Servants of the Imperium

Dear Esther...

Tue, 08 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Still no updates for SotI I'm afraid, but I'm getting there.Just finished playing <a href="http://dear-esther.com/" target="_blank">Dear Esther</a> on Steam. Holy shit, that is one amazing, beautiful and thoroughly heart-wrenching game! It's only Â£6.99 on Steam and well worth the money. It might only last a few hours, and really it's not so much a game and more of an interactive story, but it's amazingly well done and really deserves your patronage.I'm off to sit in a dark room and think melancholy thoughts now!

A brief break

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

I hate to do this, but I'm going to put SotI on a brief hiatus again. The last few weeks I've been finding it harder and harder to work up enthusiasm for the comic and I think I need to take a short break to give myself time to get my groove back.Don't worry; Servants of the Imperium will continue! Just give me a week or two.If, in the meantime, any fans would like to send in any fan strips to fill gap, please send them to my email address!

Lazy

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Oookay, so maybe there's no comic this week. I'm feeling terminally lazy, sorry!Also, please stop sending me links to the Indoctrination theory video! I'm aware of it and I'm not a fan.

Glad to be back

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Hurrah, I'm back!I really missed writing the comic these last few weeks. Don't get me wrong; a break was also nice, but I'm glad to be back and starting the new plot arc for SotI!More soon.

#160: What was it again?

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Mass Effect 3 thoughts

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

So I finished Mass Effect 3 last night and I'm sad to say I can see what all the fuss over the endings was about. Initially I was actually fairly upset, but after a night's sleep I can now see the endings are possibly acceptable, but still very sadly flawed.The sad thing is that ME3 was, until the ending movie played, an amazing game. I had real fun playing though the final part in what has been an epic science fiction trilogy that I've followed fanatically for years.Ok, so on to the endings and my thoughts on them.*CAUTION! ME3 SPOILERS AHEAD!*I chose the Control ending. Now I don't mind the fact that Shepard dies at the end; hell I was pretty much expecting it given how things had been going throughout the game. I love a good noble sacrifice and, although it was a shame my Shep would never get to see Tali and Co again I was happy to send him to his doom in order to save everyone else. That said, I'm very fond of Shepard and I was expecting something in return for my sacrifice. A eulogy from Hackett; Tali crying over my grave; Garrus raising a drink to my memory with Wrex. Anything.What we get, however, is Joker flying the Normandy away from Earth, trying to outrun a blue beam of Deus Ex Machina, before crashing on some random jungle planet with my crew, including Garrus who was in my final team! How the hell did he get onto the Normandy in time to run off in front of the blue beam of lameness? Then out hops Tali, she and Joker share a look and none of them look especially broken up that Shepard is dead. Credits roll, then there's some shit from Buzz Aldren. Thanks Buzz. I honestly dropped my controller and asked my wife (who was watching me play) "What the fuck?".I think that my problem with the ending is that it seemed very... random. Why was Joker outrunning that beam, when the Normandy was last seen helping the battle for Earth? Why was Garrus on the ship when he'd been with me, on the ground, moments before? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE JUNGLE PLANET ABOUT?!Bioware are masters at getting players emotionally involved in their games, and Mass Effect is the paragon (Hah! See what I did there?) example. During ME3 some of the decisions you are forced to make are gut-wrenchingly painful; do you side with the Geth or the Quarians on Rannoch? Do you cure the Genophage and help the Krogan, or follow the Salarian orders and get their help instead? Those decisions are painful, but they're fun and, if handled correctly, have massive emotional payoff afterwards.Case in point; when confronted with the Geth/Quarian situation I sat back and almost applauded Bioware for making me choose between Legion and Tali; two of my favorite characters in the series and one (Tali) being my Shepard's love interest to boot. With great reluctance I chose to side with the Geth (the Quarians were being dicks really), but then with great relief I realised I could argue the Quarians around and get both! I almost wept with joy. Then to witness Legion's noble sacrifice to help his people; it all came together to make a brilliantly unforgettable moment in the Mass Effect universe.THAT is what the ending lacked for me; emotional payoff.For choosing to sacrifice Shepard what I would have like to have seen was, at the very least, a brief explanation of what happened to each of my squadmates, the major NPCs (Joker, Hackett, etc) and each of the races (Krogan, Geth, Quarians) after the Reapers were defeated. Just a still graphic and a short paragraph for each would have done, is that so much to expect? After Bioware has gone to so much trouble to get us to invest for 5 years (let me just reiterate that bit; FIVE YEARS) in the ME universe I would have thought that the effort required to create a number of varying conclusions based on your in-game decisions wouldn't be THAT great, would it?So, in conclusion, I'm disappointed that, after such a build up through the rest of the game and the entire series as a whole, the ending of the Mass Effect trilogy was so abrupt and surreal and that there was a complete lack of wrap up for the characters left behind.Also, in my heart of hearts, I really wanted to see my Shepard settle down on Rannoch with Tali. :(

A short break

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

There will be no strip this week or next week; due to a mixture of upcoming commitments, work and (ahem) Mass Effect 3 I've not got much time free over the next few days.SotI will return on the 1st of April, I promise!In other news, last week's Death Unto Darkness went really well. Our crew of Rogue Traders were fantasic to play, sneaking around, scheming and generally being massively untrustworthy. A really good laugh compared to my usual Arbite Judge character!

What's step 3?

