The power loom approach to illustration

The other day I was adding some notes to my Mirabilis plot summary. I have a good 15,000 words now, as well as the full scripts for the first half of the Spring book. 

Could I even write it today? Certainly it was far easier to contemplate when Leo and I were on a roll. We had little luck with publishers (variously uninterested or unable to get the books out) and the obstacle to going it alone was the cost of all the artwork.

These days Leo is busy with some interesting but very different projects. I could complete the story as a novel (if talk is cheap, prose isn't that much more costly) but it really feels like it should be a comic. What about using AI? Not a popular choice, I know, but it's not like I'd be doing a human artist out of a job, seeing as I can't afford a human artist in the first place.

The AI isn't there yet, as these samples show. I'd need the characters to look like themselves and remain consistent from panel to panel. Also to have the right number of fingers (human artists have the edge there) and not to come out with two left hands (a mistake the robots have picked up from people).

First above is an image by Nightcafe. I don't mind the style but it hasn't got Jack and Estelle right. Still, it did better than Bing Image Creator, which first got Jack mixed up with Harry Potter and then with John Constantine. It did have a crack at lettering, though. Next is Wombo Dream's attempt at a whole page, which looks like a comic you might find in the Dreaming. Trying to redeem itself, it next goes too manga and lovey-dovey for my tastes, and gives us two Jacks into the bargain. Back to Bing (below) for what could be from a future season of Doctor Who. And at the bottom another Bing image that's either channeling Barry Windsor-Smith or trying to look like an actual Edwardian drawing. Or I guess it could be a Steeleye Span album.

What I haven't tried yet is Midjourney, the crème de la crème of generative art models. With AI advancing as it is, it might be ready within a year or two to take my thumbnail layouts and descriptions and turn those into something halfway decent. Then the only question is whether I still have those characters and stories in me. 

Original Hartas artwork to own!

Recognize this? Maybe you don't know the wight in question personally, but the artist will be familiar if you've read Mirabilis. It's actually one of the very first illustrations that Leo drew for a gamebook called The Crypt of the Vampire, which was the first book that either of us worked on. It was a long time ago and the clocks were striking thirteen, and that's all I'm going to say, but here's the full story if you're interested..

Now Megara Entertainment are running a Kickstarter campaign to finance a hardcover edition of Le Tombeau du Vampire, which is a new French translation of Crypt of the Vampire, and the campaign also gives you the opportunity to buy Leo Hartas's original artwork for the book.

Yep. Leo Hartas. Original. Artwork.

The Kickstarter page is in French, but there's an English translation in the sidebar for UK or US gamebook collectors and art fans who might want to own one of these unique drawings. Not prints, you note. Not copies. The actual honest-to-goodness pen-and-ink drawings that Leo did all those years ago for the Golden Dragon Gamebooks series.

How it works: pledge €600 and for that you get any one original drawing from Crypt of the Vampire. (You choose which one, it says, but presumably it'll be on a first-come-first-served basis.) You also get any one English hardback collector's gamebook from Megara Entertainment's webstore. Shipping to anywhere in the world is included in the price, with tracking. The drawings are 90mm x 145mm on 160mm x 225mm card. (Oddly, it looks as if this reward doesn't include the hardback of Le Tombeau du Vampire, but I guess they assume that if you're picking the English language option then you won't want the French edition.)

So, if you were one of the female students at Brighton University faculty of arts in those far-off days, and you turned down a late-night offer from Leo to show you his etchings, here's the chance to finally buy one! But the campaign has just three weeks left to run, so don't delay. Check it out here.

*  *  *

STOP PRESS: Alternatively, for €29 you can get a full-colour hardcover edition of the book in either English or French (your choice). Leo is colourizing his original pictures for this (and see above how awesome they look, too) and he's also going to be painting an all-new cover.

Leo Hartas. All-New. Cover. The goodies just keep on coming.

STOP STOP PRESS: ...Or maybe not. It now seems to be up in the air as to whether the cover of the English edition will be a new Leo painting, one of the colourized interior pictures, or just blank. The moral of the story is: don't launch into a Kickstater campaign without any planning and then change the goalposts every few days. Sigh. But you definitely can buy Leo's original art, and the English edition ought to have colour versions of his original drawings inside. For anything else, I can only advise that you check the fine print on the Kickstarter page on a twice-daily basis.

