It’s Friday… and you… get… new… pages… barely. Whadda week. Highs (The Dreamer #1 hit news stands on Wednesday!) and Lows (Mike got me sick…!) Between partying and almost barfing (unrelated, I *swear*!!) I nearly didn’t finish these pages. But… obviously I did. So I’ll end the violins. ;)
I really don’t know what to say about Pages 20 and 21 except OMG I LOVE THEM. :)
(Nathan’s back!! And if you don’t believe Knowlton in the last panel of page 21, it’s only because you must not have met his wife yet.)
So yes, as mentioned above, The Dreamer #1 came to Print Comics this week thanks to (and I mean a huge “THANKS TO”) IDW Publishing! If you haven’t gotten your copy yet, you can always have your comic shop order more. (Oh, and #3 is now available for pre-order.) Wizard Magazine got their hands on Issue #1 and listed it as one of their picks of the week! Hip, Hip, Huzzah!
Wednesday night we had a wonderfully fun Dreamer Release party, and read on to see pictures if you want.
But before you do, don’t forget to VOTE this week to see Jenny Frison’s stupendiously amazingly awesome #3 variant cover. Seriously guys, if you buy her cover and not mine, I will SO not be offended! I *love* this one!
Dinner at Bucca di Beppo.
Dreamer creators Mike & Lora Innes.
Best Friend & Big Sis, Kathy, and Jenny, who helped me immensely with those rassafracka Press Releases…
Dreamer Colorist Michael Motter and Dave Renner, who you might know from his stint as a “Phone a Friend” on Who Wants to be a Millionaire! (Yes, he was at my house when Meredith Viera called!) :)
Colorist Michael Motter without his mouth full…
Dreamer fan Emily (who cannot handle a page a week, so she reads only after each issue is finished, the suspense is just too much!) and Motter’s beautiful girlfriend Asha, my eye doctor!
My co-worker Mike from my Artifact Group days, and Dreamer #1 Colorist Eric Mullins
Dreamer #1 Colorist, Eve Stiles and her beau, Andy.
Dream Team member, the beautiful Liz Waldie, massage therapist!
Long time friends and old college classmates from CCAD, Drew & Amanda.
Innesfactor the Webmaster and a crap load of food.
Me & My Baby!
You guys look like you’re having fun. Nice issue 3 cover, but I like yours better…:/
Haha! “NATHAN YOU MADE IT!” Oooh THAT’S not suspicious at all, though I’d be doing the same thing. Don’t be so smug, Howe. YOU LOSE. Muahaha! Knowlton and Knowlton Jr. ARE SOOOOO CUTE!!!!
I miss my Daddy…:( I have to wait two weeks before I get to see him. *sulks*
Unrelated partying and barfing? I’ve heard some tall tales in my time, but who you trying to fool?! XD Looks like the release party was a success, lots of pizza and fun, and really, can you have one without the other? I didn’t think so.
That alternative cover for issue #3 is WOW cool. The awesomeness is crazy overwhelming.
Thanks for the pages despite your illness. Some great pages too, you mention the last panel of page 21, but the end of of page 20….that’s a fantastic looking panel. Darth Howe running the floor and what a villain making Mr. Howard walk around in his bed hat and bed clothes. Let the man put on some pants!
I can’t help but notice the non-appearance of Mr. Cool, Alan Warren. I hope he’s not fooling around outside the fort trying to scale walls or something similarly insane. And cool scene with Freddy and his Dad. ’nuff said.
Oh! I’m so sorry! All the excitement I forgot to say GET WELL SOON!!! *hugs*
“Roll call. Now”? oh, no. now we have to find out about everyone that DIDN’T make it back to the fort. at least it was no one we know.
oooooooo….I love Freddy and Nathan’s expressions in this.
Whew! Nathan made it back safe! Now Bea, Freddy, Thom, and Alan are all…
Wait a minute.
Alan? Oh Alan! Here boy! Where’d you go? You better not have gone off and got captured or shot by one of those crazy British soldiers with the fuzzy Trojan helmets! You better answer that stupid roll call!
Gah! Is it next Friday yet?
OMG NATHAN. Yay! :3 You made it back all right! I love his expression in the second panel he appears in.
That looks like some party there, Lora. Hope you had fun!
Cute #3 cover, by the way. Kudos to Ms. Frison!
