About the Comic

THE NORDGUARD TRILOGY

The North is an untamed and harsh country, offering few rewards and promising nothing but constant hardship. It is ruled by the winter, populated by scattered outposts, reclusive native tribes and the half-starved strays known as the Maguraq. The White Land is truly the last frontier.

Under the flag of the United Territories, thousands travel north, seeking their own manifest destiny in the land of the midnight sun. It is an age of exploration: people come to test themselves against the wild land and chart the vast snowbound wastes. It is also an age of industry: whaling and fishing are a lucrative business and diamonds, copper and gold are waiting in the frozen ground, ripe for the taking.

In this cruel place, one organization comes into being with the noble goal of exploration, rescue and aid for all: the Nordguard. Responsible for cutting trails, carrying the mail and recovering lost travelers, their dangerous job is never done.

In the late autumn of 1903, a distress call from one of the northern mines has come over the wire. The nearest seaports are frozen solid with the early winter and a rescue attempt must be made by land. Pi and her team–the best the Nordguard has to offer–are called in to make the risky run to the Tartok Mine.

It is no routine mission, however. Unknowingly, the team races towards a danger they could never have imagined, and ever closer to a betrayal from friend and foe alike. Tartok Mine holds a dark secret: something ancient and terrible pulled from the icy earth. Many will die in an effort to claim it, and many more will fall trying to destroy it. Pi and her team find themselves caught in the middle, struggling only to escape.

Traveling in the company of an arrogant military officer and a green field surgeon, pursued by relentless hunters and trapped between the jaws of a much larger conspiracy, the team’s survival rides on very thin ice.

 Across Thin Ice is the first of the Nordguard books, released the summer of 2011, and now available to buy, either online from Sofawolf Press, or at your local comic retailer!

Across Thin Ice is 75 full color pages, softcover copies are $19.95–more information on the book itself, here!

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The Dawn of a New Era

The story of the Nordguard parallels our own universe and shares a few similarities in geography, industry and political climate. It is the turn of the twentieth century—railways crisscross the civilized world, the first mechanized assembly lines are put to use, telegraphs and wireless radio signals have brought the great nations of the world together in an age of industry and invention. Science has broken new ground: the quantum nature of energy is discovered in Berlin, the Wright brothers make the first successful flight of their heavier-than-air craft and in psychology, Freud publishes his book ‘Interpretation of Dreams.’

This is an age of dauntless enterprise, intrepid spirits and the resolute belief in manifest destinies.
In the Americas, the United Territories govern much of the northern continent, sharing it’s borders with the French settlements known as the Kebek Nations to the east, the stolid Russian Federation to the west of the McKenzie Range, and to the south, Spanish colonies.Industry and commerce has exploded over the continent with new fervor. Steel is the epitome of big-business on the east coast. Inventions ranging from the first automobile and electric washing machines to thumbtacks and air conditioning have begun to revolutionize the country. The West has long been won and boasts vast tracks of land for the taking. On the plains, families stake out new homesteads as they strive to fill the spaces between the American coasts. With first wide-scale manufacturing of tin cans and preservatives, fishing has reached new heights of demand, needed to supply food to an ever-growing population. Tracks of forest throughout the heartland are plowed for timber to make way for expanding farmland. All creatures of the south labor together in the unified goal of industry, under the flag of the Untied Territories.Only one frontier remains unconquered in the Americas: the Arctic.

Exploration of the North

Many have set their sights north in hopes of finding glory and gold. Few ever return. The northland is still wild and its people are untamed, appearing barbaric to the southern ‘summercoats’. In the White Land, the law of tooth and claw still commands. In desperate times, the eating of another animals’ flesh is a dark necessity. Above it all, the winter reigns supreme and rules with cruel indifference, taking with both hands.

Despite this, the military Corps of the United Territories has pushed its way into the north over long, desperate years. They’ve established forts and outposts to keep a weary eye on their civilized neighbors and repel the savage natives. At the same time, with business booming in the more gentle southern territories, newly incorporated Companies have sent money and men north to establish trade communities in the endless effort to exploit the virgin landscape. The northland has become pocketed with mines, both those privately operated and those with the giant mining complexes funded by the Companies. They dig deep for copper, gold and other precious metals, making many men rich. The Companies also employ fleets that prowl the known waterways, whaling, sealing and fishing.

Expeditions by ship continually travel north, either from the Americas or the European nations in hopes of discovering a Northwest Passage to the Pacific. Other intrepid explorers sail toward the Pole, hoping to be the first to reach it and have their names recorded in history. Many of these expeditions simply vanish, never to be found and lost for the ages.

The Nordguard

Civilzation, in all forms, finds that to conquer the arctic embodies man’s ultimate triumph over Nature. In the same spirit of the early arctic explorers who trekked north in hand-drawn sledges, the same forces of civilization in the world of the Nordguard steadily head north, prepared to push the boundaries of their nations and culture into the very heart of the White Land.

As the first permanent establishments took hold in the northern territories, a civilian outfit known as the Nordguard came into being. Their humble start was with only a single team in 1860, lead by the intrepid explorer Albert Kerstof. Their lives were dedicated to keeping trails open to travelers, opening new routes, and running the mail between outposts. Over the last 40 years, the Nordguard has flourished, growing into an elite Search and Recovery organization. In the ever changing and hard northern climate, their job is ceaseless and difficult. Their strength of character is exemplified in their company motto:

“Always Running, Never Tiring,
So That Others May Live.”
 

 

Albert Kerstof, 1842-1878