5.23

HMMM maybe not the best idea…

Forgot to post this last week! But ComicsVerse did an interesting writeup about an aspect of The Meek, the platonic nudity in the comic. We’re not in the Angora chapters at the moment obviously but~ I thought it was nice! Sometimes it’s hard to talk about aspects of the comic because I’m covering a lot of ground, slowly, but you know I’m always putting in the time and thought.

It’s been an interesting Meek year in 2016. I didn’t get as many new pages done, but did SO much work on the book it’s crazy to think about it. I feel like staring at those early pages for months has really inspired me to buckle down on this chapter’s art… idk if you can tell but I’m spending more time with the weights and colors, because despite how long everything takes, I think you guys can tell, and for me that’s worth it.

Anyways, I hope you holiday folks have a great holiday~ Mare will be updating quite a bit, but if I don’t get an update here up next week then I will see you early next year! Thank you for reading and I can’t wait to comics-murder more people for your entertainment.

40 Comments

  • dream-piper

    No Touchey!
    NOooooooo Touchey!
    You’ll throw off the Emperor’s grove!

    • dream-piper

      groove*

      • Anton Kooistra

        Don’t correct the emperor! You’ll throw off his *ahem* grove.

    • ItThing

      I’m sorry, but you’ve… thrown off the Emperor’s groove.

      • Ren-der

        *distant screaming* soorry!

  • Metaceryn

    Welp, nice knowing you, Crusty Sea Captain.

    • Captain Trips

      Soon to be the Crispy Sea Captain.

      • Alyssa

        Ayyy, hilarious.

  • Uh, so he chose to be “lenient”, at first.

    • Andreas

      Haha, … wait but then think back to the diplomats… this IS lenient…

  • Brandon

    The moment I saw this updated I just went *yay* inside

  • Jesse

    Yes. Yes. Yes!!!
    New page! !

  • Anonymous

    Luca’s speech is really fluid here. What language are they speaking?

    • Standard Mesdan

      • David

        How many languages are there again? I think Luca speaks Basori as his native tongue. The people from Caris speak Carissi (which makes sense).

        So, is Mesdan kind of like Westron from Tolkien’s work- a common tongue that is understood by everybody?

        • There’s three main ones, though Basori is sort of a catch-all (some tribes can’t fully understand each other because of dialect deviations). Mesdan is a very working class/ common language that is ubiquitous and somewhat necessary to know how to speak it, though sometimes full Carissi and Pasori people will sometimes pretend not to understand it just to be dicks.

          • David

            Thanks, Shing

          • Matías

            You can almost touch the quality of world-building on that answer…

  • Jac

    It’s gonna get warm in here.

    • Spottedspeck

      I really wish we could like comments XD

  • EtherBot

    I reaaaally like the expressions on these last couple of pages. Very characteristic!

  • Gathe

    Oh, dear. Bad move.

  • that guy

    Smells like fried fish.

  • Fraaaaank...?

    It’s funny because he totally can!

  • Saberbeam

    Der-shing: *Poisons one character, shoots a couple characters, melts another one’s face* “Are you not entertained?!”

    Yes, yes we are :) Looking forward to more excellent comics in upcoming year!

  • uhoh

  • Gathe

    Would I be mistaken in assuming that Luca and the captain fought together during the Thirty Years War? Would explain the familiar tone he’s taking towards his emperor, still thinking they’re old war buddies.

    • Asterai

      Or maybe he’s just reacting strongly to the suggestion that his friends be mercilessly slain. Most people get a bit unreasonable when you suggest that sort of thing.

  • Metrophor

    oh. :I

  • David

    I love Suda’s eye in the last panel. He’s like “Ohhh, shit! You did *not* just do that!”

    My guess is that the ship is ferrying Carissi refugees out of the country, possibly children. Only something like that would make the captain desperate enough to grab the emperor’s arm.

  • David

    In all fairness, I doubt there is any difference between the “lenient” treatment and the regular treatment. I assume that execution would follow shortly after the “formal trial”.

  • Really good write up by ComicsVerse! Some great points made :)

  • Fawnet

    OK, I’m a little lost. So the Yellow Stripe is fishing illegally, maybe in a war zone? And the bearded man was covering for them, by saying the ship was in a legal area, when it actually wasn’t?

    Please don’t take my confusion as a knock on your storytelling abilities, either! I need to re-read, so I understand what the situation is here. Besides the fact that Luca is mentally off-balance.

    • PJF

      Thanks for posting this since I’m having a hard time understanding what went down as well. Your theory is better than any I was coming up with.

      Ships are valuable assets, especially warships, so unless it is something as minor as a fishing boat, destroying it instead of capturing it, would be too insane even for Luca.

    • Yeah, no worries! Some of this is setup for stuff that comes later, esp the imbalance thing. But generally, the Caris use the ocean a lot. They have a long history of fishing, shipping, exploring, trading, etc via the sea, but after Luca came to power he started enforcing naval laws a lot more heavily (since the previous war was arguably started by Caris flaunting those laws and doing things they shouldn’t have been).

      In peacetime, Caris is allowed to use historic fishing lanes as long as they follow the parameters set for them. Now that Luca has gone a bit off the deep end he’s trying to round up and (?) all the Carissi people in his territories, as we saw at the end of Chapter 3. This move to destroy that small ship for what is, in his opinion, a blatant disregard for his authority, is along the same lines of thinking. The Captain, however, has been on the ocean a long time as well, and the seafarers follow a different informal set of rules (which obviously is a no-no in this case).

  • TorgueRND

    After Luca gently removed Capt. deChampon’s hand from his sleeve and informed him it was impolite to grab and pull at people, the two resolved their differences over brandy and cigars. Decades later, deChampon succumbed to chronic emphysema because smoking is very bad for you. Luca, you monster!

    Cool article on ComicsVerse, it’s pretty close to my own interpretation of Angora, all except the part where she’s going to save the world. Is there anything you felt they left out?

    • Anton Kooistra

      Yes, yes, reasonable solutions!

  • Felis Leo

    Captain,

    You are rather ill-advised to think you can grab the shirtsleeve of the supreme leader leader of the Pasori People. Especially after he just stripped you of your rank and sentenced you to be court-martialed. Rather ill-advised indeed.

  • Squarish_Emu

    I just wanted to say THANK YOU for linking that article! It puts into words something that I’ve been fascinated by for a long time. I come from a fairly conservative background and The Meek was the first thing I had ever come across that had female nudity in a non-sexual manner. It was kind of mind-boggling at first, but was the first step in an evolution of my views of social issues/equality/justice. So, thank you, thank you, thank you for being such a wonderful storyteller and artist and thank you for addressing issues such as these in a way that is palatable to people who may not otherwise understand (like me when I first discovered The Meek back in 200…7? 2008? 2009? Somewhere in there).

  • AnnoyedDragon

    I personally think the Emperor is destroying the boat because he doesn’t like sardines (I mean his expression last panel could be read as “Dude sardine’s are horrible, it’s a crime to fish them, also you smell like sardines so leggo!)

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