STOP STOP STOP. JUST STOP: Okay, so Megara Entertainment have now (June 2) announced they are cancelling the Kickstarter campaign for Crypt of the Vampire. Don't let it put you off crowdfunding new gamebooks, though, because the campaign for my story The Frankenstein Wars has just started. It's a Kickstarter Staff Pick and it's going great guns: in the space of half a day it's already 12.5% funded. And I can guarantee that Cubus Games, who are running it, will not cancel this campaign. More details of The Frankenstein Wars in the post above this one. In the meantime, if you want to buy Leo's original artwork, there's an easier solution than doing it by means of a Kickstarter - why not just contact him directly?

Another angle

What I enjoy about writing comics is that it's like making a movie, only better. You get to work out some rough dialogue, then you position the characters in the scene, then you get to refine the dialogue. If it's not working you can move them around, try another angle, another turn of phrase. And they never wave a contract in your face and ask for overtime.

The only way that regular movie-making has the edge is in the editing. Since every scene change should ideally come at the end of a page, or anyway at the end of a tier of panels, it's the very devil if you suddenly decide you need to slot something else in.

By the time Leo gets to doing the pencil art, we’ve already worked out 99% of the direction of each scene. Occasionally we find that a particular shot or line of dialogue isn't working. At most this involves changing one or two panels at the pencils stage. (We work in "episodes" of 5-6 pages at a time. Considering there are typically 35 panels per episode, that's not a bad batting average.) And we've never yet had to completely change a panel after it went to inking - though Nikos does work the occasional miracle at the colouring stage when Leo and I overlooked something.

The process is versatile, but there are times when you have to kill a darling. This scene between Jack and the Kind Gentleman, for instance. I really liked the way Leo positioned the "camera" - it made for a great dramatic face-off. But we realized that the bestowing of the magic key wasn't getting enough prominence. That key is going to be important, not only in plot terms (it can open any lock, though it can't blow up a Cyberman) but because this is where the Kind Gentleman really starts to bind Jack to him, dispensing gifts for all the world like a traditional faerie king to his favoured mortal godson.

So Leo did a new version of the panel to put the emphasis on the key. The preceding panel is a wide establishing shot, so we didn’t actually need to show their relative position or setting again. But the earlier version did look nice. The beauty of a blog, of course, is that you don’t have to kill your darlings outright. You can lay them sleeping in their glass coffin, as here, and invite people in for a look.

This scene, incidentally, is from the start of Chapter Five, "The Darkest Hour", which is almost exactly halfway through season one: Winter.

Tips from a master

I just came across the Temple of the Seven Golden Camels blog, which I see is going to keep me happily absorbed for weeks.

Here's just one of many gems, a set of comic book guidelines by Carson Van Osten, renowned Disney artist. If you like the sample above, shoot on over for a treasure trove of other great creative tips.

More mouse action tomorrow.

A glimpse in the crystal ball

Now that Leo, Nikos and I are hitting our stride with the first issues of Mirabilis season two, there's a daily temptation to show what we're working on. The spring is here, the comet looms large in the sky, and magic isn't hiding in the shadows anymore. That means lots of spectacular locations and fabulous new characters. At the same time, I don't want to spoil the fun by showing too much too soon. It's the biggest dilemma since Sir Lancelot was dying to tell his best pal about the hot chick he'd just been banging.

As an entire page of the next issue has appeared on Facebook, I guess it's okay to trot out one little glimpse here. I say "trot out" mainly because of two of our new characters. That's Withers on the left and, on the right, Cannonbone. The fellow in the middle is an old acquaintance from Mirabilis: Winter, last seen climbing a rope into the wild blue yonder, while the lady shall remain anonymous for now.

In comics and movies it's pretty hard to make a centaur character like Withers work. The hindquarters are out of scale for everybody else in the scene, as you'll know if you've seen The Philosopher's Stone or The Lightning Thief, so I'm going to do a post on how we designed Withers with that in mind. But that's for another day.

Here you can see how our art process works from my thumbnails (below) to Leo's pencils (above). I obviously drew the girl on a whole other level from the other three. She's actually supposed to be sitting in front of them, not (as in my sketch) waist-deep in the ground. Luckily I have Leo to fix my mistakes!

A nice big purr from Shadowcat

There's a great review of Mirabilis #1 over on cool comics site Kitty's Pryde. Four-and-a-half stars and we didn't even have to leave a brown envelope stuffed with cash behind the water pipes. "Almost musical," is their judgment on the script, "with a nice storytelling feel." Heap it on, guys, I can take it. Better not repeat what they have to say about Leo's artwork as it'll only make him big-headed.

