Point of Inspiration – Ganondorf

Point of Inspiration is a new series of posts where I share different sources of inspiration, and what they inspired in my work!

Today, let’s talk about Ganondorf from The Legend of Zelda.

ganondorf tears of the kingdom fan art by kelci d crawford

First of all, his reveal for the Breath of the Wild sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, has me swooning. (And I’m not the only one.) I’m not shy to admit that I like some cake with a generous helping of BEEF.

Second, this villain is fascinating to me. He’s appeared in maybe half of all the Legend of Zelda games, but his appearance (nearly) every time is like a boogeyman coming out of banishment to antagonize the world at large – not just the main characters of Zelda and Link. It’s like he reappears to not only terrorize people; he also wants to claim a prize he thinks is rightfully his. (Usually the land of Hyrule).

I’m not going to bury the lead here – Ganondorf was a major point of inspiration for the antagonist of The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Ragun Ranki.

ragun ranki from the webcomic the legend of jamie roberts

Like Ganondorf, Ranki is a) a redhead, and b) someone banished to another plane of existence for amassing too much power. And after a long time being banished away, he comes back to the world to cause chaos.

Here’s where things diverge a bit. For one thing, Ranki is a lot more…(how should I put this?)…flirtatious.

the legend of jamie roberts comic panel

Don’t get me wrong, fan works exist to give this kind of air to Ganondorf, as well (looking at you, Tale of Two Rulers). But in the canon, Ganondorf isn’t nearly this persuasive and willing to flaunt that.

For another thing, Ranki has a family still alive in the story. We’re getting into spoilers here for the comic, so if you haven’t read The Legend of Jamie Roberts, go do that.

But in short, having Ranki’s relatives still alive in the story is going to complicate his goals. Only time will tell how they will react to each other if they cross paths again.

Of course, other ideas inspired Ragun Ranki (especially Ansem and Xemnas from Kingdom Hearts). But Ganondorf was the launching pad.

Stay tuned for more Points of Inspiration!

That’s all for now. Thank you for reading!

You. Are. Awesome.

Do I Have Any Upcoming Campaigns?

Yo! I wanted to give you an update. Because you might be wondering, “Kelci! Do you have any upcoming campaigns for KickStarter or Crowdfundr or something?”

Short answer: not yet.

Long answer:

My roommate and I are getting ready to move to a new apartment in May. Fingers crossed that everything works out there!

Because of that, though, I’m not going to do a campaign for any new products until after May 30. I don’t want the stress of running a campaign at the same time that I’m moving to a new home. The exception for a campaign is anything for my Subscriber Clubs.

Speaking of which, I made some spiffy updates to the Clubs, including the addition of desktop and phone wallpapers as rewards. Check out the Subscribe page for more details.

THAT SAID…

The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Volume 2 is slated to wrap up production around the end of July/start of August.

So expect a KickStarter or Crowdfundr campaign for The Legend of Jamie Roberts, Volume 2 to happen in August. (Which is also my birthday month!)

SO…YEAH!

If you would like to help with moving costs, I’m available for commissions, my ko-fi shop is open, and I’m accepting new members to Subscribe to any of my (new and revamped) Clubs. Or you can just leave a tip on Ko-Fi.

But if you’re broke, share any and all of my comics, from The Legend of Jamie Roberts to Validation (on Webtoon and Instagram), and even the brand new Vanita and the Demon King! Sharing is caring.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Thanks for reading!

You. Are. Awesome.

On Colonialism and The Legend of Jamie Roberts

The other day, I got on Twitter, because I’m back on that platform for the fun of it. (Follow me for RPG content and hot takes). While scrolling, I spotted a Critical Role fanart piece. For folks not in the know, Critical Role is a show where nerdy voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons. In the fanart, The Dungeon Master sits at a table with miniatures scattered across it. The miniatures, of course, are the players’ characters.

One of the responses to this fanart said, “Hey! This is so good! Shout this out to Crit Role so they can use this into their intro sequence instead of using colonialism!”

Did that make you scratch your head? Here’s the missing piece:

Critical Role’s intro reel shows the cast in explorer costumes, poking around fantasy ruins. This is a callback to fiction like Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan) and H. Rider Haggard (King Solomon’s Mines). You know…fiction where rich white explorers poke around “lost continents” (read: Africa and India) to search for treasure.

Burroughs and Haggard wrote in a time when this narrative was seen as “romantic” and “adventurous.” Nowadays, this isn’t as good – it’s seen as exploitative of the native people. (Because it is).

