Another Fear comic from centuries ago, but for simplicity's sake, let's just call this the second one. I believe Khans of Tarkir just hit da streetzsz at this point. I knew the name stuff would be a promble, to use the Yale term, and it's 2016 now, and still remains true!
Fun Facts: I had drawn up an alternate comic about Mark Rosewater's announcement about the new 2-Block Paradigm, but it got cut. I had all these great reference photos I took from a park near where I used to live that I wanted to use, so this comic was actually all an elaborate excuse to draw that gazebo thing. I later realized this would be a fun opportunity to draw some R&Ders, too, like those old Looney Tunes, where there're all those movie stars in the background, and you're like, Hey, it's that guy. Like that. I chose each person based on their sort of public personality (and whether they were on the KTK team). Though we are playing on the mythology of the legendary R&D debates. I had to do some reaching for some pronunciations, but most are real that I expected to hear, and in fact did. Including Zsheskai...ew.
Easter Eggs: I modeled each person after a clan, so the girl has Anafenza's do and symbology, Sultai guy has a Silver Serpents shirt and snaky hair, feral Temur Lad has fur trim and a raining emotion shirt (he's wearing the comic's release number, two). The external Danger Room stuff is taken from that 80k Words article, though the internal is the actual War Room. I don't know if it's constantly raining money inside R&D, but it's a funny image, isn't it? Anyway, as for the R&D members, everyone's go-to is MaRo, so I wanted to dig a little deeper, though you'll still see a flannel shirt. There's a Greenbay'd giant, which is Matt Tabak, who seems like he'd be listening mostly since he is essentially Chief Judgestice Supreme; but there's also Zac Hill in a Great Caesar shirt, who seems like he would be leading knowledge-sharing; Shawn Main, who seems like he'd be the neutral guy; and Ken Nagle, who seems like he'd be more green-ish and ready to flex. I really wanted to draw Aaron Forsythe, but reasoned he likely would not be in the room here. The Jitte and Fblthp stuff is a reference to other difficult pronunciations, but the hardest line to catch is probably the break your deck one, a reference to an old tape recording I had of Who's on First, but mixed with this goofy (language warning) song and the slang for "breaking" in Magic.
This was pretty fun to draw. And obviously this is just a comic; realistically, I'm sure they actually settle all debates via some kind of rock-paper-scissors system. Like Magic, for instance.
1/27/16
Reuxben
