Hello, good evening, and welcome to the Firste Worlde. Have you ever been to an alternative reality before?
Orcs was originally intended to be a short story for a sadly now defunct, but still lastingly odd, fanzine called ESPylacopa (read it backwards. Back issues still available from MWG Press, folks! Get 'em while they're 32șC above freezing!), but as anybody who has ever attempted to write a short story will probably know, they're quite a lot more difficult to do than really long ones. It turned - appropriately enough in view of the subject matter - into something of a monster, and now looks as if it's going to be three books instead of one. Erk.
Anyway, the images that you're about to peruse are illustrations from the first story, which centres around six members of an orcish mining community (known collectively as the Clan Pickaxe) and their attempts to evade the none-too-friendly Lord Anthony Trefeln, an army Commander who wants to add a few more ticks to his "Orcs Mangled" chart. They aid their cause by obtaining two hostages - a human knight called Rowan Thorne, a brave and fearless fighter with the imagination of a privy carpet, and Cedric Frozenstream (pronounced something like 'Frazenstrum', according to him, and 'git', according to everyone else who's ever met him), an effortlessly dislikeable elvish mage; and the events that unfold from that point onwards are stored for the most part within my poor befuddled brain. It's making the transition to words on a page at approximately the speed of an arthritic slug on a shopping trip, but bear with me, I'm getting there.
Click on a title to see the image & some info about it.
Cedric Draklan Drongo Mutt Ogrokh & Rab Sir Rowan
Lord Trefeln Spikasgeddon & Gorlob The Granite Tusk Posse
The ORCS logo and characters are © & TM Matthew Smith 1998-2003, and Silliness Productions.