Last month, AXANAR super-fan TREY McELWAIN released the cover and first page of his new Axanar fan comic “Arcanis IV”—part of his “Tip of the Spear” series focusing on some of the major battles of the Four Years War.
Nearly a year ago, Trey released the first-ever comic story based on the hugely-popular Prelude to Axanar Star Trek fan film: the four-page (including cover) “Trial By Fire.” Trey wrote the comic and his friend DANIEL FU illustrated the story, which looked at a space battle during the Four Years War with the Klingon Empire.
Originally, the plan for this new comic story was to release one new page each month for the next five months until all seven pages (plus cover) were completed and posted. Then Trey has another two chapters in the saga that will follow, also with one page released per month.
So you might be wondering how, if there’s only supposed to be ONE page released per month, why this blog says that THREE new pages have just been made available. I wondered that, too, and I asked Trey.
The answer is that Daniel found his professional workload lighter than normal this past month and had more time to illustrate pages. Initially, he delivered two pages to Trey, but a day later, he had a third one ready, as well. As you’ll see below, that additional page wasn’t quite as complex as the other two.
Trey isn’t certain how many more pages will be released next month yet, but it’ll be at least one. If it’s two, then the first chapter will be complete.
Just in case you missed the first page, I’ve included it (along with the cover) below. The story’s getting really exciting!
For the HI-DEF versions of these pages, make sure you go to the Axanar Comics Website to find them!
https://axanarcomics.wixsite.com/axanarcomics
Thank you so much again Jonathan!
Thank YOU guys for doing such a great job!
Nice work! Can’t wait to see what’s up next 🙂
Thanks!
Well, that’s…. kind of poorly written, actually.
What makes you say that, Dana? I think it’s pretty well done, personally.
Thanks Jonathan!
It was pretty good overall, but there were a few problems with the writing, and I do have come constructive criticism in that regard…
=== Page 2 ===
1) Why do they need a “neutral meeting ground” to accept a new Federation member? Why not just visit the Cetican’s home planet?
2) “‘Shining example of Federation progress,’ my ass!” Who is Captain Jeffries replying to? It seems like he’s replying to the narration. Is he making a Deadpool-style forth wall break?
3) Are ensigns supposed to have stripes on their sleeves? I’m pretty sure they don’t in the original series.
4) “If the ‘High Brass’ where actually here to do what they were sent to do, we’d already have interspecies crews.” Awkward and too wordy. Should be something more like this:
“If the ‘high brass’ actually practiced what they preach, we’d already have interspecies crews.”
=== Page 3 ===
1) The Admiral’s apology for his “lateness” is an awkward exposition dump that would never happen in real life. Why would an Admiral apologize to a Lieutenant for circumstances beyond his control?
2) He says “Not to make excuses”, then proceeds to make excuses.
3) The Lieutenant has only one stripe. Could the comment on Page 2 have been a joke? No, because on the very next page we see that the Ensign also has a single stripe.
4) How did the ambassador beam down before the Admiral did? Did they have to beam down separately because of the interference, or did the ambassador simply beam down early? If the Admiral is so concerned about his tardiness, and there was no reason he couldn’t beam down with the ambassador, why didn’t he?
5) “Friends, distinguished guests, and those we would welcome into the Federation and call family.” Kinda awkward. Perhaps something like this instead:
“Friends, distinguished guests, and our newest members of this family we call the Federation.”
=== Page 4 ===
1) “‘Space…the final frontier…'” Ugh! So cheesy it should be served with bacon on top of a side of fries!
2) “The man’s got a way with people. This will be another notch in his belt.” Your dialog for the Admiral better be friggin’ Poet Laureate grade to pull that line off. Combine that with “Space…the final frontier…”, and you’ve got an nearly guaranteed eyeroll.
3) BTW, who’s even talking in the top cell of the page?
4) Why not just have them listening to the speech over the comms rather than speculating about it? Then you could get rid of that dialog about loosing contact with various stations and probes and just have the speech cut out because of interference.
I’ll stop there. Those are the most obvious issues I saw. I have to say, the artist did a very good job of helping me visualize where all the crew are on that bridge. I could draw a diagram of the location of every officer on that bridge.
But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, did you at least enjoy the play? 🙂
Thank you.