Judging a comic book by its cover

Believe it or not, this was our early mock-up for the cover of The DFC issue 34 (Jan 2009). I mean very early, when we first started planning Mirabilis in the pre-publication days before we had any idea what the comic was going to be like. Back then, Martin and I were probably envisaging a cross between 2000 AD and Strange Tales. (I mean the original 2000 AD and Strange Tales, of course, though being like the new ST would be cool too.)

As we quickly came to realize, this kind of spooky mood piece wouldn't have worked at all. Truthfully, it would barely have worked as the cover for an issue of something like Eerie, would have fizzled and gone out as a regular comic book cover, and on the front of a weekly anthology comic like The DFC, with funny animal stories and some of its readers barely out of short pants? Doh, we're idiots; it would have sunk like a copernicium balloon. Not because it's a bad painting - Martin is never less than brilliant, and that's on his bad days. But he created this as a piece of concept art, and it was never meant to dramatize a scene.
In the event, DFC #34 had an absolutely superb cover by Andrew Wildman for Frontier. Whereas our Bedlam cover merely rewards you for already knowing about the accompanying story, that image of Daisy Adams and Mitch Seeker menaced by werecoyotes entices you to find out. The DFC editor, Ben Sharpe, must have thought we were a few bullets short of a sixgun for our suggestion, but I'm sure he was very polite in rejecting it. I do wish the real cover didn't have all that cluttering text and design element overload, though. Would you do that to a Wildman original? (You may say I'm not thinking like a kid, but my 9-year-old self had the exact same opinion about comic covers. That's another reason why in those days I followed Marvel rather than DC.)

Btw if you recognize the Bedlam picture, it's because we've talked about it before and that shows you've been paying attention. It's another of Martin's movie concept paintings, and I briefly considered using it for one of the covers of the the Mirabilis Kindle mini-editions. But those covers on Amazon are displayed sooooo small, and the content in each mini-edition so bite-sized, that a big atmospheric cover just didn't fit. Instead we went with three minimalist portrait-based covers that do exactly what it says on the tin.

What got me thinking about The DFC after all this time? It's because Team Mirabilis received an invitation to a party at the David Fickling Books offices, and the invitation came from Mr Ben Sharpe himself. So what's the occasion? Is The DFC coming back? My lips are sealed - for now - but the party is this afternoon, so right after I get back from that I'll be sure to tell you everything.

Coming next ish!

As part of the preparations for an update for the Mirabilis comics app in March, we've decided to add full-page teasers at the back of each issue. I'd love to run the full set as they're instant collectible classics, but the blurbs would give too much away to those of you who haven't read the Winter storyline. But here is the first, which will be slotted in at the back of #1 just after our hero muses that "nothing will ever be the same again". You got that right, Jack - especially once you meet the Kind Gentleman. Brrr.

Grub's up

When The DFC was still going, we had a title for every 5-page weekly mini-episode. This fun little scene of grace under pressure would have been the opening of mini-episode 16, "Hyde & Seek".

It was good discipline for me as a writer to have to build in a major revelation and/or cliffhanger every five pages. And I still structure each issue that way. But never having been a fan of weekly comics myself, Mirabilis is conceived in the form of comic book episodes of around 20 to 25 pages to be read once a month.

So now this scene has its rightful place on the iPad comics app towards the start of issue #4 ("Fire and Sleet and Candlelight") - or, if print is your bag, of Chapter Four of the Mirabilis: Winter graphic novel. It's another beautiful example of how Leo's and Nikos's styles complement each other.

You didn't expect to see Jack and arch-enemy McNab sitting down to a meal together? Then just wait till you get an eyeful of who's at the other end of the table.

Top tips by comic book masters

You probably never thought to see the big blue boy at the top of a Mirabilis post. (Though indeed, why not? He's a mythological figure too.) This image by Dan Scott heads up a list of useful tips by comic book artists. My favorites:

"It’s a lot more to do with the storytelling than just pretty art. I see a lot of up and comers that get into comics in the same position I was in, and I see them focusing very heavily on the way they draw and doing covers and pin-ups and things like that. I don’t see a lot of focus on storytelling, which is something I’ve really tried to focus on in the last few years. I think if anyone can learn from my experience, focus on that just as much as focussing on your art."
- Mark Brooks

"There were all of these little nuances of line readings, acting, reacting, interpretation, layers of character personality, integrity, etc, people bouncing off each other. That was suddenly very grown-up, as opposed to the slam-bang. It was a whole new ballgame, and it forced me to really pay attention, and look, learn and listen."
- Alex Toth on the lessons he took from romance comics

"In the past I’ve overworked my pencils in order to make them as ‘good’ as possible, whereas I now believe it’s best to adopt a looser approach and perhaps to have more self-belief in your own personal style. I was given the same advice in 1982 by Steve Dillon, who I think believes that being a perfectionist can take the ‘fun’ out of drawing comics."
- Tony O'Donnell on not chasing the "in" style

Fact is, they're all great lessons from comics legends. And not a grain of red kryptonite among 'em. Well worth a look.

