Forging Arda

Series compiled by MisbehavingMaiar

Sometime in the winter of 2012 when I was home for the holidays, I picked up the Silmarillion again and fell down the rabbit hole. I ended up having a very vivid dream about the origins of Sauron/Mairon the Maiar, and his time spent in the service of Aulë the Smith. The first six pages were completed over the course of 2013; my goal was to preserve some of that original dream-material into a comic, but I also wanted to explore some of the empty margins in the history of these characters, simply because there was a lot about Middle Earth theology that frustrated me a great deal; and I felt like the motivations of a lot of the \'dark\' characters were not explored in the books to my satisfaction.

I realize now that \"Re-exploring\" the dark side of Tolkien\'s mythos is a fairly common pursuit of Silm fans, and Sauron and Melkor have both been re-imagined, justified, explained, deconstructed, and reconstructed by many more capable brains than mine long before I ever cracked open the first pages.

But it\'s too late for me now-- the dark lords have firmly rooted themselves in my brain and demand that I keep exploring their motivations and their relationships, and I\'ve become addicted to drawing their stupid faces (and other parts). 

That said: here are the much-edited first six pages of my first Silmarillion-related project, that first got my foot in the door of the fandom. 

Series Information

Summary: Sometime in the winter of 2012 when I was home for the holidays, I picked up the Silmarillion again and fell down the rabbit hole. I ended up having a very vivid dream about the origins of Sauron/Mairon the Maiar, and his time spent in the service of Aulë the Smith. The first six pages were completed over the course of 2013; my goal was to preserve some of that original dream-material into a comic, but I also wanted to explore some of the empty margins in the history of these characters, simply because there was a lot about Middle Earth theology that frustrated me a great deal; and I felt like the motivations of a lot of the \'dark\' characters were not explored in the books to my satisfaction. I realize now that \"Re-exploring\" the dark side of Tolkien\'s mythos is a fairly common pursuit of Silm fans, and Sauron and Melkor have both been re-imagined, justified, explained, deconstructed, and reconstructed by many more capable brains than mine long before I ever cracked open the first pages. But it\'s too late for me now-- the dark lords have firmly rooted themselves in my brain and demand that I keep exploring their motivations and their relationships, and I\'ve become addicted to drawing their stupid faces (and other parts).  That said: here are the much-edited first six pages of my first Silmarillion-related project, that first got my foot in the door of the fandom.  Major Characters: Ainur, Aulë, Melkor, Sauron Major Relationships: Genre: Comic Strip Challenges: