Profile
The fierce hunter.
ferocious // wild // eccentric
| Story: | KRAKEN |
| Setting: | Norway ➔ Polar ice, c. 1925-1930 |
| Created: | 2011 |
THE HUNTER
From a minicomic I made in 2011 called KRAKEN, he is the master hunter and jack-of-all-trades of the Norwegian polar expedition team that The Captain recruits, along with The Naturalist, to track the ferocious and legendary Kraken.
The Hunter is something of an eccentric wildman, but he is the best at what he does: an ace at repairing anything on the ship and with the fastest harpoon throw in the North. The Captain is easily able to persuade him to ply his talents in the quest for a beast of far greater challenge and fame than anything he's ever stalked before, and he spends much of his time on the ship harpooning ship rats, keeping his skills sharp for when they finally encounter the monster.
A fun but vulgar headcanon my friend and I decided upon at the time, as written in 2011 verbatim:
My friend and I decided this guy (after the question was raised whether he wears anything under the coat-- and of course not, what do you take me for) loves sitting off the end of the ship dangling his junk out there and is all COME AT ME BRO/COME SUCK MY NUTS taunting the kraken and that is his MO. Maybe that is an effective sea monster luring technique or maybe it's not but he's still the best and if you want to hire him you have to deal with that, and maybe get good at averting your eyes.
The plot of the comic:
The expedition takes ages-- the Naturalist furiously consults every book they could find with mention of the legendary creature, but the longer it takes, the more the Captain rages (does this obstinate beast even know who he is????) and the more he privately worries that all this has been a fool's errand. Finally, though, they sight something large moving on the ice, and rush to disembark the ship and encounter this creature.
The Kraken, though, turns out not to be the ferocious and bestial monster the tales had told of, but a great furry crablike creature, curious and friendly and excited for company.
The Hunter tries to harpoon it, but the creature easily dodges his attacks like they're playing a game, plays peek-a-boo and keep-away with the Naturalist's journal, and plays the world's tiniest violin for the Captain after confiscating his rifle. Pleased to finally have their undivided attention, the Kraken performs a song for its new friends on its front claws, which it rubs together like a cricket to make sound, but the high-pitched screechy noise shatters the ice below the humans, dropping them into the freezing water. The Kraken rescues its new pals and brings them to its ice cave, where the acoustics actually make its song sound beautiful.
I created the three humans of this comic for a character design class (though the Kraken and the comic were my own thing), and all of them are inspired by trips to the American Museum of Natural History: while the polar expedition team is, of course, inspired by the real exploration teams of the era, the Hunter is most similar in role (and, well, partly in personality) to Oscar Wisting, the jack-of-all-trades of Roald Amundsen's Arctic and Antarctic expeditions.
Coding by hedgemaze, lowkeywicked, & WeltDerAthanasie // See gallery for image credits
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