Jul30
AbscondWithAPie:
I designed the house.
Altermentality:
I spent so long on that house. Victor actually helped me a lot with this page. He likes haunted houses.
The Fourth
Updated Mondays and Fridays!
The Fourth by Courtney Svatek and Victor Acuña is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
“We’re here to pick up a book.”
“Oh…well…no thanks.”
Hardly an apt response.
Now blowing up people’s doors – THAT’S what I call an apt response!
Yeah. He’s a bit awkward.
I want to pinch his cheek, but I’m afraid of coming away with part of him.
And Skärva actually owns these lands, so it’s totally ok.
That’s why you don’t slam doors into other’s faces… They may blow your door up!
They could also place a curse that turns you into a beast and everyone in your household into animated furniture until you find true love! There’s a lot of things that could happen!
One of them is a zombie and one of them is a shark man. Whichever way you put this equation, polymorphing isn’t going to do either of them much harm, lol.
Sorry I haven’t spoken in a while. Been busy, fell behind, etc. Yay for catching up! Time to restart my Fourth obsession.
OH YEAH that was some great butt-kicking there! I really like seeing Skaerva when he gets his game on. The Gods make it so hard for him, he’s always losing to that darn hero, and life just stinks. This makes even the smallest of his precious epic win moments all the more enjoyable.
That building is fantastic.
And who might this be? I wonder…I have suspicions, gonna keep them to myself though ‘cuz they sound crazy, lol.
Yaaay! Two prodigal readers have returned recently. I am happy.
Good to see you again!
Exactly! Because Skärva is always getting his butt handed to him by Blank, it can be easy to forget that he’s actually extremely powerful. He throws magic around with hardly a thought. Anyway, I’ve vowed to let him do some really impressive stuff in the coming adventures. The more we see such things, the more it highlights the puzzling and frustrating nature of his existence…
We came back at around the same time ’cause we’re twins and live in the same house!
Ooooo can’t wait to see some kick-butt Skaerva!
Whaaat! PLOT TWIST!!
BOO YEAH been needing some Skaerva bad-a action! Dunno why, but I was really cheering on that last panel. Nice to see that occasional reminder as to why Skaerva is actually considered to be so dangerous.
I’m loving your house. The door is so Mines of Moria lol. And I like the greenhouse. But weirdly enough, I’m loving the trees in that scene even more. You’re a master of brushes; I really need a tutorial now lol. And yeah, I’m suspicious about who this guy is too…
Yeah, those doors were lovely. Too bad they’re destroyed now!
They did come out pretty nice, huh? I have a few favorite brushes that are really all I need in life
I’ll try to whip up an art-hints thing soon. But really, it takes experimentation on the part of each person.
…and the cross-hatch filter
XD OK I should experiment on my own, maybe use your comics as ideas. Anything will help; I hate doing backgrounds lol; maybe brushes will spice things up when I get my comic moving again.
captcha says “Book tariesma”. Is that the name of the book they’re after? Or the author?
‘Bout time SOMEthing in captcha made some sort of sense lol.
Backgrounds ARE really tedious when you try to draw everything out, that’s why I tend to go for more painterly stuff. It makes it fun, becuase – as much as I love drawing, it gets old when I’ve been doing it for hours straight, and painting is a lot more freeform. Plus I get to experiment with the backgrounds, whereas I have to keep my drawing style consistent (although hopefully gradually improving). Sadly, I only really get the chance to do all this in nature scenes. Inside buildings and in towns, I can’t be so abstract. And in the castle, it’s always the same old purple wall texture ugghghghg. Maybe Ecta and friends can remodel it while the trio is gone. Hmm….
AHAHA I wonder how she’d have it redecorated. I see an increase of Skaerva portraits, family crests/symbols, and homages to the family line. Having her around is probably good for an ego, assuming she doesn’t go overboard (which I can also see happening lol). Workaholics make good loyal minions.
Yeah your nature scenes are gorgeous. But really, you’ve vastly improved on inside buildings as well; the castle is way awesome as it is now.
wow you can really tell you spent some time on the house, the detail is amazing!
oh Zombie Guy, did you really think it was going to be that easy?
Go Skarva power! ive always been fond of his magic effects…
Yes… he did.
Zombie Guy has a name! I guess you won’t find it out until Friday, though…
There go Skarva’s Hands of Un-Healing…
He really needs to keep those to himself…
No Skaerva, that isn’t how you cast lay on hands!
Agreed with above – it’s always good to see Skärva get dangerous.
I don’t even know why he bothered knocking, to be honest.
Well, he’s a villain, not a bad guy, per se. No one’s gonna deny he has manners.
I. Love. That. House! It seems a major testament to your improvement in technique from the the Temple of Terror at the start of the comic.
