What bit of nikolai Dante was published out of order

[Proteus4]

im currently reading through nikolai Dante and can remember an interview (or something) that mentioned that one of the stories had to be rewritten or was simply published out of order due to artwork not being ready on time. Can anyone remind me what bit it was? I think it was Fraser taking too long or other commitments and John burns' stuff was ready...

No spoilers please, I'm up to prog 1220 now.

Cheers
Dave

[Dark Jimbo]

Love and War was supposed to come after Battleship Potemkin, but ended up having to run first. The two short Yeowell-drawn fill-ins were created at short notice for a similar reason, I think.

[Proteus4]

Cool! Thnx 

Dave

[Jim_Campbell]

Didn't the whole Tsar Wars arc end up either losing a book or having two books amalgamated into one, possibly due to Simon Fraser being in the wilds of Africa at the time...? (I may have made that up.)

Cheers

Jim

[Colin YNWA]

Didn't the whole Tsar Wars arc end up either losing a book or having two books amalgamated into one, possibly due to Simon Fraser being in the wilds of Africa at the time...? (I may have made that up.)

Cheers

Jim

Yeah that's defo been discussed. I think some of the ordering was changed to accommodate his global romping or some such. Defo fits into situation asked about.

[Proteus4]

The reason I asked was because I'd just read love and war, and it felt like the story and character had matured somewhat, and then battleship seemed almost jarring in its flippancy. This is probably at least partly due to the tonal shifts between john Burns' and Simon Frasers artwork - both are fantastic but imo have strong influences on the feel of any given story.

Anyway, thanks for clearing up my foggy head

[I, Cosh]

From memory the one thing which highlights the rearrangement is the surname Nikolai claims at any given time.

[Dark Jimbo]

At least one continuity error slipped through - in Love and War Nikolai says something like 'What happened to us?' during his duel with Jena, to which she replies coldly 'While we made love on the Baltic coast, your brother murdered my sister.' But of course as things were published Dante wasn't meant to know this yet, as the reveal of Julianna's murderer is a big plot point during Battleship Potemkin.

[Proteus4]

At least one continuity error slipped through - in Love and War Nikolai says something like 'What happened to us?' during his duel with Jena, to which she replies coldly 'While we made love on the Baltic coast, your brother murdered my sister.' But of course as things were published Dante wasn't meant to know this yet, as the reveal of Julianna's murderer is a big plot point during Battleship Potemkin.

Actually just read battleship this morning, and yeah it was a little odd when he was like "whaaaat? You killed her!" And then they had a big fight.

[radiator]

Were the two stories rewritten at all? Could you just read them in the original intended order?

From memory the one thing which highlights the rearrangement is the surname Nikolai claims at any given time.

Yep. Dante calling himself 'Romanov' at the end of 'Love and War' was supposed to be a big cliffhanger before the big finale. It loses it's impact a bit in the execution.

The reason I asked was because I'd just read love and war, and it felt like the story and character had matured somewhat, and then battleship seemed almost jarring in its flippancy. This is probably at least partly due to the tonal shifts between john Burns' and Simon Frasers artwork - both are fantastic but imo have strong influences on the feel of any given story.

Well to be fair, the tone of Nikolai Dante swings between the extremes of high camp, gritty violence and melodrama even within any given story. 

[Grant Goggans]

I believe that it was originally meant to be five "books" of eight episodes, with Burns on art for 1,3, and 5, and Fraser on art for 2 and 4.  His unavailability meant that 2 and 3 were juggled with some rewriting, and the stories of 4-5 combined into the 13-episode conclusion.