The Enchanted Dagger

Did I say I was going to try and start working on the new pencils for EDag 7 two weeks before Christmas?  Haha, no… that didn’t quite happen.  I did do some prep work and as soon as things quiet down after x-mas I should be ready.  This time of year is nuts to begin with but this year I decided to forego my seasonal labor gig for a more contemporary drive around for extra cash gig.  Actually not to bad…more efficient time wise to get the required cash but there is a lot of driving involved which is frazzling and gas prices are not good.  But its kept me where I need to be, all the more so as I bought a lot of presents this year.

I should comment on the men of Shem.  in the bible Shem was considered the most faithful son of Noah, whose sons went forth and settled the world of the middle east, known to us as the semitic peoples, Jews and Arabs and the like.  The Shemites of the story have a pharaoh, which fits well enough I guess, and a very greco roman look.  I’m not sure all of the characterizations line up but it works well enough.  There were lots of this kind of story back in the day.  King Solomon Mines by literary fabulist H. Rider Haggard comes to mind.  Haggard popularized the “Lost World” literary genere, sort of the Dystopian Epic Novel of the era.   Edgar Rice Burroughs would get a lot of mileage out of discovering lost worlds and would bring us Tarzan, the original jungle man without whom there would be no Kalthar.   One Haggard book from way back which I happen to have read a couple of comic adaptations of is “She” which tells the story of a young man drawn to a lost civilization of ancient origin where he is received as the reincarnation of some important so and so.  There he meets She Who Has No Name!

Pretty good page here by Robert Pious, especially the color scheme.  The alternating red/yellow back grounds worked to nice effect.