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

There's something deeply amusing about Krin's Benny Hill run, doubly so when applied to Aki.There won't be a comic next week as I'm off to Death unto Darkness, the 40k LARP I attend. This event I'm party of a highly dubious Rogue Trader crew, playing the Lady-Captain's battle butler seneschal. Our aims for the weekend are: 1) Make everyone else look bad 2) Drink tea 3) ???? 4) Profit!I'll let you all know how it goes. I just hope the weather holds; today we had beaming sunshine followed by torrential rain and then heavy snow!

#159: So long and thanks for all the guns

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Black Crusade

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Time for some exposition, plus a chance to recap the plot!Sadly talky strips like this always seem a little dull for me; I'd love to have the characters moving around a bit more but when you're trying to get a lot of plot across excess movement always gets a bit distracting.I also try to avoid too much text; there's nothing I hate more than comics that devolve into walls of text and clouds of speech bubbles. I name no names!Black Crusade went really well last week; the system takes some getting used to after Dark Heresy, plus there's the mental switch that needs to be made from the players being 'good guys' to 'bad guys', but it was great fun to run. Alex, one of the players, is a gifted writer and has started writing up the game over on RPGnet, describing the game from her characters point-of-view. It's <a href="http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?615868" target="_blank">well worth a read </a>!Also, for some exclusive SotI prequel artwork, look here: http://evilscary.deviantart.com/#/d4r13q9 (stupid link won't embed).

#158: Moving On

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

No strip due to heretics

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

No strip today; as well as the Dark Heresy campaign I'm currently running I'm starting a Black Crusade game this week, so I need time to write some plot! It'll be fun trying a new system, even though Black Crusade is very similar to DH there are enough differences to the system and running style that it feels quite new.The Dark Heresy game is going well, so far I've run the party through an intro game in which they found themselves stranded on a space station full of plague zombies and now they're running around the hive world of Solomon, trying to locate a missing Inquisition investigator and dealing with some (possibly) inbred locals!

#157: Smoking causes heresy!

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Slight delay

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

No strip today folks, I've was busy yesterday at the LARP fair in Bristol eyeing up all the shiny weapons! I hope to have a strip up tomorrow instead.So this week the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pShKKOV_gA" target="_blank">Mass Effect 3</a> trailer came out... holy hell I can't wait for this game to come out!Also, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py_IndUbcxc&list=PL9830AEE76D4E17FD" target="_blank">Iron Sky</a> is looking pretty, um... interesting. It'll either be hilariously over the top or amazingly aweful, depending on how seriously it tries to take itself. Signs are good so far.

Foreshadowing

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

I've been looking forward to posting this strip for a while. Nothing gives me tinglies like a bit of foreshadowing!You might not recognise them due to the art upgrade, but those two dudes have been in the strip <a href="http://www.servantsoftheimperium.com/comic.php?comicid=54" target="_blank">before</a>. I'm pretty pleased with how they both look now (the Chaos Lord's helm used to really annoy me, back when I first drew him). Oh, and no; he's not a Chaos Space Marine, he's a normal human in carapace.

#156: Watching from the Shadows

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Once more into Calixis

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Ok, to make up for the lack of comic last week, there's a double update this week!I've not played any 40k since New Year, which I hope to remedy soon, but one thing I am getting back into is Dark Heresy. I GM'd a 2 year campaign a few years back, which spawned SotI, but it left me a little frazzled so it's taken a while for me to get the inclination back to run some more DH.But today I'll be starting a new campaign for my friends. This time I'm doing things slightly differently as I'm planning to run a game based a lot more on the character's backgrounds, rather than the emphasis being on the central plot. Hopefully I'll be able to post some anecdotes once we get going!

#154: Caught Short

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

#155: Inquisitorial Report

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Delay!

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Ok, the comic's a little late.The weekend before last, my first forway into running a LARP event, went fantastically. I've never had so much fun and the event went so much better than I could have ever imagined; I'm sure I'm going to end up doing that again!Since then I've been relaxing, enjoying not running around organising things and spending some time with my wife. I had hoped to get the comic up on Sunday, but failed, and then hoped to get it up tonight, but failed again.I hope to finish it and post it tomorrow, but don't hold your breath!I'm also currently working on some character designs for the SotI prequel comic, which I might share soon!

Here, then gone

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Yup, eldar are mysterious.Don't worry, they're not completely gone just yet, although don't expect to see them in many more strips. It's been nice having them in the comic, but the cast is already large enough that I don't want to add too many more permenant characters. Plus I'm a big believer that eldar and Imperials can barely tolerate each other.There won't be a strip next week as I'm running my first LARP game! I must be completely mad.Wish me luck!

#153: The weave of fate

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Looking ahead

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Happy New Year to you all!To celebrate (and make up for the lack of pre-Christmas strips) have a double update. I had been hoping to make it a triple update, but frankly I've been enjoying time off work and having lie-ins!So this year sees me running my first LARP event (in a few weeks no less) and I'll also be setting myself the goal of starting the 'How Severus met Krin' prequal strip. I've already roughed out the plot, now I just need to work up some designs for characters both new and old.One thing about the constantly-evolving artwork of SotI is I often look back at very early strips and think "Yikes, that does NOT look good". So, rather than just using the old character artwork for Severus, Krin and co, I'll be creating new artwork for all of the characters. This does mean I get to have some fun creating Severus, Krin and Lyle's new outfits, which I'm going to try and vary a little from their 'modern day' looks enough so that the strip stands out against regular SotI stuff.More news soon!

#151: Those inscrutable Eldar

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT

#152: Bi the way

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 GMT