This was the first page I ever wrote for Guilded Age, and it did not come easy. I’d been pushing my comics-scriptwriting muscles pretty hard in the years leading up to this, working on numerous other series as a self-publisher and freelancer, partly to build on past successes and partly to spread my net wide for the next big thing. Guilded Age, right from the first, had a good chance of being that next big thing, and we had the chapter outlined and the series planned, but when time came to put my fingers to the keyboard, I came down with one of the worst writer’s blocks I’d ever experienced. It felt like a physical migraine.

But thankfully, it was over more quickly.

Part of the problem was that I was trying to approach Frigg’s story by focusing solely on her last day in the nunnery, and that would’ve fit the “adventure in four pages” format neatly, but it also would’ve been fairly predictable. It’s a surprise that Frigg was part of this order, but it’s not a surprise that she got out, so after a big jolt on the first page, the reader would just be awaiting the inevitable. Once I hit on this “unknown unreliable narrator,” we could spend a few pages really establishing the Sisterhood and their brand of “civic service,” which would pay rich dividends down the line.