APRIL FOOLS! (2017 style)
I doubt these “April Fools” comics have ever once actually fooled anybody, but MAN was this fun to draw.
In case it wasn’t clear from the dialog, all the characters on display here are characters waiting to debut in storylines that haven’t happened yet. Eagle-eyed readers will recognize a few of them from previous cameos, I’ve been teasing some of these poor souls for YEARS without getting any closer to starting their stories. But hey, at least they can get out for a weekend and start inspiring some wild speculation, huh?
This isn’t even all of the unused characters, just the ones I could fit into a single page. And even that was hard, as demonstrated by those three peaking through the doorway in the back. There were SUPPOSED to be in the crowd with the others, but I underestimated just how much space two giant, wigged dragon women could take up, and had to get creative.
Speaking of which, character positioning in this page should not be construed as an indicator of future importance, just me trying to make everything fit. Also, I reserve the right to keep fiddling with all these characters appearances between now and when they finally debut, ESPECIALLY where color is concerned. I had multiple instances of “Oh crap, I’ve only ever drawn this character in black and white doodles before!” and had to make up some stuff on the fly. (Not helped by the fact that I finished this in a BIG rush due to my going out of town this weekend)
Finally, in case you missed it, a normal, actually canonical comic DID go up Friday, so be sure to go see that if you haven’t already.
(Historical Notes: Man, this was a SUPER awkward page to work out the tags for, because even now at the dawn of 2021, several of these characters haven’t made their “official” debut in a comic yet, and even naming them would probably constitute a spoiler. Even a few of the characters who DO have “real” appearances to their names are still nothing more than recurring Easter Eggs. I’m gonna have to come back to this page SEVERAL times in the future to fill some tags in.)
You could probably just go ahead and tag the future characters’ names now, it would be an easter egg for the few people nitpicky enough to look for that (well, not so much now that it’s been pointed out, but it would have been) but more importantly it would generate random idle speculative theories about which name went with which new character and why. FOT points to be awarded for correct guesses in 10 years when the characters show up canonically.
You know what? That’s a pretty good point. The better question now is many of these characters I actually REMEMBER the names of. I gotta go root through all my notes and doodles and make sure all these characters even HAVE names…
Yay, cameo’s! Cameo’s of strange people who nobody is supposed to know right now! Yay!