Elf Life: Lake Froth's Bane

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A few notes before we begin

Some information may enhance the enjoyment of reading the comics. If you do not feel like reading the notes, it will probably do you no harm to scroll down to the navigation buttons and advance to the first comic. This page is just like the introduction and foreword you never read, when you read a book.

Many of the comics are large, but will fit on your screen without horizontal scrolling if you are at 1024 x 768 resolution, and open your browser to the max.

Elf Life is a seriocomic adventure, not a gag strip. Do not expect a joke on every page.

Elf Life is drawn as a storybook fairy tale for adults, and is not for little children.

You should find Elf Life equivalent to a PG rating. There is some near nudity, and mild innuendo. However, the language is never scatological, and the violence is never particularly gory. Some readers are disturbed by the mermaids, when they appear, as they are excessively busty.

About the elves

Elf Life is not a story about fictional elves, living on fictional world helping fictional hobbits and whatnot. These are the real elves as we knew them, here in the real world. These are the elves that frightened and bedevilled man throughout medieval times and beyond.

Ancient elves once lived on a planet called Alfheim, and built great kingdoms guarded by powerful faeries. But they were cast out by an immense cataclysm, and their world destroyed.

The survivors became refugees on man's earth, hiding in the shadows, striving toward an uncertain future.

Then came a mass exodus, and what we once called "fairy folk" are with us no more.

The cast in brief

Characters are shown from the original comics posted in 1999, and from the current revision project. See the intro to the revised edition, below.

Baughb the elf

An elf hero from the past. Baughb (pronounced "Bob") was born in the old world and became a famous outlaw and storybook legend. But he fell into a faerie gate and disappeared. After the elves were marooned on man's world, they anticipated the return of the great hero, who would lead them to a new world of their own.

Incredibly, he came back. But the reality of mortal Baughb could not possibly match the expectations and legends that grew in his long absence.

Filis

A fiery elf maiden. Filis (pronounced "Phyllis") was enamored with Baughb the elf stories when she was a little girl, but later in life came to resent him. He had all the advantages. He lived in a world of adventure, a world of kingdoms and faeries and swordfights. She lived in a backwoods cottage and was expected to get married and have babies.

Worse, Baughb the elf came back. And instead of a hero, he turned out to be an absent-minded, bumbling twit.

But then a funny thing started happening: adventures.

Airek

A nebbish with ogre blood. Airek (pronounced "Eric") is the great-great-grandson of old Aedulf Halfogre, and the expected successor to the patriarchy.

No one believes this idea to be more loaded with disaster than Airek himself.

The sprite

A little flying dimwit. He's either a key to understanding God and the universe, or--just a little flying dimwit.

Zoot Alors

A French artist hired by Baughb to paint his portrait. But not all is as it seems.

Intro to the revised edition

When I first posted Lake Froth's Bane to the internet, ten years ago, on a website called "GeoCities", I included a note that said that the comics were a first draft. My skills at the time weren't up to producing what was in my head.

On top of that, thanks to a variety of disasters over the years, the archive has remained disorganized and largely unfinished. What you're holding in your hands (metaphorically speaking) is a revision-in-progress.

The "third act" of Lake Froth's Bane was written entirely in text, because for a time during Elf Life's run I didn't have access to a computer, except for one at the library which I used to write and post the stories. Readers have asked forever for me to draw that third act--"The Trial of Baughb". That will be the culmination of this revision of Lake Froth's Bane.

However, you may get a jolt when you move from the newer pages at the beginning of the archive, to the older pages, later. The old comics were always meant to be shaded, but only later did I develop a technique for hand-painting the comics.

Redrawing old comics won't become a habit. There is no reason to rewrite and redraw subsequent stories. I would like to add shading and fix a few errors in Book Two, Evil Destiny. Books Three and Four, The Return of Glynhial and Spritespace, should remain largely untouched. However, the subsequent Wedding of Baughb will be subject to a major fix so that it can be resolved at last.

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