Mirabilis - the graphic novels!

Okay, we've got a month of big news coming up and this is just the start of it. In a matter of weeks you'll be able to feast your eyes on the whole Winter season of Mirabilis in the form of two glorious full-color volumes. Each book is 112 pages and will be available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble for around $19.99 each (or £12.99 in Britain). When we have the hard release date and RRP we'll be announcing it here, along with the first look ever at the stupendous cover painting of Volume Two - really, it should be in the Guggenheim. Oh, and then there's the apps... Stay tuned!

Forced landing among the gods

“Above the May Day celebrations in Worplesdon in Surrey, the clouds part and the halls of Olympus can be seen. Down flies an airplane to land on the village green. It’s the Wright brothers, believed lost several months earlier after disappearing into a thick fog off the coast of North Carolina.”

That’s how it began: a throwaway paragraph from a big brainstorming document that I did years ago, right after we first came up with the concept of Mirabilis. I put down hundreds of scraps of ideas as they came to me, figuring it was the best way to build up a picture of how fantasy flowed and ebbed through the year.

Each month had a little descriptive line. January: “Some rather queer things have been happening lately.” February: “Did I dream that, or did it really happen?” March: “It’s true; my cousin saw it with his own eyes.” April: “There are new things under the sun.” And so on to November ("Half sick of shadows") to the end.

Fast forward a while. It's 2008. Mirabilis is due to appear in The DFC and Random House have commissioned the Gazetteer for rather a tidy sum. So now Martin and I are working on ideas that would make the twelve full-color spreads that will form the épine dorsale of the Gazetteer – and later, we envisaged, comprise a rather nice Mirabilis calendar.

That first version we weren’t sure about for a couple of reasons. The flying machine was based on a real design by Clément Ader from the 1890s. In real life it didn’t fly, of course, but the green comet effect could change all that. Trouble is, it looks too science fictional, and people would think we were trying to do steampunk. The other problem is the placement of Zeus and Hera, who appear to be montaged in rather than directly interacting with the action. Martin and I mulled over it for days. He wrote:

“I showed it to Dave Carson, who knows about the Mirabilis concept, and he had no idea what we were trying to achieve in the picture, and found it confusing.”

So, on to the second version. Now Martin has brought the gods into the picture by moving them across and having the line of Zeus’s arm connect with the action below. I wasn’t happy with the flying machine, though. It looked like a real historical Wright Brothers contraption. Snag is, authentic and all, at first glimpse you’d think it was flying backwards. Martin pointed out that was how it would really have flown. But it forces a double-take about the wrong thing. You want your viewer to be going, “Ooh, that plane has flown down to the village green from Olympus!” not, “Have they got that plane the wrong way round or something?”

Martin wrote:

“I think the machine we need to use is the Model A Flyer from 1907. It was the fourth machine they designed, the first to feature two seated occupants – a requirement to secure a US Army contract. It was the first to be 'mass' produced, not sure how many but they were also built in Europe – so the truly pioneering vibe of the first three Flyers is slightly lost. But it's the first design where we can show two occupants – except the brothers never flew together, at the request of their father to avoid a double tragedy.”

And that brings us to the third version. The line of action is much clearer now, and Martin suggested accentuating that by having the suggestion of a “vapor trail” down from Zeus’s hand. It’s also much more dramatic in the way the airplane is buzzing the cricketers. We discovered that Zeus’s many epithets included Phyxius, god of flight, so it’s reasonable that he might take an interest in Orville and Wilbur’s experiments. (He was also sometimes known as Terminalis, protector of boundaries, which explains why he would be observing a village cricket match.)

We were still not completely satisfied with the picture, and I suspect by this time that Martin was coming to the conclusion that it would work better if he chose what to illustrate, rather than have me foist impossibly complicated compositions on him!