Thing is, this Twitter commenter got me thinking about my own comic, The Legend of Jamie Roberts. It’s about a genderqueer pirate and their two best friends treasure-hunting in a land full of dragons. This is true – but it also leaves out the Indigenous people I have in the story. Put a pin in that for a second.

One of the works that inspired this comic is the Dreamworks movie The Road to El Dorado. It’s no joke that this movie is a foundational piece of who I am as a person. A LOT of my humor and sensibilities stem from this movie. (And The Emperor’s New Groove, but that’s for a different time).

Here’s a secret about The Road to El Dorado, though…

When the movie came out, the ads declared that this movie would have a “respectful presentation” of Central American history. Why? Because the art and animation teams went on location to do research. So imagine the backlash the movie got when people watched it and said, “ah shit, of COURSE the Indigenous people think the two white guys are gods.”

Now, Breadsword on YouTube already did a fantastic video on the history behind The Road to El Dorado. So watch that for more context. But the reality is: The Road to El Dorado is a callback NOT to Indigenous Central Americans. It’s a callback to Bob Hope and Bing Crosby comedies. The Road to El Dorado’s twist was that not everyone believed the two protagonists were gods. But the doubters kept up the charade for the sake of the people.

When I rewatched this movie for roughly the 187th time, I thought, “What if white people came to a new land… and actually INTEGRATED instead of raiding?”

That’s how I started writing The Legend of Jamie Roberts. At least…one of the previous drafts.

Now, The Legend of Jamie Roberts DOES have three white people plotting to rob Indigenous people. I’m not going to sugarcoat that. They’re pirates, after all. So what’s my twist?

Well, in Chapter 6, Jamie Roberts is going to do something that has lasting consequences. And they destroy something. And for the rest of the story, they have to deal with the consequences of their actions… and the reactions of the Indigenous people.

In Chapters 7 and 8, the story is going to shift from “I’m seeking treasure” to “I’m seeking redemption.”

That’s right – I’m going to subvert the White Explorer narrative.

The trajectory of “I’m seeking redemption” has been at the core of the story since the start. It took several drafts and many years of writing to figure out WHY. But I’m confident in this final draft of the story.

I hope you stick with me. Because The Legend of Jamie Roberts is about to get REALLY juicy.

That’s all for now. Thank you for reading.

You. Are. Awesome.

Falling A Twee Bit Behind on Some Things…

here's a picture of an art piece in progress. The 11 inch by 17 inch paper has a monster depicted whose body is mostly made of leaves. Next to the canvas is a tin full of colored pencils.

I want to talk a bit about how to set goals to be…more realistic. Because I have fallen a twee bit behind on a few things.

First, I wanna’ talk about this piece, pictured at the top.

Right now, the title is (tentatively), “Cryptid of Leaves.” I started this piece all the way back in 2019. So…it’s been A WHILE. I worked on it, then set it aside, because those leaves ALONE took effort to draw. And then I thought, “Let’s color this with colored pencil! That’ll get the look I want to achieve!”

And past me thought I could have this done in a month. On top of everything else I have going on. Which…(insert laughter here).

I have only worked on this in my free time, when I have the urge to do it. So I’m shifting the goal for this piece: I want it finished by…the end of October.

Why so late? Because I still have KickStarter rewards to fulfill and other books to put together. Speaking of which…

Second, I want to talk about the PDF for The Legend of Jamie Roberts, volume 1.

For KickStarter backers, I had said, “Oh this should be delivered to you by the end of May!”

It’s June 1st now. The PDF still needs put together. Oops.

To be fair, May was a big transition month. I quit working at NeverEnding (long story), and shifted back to freelancing full-time. Still, getting my freelance sea-legs back can only explain so much. All I can ask is please, continue to be patient. The PDF should still get done by the end of June. I’ll go more in depth about the process in a KickStarter update tomorrow.

Third, The Legend of Jamie Roberts.

So…I’m out of buffer. The month of May had some unexpected events that prevented me from keeping up with my usual production schedule. That means right now, I’m making the next updates as the story is going. That’s not a place I like to be in.

Does this mean that The Legend will get a temporary hiatus? I don’t know. But I’m tempted to have a short, two-week break from regular updates just so I can build the buffer back.

…Maybe I’ll just do that. Expect a more solid decision tomorrow, with The Legend’s usual Wednesday update.

I’ll end this here before this post gets too long. Thank you for stopping in! And thank you for your support.

You. Are. Awesome.