Annotated 31-12
My favorite part here, easily, is panel 2, where Joel weighs the reasons for caution I mentioned on the last page against his natural curiosity and compassion, and decides to reach out before Shanna slips away. It’s one of those decision points that really could go in either direction. Such moments often end up revealing who a character is or steering who they become.
And at this point, Shanna has been on her own for so long that anyone reaching out is welcome.
I’m more reluctant about the last panel’s reference to Giorgio Tsoukalos, AKA the host of Ancient Aliens, but I follow Flo’s argument for including it. Joel is the kind of big nerd who even peppers his serious conversations with such references… even when they make his credibility a little iffy. Doing so makes the heavy stuff easier for him to handle.
Had we had a little more time to explore Shanna’s pre-Joel thinking, I might’ve had her roll out the hypothesis that this was a military-funded simulation that ended up revealing government secrets, i.e., the exact location of key assets. But even then, murder’s often less effective than an NDA with strict enough penalties, and the complete disappearance of the Five and Ferris means that Shanna keeps coming back to the theory that they’ve been murdered.
Heh. Didn’t notice the reference to Alien Guy before.
Can I get an explainer on the alt text?
Another reference to Tsoukalous, who famously said ‘I’m not saying it’s aliens. But, aliens.’
It’s kind of confusing because “alien” doesn’t rhyme with “palin” in my accent or any I’m familiar with.
Yes – this was my hangup too. Plus I haven’t seen the show.
Joel actually makes this page work, how else would you react to ‘Not-Activision is kidnapping people in their test group.’
I’ve never understood why Shanna didn’t do this interview BEFORE wandering around Hurricane looking for glass tubes and catfishing suspected murderers. This guy and his interview crew are some of the few people that can confirm her suspicions about the identities of the five test subjects, and they aren’t likely to be directly involved with the disappearances. Their testimony would be enough to justify an official investigation into Hurricane specifically, and if the company continued trying to suppress that it would just create an opportunity for her to collect evidence of them performing witness intimidation as well.
I suspect that her aversion to the whole gamer and fantasy culture scene kept her from doing that.
Also, depending on con schedules, availability may have been in issue as well.
Those are both fair points, but she wouldn’t have had to meet him at a con. Or even in person, although there’s valid reasons she might have insisted on that. I suppose her aversion could be less about con attendance and more about associating with “gaming people”?
I just boggle to think that she’d sooner risk being chased across the country by a hitman than talk to some people who’s hobbies she doesn’t like.
You’re right of course, that talking to Joel would have been the lower risk, but I don’t think she expected to be chased by a hitman when she decided to poke around hurricane headquarters first. That only became an option once somebody disappeared to whom she had talked, and at that point it was out of her hands.
Before getting into the military funded whatever, isn’t something like the truth pretty close to “rational”? The VR equipment failed catastrophically, killing the test subjects, and now they’re trying to cover it up? She already believes they’re not above murder to cover up some secret. Why can’t that secret be manslaughter? Which I’m pretty sure NDA wouldn’t cover.
I see you’ve never held a security clearance.