In the end, the concept changed anyway. I felt that Worplesdon was getting enough coverage in Mirabilis (the Sidney Sime connection, you see) and we needed to show more episodes from around the world – specifically, from other parts of the Empire, to show the global transformation of the Edwardian era that Comet Meadowvane was causing. Hence the report to the Royal Mythological Society moved the whole thing over to India:

Dear Professor Bromfield and Doctor Clattercut

An extraordinary event took place during a recent cricket match between the royal court and the local British regiment. The court was 150 for 4 when a great rock slid like a cloud across the sky, and down from it came a buzzing machine made of wire, wood and brown paper.

The contraption landed in the middle of the pitch, driving two deep ruts right across from mid-wicket to the stumps despite the hardness of the ground at the time of year. I barely threw myself out of the way in time, after first giving the propeller a sound clout with my bat, whereupon a young fellow wearing a leather hat and goggles leapt out crying, “For Pete’s sake, mister, why’d you have to go do a thing like that?”

When my temper cooled a little, I discovered the two occupants of this aerial machine were brothers by the name of Wright. Having taken off from a field in North Carolina back in January, they flew into a storm and were forced to land on what they thought was Bermuda, but which turned out in fact to be the flying island of Laputa. The island was carried around the world by the trade winds, and by chance the brothers Wright had completed repairs on their vehicle and were ready to take off again just as they passed over our pitch.

The question is, would you say this occurrence is ground for abandoning the whole game, or did the court (as the umpires ruled) forfeit the match? We cannot resume play now because the monsoon has arrived.

Very truly yours, Prince Duleep Singh,
Lahore

Dr Clattercut replies: Please do not treat the brothers Wright too harshly, your royal highness. Americans don’t understand cricket and so they probably think they've done nothing worse than if they had disrupted a game of baseball.

Prof Bromfield: Yes, and in any case the harm is done. The umpires have the last word, no doubt about it. You’ll get nowhere arguing with them, any more than with the Fates.

Dr Clattercut: It is the Graeae, of course - the three “grey sisters” of Greek myth - who share but a single eye between them.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Have you spotted the DVD-style extras that are going up on the main Mirabilis website? Many of these are articles based on earlier blog posts, but you especially won't want to miss "The Forgotten Year", which is a big all-new feature about how the arrival of the green comet changed everyone's lives in the Year of Wonders.

Not only do you get some of the broadest hints we've ever let slip about the direction the story is taking, you can also feast your eyes on some stunning super-sized Mirabilian artwork by the incomparable Mr McKenna. This is why Hollywood producers have him on speed-dial.

The picture here shows the care and attention Martin gives to his work. Because that view of Mr Stoop the removal giant, which in most artists' portfolios would count as a near-finished picture, was the rough that ended up on Martin's cutting-room floor. You can see the final version on the website, and it is at a completely different angle, a more dramatic scene, and with a gnarlier-looking giant. But this is simply too good to throw away, don't you agree?

Slaying the monster

Here's an early post revisited more than a year down the line. I thought I'd update it just to show the full evolution of a page from my scrappy sketches to the finished work of brilliance as crafted by Leo and Nikos.Like a lot of writers, I spend more time than is healthy musing on (read: fretting over) the whole creative process. And it always helps when you find something that reminds you other writers find that a long, hard road too - at least if they're doing it right. Thank God for a guy like William Goldman, who's always ready to jump into the foxhole and put a supporting arm around your shoulders. Which Lie Did I Tell? - that's my Gideon bible.

While obsessing about dialogue, which in comics has different requirements from both prose and screen, I came across this quote from Deborah Moggach on adapting Pride & Prejudice into a movie script:

'Film acting is all about reacting. It’s about the unsaid, and it relies on tapping into the heart of the story. For instance, in the opening scene, where the Bennet family is aflutter with news of Mr Bingley’s arrival, Elizabeth has little to say on the page. In the film, however, we can’t take our eyes off her because the camera picks up her reactions and holds on her stillness in the middle of a busy room.

'Films are deeply connected to the subconscious, and screenplays reflect this. It’s all subtext, and a good director and actors know what a scene is really saying. When Elizabeth bumps into Darcy at Pemberley they have the most stilted, dull exchange. “I thought you were in London.” “No, I’m not.”

'Watching it is almost unbearable, however, because they’re both in torment. Their faces betray their feelings. We’ve come on a long journey with them by this time, and the scene is poignant with what is not put into words. A novelist is terribly tempted to over-write a scene.'

That's the reason I draw my little sketch layouts before finalizing the dialogue. For us control freaks it's actually better than movie making, because you get to look at how your dialogue is working and you have total freedom to change it.

And then often I change bits of dialogue again when the art comes back from Leo, because he will have put in some nuances of performance that means a line of dialogue isn't needed after all.

Mirabilis is pretty heavy on dialogue compared with some comics. We mean it to be. We want this epic of ours to be a read with plenty of meat to it. A broad canvas kind of story with a big cast of characters and the room to introduce them all. We intend for it to be a series you'll keep and return to many times, each time finding something you didn't notice before. It's not the kind of comic you read once and forget.

And on that note we hope to have some very exciting news for you in the next couple of weeks. Don't go away.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight

Frank Frazetta died yesterday in a Florida hospital. My first encounter with his work was the tiny black and white images of Creepy and Eerie covers reproduced in the back of Famous Monsters of Filmland. Even in that form the images had the power to transport you to other worlds. I'd pore over them for hours, imagining scenarios of mind-numbing terror that Archie Goodwin's actual stories, marvellous as they were, could never quite match. A year or two later, I found some of the Lancer Conan books in my local newsagent and so got my first dizzying taste of Frazetta in color. It was as if the whole exotic world of American fantasy had come crashing through the plywood wall of 1970s Home Counties suburbia. I had a Frazetta badge (it was "The Death Dealer") that was still with me at college at the end of the '70s, and if I looked hard now I'm pretty sure I'd find it. For several generations he was one of the defining draftsmen of a gutsy, full-blooded, rock-n-roll brand of fantasy. The Aesir will greet him with honor.

The original and genuine

And here, by popular request (well, actually nobody but Peter Richardson of Cloud 109 fame actually asked, but that makes it unanimous) is a snapshot taking you from pencils to finished art of a scene from Mirabilis episode 1.

Keep tuning in. At a panel a day, we will get the whole book up online by 1st May 2013. Oh, and I almost forgot, but notice how those uniforms changed between pencils and inks? That followed an intense concepting weekend in which Leo and Martin got together to really define the look of the main characters.

And you know, again I have to say I'm utterly in awe of what Leo and Nikos pull off. Separately, artists of exceptional talent; together, the best team in comics.

Greater than the sum of the parts

Every comic artist who has commented on the finished Mirabilis pages has noticed the incredible alchemy that takes place between Leo's drawing and Nikos's coloring. Flattery is all too easy, but I can say with absolute sincerity that I don't think there is a more talented art team working in comics today, and it is my incredible luck to have these gentlemen illustrating the scenarios I come up with. Add to that the truly phenomenal covers that Martin has produced and I could want for almost nothing else. Oh, except for publication, obviously.

Pistols at dusk

Another sneak peek into the eventful life of Jack Ember - or possibly I mean John Spark. Keep collecting these and eventually you'll have the whole of the Winter book. Incidentally, notice the Doc Strange influence?

Boom

Talking of fight scenes: when we ran our Silver Age mock-up covers around Christmas, one glaring oversight was not showing you the whole fabulous Charge of the Centaur Brigade picture used to illustrate"Boom - like that!" Well, here it is. A shame that it never got the full color treatment it deserved, but c'est la guerre... (No, we didn't go to Angoulême this year, but I guess we've got it on the brain.)

If you appreciate Mr McKenna's masterful artwork (who doesn't?) but somehow managed to miss his story of death, parenthood and early motor cars, you can still read it right here.

Worth a thousand words

I said no pictures from the last 30 pages or so, but I feel justified in showing this one off because, firstly, it contains no spoilers and, secondly, you would probably not stop and take it in when you're racing through to the climax of the book. Yet, like so many of Leo's and Nikos's panels, it deserves to be framed and appreciated in an art gallery.

There are few sequences that better show Leo's attention to detail. I set a few short scenes in the auction rooms of Mr Kotivedes (that's him with the gavel) which are intercut with some big, fast, spectacular, set-piece action bits. (From action to auction, a classic writer's trick for racking up the tension.) As I can never keep anything simple, even the seating plan at Mr Kotivedes's rooms is vitally important to the story. So Leo devised the full cast of attendees seen here, who have travelled from several continents to buy the sort of article that is appearing in the early days of the year: Nessus's first horseshoe, the figurehead of the Argo, the eighth color that Odin rejected for the Rainbow Bridge, that kind of thing.

But it's not just the detail. Look at the body language. This is just a snapshot moment, a brief cut away from the deadly peril that our main characters are in, and yet this single panel is a story in itself. I feel guilty covering it up with word balloons - hence this opportunity to see it in all its glory.