!, Order of the Stick, Gossamer Commons

Webcomics I read Tu-Th-Sa evenings: Casey & Andy, Girls With Slingshots, The Green Avenger, Get Out of My Head, Megatokyo

Webcomics I read bedtimes: B.C., Something Positive, The Angriest Rice Cooker In The World, Medium Large, Station V3, Dinosaur Comics, Wapsi Square, Little Dee, PvP

Webcomics I read Sundays: Butternut Squash, Dr. Devious vs Lincoln High, Checkerboard Nightmare, Nemesis, Journey Into History, Tailsteak, Smithson, No Room for Magic, 13 Seconds, The Whovian Observer, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Perry Bible Fellowship

See also The Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge, Talk About Comics, The Belfry Comics Index, The Webcomic List, Mister Bloo, Nth Degree, 100% Originality Theatre, Comixpedia, The Living Comic and Websnark.

Arthuriana sources I use or recommend:
Arthurian Legend
Arthuriana - the Journal of Arthurian Studies; the website of the quarterly journal of the North American Branch of the International Arthurian Society.
The Camelot Project at the University of Rochester.
Camelot In Four Colors: A Survey of the Arthurian Legend in Comics
Mystical-WWW - The Arthurian A2Z knowledge Bank which has encyclopedically-arranged entries on the characters of the Arthurian legends.
Le Morte Darthur: Sir Thomas Malory's Book of King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table, Volume 1 and Volume 2.