No Rest for the Wicked (webcomic)
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No Rest for the Wicked is a fantasy webcomic by Andrea L. Peterson. The characters are loosely based on characters from traditional fairy tales, including those by Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Perrault, and the Brothers Grimm. The plot revolves around a princess who has been an insomniac since the disappearance of the moon and her journey to restore the moon to the sky. As of July 2006 it is on the third chapter, with a total of 160 pages thus far. The story has well-developed characters and a generally elegiac mood, an undercurrent of sadness leavened with humor throughout.
Contents
Characters
Main
- November
- An oversensitive princess, youngest of three sisters, who is allergic to peas and bruises (receiving a black eye after a leaf flutters from a tree) very easily. November has been unable to sleep since the Moon disappeared, and has set out on a quest to find where the Moon lies buried in hopes that restoring the Moon will solve her sleeping problem. She has been cursed so whenever she utters the word "altruistic" a frog or toad comes out of her mouth. She is affianced to The Boy, but ran away from home prior to their wedding. November is slightly biased in favor of nobility. November is drawn to atlases (which are always titled "The World") and especially their last page (the End of the World).
- November's sensitivity takes many forms. She is soft-hearted and empathizes with people, even those that are brutish (Beast) or feel no self-pity (Clare). She "reads" other people well, as when she persuaded Perrault to join her. More mystically, she senses Death in Red's house and intuits that Clare has met the Moon. Finally, she is sensitive to noble blood (and its absence) in other people and can even detect that Clare was a queen by marriage. Her sensitivity often drives her to act recklessly ("what am I doing?").
- Perrault
- A cunning cat who has elevated his master's position in life from peasant to Marquis. While he lives the life of a gentleman-at-leisure, he has not lost his taste for hunting small animals. Current kill count
- "Red"
- A girl in a red cloak who lives deep in the woods by herself. After a traumatic encounter with a certain wolf, Red has made it her business to kill every single flesh-eating beast she comes across, especially the ones that talk. She carries a handwoven basket and an axe. While the comic's art is mostly grayscale, "Red"'s cape is always shown in color, similar to Mary in Frank Miller's Sin City. Red is remarkably strong and fond of flowers. Unlike Perrault, Red talks little and prefers to solve problems with her axe. Having lived so long in isolation, Red is not very social with other people and is pitiless towards monsters; nevertheless, she seems to feel real affection for November and is very protective of her. Red believes that she died already in her house, but in what sense is unclear. How Red came to live in the woods is also unknown. She also seems to take the Witch's cannibalizing of children extremely personally.
Secondary
- Pierre
- The Marquis de Carabas, Pierre is about as intelligent as the average lemming, and it is only through Perrault's influence that he can wear silk and nice boots. Pierre is married to Colette and needs every aspect of his life to be overseen by his cat, whom he calls "Puss". Before this, he was a peasant.
- Colette
- Pierre's wife, a dignified princess with a distaste for cats, rodents, and anything that does not belong in a palace. Easily fooled by gold and good looks, she mistakes November for a commoner and her husband for a nobleman.
- The Boy
- A peasant boy who has never felt fear and is innocently curious about it. He finds a trove of treasure, hands a share of it to King January (November's father), and as reward chose November (the youngest daughter) as his bride. Last seen wandering the countryside with a bag of gold looking for his fiancée.
- Beast
- A hulking mass of fur and teeth with a penchant for speaking at the top of his voice, even in a library. Beast is something of an anti-social botanist stalker, as he has a magnificent rose garden and a ring which he uses to propose to Beauty every day at breakfast, lunch, or dinner, or whenever he happens to see her. He always seems close to foaming at the mouth. Scorned, thrown through a window and nearly killed by Red. Beast may now be affianced to Beauty, who mistook his fall from the window as an attempted suicide over despair at her long absence.
- Beauty
- The young lady in Beast's mansion who puts up with being proposed to breakfast, lunch, or dinner of every day. Last seen tearfully reuniting with the Beast after a visit with her family. Beauty regards Beast as a sensitive creature and may now have agreed to marry him after his "attempted suicide".
- Clare
- A young woman with bandaged wrists where her hands ought to be. She has been sentenced to be burned at the stake as a witch for allegedly stealing a town's children. Flashbacks reveal that, as a girl, Clare was sold to the devil by her parents, who cut off her hands at his request (Clare's tears on her hands had kept the devil at bay, at least in the original fairy tale). Clare was visited that night by the Moon (it was a new moon), who told her a secret that may have prevented the devil from taking her. Although she became a queen and was given silver mechanical hands by her husband the king, Clare is once again poor and vagrant, and possibly looking for her child.
- The Witch
- An old woman living out in the woods near a town. She initially comes across as a delusional, sick yet tragic figure. When she was younger, her husband left her and their two children, Hansel and Gretel; she then moved to the forest to escape the malicious rumors in town. When Hansel fell sick and possibly died, she went insane and decided that she'd brought children into a hostile world and could only keep them safe by taking them back. She cannibalized both in pies. She since took to believing that everyone she meets (including November) is either Hansel or Gretel. Consequently, when the all but starving villagers began abandoning their children into the forest in desperation, she took them in and ate them. Her house is made of gingerbread which Perrault identifies as enchanted (by whom is unknown), presumably to lure the hungry children.
After being attacked, she reveals herself to be an inhuman creature worthy of her deeds. Her detached appendages and head can move on their own (in the case of an arm, even levitate and manipulate objects.) Her body appears to me made out of tiny arms.
- The Moon
- Takes the form of a beautiful lady carrying a lantern. Her task is to bear her lantern across the sky for all but one day a month; on the day of the new moon she usually rests. At the beginning of the story, the Moon has been missing for over a year, during which November has not slept.
Myths, Tales, Legends, and Folklore
No Rest for the Wicked is freely adapted and cobbled together from a myriad of fairy tales, including:
- The Princess and the Pea
- Puss in Boots
- Little Red-Cap
- The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was
- The Buried Moon
- Beauty and the Beast
- The Girl Without Hands
- Hansel and Gretel
Awards
- The cast of No Rest for the Wicked presented the award for Outstanding Fantasy Comic at the 2005 Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards.
- No Rest for the Wicked has been nominated for Outstanding Fantasy Comic in the 2006 Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards
External links
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