And yes. I believe Knowlton. O_____O;;
ALAN WHERE ARE YOU?! *sob*
Knowlton needs to get out there and find him right this minute.
I love the alternate issue 3 cover! I don’t want to buy it cause it’s pink, but the idea is brilliant.
And I’m still worried about Alan … Nathan’s face does NOT look ful of good news.
Hahaha, I saw the DeviantART updates before I saw the comic updates and I have to say… my ideas might have been off the mark. For now. >.> LOL
Nathan’s face concerns me. Well, his expression…
And the whole Knowlton family is love. Freddy is so cute that I just pause and stare. And then realise that if he were real (right now…you know what i mean) that I’d be kinda creepy.
Wait, if both Alan and Knowlton were running towards the fort, where’s Alan?
Alan’s coming. I think. At least I think he’s coming. Oh, crap, is he coming? Is Alan going to make it? I hope he makes it! Alaaaaaaaaaan! Run faster! ;)
Oh, it’s only 7 days away, you all can wait that long. XD
I would have lunged into Nathan’s arms too! It’s been soooo long. My order of issue one shipped yesterday! I’m all excited to see it and hold it in my hands. Cute Knowlton moment too. Just one more week… Come on Alan! Now that we’re all flustered and worried about the boy, he’ll just stroll in the door all cool like “you were all worried about me?” Awesome.
My last name was in there! *fangirl squeal*
… Had to say something about it.
Yay for families that have been here since… ever.
lol, Nora. Any chance you’re descended from Captain Thomas Grosvenor’s family? That would be too cool! ^___^
He’s at the officer’s meeting on page 8, and also on the bottom of page #6. Now that I’m going back and reading it, I guess no one’s addressed him by name yet! Here’s the little sketch I did of him: http://comic-chic.deviantart.com/art/Captain-Thomas-Grosvenor-96820411
Awww! I mean, really. Awwwwwwwww!
I just looked at your DA comments, and I have to agree, I don’t think Freddy’s ever been cuter than in page 21, and that last panel of 20 is EPIC! hee hee!
I LOVE THE KNOWLTONS!!!
I wish Mrs. K. and her teapot could show up in the comic…but I guess she’s safe at home in Ashford. I will not continue in this vein for fear of making spoilers.
I think Alan will be okay, he has long legs and is well equipped for making mad dashes across open ground dodging bullets. But I’d rather he didn’t have to do that. I hope he doesn’t decide to do something heroic and stupid. Or maybe I do…because that would be an interesting couple of pages…
Jeremy Irons/Howe becomes more deliciously evil with every appearance.
And I want to hug Nathan. Badly. Why does Bea get to have all the fun?
Oh and…get well soon!
Oh man, that little Knowlton moment made my day. That family is too cute and amazing <3 And man, for some reason I love when you stick Howe in there, you draw his face so delicously evil like, it’s fantastic.
Haha, I like the variant cover, it’s very clever, definitely reminds me of those ten cent romance novels my grandma has, in a good way xD
Wow, your celebration dinner looked fun, I’m so happy for you, you’re taking the risk and living your dream and you’re being successful!
Great pages this week, two heartwarming hugs. I’d love to hug Nathan/the Knowltons. A thought on the new site layout, are you going to include a FAQ?
Was it customary at that time to hug guys like Bea just did? The Knowltons are adorable!
In the Thom and Anna comic strip, did you actually write what he was whispering to her, or did you just put a bunch of scribbles in the dialogue spot? Haha
Could Nathan be so sad because Bea is reminding him of a girl back home? =>
Oh, I just LOVE Freddy and Tommy together. It’s nice to see Knowlton letting his guard down and being, you know…..an actual person instead of a military commander. :)
Okay, given Nathan’s expression and his duty, I can’t help but think that he thinks Brad Pitt…..I mean, Alan….is dead. Now I’m hoping that he says Alan’s name, Alan leaps over the wall and runs up, goes here, and Bea squeals and runs into his arms where they kiss passionately.
Okay, I need to go stand in the corner now…
It occurs to me that in the final panel of 20 the fort appears to be even bigger than I would’ve expected. I mean, I know they’ve been working on those forts for several months now, but if all the part that appears surrounded by walls in page 20 is one fort…wow. how many men were in one of those when it was fully operational?
