Woot for updates!
When a giant robot won’t solve your problems, clearly the only recourse is a gargantuan robot.
And if we knew how to convert hypocrisy into usable energy, we would never lack power again
Still a good place for a nice, friendly discussion
Woot for updates!
When a giant robot won’t solve your problems, clearly the only recourse is a gargantuan robot.
And if we knew how to convert hypocrisy into usable energy, we would never lack power again
Alright, so today’s update was interesting to say the very least. Black getting caught up on the current situation is fun to watch. Also, who wants to bet that the Black Berry dna experiment will either come up in the next few comics or be an obstacle once mango and company reach area zero. It could be a cool puzzle boss with similar powers to Bleu or her brother. Also, does Chocolate Explosion know about the whole Fafnir Dragons thing? Side note, the way Black reacted to Chocolate’s “warning” reminded me of Bleu. Guess extreme exasperated reactions are hereditary. Speaking of Bleu and relations thereof, it recently occurred to me that if Ginger is Blue’s aunt, then Cherry is Bleu’s cousin. Mango and Bleu have been unknowingly babysitting for Bleu’s aunt this entire time (and doing a pretty crappy job at it, in Mango’s case). If/When Bleu and Mango meet Ginger, they should probably demand some payment or at the very least some pocket change.
“It could be a cool puzzle boss with similar powers to Bleu or her brother.”
Or, it could *be* Bleu or her brother. I’m not saying there’s any evidence to support that hypothesis, but it sure would be funny.
“I can explain!…Wait, no, actually, I can’t explain….Bye!”
So far we have fire dragon, ice dragon, earth dragon, fairy dragon, water dragon, twin dragon, shadow dragon, elder dragon and now…muscle dragon? :p Blackberry looks like he spent the last 4 centuries at the gym.
I think that dr Explosion would have been very satisfied if she’d read this strip. This flat “what” at the end shows that while she failed to stop the Fenix executives she had at least caused them some serious emotional pain…
Alas, poor Weaver…
Alright, new comic today! Gotta say, I kinda forgot about how Square One used anti-gravity to keep their structure standing. Glad to see that Chekov’s Gun fired off. Also, is the choice to use Flan as today’s image foreshadowing? It would be very in keeping with this webcomic’s style of humor to have Vinegar’s suspensions of the iron giant in the ocean being the Square One Lab Mecha turn out to be false in a way that reintroduces a character we haven’t seen in a while. Also, speaking of characters we haven’t seen in a while, as much as I love all this Square One backstory, I’m eager to see how Mango, Bleu, & Cherry and company are doing. Also, I recently watched Project A-Ko and I gotta say, A-Ko’s design kinda reminded me of Mango’s. Is there any connection there. I mean both are super strong red-headed girls with sorta similar hair cuts who have blue haired rivals. Granted, Mango and Blue aren’t fighting over a third party and Bleu isn’t nearly as crazy as B-Ko (though it would be entertaining to see Bleu pilot a mech). Speaking of Bleu, if ginger is Bleu’s aunt, wouldn’t that make Cherry Bleu’s cousin? I wonder if that revelation will effect how Bleu deals with Cherry, considering Cherry seems to respect Mango of all people more than her. Wonder if that could lead to a subplot. In any case, Bleu can and probably will use this as ammo against Mango when pointing out how terrible of a protector Mango is, something along the lines of, “you keep endangering my own cousin,” with Mango point out that they’ve only known that for a day or something. Also, I’ve been considering making my own webcomic based on my own characters, but I’ve been having trouble figuring out the overall plot. Any advice? I feel like I can’t just rush in blind, I need to have some sort of plan for the plot, but at the same time, the more I wait, the more I feel like I’m wasting opportunities. At the very least I have some idea of who I want some of the villains to be and I have settled on a de facto party of six members. Roswitha Roth the cunning and bombastic swordswoman, Edgar Karkadann the wet blanket spearman, Doran Waxwain the brooding and snarky conjurer, Gormlisk Akeldama the dim witted and friendly cleric, Kit Pennyweighter the cowardly and conniving thief, and Calliope Van Trite the optimistic and naive bard. I also have a good idea of how the start of the comic will go. Do you think that’s enough to start with. Either way though, I’ll have to get better at drawing first.
Hey, thanks for the great comment!
(Yes, I’m trying to engage with the messageboard a bit more…)
The choice of Flan for the picture-of-the-day was entirely based on “characters we haven’t seen in awhile”… but you might be onto something. 🙂
Sorry that the Square One backstory turned into a MUCH larger arc than I thought it would, it’s definitely delayed getting back to our main protagonists. I assure you, you’ll see them again soon!
Project A-ko is one of my favourite movies ever, and is definitely one of the core inspirations for Dragon Mango (or at least, my version of it). Even more so, there’s a sequel OVA set in a parallel universe called “Project A-ko: Grey Side” that reimagines A-ko and B-ko as Dirty Pair-esque bounty hunters in space… a lot of people guess that Slayers was the main inspiration for Dragon Mango, but it owes a LOT more to A-ko Grey Side/Blue Side.
( https://imgur.com/3lJ0cr8 should give you a very good idea of what I mean. )
Yes, Cherry and Bleu are indeed cousins. Bleu hasn’t made a big deal about it, but I think she’s probably downplaying this fact hoping that nobody will ask her to babysit. 🙂
Oh, webcomic! Sounds cool! Well, I’m not sure if it’s good advice exactly, but I can tell you a bit about how this comic was written. The way Dragon Mango’s story was written may serve as some inspiration for you, as it might be the kind of thing you’re looking for, both to have things planned out AND not wait too long.
Dragon Mango’s story is broadly complete – we’ve known the GENERAL story since before we started the webcomic. We have detailed notes about the characters, what happens to them, the beginning, the ending, and several of the major events that occur down the line. We actually planned it all out over 20 years ago, before the first comic even went up online.
But the actual comics – what happens in each page, the dialogue, the actions and so on – all of that is made up on the fly as I’m drawing it. It’s a bit like playing a modern RPG – you always have the little quest marker telling you where you’re SUPPOSED to go next, but it’s up to you how to get there, and sometimes you can choose to take a very roundabout route. 🙂
Let’s use the Stalashen story as an example. The fundamental events of Chapter 10 had been planned for years: we knew that Lecithin would demand a human sacrifice, that it would be a prince instead of a princess, and we had the joke about it being a “wuss in distress” instead of a damsel. We also knew that Lecithin would defeat Mango and Berry, and Cherry would come to the rescue with what we called “The Mommy Attack”.
That was IT. All the other stuff – Pumpkin and her team showing up, the seaside setting, Bllud being involved (Bllud Berry was in the notes as a character to introduce “sometime”, but wasn’t originally planned to appear in this story), teleporting via Tarrasque, and the Wuss in question secretly being the Manliest Man in the Multiverse – all of these things were added into the story as it was written.
By doing this, we can still have all the foreshadowing we want (Agent Catalina, and how she was supposedly murdered by Dug, was first mentioned in Chapter 3, which was published in 2004 – TWENTY YEARS AGO!), while still keeping the comic fresh, full of surprises (for us, too), and hopefully interesting!
So with that in mind, I’d say the best way to go about it would be to generally think of what your characters’ ultimate goal is, and where you want the story to be headed, and then work towards that as you tell the story. You’ll get to know the characters better and come up with more ideas for what they can do on the way as you go! For both storytelling and art, the best way to get better at it is by doing! (You may notice a slight difference in the art from when Dragon Mango started to what it looks like now…)
And if you’re not sure, a great way to test it out is to try and draw a little comic for yourself. Don’t put too much effort into the art – just scribble and have fun with it – but see how much you like the results. If you realize some things you need to change, great! You’ve made your story better. If you realize it’s fun and perfect the way it is, also great! You can redraw the comic with cleaner art and release it to the world!
(I hereby confess that most chapters of Dragon Mango, before they go up on the site, start out looking not entirely unlike Cherry’s comics… look at this 🙂
https://www.dragon-mango.com/WhatEveryComicLooksLikeAtFirst.png
Anyway, that’s my two cents. Of course, you should ask many other people for their advice, too, to get lots of ideas and find what’s best for you!
(I might be slightly biased in telling you to just get it out there as fast as possible with the Mango Method, because your comic sound awesome and I want to read it. 😉
Thanks for the peek behind the curtain. I have a friend who might find that writing method very helpful for his own comic. I’d say that’s worth at least four cents, accounting for inflation.
I’ve been thinking:
Could Cupcake be daughter of Chocolate Explosion and Dug? She is a very short, blonde half-elf, a natural engineer, with a stash of rainy day bombs. Seems like a perfect mix of those two… I know Dug never mentioned it when they met, but we cannot rule out that he simply doesn’t know that he is the father.
And while we discuss origin stories, could Bon-Bon be Mr Black Berry, who drunk one of those species-altering potions?
Oh, and while I’m here: is LemonLime half- or full-dragon?
