Arthur, King of Time and Discworld

[daibhidc]

Fanficart Only The Casting Was Done For #3 That I Completed Years Ago, Never Did Anything With, And Have Now Discovered I've Lost #1.

A long time ago I did some fanart for scarfman which created a new AKOTAS setting in which Arthur and Guenevere were Captain Carrot and Sergeant (as she was then) Angua of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. (I can tell it was a long time ago, because if it appeared on the monitor I had at the time the way it appears on my monitor now, I'd have had another pass at cleaning it up. Er, also there's a date on it.)

And naturally, I had some ideas for extending this setting. I doodled a couple more strips, but I never sent them to Paul, partly because I was embarassed about my lack of drawing skill (the other two bits of fanart I eventually sent him used the minimalist/ultra-stylised form of Arthur's Thing of Shapes to Come comic-within-a-comic) and partly because I wasn't sure how well it was received (I asked if it was at all comprehensible to non-Discworld fans on the forum and -- or so it seemed at the time -- non-Discworld fans maintained a polite silence on the matter).

I remembered this recently and figured I'd have another look at them, maybe see if there was anything salvagable about them. And they've gone. At some point they didn't make the transfer when we updated the computer (which I think we've done twice since then). So here's a cast list of who I'd have included, if anyone's interested.

Arthur = Captain Carrot
Guenevere = Sergeant Angua
Lancelot = Gavin[1]
Merlin = Commander Vimes
Morgan (gender-flipped) = Lord Vetinari
Gawaine = Sergeant Detritus
Tristram = Sergeant Littlebottom[2]
Ector = "King" Ironfoundersson
Pellinore = Constable Shoe [3]
Pelles = Constable Visit-the-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets
Balin = Sergeant Colon [4]
Dagonet = Corporal Nobbs [4]

I don't think all these characters actually appeared in the two or three strips I drew, but I certainly had them all worked out. I never decided what to do about Nimue and Lady Sybil, who just strike me as too different to equate, even though that's the obvious thing to do and no alternatives present themselves. Oh, and while writing this, I suddenly realised Lucius would fit perfectly as Lord Rust.

[1] This was the trickiest one. Lancelot's "thing" is that he's the greatest and almost purest knight in the world, so the Discworld counterpart is, er, Carrot. And playing up the religious angle to make him Constable Visit didn't work for me. So I ignored all that and tried to think of a Carrot-Angua-someone else love triangle. And all I could think of was Gavin from The Fifth Elephant. But as soon as I thought of that, I had a very clear idea what a lupine Lancelot would look like. (Hey, 'literation!)

[2] ISTR I had a whole backstory concept in which Mark was the dezka-knik ("king" or "chief engineer") of a dwarfish tin mine.

[3] Well, somebody had to be Reg. And Pellinore had to be somebody. And Reg's windmill-tilting sort of reminded me of the futile hunt for the Questing Beast.

[4] The Watch's incompetent comic relief double act become the knight who always screws things up and the clown. Obviously.

Comments

[scarfman]

Not sure whether that's the way I'd do it, but I sure can't say you're wrong. And, boy, whether to give Carrot to Arthur or Lancelot is a real stumper innit.

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I stuck with Arthur because that was the original gag, and because there's so much Arthurian stuff in his backstory (although now I think about it, it's not like Lancelot's never been the long-lost heir with the legendary sword (http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/lotr.htm) before...)

If Lancelot were Carrot, then probably Arthur, as his superior and our main character, would be Vimes. Hmm...