I had so much fun reading through the new @theadventurezone TAZ: Petals to the Metal graphic novel! Taako is always my favorite part, and I loved this panel so much that I felt compelled to draw it in my style! @careydraws did such a wonderful job on the original as always!
i know we’re all excited for crystal kingdom to come out (i am too!!) but when it does, please keep in mind:
- the artists for the fanart gallery were originally offered $100 which, from a bestselling publishing company, is unacceptable. we would never have been paid more if people hadn’t spoken up about it.
- we submitted our work in mid october and were told we would be sent our contracts within two weeks. i was finally paid less than a month ago.
-some people still haven’t been paid.
- personally, this was hands down the worst freelance i have ever done. the level of stress and anticipation and not-knowing was awful and i know i’ll question working for any major company in the future.
-this is not the mcelroys’ fault, however first second has a history of not treating their artists with the respect and professionalism we deserve and it clearly hasn’t gotten any better.
Yo, this sucks to type and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to keep waiting beyond this point, but I have yet to be paid for my contribution to the TAZ gn, and I have no idea why.
All the paperwork was processed back in June. I assumed it would take at least a week to distribute all the payments. And I was moving apartments at the time, so it wasn’t a high priority focus. But when the beginning of July rolled around with no change, I thought, “this isn’t adding up.” I emailed one of the directors at First Second to ask about it, but that was right after the 4th of July, and I got an autoresponse that said that the office was closed for the holiday. Which was disappointing, but I thought, “Okay, I’ll wait a few days and try again.”
I sent another email last Friday, which got another response that the director would be away until the 13th. The emails of their assistants were included in that one, so I sent an email to one of them first thing this morning. I am still awaiting a response. So. Yeah. My excitement has been pretty severely dampened because of the whole deal.
(TAZ Crystal Kingdom Graphic Novel stuff ahead so if you don’t want to see that yet keep scrolling)
I would like to talk about this page in particular
(Please ignore my finger, I’m not pointing at anything, I’m just keeping the page open at the right angle so I don’t have a glare.)
Here we see the Goddess of Death, popularly known as The Raven Queen but renamed for the graphic novel. She is presented to us in something like a picture frame, which is adorned with skulls. Appropriate.
But there’s other frames on the page! Who are they for?
In the top left corner, we see this frame is adorned with leaves. If each frame is for a different god or goddess, it seems easy to assume this one is for Pan.
To the right of Our Beloved Death Goddess is another frame. The contents of this one is mostly hidden from view by another panel, but the frame is adorned with hour glasses. What little we can see inside the frame looks at first like it could be a snake…or perhaps a very long scarf? This frame is almost certainly for Istus.
But the last one…
On the far right side of the page, we see the corner of a forth frame that features…party hats.
This frame is for none other than Reggie Fitzpatrick, God of Parties.
I wanted to draw attention to this because I’ve always loved the tiny details Carey Pietsch includes in the graphic novels, but this one especially proves that she knows her shit when it comes to TAZ. Also because I absolutely lost my mind laughing when I figured it out.
