Another Way To Breathe

Spoilers, obv.

Well, yes.

Jamie/Matt’s cover

Woden’s never looked more dapper, I think. I look at this, and suddenly wish I could go back in time to show it to the artists circa my X-men run, when I was trying to explain my Jack Kirby meets Jane Austen ideas for Sinister were all about. This! Like this! Tweaked slightly from the image from solicits to reposition the circuitry to the left of Woden to look less like a butt plug.

Sophie Campbell’s cover

We’ve been trying to arrange something with Sophie since Commercial Suicide, so we’re very happy to finally get her to a page. I’ve loved her since I first saw her work, in the early 00s Oni graph novel with Antony Johnston, Spooked. She was instantly fascinating, and seeing her work develop over all the years has been a thrill. This is one of the best Cassandra covers for me – just really stark and striking.

Page 1

Yes, we all want the leggings.

Really basic layout here – the steady angle three tired panels, which I love. It’s Uber’s signature panel structure, and just tries to put you in the place. In WicDiv’s case, we seem to use it a long in the Underground, which seems to be about inertia.

Also think the whole space is meaning – this is a one page scene, with three panels. We get very little of Persephone in this issue, and this magnifies each of these beats. This is all important. It has to be, as otherwise why are we lingering on it?

That final panel though, right? The stillness Jamie is working with here is fantastic.

Okay – let’s talk a little structural here. As several people have noted, this an issue which may recal issue 11, which cut between two threads (Baph/Inanna and Laura/Ananke) at the crucial, most interesting moment. Here, Imperial Phase has burned down to three threads – or three and a half threads, if you include Baphomet/Morrigan who aren’t in the issue. Cutting between three threads feels too slow, with you spending too much time away from a scene to maintain interest. As such, this issue essentially treats two threads as one thread – the Persephone/Sakmet segues into the Baal/Minerva/Amaterasu thread across the issue, and we cut between it and the Norns/Woden/Dionysus at every key beat.

There is one main exception to this, but it’s early on, and it’s notable the pace is kept relatively low before that. It’s only after that we go to the full on hard-cuts.

In other words – the page just lingers, because we’re not starting to dance properly yet. The tempo needs to be kept low, as to go in too hard would break the Cass/Dio scene in a few pages time.

Er… there’s a bunch of theory there. So much of what I try to write is to establish motivations and stakes, and then when they’re in place, bring it all crashing down. We are very rollercoaster.

Page 2

Every time I flick through this issue, I and hit this point I find myself turning to Belle and Sebastian’s I Don’t Love Anyone. It’s one of the bits I can hear the music in WicDiv, just that lying in bed, and the hard cut to black to the credits with B&S over.

Page 3-4

Man, I get sadder and sadder every time I see Dio with his coffee cup.

As I think I said last time, I saved the last bit of exposition about the gig for this issue because if I said it last time, I’d have to repeat it this time anyway. In short: the first page is “What is this gig actually ABOUT anyway?”

Every time I see the Norns and Woden on the same page, I just feel sorry for Clayton. That is a lot of work.

With Woden’s customary green, the hologram map has a certain Emerald City vibe, I think?

The end of page 4 is A+ acting from Jamie. Comedy lives in the mid-shot, etc. I believe Jamie added a panel here of extra Woden waving and Cass’ expression, which shows that I’ve made him get stockholm syndrome with modified-eight-panel structures.

(Joking aside, it just adds to the work. Having a little thinking time before Cass’ eye wide realisation sells the moment.)

Page 5-6

These two pages would be the place where I could have cut if I was bouncing between the threads… but for all the reasons I talk about on Page 1, I don’t. That’s not what’s happening. Yet.

8 panel grid here, which speaks to the sort of material that this scene is – very small and human, the eight panel being my go-to for autobiographical work.

(Plus, we have a lot of fish to fry here. I have to get this stuff into the space)

The “NOT YOU AS WELL!” makes me smile.

Woden’s last line was originally something like “Don’t worry. I am incapable of love.” which is a very Woden thing to say, but in the context of the following discussion made me suspect it may be taken as Woden saying he’s aromantic. Clearly, this would be unwanted, so I wrote around it.

The Crap. Crap. Crappity. Shitfuck. Panel is Cassandra continuing to be out of context panel champion.

The Dio/Cass conversation seems to have gone down well, which does make me happy. We’re writing around some delicate stuff here, on the nature of friendship. I wanted Cass and Dio to explicitly talk about this, but I also knew that Dio would never tell Cass… so it leads to Cass finding out another way. The problem then is that Cass also wouldn’t want to embarrass Dio. So we end up in a conversation like this, of all too transparent hypotheticals.

I love these two.

Page 7-8

Okay, this is just a Jamie masterclass, and the sort of scene I’d only write for someone I knew could pull this shit off. As Persephone – our de facto lead – isn’t in this issue much, I wanted to keep the focus on her, so we keep the frame on her and let us really see her go through the response. Right here, Baal’s response doesn’t matter. What’s going on here with Persephone?

I’m fond of the empty-cigarettes box thrown away as a timer on how long she’s procrastinated before making the call. I believe that came up in conversation rather than being in a script, in terms of doing the whole cigarette packet. I think it was just throwing away a cigarette in the first draft, which is far too short a time. We want Persephone there, a long time, just considering this.

I suspect some people would have cut page 7, but I’m much more interested in seeing someone wrestle with inertia. This hasn’t been easy for Persephone.

Anyway – Page 8. Look at those faces. 2 to 3 to 4 is a story in and of itself. The cringe of 3 turning to a counter-attack.

And the start of the hard-cuts. Hit a moment of tension, pose a question, and then move the frame away.