Cupcake being Dug and Chocolate Explosion’s daughter is something I’ve been speculating on for a while now. I mean, even Dug and Cupcake’s hair-colors match. Plus it would explain why Cupcake is so short. What I’m curious about is whether Chocolate Explosion is alive or not. I’d certainly feel bad for Cupcake if she found out her mother really was dead.
I’m not at liberty to comment on your other speculations, but I can answer one of these at least: Lemon and Lime are full-blooded. We’ve seen their dad, Pear, on the high council; their mother, Coconut, hasn’t been officially seen but is also a dragon.
They hatched from an egg as one dragon, and acquired their human form via the Dragon Orb ritual at a young age. Everyone including them was very surprised to find they got two seperate bodies. (It took them a lot of practice to stop falling over and walking into things.)
Gotta say, the most recent issue, as of me writing this, was great! I loved seeing all the various gnome cultures that have sprung up. Also, I noticed there was the symbol of the Foon on the podium one of the gnomes was talking at. I’m curious to see if we’re going to get some backstory on that. It seems important. Also, I feel like there’s some joke to be made with the gears animation about Wumbo, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Also, you may or may not be interested to know that I started doing the “Mango Method” for that webcomic I was talking about. Just out of curiosity, how detailed were your notes on each character when starting Dragon Mango? Did you have notes for most of the characters or just the main ones. Also, did you end up adding any new characters as the webcomic went on?
Hey, sorry for taking all eternity to reply to this. (And update the comic… more soon, I promise!)
Further down the line, you will see more details as to what the deal is with the Foon – though you may have already noted Chocolate Explosion saying that the accident that made Dug immortal involved a kitchen utensil.
I’m glad to hear your webcomic is moving forward, and I hope you’ve made more progress since then than I have. 🙂
The amount of notes we had varied from character to character; some, like Ginger and Cherry, have LOTS of notes, with exhaustive details about their family, background, relationships, future role in the story, and even what shape their egg was! Other characters had a lot less, and became more detailed as the story went on. Some of them had no notes at all and only existed as a character design!
And yes, we absolutely did add extra characters as the story went on. Sometimes we just needed to invent a character to move the story forward (Steve the Wizard, for example). Sometimes we’d have one of the character types mentioned earlier, who had a cool design but no story, and I’d go “this is a good place to use them!”
But I think the most successful example of adding new characters is: literally everyone from the Lolita Knights side of the story! Back when the comic first started, we had plans to release a printed Dragon Mango comic book, and Crystal wanted the twist ending (revealing the true nature of the dragons) to be a surprise. Thus, I was asked NOT to let the webcomic get to the point in the story where the truth was revealed! So in order to give her as much time as possible, I added in an extra chapter that told a story largely unrelated to the main plot – I never imagined those three elf girls would turn out to be as popular as they did! Eventually, they DID get notes written on them, and that’s how Chocolate Explosion found her way into Dug’s backstory. 🙂
I like that the symbol went from W(Wait) to M(Move)
*knocks on nonexistent door* Hello? Anyone there? I can’t wait for the next comic. Doubly so if it involves the majority of the main cast soon. That isn’t to say learning about Square One hasn’t been fascinating, but the main cast’s dynamics are certainly something I’d like to see again soon.
*opens nonexistent door*
Hi, sorry for the wait, real life has kinda been kicking me in the teeth for awhile. Fear not, I’m back… and so are Mango and friends! Since I kinda burned myself out on the Square One flashback (which I WILL go back to conclude after this), I’ve decided to switch gears and do a slightly longer-form Christmas comic over the course of this month. It’s a lot more in-canon than these things usually are, and you’ll be pleased to know it stars “the usual lot”.
Hope you like it!
The Square One flashback will all be worth it if some of those new characters find their way into the main story.
Only slow-learning, unlucky Mango could make noise-induced avalanches a regular occurrence rather than a freak accident. I love Bleuberry’s new outfit.
Gotta say, I like seeing Mango, Bleu, and Cherry again. Also, out of curiosity, what is the Dragon Mango’s equivalent of Christmas called? I ask both due to general curiosity and because I’m having trouble coming up with my own world’s equivalent, which I kinda need to since I plan to have the end of the first arc be at their equivalent to Christmas (there will be some antagonistic golem makers involved so there may or may not be Rankin Bass Christmas special themed golems to go along with the festivities along with some good old fashioned violence). On a related note, I’ve come up with a character for my webcomic that can best be described as a mix between B-Ko from project A-Ko and Naga from Slayers, Vancy-Anne Attor, a rich, blue-haired artificer who’s been obsessed with one-upping the main protagonist, Roswitha Rask, since they were kids. She also is the daughter of the head of the adventurer’s guild and has all the resources she needs to build golems, magitek guns, and the most revealing strength enhancing magic armor imaginable (that last one drives Roswitha insane since she considers it an affront to all things good and armor-y). Just wanted to tell you guys that if you see any resemblance to Bleuberry, its … mostly unintentional, its just that I’m drawing from similar sources. Also, I’ve been re-reading some of the earlier parts of Dragon Mango and I’m wondering if the part from The Goblinvasion on page 11 where Mango and Bleu both have thoughts along the lines of “have I become a monster” regarding the dragons attaining human form via eating people and the dragonslayers’ protection racket will come up again. I mean, it certainly would be an interesting conversation for the two to have given their differing backgrounds and views on the subject. I’m curious if they’ll ever have a full-on conversation about that. Whatever the case may be, I can’t wait for the next comic!
Thanks as always for the comments! Sorry for the slow reply, been a bit busy with Christmas (and a bit of drawing).
The names of the seasons/calendar in Dragon Mango DO exist… somewhere, but I can’t for the life of me remember what they are. Crystal made a quite exhaustive list of such trivia, but I only tend to call upon it when it comes up in the story (and I’m not sure where it is at the moment…) It had a number of interesting features, one of which was the centaurs had their own seperate calendar, which only had four months with different names, based on what the tribe would be doing at that time of the year.
The only calendar event specifically mentioned in the comic itself thus far is “Drakoree”, the anniversary of the dragons’ defeat.
That said, I can at least offer the general advice that something that works well in a fantasy setting is to take an English word or phrase for the situation, and then fancy it up a little bit to make a suitably fantasy-ish word.
So thinking of non-Christian traits of this time of the year, you have the solstice, the first official day of Winter, the approaching end of the year… so names that come to mind might be things like Evernight, Wintersfall, Endersfeast, or Finisanni. (Using dog Latin is a wonderful way to instantly fancy up any nonsense word you want to invent. 🙂
Your characters sound like great fun, and I look forward to reading your comic someday! Don’t be worried about superficial resemblance to existing characters… as you can probably tell, we never worry about that very much in Dragon Mango. 🙂
In all seriousness, taking inspiration from others and putting your own spin on it can produce some wonderful things. I’ve noted that it seems to happen quite a lot in anime, manga and especially light novels, where I’ll often see a character and go, “Oh, this is exactly like XXX from the YYY series…” only to have them suddenly reveal some twist that changes it totally. And I can’t help but think this was because the author was reading the other series, disappointed that this character or situation didn’t turn out the way they’d imagined, and wrote their own story to fix the wasted potential. 🙂
Woops, my reply had already gotten so long, I missed responding to the last part.
Yes, Mango and Berry’s concerns about whether they are or are not monsters (or humans, for that matter) will most definitely come up again quite soon…
Merry Christmas guys, or I suppose belated Christmas based on when I’m writing this. Anyway, the new comic was great. I especially like Bleu’s expression in the third panel, very smug and scheme-y. Also I gotta say, it’s kinda neat to see Bleu and Mango being on a similar wavelength here, with Bleu suggesting they cheat with full confidence that Mango will agree. Just goes to show that they are good friends by this point despite what they both say. Well, that and the fact that Mango’s flames aren’t hurting Bleu, so she clearly doesn’t consider her an enemy, at least not now anyway. Also, I’ve been playing Final Fantasy 1 recently (got the final fantasy 1-6 switch bundle as a gift) and I can definitely see how the magic types in the series influenced your comic’s magic system. Personally for the comic I have planned I mostly intend to draw on d&d and maybe a bit of final fantasy for my magic system, with the magic user classes being based on d&d classes and there being a “class divide” (to use a joke you guys have used) between certain spellcaster classes in nations where magic usage is emphasized. Out of curiosity, how detailed is your magic system? Because I want to figure out how deep in the weeds I need to go for designing my magic system given it’s prevalence in the story. Also, how much of your magic stuff did you directly lift from final fantasy and how much did you make on your own? Any advice or ideas on putting a spin in d&d classes or magic to make it feel more unique (and, incidentally, less lawsuit inducing)?
Merry Christmas to you too, and glad you’re enjoying the comic! I always enjoy reading your detailed comments.
