Annotated 31-5
I really enjoy going back into the little minutia of earlier work with a character, whether I had a hand in it or not, and trying to bring some of the old threads forward into a new tapestry. So I certainly enjoyed Bandit’s soliloquy here, which refers back to a bit from Chapter 6, page 2, panel 2. Using it shows at least one important way she’s grown… and one important way she hasn’t. Those two aspects will come into conflict eventually.
I think the palette for this chapter was the least colorful of any chapter, thanks to the many Sepia World sequences and the non-sepia setting of Asallah En-Qu’Lara, which relies a lot on white, gray, and taupe despite its golden spires. We don’t look like we’re trying to do an arty black-and-white statement or anything, but it’s still a neat bit of trivia.
Despite these constraints, John does a tremendous job “actualizing” the city into his style from Erica’s earlier, evocative but less detailed rendition. This was a rare moment in GA where the setting was the star, and he understood that fully.
Is Bandit’s “Still pretty boring… I guess” really how she feels, or is she just saying it because she wants to seem all cool and aloof in front of Frigg?
It looks to me like she’s had her enthusiasm tamped down by Frigg’s rudeness.
Looks to me like she doesn’t want to openly disagree with Frigg.
My take: She was trying out being all serious, to go with her position, but that doesn’t work too well in this case, so she reverts back to being too cool for school. Lesson learned: If I try to embrace this stuff, people probably won’t buy it.