The Capital of Helsinki

Author notes

38. A Mishap at Mimir's Well.

Air Raid Robertson

on Jan. 1, 2010

I just barely made it. Another ten minutes and this strip would've been officially late.

I think I made a few errors in judgement in regards to this one. I originally thought of doing this in black and white with greytones. However, I don't really think that my greytone stuff is all that conductive to comedic material. So, I added some patches of color instead.

I'm pretty sure this would've looked better in black and white.

Plus, I'm a little uncertain about the quality of this week's gag. I've made no secrets about my qualms in regards to full-page Capital of Helsinki strips. I sorta feel like they're akin to those hour-long episodes of The Twilight Zone. There's nothing horribly wrong with them, but they just don't seem to work.

This week's font for the Capital of Helsinki logo is something called "Metal Lord". It seemed appropriate considering the Norse god material.

I tried a font based on the logo for Metallica's Master of Puppets, but it didn't seem to work.

Anyways, the content of this strip is derived from Norse mythology. One of the Norse legends depicts three quests that Odin undertakes in order to gain wisdom. The first one involves exchanging one of his eyes to Mimir in order to gain a drink from a magical well of knowledge.

The well is located at Jotunheim, which is the world of the frost-giants. It's adjacent to one of the roots of Yggdrasill. This is a giant tree that grows above the Nine Worlds. Stashed by the well is the unsounded horn of Heimdall. This trumpet is to remain unused until Heimdall signals the beginning of Ragnarok. (The final battle that destroys the universe)

I made sure to add these little details to the background of the strip.