Haha, I’d hoped somebody would notice that detail about the flames. This particular comic, unusually for a Christmas special, probably DOES fit into the canon somewhere (exactly where it goes… I’m not going to commit to chapter numbers, but it takes place after the flash-forward we see at the end of Chapter Four). Even at the present point of the story, Mango and Bleu have been through a lot together, and are definitely closer than either would admit.
The level of detail of the magic system in Dragon Mango is… interesting. There is actually an INCREDIBLE amount of detail to the rules of how magic actually works, but almost none of the characters actually understand it. The actual rules behind what magic is and what makes it work are important to the story (and will actually be partly addressed very soon in the Square One flashback), but have barely been touched on in the comic so far, aside from Allison explaining it to her fellow students in Chapter Five.
Conveniently, because most characters simply DON’T KNOW how magic works, we don’t have to address it until it directly affects the story, where we can drop lore a bit at a time. I just have to be careful not to directly contradict the lore as it’s supposed to be, but it’s fairly easy when most of the magic is jokes.
Mostly, magic appears in the basic form of “wizards cast spells they know”. And most of the time, it’s a VERY direct Final Fantasy reference. All the school uniforms at Berry’s high schools are references to Final Fantasy character classes, as you probably noticed (Bleu is a Red Mage, Sandwich a Black Mage and Colleen a White Mage – and Allison the accountant is a Calculator/Arithmancer, an advanced class from Final Fantasy Tactics.) In fact, I don’t think we’ve EVER seen an actual spell cast in Dragon Mango that wasn’t directly from Final Fantasy. And “Magitek” is a blatant reference to Final Fantasy 6.
Anyway, long story short, the magic system in Dragon Mango is more complex than it seems in story terms, but in practice all we ever see is “wizards say name of spell, spell happens.”
(Unless the wizard in question is Candy).
The one piece of advice I have for making character classes is to think of why they exist in the first place. In Dragon Mango, the reason Berry’s school is dividing wizards into different classes is for the sake of… teaching classes (argh, a THIRD meaning for the word!)
That is to say, there isn’t actually a hard line dividing what kinds of magic each wizard could learn, but because the school is teaching with career paths in mind (“oh, you plan to be in medicine? Well, you’re going to need Healing Magic 101, knowledge about various illnesses and poisons and the spells to treat them, and probably Resurrection just in case anything goes wrong.”) Unlike in Final Fantasy, where for no clear story-defined reason a Black Mage simply CANNOT learn Heal, for example, in the Dragon Mango world wizards tend to specialize for the simple reason that, in terms of education, it’s logical to group magic into categories that match possible practical career choices. (As a Red Mage, Bleu has a lot of electives.)
I imagine something like that could work in your setting, particularly since you plan on having a clear class divide/caste system in place. What kinds of work needs to be done in your world? What kinds of powers would they need to do their job? Moreso, in a world with a rigid social structure, what kinds of powers would the elites ALLOW them to have?
Whew, that was a lot of rambling. I hope some of it was useful.
And thanks for enjoying the comic. 🙂
Heh, I’ve just logged in to ask if Mango not barbecuing Berry was intentional.
Aww, they really do like each other after all!
Happy New Year, may you never forget to brush your teeth!
New update woop woop! Also happy new years. Anywho, this one was great! I love how Mango points out that every “guardian spirit” turns out to be a dragon grifter. Also, have we seen Apple before this? She may have been in one of the *ominously lit royal counsel shots* but I can’t recall. Mango, you may not have become a monster per se, but you are definitely descended from a species of moochers. Also, I find it kinda hilarious that Mango and Bleu had the exact same reaction to seeing Apple at first, right down to having basically the same poses and derpy expressions. I gotta wonder though, would it be incorrect to say Bleu feels more free to be goofy and have dumb reactions around Cherry and Mango since she they don’t have as high expectations for her since Cherry’s a kid and Mango already started off actively disliking her. Also, just to let you know, I emailed some fanart I made of Candy interacting with one of my webcomicOC’s, Doran Waxwain the conjurer, to that dragon mango fanart email. I thought the 2 characters were fitting since both are summoners Just letting you know incase it gets chucked into spam automatically or something. Also, if you don’t mind me asking, what drawing program do you use to make dragon mango? I really like the brush style you guys use, it almost makes it look drawn with pencil at some points.
Thanks as always for the comments!
Yes, we’ve seen Apple a few times, but only in very minor roles. She is indeed there in the shadowy shots (her first appearance is in Chapter One Page 27 – that’s her in the top panel, directly under the word “fight”). We first see her clearly on Page 49 of Chapter Three. Apple was also the council member who talked King Citrus into letting Cherry join Mango on her quest (much to Mango’s distress).
This is our first time seeing her dragon form in the actual comic though! (It’s been the chibi decoration on the main page a few times.)
Bleu is definitely a bit more relaxed around Mango and Cherry, having been through a lot together. This means she’s both free to act a little more lighthearted, and to get MUCH ANGRIER when Mango annoys her. 🙂
Thanks for the awesome fanart! (And for the alert – it was indeed caught by the filter!)
As for the drawing program: Dragon Mango is (still) put together in Macromedia Flash 5, but there are a bunch of other programs involved. Anything that looks cel-shaded (and pretty much everything in the flat black and white comics) is just Flash. The soft-painted bits like the backgrounds and the close-up of Apple in the previous comic are done in Paint Tool Sai, and I sometimes apply effects using GIMP.
And anytime it looks like it was drawn with pencil, it probably was. 🙂 I still do a lot of the art on paper!
Hey, nice job on the most recent comic. Been a while since we’ve seen the old *fafnir exposition art style*. Plus it’s not to overly grandiosely explain draconic protection rackets! Side note, maybe it’s the fact that I recently made fanart of one of them, but I kinda miss the Lolita Knights. I am curious as to how they’ll interact with the main trio without the whole mind control thing. Also, I recently decided to start figuring out the magic system of my setting by figuring out the principles of summoning magic, bardic magic, clerical magic, and ranger/nature magic since those are the types that four of the mcs will wield to varying degrees of proficiency. In the case of summoning, a school of wizard magic, I decided to take a page out of you guy’s book with summoning circles. The idea is that the image in the circle is a way to summon a specific entity or type of entity, the more powerful or specific the entity the more complex the image. There are however symbols which are more general which can be used to summon any type of creature from a particular plane of existence, take for example the classic pentagram for Goetic demons, with the degree of power and ability to keep the summoned entity around and under control being largely dependent on the caster’s power and force of will (think pathfinder magic rules). The other component to the duration of the spell and what, in particular, it summons is reliant on the runes surrounding the key symbol in the center, which outline the parameters of the spell. The final basic principle of summoning is that it’s sympathetic magic, like attracts like. If you want to summon, say, an angel, you should have something that has celestial energy in it, like holy water or be in an area with a high amount of background celestial energy like a consecrated site. In the case of more specific entities such as demon lords, arch devils, arch fey, powerful genies, etc, you’ll likely also need some specific items for offerings or ritual purposes so they don’t vaporize you on the spot. Doran’s main issue with summoning is that he had a VERY AWFUL 9th birthday, which resulted in him being temporarily possessed and permanently mutated by an incorporeal demonic dragon named Abraxas who intended to make Doran into his permanent host. As a result, in addition to gaining some freaky and very recognizable physical mutations, Doran’s body now naturally produces demonic planar energy meaning that his summoning spells default to summoning demons, since the sympathetic magic part is one of the most important parts of summoning magic. Thankfully, Doran’s familiar, Mismir the Albino Mongoose, can somewhat counteract the effects of his demon aura, making so that he only summons demons around 1/8 of the time. Still, Doran, understandably displeased with the whole situation, seems a way to reverse his mutation and become the most powerful and skilled conjurer on the continent. And if he happens to get an opportunity to brutally kill Abraxas along the way, all the better for it! What do you think? I hope I’m not ripping you guys off too badly. Also, just in case my reply to the very nice email you sent me got lost in the spam folder again, here’s the link to my DA account: https://www.deviantart.com/channelsurfer02
Thanks, glad you enjoyed the comic!
Your comic idea sounds really interesting, and I’d very much like to read it. I don’t feel like you’re ripping us off at all, it sounds very original to me! The “sympathetic magic” thing in particular, and how it ties into both his powers and his motivation is very clever.
(There’s no such deep lore reason for Candy’s unique summoning style, she’s simply doing it wrong. 🙂
I did get your mail, and I apologize for taking so long to respond – I’m taking my time to make sure I give it the attention it deserves. Thanks for your patience!
The christmas comic was very cute, and it’s nice to see Mango as a dragon again. All of the dragons spend less time being dragony than I’d prefer, even if I know why it has to be that way.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
Without saying too much, I can say you can look forward to the dragons spending more time being dragony in the near future. 🙂
Yay, more dragon!
