Weald Comics

The Corpse Door! Version 4! “The last” rendition of the tale. There will be a page uploaded every week, with a little bit of commentary too!

This splash page pays homage to the previous covers/title page, all which featured a similar picture stone – showing a warrior, who falls ill, then dies in his house. His wife grieves while his brother and a serf make a hole (“the corpse door”) in the outside-wall and drag his body through it.

The runes at the top of the stone, which were added in ‘The Corpse Door 2′, are not very accurate grammatically speaking. Back-in-the-day the CD2 runes were inspired by an actual picture/rune stone (possible the Berezan’ Runestone). I think they are supposed to say something along the lines of ‘here lies Karl;’ The last word is definitely ‘Karl,’ the middle word is ‘coffin’ (vault – a bit of a stretch) and the first word…well, there may be either a spelling or designated-futhark mistake. There’s a Younger Futhark ‘ᚼ’ and ‘ᚱ’ – but in between is an Old-English-Futhark ‘ᛄ’… unless that should have been written as ‘ᚦ’ or ‘ᚹ’

…this is probably why the draugr comes back. None too happy with the runes on that stone!

Draugar are the undead – whose description and abilities vary in different sagas and folklore (…though the one thing in common is that they’re all dead). They can have great strength, immense weight, shape-shifting powers, future-sight, can come in a variety of colours and stenches, and can kill people/animals in a multitude of different ways – including but not limited to causing death-resulting-insanity and consuming victims whole!

For Version 4 of my tale I gave the draugr the ability to walk through (some) structures (such as his barrow). Draugar can be undeadly-motivated by a longing for the things they once experienced in life, or thinking that they are actually still alive – and at lot of the time this causes draugar to be very jealous and violent. I like this idea – and to try to make an undead creature we have some sympathy for – so I made my draugr have a “need” to return home, to get out of the “cold.”

He dead. He can’t feel cold.

In Versions 1-3, I showed the thralls inside the house as they heard the draugr trying to get in. (Lucky for him, despite his strength and/or magically ability to walk through walls, it didn’t work here!) I decided I didn’t want to show the inside of the house, and kept the setting to the draugr’s restricted environment – outside, cold, and stuck in front of the DOOR.

Also – this time around, I didn’t fill in the draugr’s pupils. I think it adds a little bit of uneasiness to everything about him.

When it comes to the undead – be it zombies, vampires, draugar – if you don’t kill them in a very specific way, they’ll keep coming back. So while it may seem like a quick spear-jab made our draugr die-and-disappear, this is only page 7; you know he’ll be back. The “correct” way to ‘kill’ a draugr can be as simple as reburying them properly on sacred ground – or as complex as having the right weapon/hero, who has to chop off their head, burn everything to ash, and scatter the ashes in the sea.

In the first version of this tale, the draugr magically summounded up gifts, trying to bribe his way back into the house. In versions 2, he takes off everything of value and leaves it as an offering. In the third rendition, he takes off (even more lavish) valuable items and promises to even be back with a sword ($$$). For all three cases, he just…walks away. (He was a very optimistic, trusting draugr).

Not this time. He just wants the DOOR opened! Shesh. And now he got speared. Great.

Wishing you and your family and friends a wonderful spoopy Halloween tomorrow. Be sure to not invite any monsters in, and keep all corpse doors closed. EVEN if they are asking for fire, food, family – just trust me on this one.

The treatment of the word ‘family’ on this page still doesn’t sit 100% right with me. I say the word (quickly) with two syllables (Fam + Ly) and the majority of the people I’ve talked to/heard talking in my region pronounce it that way. It’s said ‘fam-ly’, not ‘fam-IL-ly’! Maybe “next time” I should have the draugr saying ‘FAM’ ‘IL’ ‘LEE’ ? Maybe break up ‘FIRE’ into two bubbles too…

I had so much fun drawing this page (and the next one). I think they are my favorite. I really like how, instead of the screeching monologue in the other versions, the draugr is only able to howl out ‘DOOR.’

I did a lot of posing for drawing reference for this version, to try to get things to look ‘right’ – and I think some of the more skeletal-draugr drawings came out the best, because they most strongly followed the model (minus the addition of decomposing skin). That’s not a negative thing – I love my natural draugr-esque build and adore my veiny hands. (Yet I am quite happy being alive and not undead).

A little subtle change from the other versions – the widow offers out her hand for the draugr to take, instead of her taking the draugr’s hand. I struggle using values and my blacks, so I’m proud of how much grey I was able to put into this page! (Though I think it could stand to have more blacked out sections). I’m also happy that he finally got tHrough the corpse doOr!