WoW.com's Weekly Webcomic: Safe Passage
by Kelly Aarons 
Sep 14th 2010 at 5:00PM
Hello, dear readers, and welcome to our next visual saga. This is called "Safe Passage," and despite what this meager first page shows, this is not faction-biased one way or the other. So please, I ask all of you to just take in each page and let the story take you along. I like the Alliance for my own reasons.
Check out the full version right here, and tune in next Tuesday morning for a new page. You can also see all the previous pages in the gallery below.
Filed under: WoW Insider's Weekly Comic
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Veloxe Sep 14th 2010 5:05PM
If this doesn't star Mankrik...I just won't know how to feel.
cartmensfoe Sep 14th 2010 5:07PM
I was just thinking that!
You actually beat me to it... jerk
Enthis_17 Sep 14th 2010 5:07PM
That drawing of Deathwing is just so full of awesomesauce...
Natsumi Sep 14th 2010 5:19PM
That's not Deathwing, that's Garrosh's ego :D
Gossamer Sep 14th 2010 5:58PM
I don't think it's big enough to be Garrosh's ego.
Takshash Sep 14th 2010 5:08PM
Damn, now that's how you start a comic. Amazing rendition of Deathwing. Reminds me a little of the stylized art of Okami.
Kuro Sep 14th 2010 5:34PM
I'd day more more manga-style than sumi-e...
First thing I thought when I saw deathwing was "very.... Naoko Takeuchi.."
Kaz Sep 14th 2010 6:18PM
@Kuro
Yeah, now that you mention it Deathwing dose kind of look like the Daiyouma.
I'm not sure if that has any significance, but it is a neat observation.
Cadychan Sep 14th 2010 6:24PM
I was (am?) a HUGE fan of Okami, but that's an interesting parallel! If Deathwing looks like anyone/thing, it's purely coincidental. :>
Takshash Sep 14th 2010 6:45PM
The wait for the DS Okamiden is gonna kill me. Style influences aside, your Deathwing and this opening is simply epic.
Cadychan Sep 14th 2010 7:04PM
Thank you! Deathwing was really fun to draw.
I got to play Okamiden at PAX, and let me just say that YOU MUST GET THIS GAME. AT ANY. COST. 8l
WaterRouge Sep 14th 2010 5:10PM
-head explosion-
Natsumi Sep 14th 2010 5:20PM
-Barrens Explode-
fixt :)
jealouspirate Sep 14th 2010 5:21PM
First you state the next comic will be more Alliance centered...
Then there's this page, which appears Horde centric...
Then your little caveat in the post...
What does it all mean?! Now I'm dying to know where this is going!
Amaxe Sep 14th 2010 5:29PM
Looks good (and I admit I was turned off by what seemed to be the pro-Horde bias of Byron). I'll certainly wait on passing judgment.
One question: Is this to be a comedy (which might not be the case going by the first page)? I don't want to embarrass myself by asking where the jokes are if you don't intend them to be there in the first place.
Grumosho Sep 14th 2010 5:39PM
Caddi does both stand alone joke comics as well as long story arcs at WoWeh?
I suppose if you want to generalize the ending of any page is either a Dramatic turn, a transition to continued exposition, or a joke to lighten the mood in the middle of exposition.
Since this is a story there probably wont be jokes at the end of each page. (though maybe something in the middle of the strip)
So like this first page is meant as a setup, so no joke, just dramatic turn to set the stage and mood.
Kunikenwad! Sep 14th 2010 5:54PM
Judging by the amount of time the Alliance spend in the Crossroads on my server, I'm almost convinced that the Barrens is an Alliance zone!
FYI, jerkfaces on Blackwater Raiders ... stop killing muh flightmaster! I'm just trying to level my troll huntard, for cripes' sake!
Gregg Reece Sep 14th 2010 7:11PM
The Horde/Alliance bias is what you make out of it. Every faction thinks that they're the good guys and the other people are the bad guys. That's the way things work.
You could make Byron into a Draenai and make the comic work much the same way going the other direction without it feeling out of place. It would make obvious jokes about the Horde races while having a motley assortment of Alliance races as friends.
The question you need to ask yourself is: Am I having fun reading the story and does it keep me captivated waiting for more?
If the answer to that is, "Yes," then it doesn't really matter which side the story is based on.
...
PS: For the Horde!
PPS: Just kidding.
PPPS: Not really.
PPPPS: Well, kinda. I'm playing Alliance on the Beta though. That's gotta count for something.
RoseClown Sep 14th 2010 6:50PM
...I am the only one who can read fanfiction/fancomics/etc that show my opposing faction in a positive light while my own in a negative one without talking about how biased it is?
I mean, it's not like anyone was particularly evil alliance side. The gnome was cruel, but the author didn't sugar coat the corpse eating thing of the forsaken either.
/sigh
But nooooo, if it is told from a singular sides' perspective then it MUST be biased. -_-
/end rant
Amaxe Sep 14th 2010 8:03PM
Whole lot of people assuming they know my motives for not liking Byron. It's a pity all of them are wrong.
Now personally I love Wow Eh? [I have it on my RSS feeds], and have followed it for some time (now and again you'll see my comments there) so this isn't a case of "Hurr Hurr, Horde comics suck."
What I didn't like about Byron was the extremely lopsided presentation. The Alliance were portrayed as either fools or knaves even though the whole objective point from the Alliance side was defending themselves from a Horde attack and being portrayed as villains for doing so, while the Horde were being portrayed as heroic for doing something they had no right to do in the first place.
(I would have disliked it just as much if it had been "Byron the Draenei Rogue" for that matter if the story had been the same with roles reversed)
So really, can we have the fanboys stop bashing me for expressing my disappointment with the story in Byron and hoping this story will not be similar?