The Death Warrant was written and drawn in 1993 and self-published the next year. Setting the pattern for future stories, it came with a one-page introduction (not this page, but tomorrow's comic introducing the characters) and ended with a one-page epilogue. Nevertheless, it stayed within reasonable length totaling 38 pages.
The Death Warrant solidified the main cast as Tamlin, Ragnarok, Jake, Atra and Kel, and introduced more of the world of Clwyd-Rhan. The Pillar Field, the network of semi-tolerated witches and the duchy of Dungill Fens all appeared for the first time in this story, as did the faerie Wythllew and a number of running gags that I won't spoil here.
At the time I was working on the story, I took a few courses in medieval English and Scottish literature at the University of Groningen, taught by Luuk Houwen and Alasdair MacDonald. I hung out a lot with a fellow student called Nynke Wierda who shared my fondness for coffee, cookery and procrastination. I illustrated a long paper on medieval cookery for her, and some information from that ended up in the story. To her and to messrs Houwen and MacDonald, I dedicated this new English-language web edition of The Death Warrant.
The Death Warrant: Frontispiece and introduction The URL of this comic is http://www.rocr.net/?p=20060302
Comments
Uhm, ROCR updates are always on time (the buffer extends into April) and always have an image in them, even when the bulk of them is made up out of text. It's OK to drop me a line if one of these things go wrong. In fact, I encourage it because the one thing that I like less than having to fix a mistake is having mistakes go unfixed.
I expect to come very close to running out of the buffer while working on other projects and hammering some puns in the middle of the story into shape, and then rebuilding it again in a weekend or two.