Passion Lives Here: Starting Eventually

The conifers which cover the Alpine slopes like an animal’s hide are rough, bristly, spiny, and active all the year round – the same might be said of humans. The time’s long past when war would follow the pace of the seasons – the winter ice can be stained red just as easily as the summer grass, and there’s no pause for respite and recovery. Danger can be carried with every stinging flurry of snow.

Visiting the Olympics may be a holiday for some, but there's no rest for the wicked.

Jose would like to think that he treats Henrietta with more humanity and decency than exists in other Agency fratelli, but – as Pietro Fermi pointed out back in Sicily – no matter how much he ameliorates the relationship, it is still in its fundamental essence an exploitative one.

So, even the careful and sensitive Jose can’t help but be inflated by a sense of hubris – when there’s always an invincible, indefatigable, incredible cyborg at your side, it's not unreasonable to think that you can take on anything…

…but while the cold may numb your fingers and loosen your grip, it can’t dull the sting of foolishness and failure.

I've been kind of half-heartedly working on a story under the original Kara timeline that takes place five years in the future (2011). By then, all of the Generation 1 girls except Claes have died.

For Henrietta, I drew inspiration from your first picture, having Henrietta fall in a hail of bullets in Turin saving Jose, who ends up being wounded. However, the wounds to his heart over losing Henrietta were far deeper than those his body suffered from bullets and he never came back to the Agency.

So this new picture kinda hits home.

Well, I'm glad I've managed to be help inspire something, Kiskaloo.

The question of what happens to handlers after the deaths of their cyborgs is an interesting one. Marco mentioned after Angelica's death that he was interested in returning to Section Two and working with another cyborg, and of course after the St. Mark's farrago Bernardo is now light a Beatrice. Maybe once Yu is done with the flashback arc we can see Bernardo's post-death comedown, with Marco making another appearance for support and reference.

Incidentally, one thing that I ought to mention is that none of the these sketches are spoilers - they're general illustrations of setting and mood, not excerpts from the script! I'm not giving the game away that early.

"The Fog"



They don't have unlimited funding. They don't have the latest gear. They don't have a big armoury. They don't have surveillance drones. They don't have top training. They don't have a base to rest securely in. They definitely don't have cybernetic bodies that can punch through walls and derail trains.

But they have enough.

Nice touch with the symbol for Padania.

You could also use the symbol for the Associazione del Nord, which in the Kara 2.0 universe is to the Five Republics what Sinn Féin was to the Provisional IRA:

Well, now the comic is officially christened. This will be PLH's logo, and it's also 47ness's first published piece of art for the comic!

Really, in the end I think that it was better that our start was delayed - as you know 47ness was incredibly busy in the last few months leading up to his graduate show and it would have been unfair to force more on him, and now it looks as though we'll be starting in time for the actual 2010 Olympics itself, which will help promote the whole thing.

Having seen the Munich Olympics on TV and the hostage taking that changed everything, this one hits home.

Robert Frazer wrote:The two stuffed toys that Triela's been hacking up in her frustration are supposed to be the mascots to the Turin Olympics, viz.

I thought those were her regular teddies when I first saw the image, which made me go + . I was blown away.

Robert Frazer wrote:However, wickedAlucard had a sudden panic-attack about referencing copyrighted materials

Didn't he already use the Olympic Rings in a previous image? 'Cause that means he's already screwed. The Olympic Committee or whatever claims that they hold the rights to any arrangement of five rings, and they've sued before over stupid stuff like that. Don't know how the fifth day of Christmas has survived this long.

Robert Frazer wrote:4: Jose & Henrietta

Lol, Jose looks like Moe from the Three Stooges.

I'm soo looking forward to the comic starting up.

Unfortunately, it's going to be a while longer before PLH can get started - 47ness has had to bow out of the project because of his professional commitments. It's an amicable split and I don't begrudge him it - it would be selfish of me to impose on him when he's at an important, formative period in his career.

While 47ness is off to gambol in pastures new, I'm not going to drop the comic - especially not after dipping into my savings and dropping about $500 on website fees and commission artwork (yes, ouchies) - and currently I'm hawking around deviantART for anyone who might be interested in taking up the artist post. If anyone knows someone who's got an eye for drawing and might be interested in a manga webcomic, could you give them a nudge my way?

Individual artwork continues:

On the Cornice



You might not realise it, but mountainous environments are stacked high with explosives – instruments of death are actuall a vital safety feature. In storm conditions mountaineers will utilise mortars to blast build-ups of snow on upper slopes, clearing them before they can accumulate into dangerous weights that create the risk of avalanches.

This also provides a convenient method by which Avise and Agapita can strike Padania from afar, their subterfuge as indirect as the mortar-bombs they’re dropping on the terrorists’ heads.

Artwork by Jo Pereira of Nerf Now.