(Their 2011 T-shirt might just have slipped into my shopping-cart as well. It's a husky pulling a sled full of books, for crying out loud!)
I'd been excited about the Nordguard project for a very long time; mostly, of course, because its subject matter - anthropomorphic sled dogs - is highly relevant to my interests, but also because
nordguard has allowed interested parties to follow the creative process all the way through. Thus I'd got hooked to the point of picking a favourite character, and I was at fever pitch when the product at last became available to buy - more than ready to put my money on the table. I felt involved, and I was especially pleased to have helped out in a tiny way.The comic itself? It's a richly detailed world, in both concept and depiction. The artwork is everything you'd expect from Blotch; frankly I'd have been satisfied with 75 pages of the characters standing around talking, but there is a lot more action than that, and suspense, and mystery, and all those groovy things.
One character was, I felt, underused; she had hardly anything to say, and if I hadn't read a lot of backstory and seen a lot of concept art I would have forgotten she even existed. But I'm sure she'll come into her own later in the story.
Book 1 comes to a close just as the plot seems to be hotting up, which is frustrating to say the least. I can see why it's being released in instalments, but argh! want the next one now!