Definitely. Especially when you consider that the first couple comics and this one are… quite similar
Skärva and Derk approach a building, knock on the door, get rejected, but then something gets blown up. At least it wasn’t Davis this time, the doors were cool but I don’t love them as much.
All buildings are bigger on the inside.
Shame the stained glass on the facade doesn’t make an image (pleasing or a depiction). I love stained glass.
Zombie-Man has to do better than that to get a Boss character off his trail. “No thanks.” Pfft. Yeah.
I still find it hilarious that the grown buff man is terrified of this place while the little girl is just “meh”.
Yeah, I went with a general tree roots/vines pattern that befits the swamp theme of Mire Manor, but I couldn’t figure out what to depict or how that wasn’t too abstract.
Lorelei isn’t scared of much. Except the big thing. She isn’t scared of her nightmares, but rather of what she sees in them, which is a perfectly logical thing to worry about.
Derk is just being a baby though. With his light magic, he could easily drive ghosts away. But I think it’s more the idea of it all. He doesn’t like being reminded of death.
Wait.. when did the 8th doctor turn into a zombie
And since when was the TARDIS a haunted mansion?
Pfft, that IS a pretty strong resemblance. I know nothing about all the Whos down in Whoville, so I swear it’s just a coincidence. This will teach me to cobble character designs out of a Google search for “19th century men’s clothing.”
Speaking of coincidences, we’re advertising on Awkward Zombie just as we introduce our own rather awkward zombie. Didn’t plan that one, either…
Well, that and the image being titled “its even bigger on the inside” made me think it was a WHO referance
.. heck of a coincidence though
Nice house!
Nice expressions!
Nice door!
Nice OH WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?
+1 mattisbritish^
AND OH HEY, I DREW A COMIC, NOW WE CAN HAVE COMIC PARTYS TOGETHER AND BE COMIC BUDDIES AND BE BESTEST FRIENDS AND MAKE A GROUP ON FACEBOOK AND EVERYTHING YAY
http://insanityvalve.blogspot.com/2012/07/hahahaha-wait-that-isnt-funny.html
I also love how the doors breaks into perfectly rectangular pieces, because it is magically reforced. Oh, didnt think id notice, did you?
Its not common knowledge, but all doors with butterflies are magically reinforced. Just so you know.
And Skarvas hands’ go BANG all the time!
Yay comic parties!
Pfft, those are dragonflies and fireflies on the door! …Now on the wallpaper, THOSE are butterflies.
I’m with Skärva. That’s not what you say when someone is there to pick something up! XD
ZOMBIE BAD AT CONVERSATION!
Yay! skarva is Ironman!
Of course!
Well, I found this place from a PW ad on the BittersweetCandyBowl site, gotta say I thoroughly am enjoying it. Went through the archives yesterday and today to get current with the story. The writing is solid and the art is really unique. A couple site formatting issues threw me off a bit, but other than that, solid job. I look forward to more.
Thank you very much!
What were your problems with the site, might I ask? We may redesign the site some day, it’s not anywhere in the near future, but just in case it’s good to keep critiques in mind.
Just some small formatting issues. When I search a month it gives me the list from more recent to older, with the earliest 2 on a second page. I actually missed the first 2 pages until I went back. Probably would be better to put those in descending order from oldest to newest.
Also, it was a little difficult to find where I left off, since I didn’t pay attention to the date when I stopped reading. A numbered archive might work better. I read a lot of webcomics and when I go through an archive I usually will try and stop at an even number so I can make sure I know where to come back to next time.
I think that’s it, just an easier way to look through the archive. Since it is only about 9 comics per month, you probably don’t need the extra pages. You could probably just put all the strips in a list on one page (ex. AwkwardZombie.com)
Yeah, that shouldn’t be too hard to fix! We’ll see what we can do about the archive. Perhaps we can split them up into story-arcs rather than months.
Thanks!
Akinator doesn’t know who Skarva is.
We must change this.
Anyway, I haven’t commented here before, but, coming from dA, I’ve been reading this webcomic from the beginning. I really like it. It’s very nice to read and all the characters are fun and interesting. I kinda wish the comic was more well known, because you guys really deserve it.
“You guys” as in all of us wonderful readers and comenters, or as in the artist and writer of The Fourth? Either way, you’re very right!
Hi Llama!
And, aww, thank you so much. We work hard, and get better, and our fanbase grows ever so gradually. Maybe we’ll hit it big when I’m fully confident in my art 
Don’t worry, shyness can be over come by someone BLASTING INTO YOUR HOUSE!
Skärva is a great therapist!
I just came here from awkward zombie and Skärva is pretty great, I’m enjoying this.
And shark week’s coming up, how fitting!
Shark Week is now Skärva week.
I endorse this. Someone needs to write Discovery Channel!