Rah is far more likely to find longterm fans. Barrie is merchandizing gold.

How much of his first adventure do you have done? Enough to put together an inexpensive ashcan and possibly prints to sell when you do tables for Le Bras D'Orion. Get the kids to the table and the parents will end up buying something

-M

Sell the ashcans and prints (and t-shirts for Shax) and use the money to hire a colorist to do the pages for you

-M

It's not only Blu-Rays that come with extra material!!!

Page 32 of The Emperor's Ball is being inked.



This is the first page following the end of the Emperor's big party, and it starts setting the scene for the upcoming meeting between Rah and Mierkhan (which will occur in, oh, five or six pages max). 

Page 32 required a lot of designing and retooling. Mierkhan's treehouse is a concept I doodled back when Laurasia and Gondwana were still united. It was not initially meant to be his home but rather part of the scenery on Taranagar. (Most of the other sights I wanted to show the readers on the capital planet ended up on the cutting room's floor, I regret to say).



The house is located in the mountains, so I practiced a little during an (unsuccessful) attempt at selling books in a local fair.



Then there was Bard's flying car. Everybody should have a flying car! I toyed with some flamboyant models, because why not, but imperial technology (as seen in its spaceships) was always shown to be sober and practical, so I toned down things like chevy '57 fenders and unnecessary curves. A first model looked a bit too much like the ships from Rocket Robin Hood, too.



I settled on something simple that looks a bit like a Toyota electric car (and a bit like K's car in Blade Runner 2049).



You'll note that the car is only seen as a speck in the first image, and almost not at all in the second one! So much agony over nothing.

Then there's Bard himself. It's the first time we see him without his helmet, so I had to give him a face. Unlike the rather dour Mierkhan, Bard is more easy going and there's always a certain spark of amusement in his eye. I had an original sketch of him from 1989, but it was a bit too generic.



Bard's final face is essentially diamond shaped, with large and slightly almond-shaped eyes.



Aaaaaaad there's the matter of clothes. The scene is set in Mierkhan's house early in the morning, and Bard is surprised to find Captain Bryn Valois there. (She's the unnamed lieutenant with the face tattoo at the helm of the Merganne in Dagar and the Infinite; here we learn that (a) she was promoted after the Battle of the Cloud, and (b) that she and Mierkhan have a thing (a plot point that will be important later on).

At first I wanted both Bryn and Mierkhan to be wearing regular clothes, as they're off-duty at that particular moment, but it struck me as wrong. First, they're not living together, and their relationship, while not an actual secret, is not something they advertise (even Bard wasn't aware of it). So it would be expected for them to maintain a certain level of decorum when somebody's calling. Second, try as I might, I can't imagine Mierkhan seeing anyone in less than a semi-formal attire or uniform. And so after many designs for casual wear (rather inspired by Japanese fashions, and you can blame my love of karate and Usagi Yojimbo for that!) I ditched everything. Bryn would wear part of her uniform (minus the boots, so I get to retain the geta sandals) and her uniform jacket is on the couch's arm. Mierkhan will wear a haori-style vest over his uniform shirt and pants.

Now all this is well and fine, but what does an imperial uniform look like? We did get to see the Blood Drinkers' parade uniforms during the ball, but the regular fleet officers weren't show yet in anything else than their spacesuits. I toyed with many uninspired ideas...



... and settled for a variation of what Manikedek was wearing in Dagar and the Infinite. An all-black thing, which comes in two pieces and shows very little in terms of decoration. You can't beat the classics.



Finally, I had to redraw the last panel. It originally had Mierkhan showing upon on the left, behind Bard, reading some documents. However, it felt wrong... it felt like someone entering the stage in a play, and the three characters had about the same size on the page, making it look very flat. I also couldn't imagine Mierkhan doing something so casual as greeting someone while reading something. He'd rather greet someone and then proceed to work, or work and ignore whoever was there. Hence his entry from another direction, and the big head in the foreground. 

Roquefort Raider ... loved this drawing here ... nice job so far!

In the beginning, you were a master of far out sci-fi art. Now you've mastered the quiet, everday scene as well. Most impressive.

Good! I finished page 36 yesterday and scanned it this morning. Here it is, as a sort of teaser for Book 3!

Page 36 should mean I'm reaching the end, as a standard European bande dessinée has 46 pages... Alas, this one will be a bigger book and we're still a while away from publication. But hey, we're not in George R.R. Martin territory yet!