Hey, nice update! Gotta love how Mango is piled on with continual, self-inflicted indignities! Also, Bleu is kinda right about how she’s partially a part of a species of leeches. If the story fits in canon, I assume they head back to fafnir at some point and Bleu and Mango touch base on their mutual “have I just become a monster” feelings at some point. Also, gotta wonder if the Star dropping bit will become true. Granted, I doubt every part of what we see of Cherry’s story is accurate, as Lecithin was always kind of a dick as opposed to being made evil by being in space and she mentions Mango and Vinegar almost kissing which seemed a bit odd given the relative lack of narrative scaffolding in place for them to be a thing currently, though I suppose that last one could change (I’m more of a Mango x Bleu shipper myself, but that’s just me lol). Also, thank you guys so much for the mention on the front page. It means the world to me! There’ll be more fanart coming soon too. I have some … ideas I wanna try out. Give you a hint, it may involve Cupcake getting mad at Candy for bungling a summoning.
See ya, Square One, wouldn’t want to be ya
Well, I foresee this ending very badly for Square One! Even if the structure of the tower doesn’t collapse, the Gnomes escaping would probably halt any “technological progress” since it was almost entirely reliant on them. Also, I can’t help but be reminded of the fact that the Claw had a cellphone and also has angel wings like these guys here. Do I detect the scent of a double agent? Also, speaking of plot points from the begining coming back up, are we going to get any follow-up with the new troll king and his plans? Seems like they could interfere with the Square One higher ups’ plans as well as the plans of Phenylalanine.
And now folks, plot twist nobody expected! Square One is secretly run by Torg from Sluggy Freelance!
https://archives.sluggy.com/book.php?chapter=29#2002-04-08
How many times do you need to steal the same person’s DNA?
As many times as you forget where have you stashed it the last time…
Ha! Emergency pants. Nice! Also, why do I get the feeling that we’ll soon see how Bon-Bon was made? I’m guessing either made with DNA from Black Berry or he will be turned into Bon-Bon. Come to think of it, Black Berry being turned into Bon-Bon would be kinda foreshadowed by the idea put forth in Wuss in Distress about Lecithin turning into a pig. Also, Black Berry mentioning coming from Fafnir has got me curious, how exactly did he get from Fafnir to Square One if most people think it no longer exists. Mayhaps Claw has something to do with that, given how he was able to contact Vinegar. Also, when Black Berry mentioned his grand-kids, I first assumed he was talking about Blud and Bleu, but no, he’s talking about Gos and Krahn. So, he’s Bleu’s great grandfather, then. Hmmm, something tells me he’d have a bone to pick with how Goz interacts with his daughter, given Black’s established personality. Kinda wants to make me see how Black Berry and Bleu Berry would interact. Also, come to think of it, was Black around for the rebellion? Or did he miss that by dint of being in Square One? How long ago was the rebellion, actually? Were we ever given a general time frame? Can’t wait for the next comic, by the way!
Since the rebellion was ended by Krahn, by then the greatest warrior in Fafnir, I assume she was all grown up by then, so he must have missed it.
As to how did he end up there… I assume he was sent to verify rumours about Square One’s disappearance, being a dragon he somehow survived the chaotic magic, but it turned out to be one way trip. After their scout never returned the folks in Fafnir decided against sending more expeditions.
Claw probably had something to do with it all, but is he a Square One spy? Or maybe a rebel who escaped from there? Or something else entirely?
Each strip raises more question that it answers. Now that is quality writing!
She did what now? Was she a gnome before, or an elf?
I had to read the last page out loud before I saw what you were doing. Not sure whether to applaud or groan, so have both.
Also, only chaos magic could give rollerskating powers
Hey! Thanks for reading as always!
>Not sure whether to applaud or groan, so have both.
I gratefully accept both. Thank you. 🙂
>Also, only chaos magic could give rollerskating powers
Her powers DO go beyond rollerskating, but the ability to rollerskate with a horse body is indeed a superpower unto itself.
>She did what now? Was she a gnome before, or an elf?
Chocolate Explosion is usually an elf, but used the species-change drug to temporarily become human so she could pilot the robot without dying. (Elves aren’t terribly compatible with iron.)
I don’t blame you for forgetting, I got so slow at updating for awhile that it’s been months since she did that…
Hey, new update! Huzzah!!! Harvesters huh, so that answers my question as to how Blackberry got to square one. Also, it took me a hot minute to figure out the joke with the centaur tribe names. Granted, I still don’t get what the “Vale of Dreams” is a reference to and what it has to do with games that are UK exclusive, but that’s neither here nor there. Also, I love that Chocolate Explosion straight up thought that all the centaurs, faeries, dragons, etc just came from downstairs. Truly, the most brilliant mind of her generation! Also, now that we’re seeing Chocolate Explosion, I can see how Cupcake got to be the way she is. Also, I’ve been re-reading Dragon Mango and I’m curious how well the three Lolita Knights and Mango, Bleu, and Cherry know each other by now, considering how much the former tries to kidnap Cherry on a routine basis. I wouldn’t be surprised if Candy let some personal details slip during at least some of the fights. Also, I just started watching Scrapped Princess after finishing another anime (ROD the TV if you’re curious) and funnily enough, the character of Leopold Scorpos has a surprisingly similar hairstyle to Mango and a personality similar to Flan only more comedic in nature. Also, one more thing, would you mind terribly if I were to write a fanfic based on Dragon Mango? I’ve had this idea rattling around in my skull for the past however long and since I recently started writing a fanfic based on ROD the TV, I figured why not give it a shot? The fanfic would be about the various groups (ie Mango and Company, The Lolita Knights, Pumpkin and her party, etc) each independently traveling to “The Mountain of Uncomprehending Terror” in which lives an entity that lives to cause inflict horrible hallucinations on those traveling through his mountain. Unfortunately, he sucks at his job, since he keeps basing his hallucinations on entirely wrong assumptions of the characters’ relationships based on what he observes of them or is entirely off base about their fears. For instance, the monster sees Mango and Bleu arguing and assumes they’re a couple since all fantasy couples argue vehemently and bases his hallucinations off of that, to which Mango points out that she doesn’t swing that way and Bleu points out that she actually has standards. Naturally, a fight ensues. Or the monster thinking Pumpkin is insecure about her sword skills like Candy is about her summoning (which he fittingly enough also gets dead wrong). Whaddaya think? Also, out of curiosity, do any of the Dragon Mango cast have any particular phobias?
>Hey, new update! Huzzah!!!
As always, thanks for reading and your epic comments!
>Harvesters huh, so that answers my question as to how Blackberry got to square one.
Although I’m not sure if I’ll have time to reveal this in the comic itself, Black Berry was in Square One before the disaster happened. (He was an ambassador from Fafnir, and got trapped there after the meltdown.)
If they’d realized he was a dragon he probably would have ended up in a tube, but he kept it secret. (From his appearance, he was assumed to be some kind of devil, which is why they gave him a job in middle management.)
Chocolate Explosion was in a similar sort of situation, although she just went there to go shopping.
>Granted, I still don’t get what the “Vale of Dreams” is a reference to and what it has to do with games that are UK exclusive, but that’s neither here nor there.
If you want to understand exactly where the centaurs’ names come from (and why the Vale of Dreams), try googling “Ice Crystal UK Exclusive” or “Melody Rollerskates UK Exclusive” and be prepared to groan. 🙂
(Yes, this has been the naming scheme since the beginning – and yes, every centaur is designed to resemble their namesake in some way.)
>I’m curious how well the three Lolita Knights and Mango, Bleu, and Cherry know each other by now, considering how much the former tries to kidnap Cherry on a routine basis.
Still not that well, because their encounters tend to be very short and very violent. They probably know each others’ names by now, and have some idea of one anothers’ powers (but unfortunately for the Lolita Knight trio, they still have no idea Cherry can pfft…)
>funnily enough, the character of Leopold Scorpos has a surprisingly similar hairstyle to Mango
Fun! Then again, if Scrapped Princess is from the late 90’s/early 2000’s, it’s not surprising… Dragon Mango kind of started out as a parody/loving tribute to anime of that time period, so there are rather a lot of characters who have some design elements in common with our heroine. First time I’ve heard this one, though!
(The most common comparison is Lina Inverse. Strangely, nobody ever mentions Popful Mail…)
>Also, one more thing, would you mind terribly if I were to write a fanfic based on Dragon Mango?
Not at all! Nobody needs my permission to write a fanfic, and your idea sounds like great fun. You’ve got a really good handle on the characters too (Mango and Bleu’s reaction is pretty much exactly what I’d have written in that situation!)
>Also, out of curiosity, do any of the Dragon Mango cast have any particular phobias?
