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6/18/06

The Roman ambassadors are described in the Morte as "twelve" and "aged". They're not even given names when they have dialog. At first I was going to do this one in shapes, and represent the ambassadors only as Roman numerals with white beards. After all, I've warned you that I liked doing crowd scenes in shapes. Then Jiminy Cricket told me I was being lazy. By the way, though the majordomo here has appeared in several strips before now, it's never come out in dialog that he's Sir Lucan, Arthur's butler and Bedivere's brother. Just to put a name to the face. Anyway. So here starts the Roman War. The Roman War is one of eight "books" making up the Vinaver edition of Malory (though it doesn't make up an eighth of the text by pagecount). Caxton left out much of what was in Malory's manuscript (and I'm pretty much working from the Caxton edition, the online version linked below). Malory was the first or one of the first romancers to put the Roman War at the beginning of Arthur's reign. In earlier sources it's the war with Rome during which Mordred makes his final bid for power. Nowadays the warring across the Channel at the end of Arthur's reign is more often with Lancelot. Here at AKOTAS the Roman war'll last till something like half a year from now.

Webcomics I read mornings: Kevin & Kell, General Protection Fault, For Better Or For Worse, Scary Go Round, Shortpacked, Tux & Bunny, Real Life, Peanuts

Webcomics I read M-W-F mornings: El Goonish Shive, Theater Hopper, Nukees, Newshounds, Girl Genius, Todd and Penguin, Pibgorn, Bad Shapes, Ctrl+Alt+Del

Webcomics I read Tu-Th-Sa mornings: Crap I Drew On My Lunch Break, AppleGeeks, Orneryboy, Something Happens, Striptease, Achewood, The Holy Bibble, Digger

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, American Elf, Loserz, Dandy & Company, Irregular Comic, Bruno, Boxjam's Doodle, Sluggy Freelance

Webcomics I read M-W-F evenings: Reasoned Cognition, Two Lumps, Zortic, Order of the Stick, College Roommates from Hell!!!, Home on the Strange, Penny Arcade

Webcomics I read Tu-Th-Sa evenings: Casey & Andy, Girls With Slingshots, The Green Avenger, The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, 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, Checkerboard Nightmare, Smithson, Journey Into History, Mac Hall, No Room for Magic, 13 Seconds, Li'l Mell, Help Desk, The Whovian Observer, Gossamer Commons, Perry Bible Fellowship, Ctrl+Alt+Del

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