Did you notice (from memory) that the outfit which Nem is wearing when he visits Great Uncle Baal is the same outfit he's wearing when he arrives on Britannia? Which we never see anywhere else...
I did indeed, though only this time! This is exactly the kind of thing I hoped to see by going carefully at it and looking at the evolution of Kev's art in particular, but also Pat's words. The Great Uncle Baal episode is particularly interesting because it's the introduction of Grobbendonk, who we know was actually created "in" the Gothic Empire episodes: the same episode that Nemesis wears those stripey pauldrons.
However, O'Neill's Gothic Empire opener is in what I think of as his "small figure" style, characters that seem a bit lost and disconnected in their busy panels, while the Baal episode, at least in theory, is from several years later and features his "cropped figure" style, where characters seem almost too big for their panels, big half-head shots and large silhouettes. Nemesis has also begun his transition from darkly shaded sleek head (which Talbot eventually runs with until Nem resembles a Polaris missile) to the gnarlier more open version that characterises Book III in particular. So while the elements suggest it's connected to Gothic Empire, I'm guessing that's a product of O'Neill going back to check his references for Grobbendonk, and picking up the travelling cloak at the same time.
The Baal episode is also 4 pages long. A character that has lived in my head for almost 40 years, whose voice I can still hear, and his debut (and really the bulk of his screen time) amounts to
4 pages. Those men knew how to make comics.
In the world of prose I read
Stephen King's Richard Bachman's
The Long Walk for the first time, courtesy of enthusiastic discussion on this very thread. I think it's the most purely horrific thing he's ever written, it consumed my dreams for over a week, and not in a good way (but also in a good way, because that's what I look for in horror). It may be the best thing I've ever read by him, not least for balancing complete nihilism with the qualities of an extended parable. Safe to say the sexual politics are of their day, but beyond that the humanity is extraordinary.
With an invigorated enthusiasm for the man, I disrupted my carefully-ordered to-read pile and seized on
Hearts in Atlantis, which so far feels like unused notes from
It, but I have faith.