Strawberry Cheesecake is terrified of sheep. It was actually intended to come up in the comic’s story, but ended up being cut for time because it would have been a nightmare to draw. (I posted the script on the old messageboard at one point). But if you ever wondered why Lord Sherbert was eagerly about to press a button labeled “sheep” back in 4:19, that’s why. 🙂
(The cut sequence was a Lord of the Rings parody, in which Cheesecake and Mr Tea Biscuit face down the terrible Baa-rog, which may or may not have had wings…)
Ah, an MLP G1 reference. Huh, go figure. I guess that’s why I didn’t get the reference– I only got into MLP through G4. Also I do have another fanfic idea for Dragon Mango, wherein Mango, while traveling with Bleu and Cherry, comes across a magic item which Bleu identifies as a Bangle of Brilliance which increases one’s intelligence. Naturally, she immediately slaps it on Mango in the hopes of making her totally-not-a-friend-baka less … well, let’s be nice and say slow. It seems to work, however, unbeknownst to Bleu, the item she found is actually the vessel of a demonic spirit which takes control of Mango’s body, pretending to be her but smarter. Essentially, the plot would be one of those, learn to appreciate people regardless of their intelligence sorta stories, with the demonic spirit, after being exposed, trying to convince Bleu to let her keep possessing Mango since she would just continue causing problems and that Bleu clearly finds Mango annoying, so why not let someone else take over. The whole thing would culminate with Bleu and Cherry doing a classic ‘we want our idiot back’ scene, with Mango fighting back from the inside. I could probably also have the Lolita knights attack at some point as well, with some harebrained attempt to kidnap Cherry giving Bleu some clues about Mango actually being possessed. In short, the whole fic would focus on Bleu’s slowly warming (heh, get it, cause she’s an ice dragon and Mango is a fire dragon) relationship with Mango and her learning to be a bit more patient when Mango screws up. Thoughts?
Hey guys, good news. I’ve been making some progress on the first fanfic idea I mentioned here. Here’s the first paragraph:
“The forests outside of Fafnir were, in the eyes of some, wild and lawless. This was only partially true; the forests were indeed wild, but far from lawless. Nature, after all, has a certain pecking order to it, every plant and animal playing its part, from the greatest oak to the smallest rodent. On the whole, nature tended to prefer things nice and orderly. This, perhaps, goes a long way to explain why Bleu Berry kept getting smacked in the face by errant shrubbery as she barreled through the well-oiled cogs and gears of nature like a cannonball careening through a clock tower. “
Hey guys, happy Ides of March! I hope you’re all celebrating in whatever way you all see fit! Also I’ve been Re-reading the earlier parts of the comics and I noticed one of the forests by Fafnir is named something to the effect of “forest of monkeys who throw rocks at people riding dragons (but not at the dragons themselves)” and it was apparently named by the explorers who discovered Fafnir. So, my question is, was the human-dragon contact during the discovery of Fafnir or was it a situation like in the comic where it was a human-form dragon slayer riding on a dragon shaped dragon slayer? Also as I’m writing this, I just realized I could totally include a joke in that Dragon Mango fanfic I’m writing wherein the spirit of the mountain uncomprehending horrors mistakes Mango and Berry arguing about how uncomfortable it is to ride each other for … well, the obvious thing it would be mistaken for if taken out of context. Also, in the spirit of the holiday, are there any zany assassination shenanigans in the history of Fafnir? Well, other than the obvious of Raisin trying and failing to assassinate Cherry!
“LAAA!”
Sometimes you just prefer a song with simple lyrics
Hooray, a new update! A few days late writing this but better late than never! Anyway, the Eukei Exclusives showing off their powers is really cool. I especially like the shot of fireball standing behind those explosions, reminds me of that one scene from Ironman. Also, Melody has sound based powers … wait did they name themselves after their powers or did their powers just so happen to be fitting with their names through sheer coincidence? Either way, can’t wait for the next update! Also, this may just be me, but I can’t wait to see Mango and company again. It’s been a while (actually, why do I get a feeling you’ll make a joke about that once we get back to the main cast). One more thing, did you guys get the email I sent you? Just want to make sure it didn’t get lost in spam.
It’s like the old question of which comes first for ponies: The on-the-nose name or the prophetic cutie mark
Hey, thanks as always for the comments. Glad to hear you enjoyed the update! I spent quite a lot of time drawing the panel with Fireball and the explosions, so I’m pleased to hear it looked cool.
Regarding the Eukei’s names vs powers: here’s a minor lore drop that didn’t make it into the comic because things are dragging out enough as it is. The Eukei have a tradition for naming their children. As a child they are given a temporary name (which is usually a physical descriptor, such as “Greenie” or “Scruffy”). Once they are old enough, they are sent on a quest out of the valley into the irradiated land, tasked to bring back something from the ruined city. This is their passage into adulthood, and upon their return they are granted their “true name”, derived from whatever abilities they awakened to up there. (Those who leave the valley to go on this quest are referred to as “Mountain Boys” – which just happens to be the UK exclusive MLP set that Ice Crystal and Fireball were part of. 🙂
(Melody was too young to have done this at the time she was kidnapped, but she was given her name by the others, based on the powers she had after she came out of the tube.)
Frederick Squirrel is right, it’s a lot like the cutie mark conundrum!
We’ll be back to Mango and Berry soonish, hopefully in under a month. I’ll try to draw fast.
(And yes, got the email – sorry for the wait!)
Hey, April fools day comic! Nice!!! Gotta say, as a fan of some isekai (mostly Re: Zero, Konosuba, & Youjo Senki) I gotta say, the parody here is spot on. Also, love that the usual chibi on the webpage is replaced with infamous slaughterer of adolescents, Truck-Kun! Also, also, with Re: Zero season 3 wrapping up and this talk of isekai in Dragon Mango, it kinda makes me wanna make some fanart of Candy accidentally summoning the Great Rabbit from Re: Zero. You know, the one that is a self-replicating rabbit monster that devours anything and anyone with the faintest hint of magical energy in them? The ones that ate Natsuki Subaru alive from the inside out? Those ones? Yeah, I’m imagining the Lolita Knight Trio fighting some generic enemy, only for Candy to try and use her time honored strategy of Zerg Rushing the enemy with bunnies and looking on in horror as they are devoured alive offscreen, with Eclair about to vomit and Cupcake looking star-y eyed and muttering “awesooooome” under her breath. Speaking of fanworks, actually, my Dragon Mango fanfic has, within the last few days, reached over 1000 words, and I haven’t even finished the set up for the first chapter! Suffice it to say, writing it is a blast! Also, out of curiosity, did you get my email? The one with the screenplay attached to it? Just wanted to make sure it didn’t end up in the spam folder. Anyway, great work as always and I can’t wait to see more!
No way, Cherry is 8? I thought she was 6.
Technically, she’s officially 21 thanks to dragon attack induced archival chicanery! Huzzah for technicalities!
Hey, great to hear we’ll be getting a new comic soon. Hip hip hooray! Also, you might be happy to know that I’m still working on that Dragon Mango fanfic. It’s slow going but I’m working on it. Also, I’ve been considering turning the webcomic I’ve been planning, Journeymen Chronicles, into a webserial instead. So it would be a solely written thing instead of a comic. Don’t get me wrong, I love webcomics and all, but my talents in writing FAR exceed my talents in drawing and the time it takes to get better at drawing could be spent further honing my writing skills and, you know, actually getting my story off the ground. Do you guys think that’s a good idea? On that note, I actually came up with a fun worldbuilding idea while on a walk yesterday about how dark elves work in the world of Journeymen Chronicles (which I have dubbed Rubedo, after the alchemical concept). Specifically, dark elves primarily live above ground in a series of huge cities in a desert. They usually come out at night to avoid the desert heat and have a strong military and mercantile tradition, being generally fairly cosmopolitan. However, there are dark elves who resent the other types of elves (high elves and wood elves) because of events in the distant past. See, the desert dark elves inhabit wasn’t always a desert. Originally it was a vast forest, however, when the elves performed a ritual to give their gods a domain in the outer planes and, by extension, proper afterlife for elven-kind, the forest that dark elves lived in was ripped away to form the plane of Alfheim, leaving their land a wasteland. Thus, some resent the other elves who they feel got off easier, though less so in the case of the high elves, since the forests and oceans on the moon also got taken to form Alfheim. Also, there are dark elves that live underground, as a punishment in dark elf society is to banish criminals to subterranean penal colonies. As you may be able to tell, I took a wee bit of inspiration from the elves in dragon mango, what with the desert home and penchant for warriors. Also, I’m giving Elves a weakness to iron, since I feel compelled to give elves SOME weaknesses, which is also a thing you guys did. Anyway, can’t wait to see more from Dragon Mango!
That’s a really cool setting, and your Dark Elves and High Elves sound a lot less ridiculous than the ones in our world (who are just edgelords and stoners, respectively.) We actually haven’t seen any dark elves officially in Dragon Mango yet (other than the mention that Candy’s dad is one), but they live underground, consider themselves extremely grim and serious, and are named after health foods.
Your dark elves sound much cooler. 🙂
And elves and faeries being vulnerable to iron is a pretty long-standing tradition in mythology, which I don’t see used enough in Current Year comics, so I’m glad to see someone else using it!