Page 9-10-11

To something else, ideally as interesting. Page 9 is clearly something to kill Jamie. We move to Dionysus empty silhouette crowds ASAP, but the amount of inking and work in these first few panels is a considerable expenditure from our “budget.” But it’s unavoidable.

9.3 – yes, that does look a lot like Lloyd.

The last panels of 9 took some conversation to make it clear what I meant was getting across. Jamie noted how Dio did it back in issue 8 was one and one contact, but I was looking for the visual. Trying to sell the idea of the effect just SPREADING across the crowd by contact, like ripples in water was the thing. No-one’s gone “Wait – that isn’t how Dio works” so I presume it sold it.

Love the framing in the last 3 – the use of space around Dio in panel 4 is particularly good. Matt’s colouring in the last panel too.

Page 10 – first of two splash pages. For an issue that’s packed, we still found a place to let this stuff breathe. In this case, selling the crowd, and the weird magic of the cerebellum above them was key. Also a page turn, onto the big image.

Page 11 is a rush of last key details – panel 2’s showing how it’s closed off is particularly key. This is all intensely private. Obviously panel 3 is Matt really going for it – that’s just a wonderfully fun on burst f everything.

And then Woden fucks everything up. The cut is telling – where to do this is taste. You could do it after he shoots. I thought it was more interesting to cut after he pulls the gun. The “What is he doing?” is more interesting to me than the answer.

Page 12-13

Back to the other thread. This involved a quick trip to the British Museum to get some reference shots for Jamie and me, with the lovely Al Ewing in company. The roof is accurate, though a nightmare to draw. The “opening of the triangle” is artistic licence. Don’t try it, kids.

All the shots here are also clearly “expensive” in terms of the time they take.

The Amy/Baal conversation has some fun elements – I wanted to do a scene where the Norns shouted at them, but it just didn’t fit in the structure. That we know Cass well enough to know how it would have gone just by referring to it probably shows how much we understand the cast at this point.

Jamie’s shadowed shot of Baal was a last minute choice, and works terribly well.

Page 14-15-16

Back to the other thread.

Woden talks about something to take out people’s powers in terms of hunting Sakhmet, foreshadowing this. The WARPED panel was in response to the pencils, where the idea of having the left of the panel normal and the right warped – as in, effectively working as two panels, showing when Woden’s effect kicks in was telling.

Change of colour as Woden takes control, from the old skool rave of Dio to the cold techno of Woden.

And, yes, this does appear to be a Radio Ga Ga riff.

Jamie took the last panel at a more neutral angle originally, but decided to rework it to be closer on Dionysus, to really stress his importance here. That Woden controls the crowd is clear in panel 2 – there’s no need to reiterate in the third.

Page 17-18

Statues of Sekhmet, as last seen in issue 17.

After we started working on the Red Performance of Amaterasu, Clayton suggested that we did a lettering style change as well. Clearly the right idea. We originally tried it with pure red balloons, but they merged with the coloured art on page 18, so we added the outline.

Yes, callback to issue 1 and issue 21.

Panel 4 on 19 originally had two balloons, but C felt it was over too quick and suggested adding a third balloon to extend the moment. Works beautifully, and a good example of how you can use lettering to control panel “Length.”

Abstractly you could have cut away at the page 19, but the other thread has already reached its cliffhanger and this is not a high drama moment.

Page 19-20-21-22

Page 19 is the page which required the most on the page editorial work in the issue. Amaterasu dooms herself in a delicate way, and as it’s her last moment, her mistakes – all her mistakes – need to be clear. To be fair to Amaterasu, she – like most of the cast – doesn’t know much about Sakhmet’s background. She doesn’t exactly know what a field of landmines she’s dancing across.

But still - less throwing Amaterasu under a bus, and more put her at the bottom of a mountain covered in buses and starting a bus-avalanche. You can easily imagine Amaterasu starring at the oncoming wall of public transport and going “I LOVE BUSES!”

People ask me about how much the story has changed in development. It’s not exactly that simple. Some beats I know as the big structural architecture of the story – Luci in issue 5, Laura in issue 11, Ananke in issue 22 and so on. Other character’s stories, while are planned in their shape, are left to be weaved into the story as they’re most appropriate. Amaterasu would be one of those characters – my original suspicion would be she’d die at the end of Imperial Phase Part I, but I realised that there wasn’t enough space to really delineate her misstep, so pushed it a little later. Equally, the idea that this should occur at the British Museum only came to me after issue 17, seeing how Sakhmet and Amaterasu’s arcs complimented one another – and specifically how Amaterasu related to the museum.

Originally the scene was only 3 pages, but Jamie wanted to page 20 as two pages. You can see why. As well as giving more space to hit the moments, it puts the splash page of a page turn.

There’s a lot to unpack in the last few pages and the last page particularly – the mix horror and the beauty of it is pointed. Me walking through it is kind of missing the point of visual information – it’s resolves in complicated ways that rub up against each other.

In terms of technical elements, I’d draw your attention to how casual Jamie choses to pick things – and the pop art of Matt’s choices. Extreme realism on the first panel of 20, before we go to the more impressionistic colours in the second panel. The brightness of Amy’s powers, and so on and so forth. Really strong work.

Goodbye, Amaterasu.

Page 23

The line came to me late, and I was surprised that – until then - I wasn’t conscious of the multiple uses of stealing throughout the issue thematically, in both story threads.

And the first new skull in a long time. I was wondering if Sergio would have forgot how to do it.

The Norns and Dionysus blurred to show their present state. We’ve not exactly done much of this since the first arc, but we thought it’d be useful to bring back.

This one seems to have gone down well. Back next month with 32, where things continue to escalate.

Thanks for reading.