All I have to say is AWESOME! And it looks like everyone had fun at the party! Also, I hope you feel better soon!
Awwwwwwww!
[I'm not USUALLY squeeish, okay?]
Hey, Brenda! The American works they built at Long Island were *insane* I think there were at least five forts and they spanned *miles*. They were all built up on a ridge, and backed up to the river. The US Army started digging in April and went until August when this battle was fought. The crazy part is that they had amazing defenses on Long Island, but they only barely guarded the Jamaica Pass. Their entire defense crumpled under that one mistake.
But the commander who had worked on building the forts all summer long was sick over in Manhattan, and a new officer was sent over who was very unfamiliar at the last minute, and wound up having to command the battle.
Washington himself didn’t even come over to Long Island until about 10 AM if I remember right, because he was convinced that the Brits were pretending to attack Long Island but were *really* coming for Manhattan. So Washington divided his forces, and kept half on Manhattan and only sent half to Long Island. :(
Wait, so if he took the threat seriously, the war could have been over that much sooner?
Man…yet another commander blinded by his own preconceptions about what the enemy will do. Course, we still won, so I guess it’s not that big a deal. Still, how many could have survived if not for that, am I right?
Hey, Brent,
Even if Washington had posted all his men on Long Island, and guarded the Jamaica Pass, I really don’t believe the war would have ended. Howe had decided after Bunker Hill to never again engage the Americans head on when they were dug in on top of a hill and could just pick his army off from up high. I think Howe liked and used Sir Henry Clinton’s plan (the one they used, sneaking up the Jamaica Pass, cutting off the American outer defenses from their Brooklyn forts) because they would be fighting the Americans on *their* terms, not the American terms.
I don’t think that Howe would’ve done a full frontal assault at Brooklyn. Which is why he waited months to make his move.
But even if he had. And even if the British had lost that battle, I cannot believe there would’ve been a surrender. Sir William Howe, commander-in-chief and his older brother Lord Admiral Richard Howe (aka “Sir Billy” and “Black Dick”) had come to America only after Parliament granted them Peace Commissioners status. The ink was still drying on the Declaration of Independence. Neither of the Howes took it seriously. In fact, after the Battle of Brooklyn, they held a peace meeting with Franklin, Adams and… err, Jay…? (Can’t remember the last guy) trying to get the Americans to settle peacefully. I just can’t see them being brought to their knees in surrender by a nation that they didn’t even recognize as existing.
And… well, I didn’t even start on the *navy* yet. It was the largest assembly of British Naval Forces in history. Americans on Manhattan described it as “A Forest of Masts” in the harbor when Black Dick Arrived. Sir Billy had showed up a month earlier with enough ships to scare the Americans, but when the Navy got there, man, I think that put things in a whole new perspective. New York is a city surrounded by water on every side. And… well, the Americans had *no* navy.
See, they were sort of doomed from the start.
Man now that I’m typing this all out, things don’t look good for the Dreamer gang, do they…? ^^;
Lora! The Dreamer is absolutely wonderful. I definitely think you should put out an issue a week. :) It would make teenage fangirls like me very much happy. (Even though that’s kind of a lot… Hmm…)
On another note, this is just amazing that you’ve incorporated this much actual history into this comic. You’ve actually made me wander around on Google looking up facts, which I haven’t done it ages.
Thank you for creating an AMAZING story!
First off, I just recieved my copy of issue 1 and it’s beau-ti-ful!!! I can finally hold the kiss scene in my hands!! And the Nathan Hale short story was great too!!! Cheers! For getting to stare at all the pretty men, err… pretty pictures.
And second, I’m reading 1776 by McCullough and the book rocks. It’s a great slice of the early fighting. I just finished reading about how they left the fort on Long Island (where they are now in the comic), all sneaky like. And I agree, from what I’ve read from this and other things, that even if they had kept the pass protected, they had a large number of ill soldiers and luck was what was largely responsible for allowing them to get from Long Island, out from under Howe’s nose. Many mistakes were made too. It’s doubtful that anything better could have happened if they hadn’t snuck out that night. (The story of this is pretty sweet.)
Hey, Katie, if you’re interested in the events surrounding The Dreamer, I recommend Barnet Schecter’s The Battle for New York. It’s even better (or at least more thorough on the subject) than 1776.
Thanks for the advice! I’ll add it to my list for Christmas.