As for serial vs comic: it’s worth considering. One of the beautiful things about the internet is that it lends itself very well to writing things in hybrid format; you don’t actually have to restrict yourself to any one medium! Dragon Mango is MOSTLY a comic, but there are brief bits of animation scattered here and there, and there are a couple of pages that come dangerously close to being novels 🙂 (Bleu vs Ice Crystal in Chapter 3 comes to mind…) And we had a project going for awhile that kind of fell through but I still have a soft spot for… it was called “Stella Nera”, and it was a hybrid of webcomic, cartoon and video game. Perhaps I should revisit it sometime now that everyone’s got ridiculously fast internet…
Anyway, something you could try would be having a hybrid multimedia project. Have some of it be text stories, perhaps with the occasional illustration, and have some parts of it be full-fledged comics when you have time to draw or have a bit that you think will work better as a comic. You can experiment with other media too!
Just a thought. And yes, more Mango soon, I promise!
At last! An update! This Friday keeps getting better, I tells ya! Gotta say, the gag page is hilarious, though I have to wonder what the more unusual looking mutants look like if an octopus-tyrannosaurus rex hybrid is considered tame. What, would they be shoggoths or something? Also, I’m of the opinion that a T-Rex with the intelligence and tentacles of an octopus would be the most terrifying animal imaginable. Sounds like the sort of Chimera you’d see in Fullmetal Alchemist (which I have, incidentally, been binge watching like crazy for the past week or so).
Also, as the end of the square one flashback arc draws nearer, I must say, I can’t wait to see Mango and Bleu and the others again. It’s actually kinda funny, I started getting into Dragon Mango when this arc just started, and now it’s nearing its end. I finished my entire college career before this arc ended. Funny how time works, you know?
Also, good news, I have decided to still go through with the webcomic. My current goal is to have the thing started by the end of summer. I just have to put the pedal to the metal on extensive worldbuilding and character arc mapping and, most importantly, making an outline of the plot. I’m damn excited! Oh, right I’m also still working on the Dragon Mango fanfic! Anyway, can’t wait to see you guys update soon!
Argh! That’s a bit horrifying to think of just how slow I’ve been updating the comic during this arc. Time to power through this last bit and get back to what our heroines are up to!
Nonetheless, I hope you all enjoy the conclusion to this arc, even if it’s dragged out a bit…
And good luck! I look forward to seeing what kind of world you’ll create!
When true chaos magic is too hard, you can usually make do with disarray magic
I honestly wish I had some magic to create LESS disarray, then maybe I’d be a bit more organized…
Say, out of curiosity, did the shantae franchise play any role in the creation of the Aspartame Desert elvish society? I just started playing Shantae and the Seven Sirens and I visited Turkey (among other places) relatively recently, so I’m curious if there is any connection. Considering the Shantae series’ penchant for fanservice and Arabian Nights aesthetic, it does coincide with Aspartame’s architecture and the Lolita Knights tendency towards skimpy clothing. Anyway, can’t wait for the next comic!
Yes, definitely! I’ve always loved Shantae, and just bought the new “lost” game on Switch. If I ever have time to play it 🙂
Although, as with Dragon Half below, some of the elements of Shantae happened to just coincide with Dragon Mango. At the time the original Lolita Knights story was published, only the very first Shantae game had been released (on the GBC). The setting was a mix between Shantae and Quest for Glory 2, and I decided to differentiate it a bit by throwing in some steampunk – hence why Aspartame has always had the Arabian-Nights-but-with-industrial-framework-and-fans-everywhere look.
…Needless to say, I was a bit taken aback when Pirate’s Curse had the Ammo Baron take over Scuttle Town, and the look of it during reconstruction seemed a bit familiar. 🙂
Hi guys! Just finished watching Dragon Half and I gotta say, I can definitely see where Dragon Mango got its inspiration. Mango is a lot like Mink, only less naive and Bleu is a lot like Vina (especially in terms of their outfits). Plus there’s the presence of anachronistic elements in both and the fighting tournament. Plus Priestess Raisin fulfills a similar role to Rosario. Also there’s the times in Dragon Half where the characters go full chibi mode, which Dragon Mango definitely replicates.
Also, as an aside, Dragon Half has inspired the characterization of one of my characters, specifically I plan to draw inspiration from Dick Saucer for my character Vortigern Cernunnos, the crown prince of the elf kingdom of Cernunnos, who, in addition to being heir apparent to the throne, is also a famous actor, musician, and song magus (basically a mage that uses bard magic).
Haha, believe it or not, a LOT of that is pure coincidence.
Dragon Mango was already largely written at the time that Dragon Half came out, and Crystal was absolutely HORRIFIED by the shocking resemblance. Not only of the main character (although at the time, Mango’s heritage was supposed to be a surprise), but the supporting cast, the climax of the story taking place at a big combat tournament which the heroine wins by punching her rival out of the arena, and there’s even a little imp named Dug!
That said, I loved Dragon Half and its sense of humour. I think my favourite gag in the whole anime was where Dug insists he’s there to take revenge on Mink, Mink doesn’t understand why, and he actually gets out the video of episode one to remind her, only to find out they cut all his scenes. And then screams that he doesn’t care about story continuity, he’s gonna kill her anyway. That kind of blatant fourth wallery turns up in Dragon Mango all the time. 🙂
Thankfully, the two stories have diverged quite a bit by now, so it’s only the early bits of DM that really resemble Dragon Half. It’s a WEIRD coincidence, but I guess a lot of the elements (the bitchy rival, the turning chibi all the time, the fighting tournament) were just very common in anime in the 90’s.
(Not midgets named Dug, though…)
Anyway, even if it wasn’t an intentional inspiration, Dragon Half is great. I love the author’s art style and sense of humour. (He has another manga, Darkhair Captured, that’s also brilliant, although sadly it never got animated.)
Had to look up Dragon Half (not so easy to find these days) and the parallels are hilarious. You should definitely work the dry ice gag in there somewhere. And maybe a humanoid ooze.
Good call on forging ahead with the story you were ready to tell. Backstory is great, but the dragon girls are the heart and what probably hooked most of us in the first place. I am curious though, when you do come back and finish up chapter 11, will you insert it between 11 and 12, or call it 13, or put it at the end but call it 11.2, or what?
Thanks! I’ll try to be more efficient with my storytelling on this chapter. 🙂
For Chapter 11, I intend to do the same thing I did for Chapter Two – it’ll stay in the index as it is, incomplete, for awhile.
When the conclusion is posted, I’ll make an announcement on the main page and leave the link up for awhile, but it’ll just remain in the index as the latter half of Chapter 11. There won’t be a break in the story, it’ll just continue from page 43 onwards.
(For those interested, the break in Chapter Two occured between Page 29 and Page 30.)
Hell yeah! Dragon Mango is BACK BABY! Woo hoo! Alright, now for my usual rant/spiel.
First, I can’t say I’m surprised that none of the main cast knows how to operate this airship. I mean, Fafnir isn’t exactly that technologically advanced (presumably due to the wide spread use of magic rendering a fair amount of technological development redundant plus the dragon government probably suppressing some stuff in the name of preserving the Great Swindling). Speaking of technology in fantasy world building, I recently came up with an in universe explanation for anachronisms in the world of Crown Chaser Chronicles, specifically it’s that the original god of time, Ludd, was killed by the god of invention and innovation in an event called the Theomachy, wherein several of the gods were dragged down to the material world by a cabal of archmages invoking the power of the original creator of reality. However, Ludd also took the god of invention down with him, so as consequence, the invention of certain things got scrambled in the timeline (there are also adherents to Ludd still around who take it upon themselves to destroy anachronistic technology, believing it to be heretical; they call themselves … Luddites).
Also, are radios common in the Dragon Mango world, or was Bleu just able to figure out the technology herself. If it’s the former, then you’d think they’d message Fafnir that the dragon has been disposed of. Also, is Princess Awesome gonna join the cast as a fusion of Princess Peach and Cid from FF7? Cause that is one hell of a way to give her a bigger role, since I recall you guys mentioning that you had planned for her to have a bigger role than she ended up getting. Also, it’s just great to see the main trio again. I love their dynamics, especially with stuff like the last panel, where you see all three of them with very different reactions (great work on the faces btw, simultaneously adorable and hilarious).
Also, cool to hear I was right on the money on the Shantae (the dessert desert and sequinland are pretty similar) plus the humor of Dragon Mango can be pretty similar to Shantae and I mean that in the best possible way (the new game is a riot by the way, I’m almost done). One more thing, I’m still planning out the ol’ webcomic and plugging away at the fanfic. Hopefully I’ll get the webcomic all planned out by December. As for the fic, I’m around 3000 words, so that’s something! Anyway, glad to see the comic’s return and can’t wait to see more of Mango, Bleu, and Cherry!
Hey, it’s great to be reading your rants again!
Ha, Luddites – that’s great.
Bleu hasn’t used a radio before, but she spent the last three hours reading technical manuals trying to figure out how to drive the airship, so she has at least some idea how SOME of the functions work. I don’t think she expects anyone to have a radio in Fafnir (though it’s not inconcievable that Claw might.)
As you correctly observed earlier, Fafnir is a bit lower technology than some of the surrounding areas, and your guesses why are largely accurate. Eagle-eyed readers may have spotted at least one piece of evidence from earlier in the comic that Fafnir actually USED to have a much higher level of technology that has been suppressed by the dragons for obvious reasons.
As for letting Fafnir know about the result of the Stalashen battle – Lecithin is PRESUMED dead, but Bleu is genre savvy enough to know that declaring him a solved problem would doubtless result in him reappearing immediately.
…That’s pretty much where Princess Awesome is going, yes. 🙂
Glad to hear you’re enjoying the comic so far, and I agree – it’s nice to have the main trio back (even if I’m a bit out of practice at drawing them!)
Hey, its been awhile and since the comic updated, I thought I’d leave some comments.
I just want to say I hope you can find a way around your writers block in regards to the aftermath of Square 1. Its quite obvious, to a certain point that Chocoexplosion fled to the dessert desert. Considering the time skip between then and now, its likely the scientists and other escapees either created their own settlement in an area as far from Square 1 as they could while still keeping in contact with the “Good” Dr. It does make me wonder if perhaps Cupcake isn’t a fusion of Black berry and Choco-Explosion’s own DNA. Or maybe she had her with Doug the Gnome.
As for the Mango and the airship; radios are steam age technology, so it wouldn’t be that hard to replicate. Especially if its a toy for the rich. I like how making Princess Awesome the pilot for the ship allows you to expand on her character. Since she didn’t play a big role in the fight against Lechin. However, this does cause a bit of a corundum. Its been mentioned before that ships are attacked whenever they get close to the island where the warior dragons may be on. How do you plan to deal with the whole Dragon Slayers are actually dragons issue to Princess Awesome? The whole point is for Mango and Blue to train with Ginger. Which means they need a way to get back. So they’ll need the airship to remain around the island.
Finally, there is a loose thread in regards to Steen and Passion. Eventually, they’ll want Passion to participate in the Dragon Slayings. Which will likely reach Steen who will come to Fafnir seeking information about wither that dragon was the one that “killed” his wife. Leading to a confrontation. This is just one of many thoughts on how this could happen. Now while I think Phenylalanine may try to turn Steen’s appearance to her advantage, I honestly believe that Steen being a seasoned monster hunter, would have ways to see through illusions. As such he’d likely just brush past her in search of the dragon who took everything from him.
A more silly outcome involves him kidnapping Passion as some sort of revenge for everything she has put him through emotionally. As well as him having soiled his honor by killing dragon hatchlings, which were innocent children. With Passion being quite happy to see him and all for the kidnapping because she’s lonely without anyone in in the nest. Leading to some awkward conversations with other characters and npcs.
Hey, thanks for the epic comment!
Also, thanks for the encouragement. It’s both writers and artists’ block, as I know what needs to happen, but actually drawing it is a pain and a half. As I’ve said before, it was a bit of a mistake to allow the plot to proceed in a direction that caused a huge battle to break out involving a very complex building sized giant robot, a group of centaurs when I’m bad at drawing horses, and several dozen detailed flying machines all of which have to look distinct from each other and clearly be employing different forms of technology. 🙂
Your observations about Princess Awesome are accurate… her involvement did indeed come about partly as an apology to her for her lack of action in the previous chapter, but also as a side effect. (I had planned forever that the opening gag for this chapter would be that Mango and Berry don’t know how to fly an airship, but originally just intended for Bleu to figure it out and be able to fly it… badly. However, it streamlined things a lot to have someone actually come along, and as mentioned earlier Princess Awesome actually works well for a couple of things that need to happen in the plot later.)
How we’ll deal with the Dragonslayers’ secret… well, you’ll find out on the next page. Expect the solution to be very, very irresponsible. 🙂
As for the last part – those are some very interesting thoughts on Steen, and all I’ll say is you’ll just have to wait and see. He’s definitely going to appear again.
Alright, new comic! Gotta say, I am LOVING the new design for Princess Awesome. Really does feel like a fusion of Princess Peach and Cid (also the body suit is certainly, ahem, easy on the eyes, let’s say). On a related note, you guys had fun with that last panel, didn’t you? Well, you won’t hear me complaining! Can’t wait to see what her dynamic is with the rest of the cast. Especially Bleu, since Awesome seemed to have some sort of rapport or pre-existing connection with her brother, plus given Bleu’s implied preferences and the non-distressed damsel’s … let’s say Shantae-esque design, it could lead to some interesting reactions on Bleu’s end. Also, as an aside, I really like her hair style, to the point where I might use it as a reference for the hairstyle of my webcomic’s protagonist, Roswitha Rask, since it has a sort of untamed spunky-ness to it that fits Roswitha’s character while still leaving ample room for headgear/hats. Speaking of designs, its neat to see the main trios’ casual clothes and in color no less! Also, it occurs to me that Cherry’s outfit looks kinda like a boyscout/girlscout uniform crossed with a sailor fuku, what with the green and yellow color scheme. Back to today’s comic though, I also really like the animation you guys did for the air ship. What program did you use to make it, out of curiosity? The ship looks really cool, like you took a 2d drawing of it and turned it into a 3d model. One more thing, I’m still working on the Dragon Mango fanfic. Having fun with it, but its slower going than I would like. That said I’ve been working on it tonight and will work on it tomorrow! Still trying to come up with some stuff for the dream sequence/hallucination. I’m thinking somewhere between shoujo ai manga and a mexican soap opera with a good amount of forest of cosmic enlightenment artistic sensibilities thrown in for good measure, with Bleu and Mango in the leading roles, much to their dismay, flusteration (in Mango’s case), and offense at assumption of low standards (in Bleu’s case)! Anyway, great work! Can’t wait to see more!
Thanks as always for the comments and encouragement!
Glad you approve of Princess Awesome’s design, and I’m also having fun seeing how she interacts with the rest of the cast. I hope their adventures together continue to be entertaining! (Full disclosure – her hair is the way it is simply because Princess Peach’s hair is impossible for me to get right… and my attempt to draw it became its own distinct character! Though she’s evolved from that starting point, and now she’s turned into this weird fusion of Peach, Penelope Pitstop, and Doctor Eggman…)
I look forward to seeing the evolution of Roswitha’s hair. 🙂
Glad you approve of the dragonslayers’ casual outfits! Mango’s and Cherry’s have been fairly consistent for awhile, but Bleu seems to wear something different every time. Well, her family’s rich, so it’s not just that I can’t settle on a style that suits her. 🙂 (What she’s wearing right now might be the St. Belnades red mage summer uniform…)
As for the animation, you’re correct! It’s actually a drawing converted to a 3D model and then back into a drawing. 🙂 There’s a great website called meshy.ai that can create 3D models from artwork, so I used that to create a model of the airship that can be moved around. I then ran the 3D model animation through a filter using my original drawing as a base, that made it look (sort of) hand drawn. And the sky and clouds and other effects were animated in Flash, which I still use for almost everything. 🙂
Looking forward to more of the fanfic! I shall try and write more detailed comments later.
Hope you enjoy the new comic!
I most certainly did enjoy the new comic! Also, regarding the fanfic, I did send you guys more of it via email relatively recently if I recall. Just telling you here in case it got chucked in the spam folder. Also, if you don’t mind me asking, if I recall correctly, Frances knows that Dragon Slayers are Dragons, right? I’m pretty sure that was sorta established back in goblinvasion, so I’m curious as to how she learned that and how it effected her and Mango’s friendship after she learned that. Assuming, of course, that she did and I’m not misremembering.
That airship is really booking. What is all that exhaust, and why does it glow? Looks like magic
I actually DID write a bit that explained how the airship worked, but ended up trimming it out of the comic as it was already quite long and I wanted to move things along. So here, for everyone’s entertainment, is the answer to your question explained by our heroines… (in script form, because I am quite tired of drawing right now for some reason 🙂
MANGO:
So how does this thing fly, anyway?
PRINCESS AWESOME:
Oh, so the big balloon above us is filled with “hydrogen”-
CHERRY:
What’s a hydrogen?
PRINCESS AWESOME:
Um, it’s this stuff that’s invisible and weighs less than nothing and goes BOOM if you set it on fire.
BLEU:
What.
CHERRY:
I think I like hydrogen!
PRINCESS AWESOME:
So the hydrogen fills the balloon and cancels out our weight to make us fly. And then it gets pumped down tubes to the engines at the bottom which ignite it and blow it out the back. Which creates energy and makes us go really, really fast.
MANGO AND CHERRY:
Wow!
BLEU:
Wait, wait, hang on – if you’re shooting this stuff out of the back, how come the balloon is still full? What’s making all this extra hydrogen?
PRINCESS AWESOME:
Magic.
BLEU:
Oh, whew.
That’s the first part of this explanation that’s made any sense.
I have to agree with Dungeon that Princess Awesome does look like a cross between Princess Peach, Cid, and Shantae. Though I disagree with anything that is in regard to Bleu, Mango, or any other character where their personal preferences aren’t clearly stated. Better to let the story go where it may, instead of trying to forcibly ship characters. The only female character that I’ve seen her really interact with is Peaches and that was more of an elder sister relationship if anything. As Peaches hadn’t had anyone around her age to really connect too.
Returning to Steen, my thoughts of how he ends up returning to Fafnir is either for revenge or curiosity. Fafnir is known to be famous for its Dragonslayers. So its likely that there’s some sort of way for news about what’s going on in Fafnir to make it to the outer kingdoms. Either through word of mouth or newspaper. The newspaper would be easier due to having pictures. So either news about Mango, daughter of Passion winning the tournament makes it to him. Or news of a dragon resembling the one that killed his wife. Either way, that would be the catalyst with which would make him return to Fafnir, regardless of his shame.
I do however, wonder about Passion’s family and wither or not her parents are still around. Part of her happiness with returning to the citadel is having reconciled with them. With Mango’s new position smoothing things over. I also wonder if Passion, persuasion to flee from her problems have to do with her childhood or familiar nature. As even Mango, who takes after her father has a bit of an issue with running away from her problems.
Hmmm. Yeah, fair point about what I said there. Not sure what I was thinking when I wrote that part.
Also, you make a good point about Steen learning about Mango or Passion via medieval mass media. Although, it is entirely possible that Passion might be trying to stay out of the limelight. Who knows, maybe the Dragon Slayer government prohibits the photography of Dragons in newspapers. It would track with their tendency towards repressing details deemed inconvenient for their scam. That or Steen is just the sorta person that doesn’t read the news.
If Passion was staying out of the limelight, I don’t think she was doing it on purpose. Within the Kingdom she was incredibly infamous for running of with Steen and then abandoning him to come back. Had she returned to Fafnir with Steen its likely Passion wouldn’t have been treated as badly culturally. At least that’s the impression I get from Pamplemousse. However, I do think that, now that Passion has returned to the “fold”, so to speak she will be expected to participate in the dragonslaying. Either as the dragon, or the dragonslayer.
Which is why I think eventually news of Passion, or her dragon form will reach Steen in one way or another. Regardless of Steen’s interest in the news. Though I think he’d keep an ear out on all dragon related news even if it comes from Fafnir.
Another loose thread that has reached my attention is the death and resurrection of Agent Vinegar. Since he died and then brought back, is there a possibility that the bomb placed in his cybernetics no longer works? As it could be a trump card used against the Fenix corp board of directors. Whom I consider the end game enemy over the ancient dragons.
I won’t comment too much on all the interesting speculation in this thread because everyone’s having fun, but I will chime in on points I can clarify without spoiling too much…
Dragons ARE covered in the local newspapers in Fafnir, but actual photography is very rare. Hand-drawn illustrations that can be easily reproduced with limited printing technology are more common, and the artists are likely to use so much creative embellishment (they don’t know they could ask a dragon to pose for them, so they have to work from memory or hearsay) that recognizing a specific dragon from a newspaper article would be difficult.
However, Steen would most DEFINITELY pick up on the Storm Dragon from even the vaguest description…
Apparently Christmas is on October 14 this year. Dragon Mango finally has more Mango Dragon in it. Plus they finally told someone their big secret who has no reason to object to their big secret, and she thought it was cool. Something I’ve wanted to see for ages. And in color too. That’s everything on my list. ;p
Day late on my comic, but anyway: Hell yes, new Dragon Mango!!! Woo Hoo! M’kay, so big thing out of the way first: Mango telling Princess Awesome about le big secret is interesting. Definitely a shakeup to the status quo. Kinda cute & neat to see the the princess is reacting so positively, though I suspect that might be partially because she doesn’t live in Fafnir and is thus not one of the dragonslayer’s human dupes. I’m also quite curious about the political ramifications of telling the princess about the dragon slayers’ secret. Our heroines better hope that King Citrus and Claw don’t find out about them telling a foreign sovereign about Fafnir’s best kept secret, or they might just end up being executed. Also, I just realized that Mango is now traveling with 2 princesses (plus Bleu, who is part of an influential noble house with relations to the royal family). Mango is probably the most normal one here! On the note of Mango and her dynamics with other characters, I like seeing her reasoning as to telling Awesome and Bleu actually conceding that Mango makes some good points. Its nice to see how far the two have come, to the point where Bleu is willing to entertain Mango’s ideas and acknowledge them as worthwhile! Though the more things change, the more they stay the same as the two slip into the usual bickering banter. Also, I just realized that Bleu saying “You suck Mango,” or some variation thereof is kind of a catch phrase/running gag for her. Gotta wonder if we’re gonna see a scenario where she says that in a sarcastic way after Mango almost dies trying to sacrifice herself for the greater good as she is wont to do. Like her saying it after her and Cherry reunite with Mango after she seemingly dies trying to stop a dangerous foe only to make a triumphant return, with Bleu saying “You suck Mango” as a way of saying “how dare you make us worry about you” followed by her bonking Mango on the head with her staff. Seems like a dramatically appropriate way to use a running gag. As an aside, I really love the last panel with the colors and perspective. Really makes Mango’s dragon form look ultra intimidating. Speaking of visual stuff, did the sky bandits remind anyone else of Steen from an aesthetic standpoint? Was it ever specified if he was from Fafnir or an outlander? Or do Steen and these sky bandits just shop at the same apparel store? Also, on the webcomic front, I did recently come up with a good hook where the world outside the sealed continent the story starts out on is more of a wildwest/steampunk/dungeonpunk world, with guns and technology and lower level magic. Figured the genre melding would make for a more engaging read. Whaddaya think?
Pretty sure Bleu has already told Mango she sucked when she didn’t actually suck. I don’t remember the exact words, but I think she had some cutting remarks the time Mango dragon-moded into a volcano
Steen is definitely an outlander Barbarian. No one that works with Fafnir would actually attack a dragon. They’ve been indoctrinated to call for a Dragon Slayer for centuries. He is aware of Fafnir though. As I understand the reason why he entered the Kingdom was to learn some new monster hunting techniques. Though he has a soured view of Dragon Slayers nowadays.
As for the flying bandits, I just think it might just be barbaric “sheik”. When all you have to make clothing is animal hides and not the time or know how to make high quality fabrics. Well everything becomes very similar.
I just want to talk about the enemy groups currently in Dragon Mango.
Lecithin is currently the main target. However, he really just wants to be left alone. Maybe Mango’s group manage to kill him. Maybe he makes a deal for his life. Or maybe he succeeds in acquiring a dragon orb and is able to hide. Regardless in terms of the story, he’s the “first” major boss.
There is the forgotten, “Troll” King, who is likely a Dragon/Dragon-slayer not affiliated with the ancient dragons. We really haven’t heard much about him since the beginning of the story. Especially since Count Baklava is dead and the Goblin King has refused his offers. Though I think he’ll be the big bad at the end. His whole scheme seems to be around the creation of Dragon Orbs offering them to people in the hopes that it will create a strong dragon. One which he can either turn to his use, or consume to increase his powers. It seems the Troll King is slowly gaining power by offering the Dragon Orbs to those of high ambition and manipulating them to get others under his control. Considering his deal that the Goblin King refused.
Next we have Princess Phenylalaine, while she technically represents the Evil Dragons. There is some doubt that should she succeed in breaking the seal fully; that the dragons will listen to her. As I don’t think she has Glucose’s strength to bring them in line. She’s the most pressing villain, in that through her disguise as Raisin, Phenylalaine can take control of the Dragon slayers secretly training under Pampelmousse. So she’ll likely be the next big boss that has to be dealt with after dealing with Lecithin.
Fenix Corp, specifically their board of Directors of which I believe Claw is a part of, will likely be the group that will be fought against after Phenylalaine. Their plan to remake the world in their image and be made gods is certainly a huge threat. But they’re biggest power in achieving that is through reality manipulation. Which I believe is caused by Weaver. Thanks to Dug the Gnome, this power has been neutralized. In truth I see them as a paper tiger. The Board’s strength is through their money and ability to make people in the corporation due what they tell them to do. Specifically having those people know what they’re doing. As business men however, they’re highly susceptible to corruption being highly short sighted and arrogant. Now that their ability to make things go their way no longer works. Its likely that the Executives will begin promoting Bitwits (Business Nitwits). People that get promoted through sucking up and taking credit for other people’s work. Causing things to collapse due to mismanagement. In fact you could have people like Weaver just start embezzling and undermining her bosses for her own gain.
Normally I’d be inclined to agree on the Fenix Corp point (it does seem realistic) I think the narrative has spent too much time foreshadowing them and building them up along with the square one storyline for them to be just a paper tiger. Doubly so if the Claw is a part of it, since a big narrative twist for Mango and co (albeit not for the reader) is definitely indicative of bbeg material. Just thinking from of doylist perspective though, could be totally wrong!