Annotated 33-7
Presenting real-life people in your comic is obviously kind of fraught, at least if you don’t want your reality to collapse in a pile of meta or broad comedy. If they’re your friends or friendly acquaintances, you want to at least show them as admirable, but you don’t want to be so fawning as to be unrealistic or make them all-conquering scene-stealers.
With Joel here, I think we walk a middle path. His real big hero moments came earlier, when he pushed Shanna over a mental block that could have stopped her progress. Here, he’s no more brave or sassy or quippy than you or I would be, but he at least comes off smart. I doubt he missed the implication of JJ glancing into that window and saying “people in your life you’re concerned about,” which explains JJ’s choice of venue for this conversation.
JJ’s strongest asset as a fixer is his sense of strategy. As he’ll explain later, intimidation is a tool he uses a lot more often than killing: leaving one person alive and scared enough of you to do your bidding is a lot better than leaving an open missing persons case or corpse. Shame he wasn’t on-site to handle things when Ferris went snooping.
Damn, boy. You could have at least done the thing and carried it in.
Not the most horrible thing he’s done or will do, but being that level of suave, smug and definitely not caring about things, could have done at least done that. Driven home the “I don’t mind stepping in your home if I need to”.
By special arrangement, I have brought JJ himself in to field this one.
“When you’re trying to make people see reason, you’ve got to limit your risk of being misconstrued. That means involving fewer people, where possible. I wasn’t sure what this Watson fellow would be like, or how stubborn he’d be. But it turned out he’d been warned someone like me was coming, he knew what about, and he was prepared to be reasonable. We could settle things outside like men, or, if you prefer, just a couple of folks. I don’t mean to be gender discriminatory, it’s just my upbringing. Point is, he was already fully cooperative and ready to keep this just between us. If I’d involved the wife and the daughter against his wishes, it’d be like saying his cooperation didn’t matter, that I’d just do what I wanted whether he helped me or not. That’d make him less cooperative, and there’d now be two more people involved I’d have to persuade, people who didn’t have Mr. Watson’s knowledge of the situation.
“And, you know, children are a wonder. They’re so interested in the world! Everything is new to them, and they want to share their discoveries, and that means they aren’t always discreet.
“Anyway, things could have escalated, and nobody wanted that. Not me, not my employers, and certainly not the Watson family, who could now welcome their entrepreneurial patriarch home, with plenty of fuss, I’m sure, but without any worries. As for me, I had promises to keep, and miles to go before I’d sleep.”
This additional JJ dialogue is an unexpected treat, thank you! I really enjoy him as a competent, very creepy, villain. I was really looking forward to this page and commentary in particular!
Not gonna lie, was pretty much what I was wondering as well. A person can be reasonable in the face of danger, but everyone has a limit where they will snap one way or the other.
But still to get it explained like that (and it even going so much along the same lines) was, as Rolan7 already mentioned, a real treat. :D
Villains, that at least try to be less generic, nearly always end up being more fascinating than the heroes, but JJ definitely was one of the greatest villains this story had (and that says something). Getting more of him is just tasty, tasty icing on the otherwise great cake of a recap of a very excellent story.
Thank you.
Love it. Thank you.
This is excellent gear.
It didn’t occur to me until this reading how easy it would be to make Shan simple sound like she was a troubled person. I mean, what type of person investigates a game company for kidnapping people to experiment on? I mean, the readers know the meta story behind it all but for the average person of this world, wow!
Mr. Campbell, I think you’re right. Using a real life friend/colleage in a story can be tricky. However, it is tempting to throw caution to the wind sometimes:
JJ: Surely you know what is like to have people in your life you’re concerned about…
Joel: (facing down. His glasses reflect a nearby light, and the glare hides his eyes) Heh, heh, heh… Anata wa misu o okashimashita, JJ san…
JJ: … Huh?
Joel: (shaking a tight fist. A supernatural blue glow outlines his body) (softly) Anata wa watashinokazoku o odokashimashita…
JJ: Naniii???
Joel: (a bouncy, fast-paced J-Pop tune plays in the background) DARE MO WATASHINOKAZOKU O ODOKASU KOTO WA ARIMASEN! (Joel throws an impressive punch deeply into JJ’s gut. A flare of the same blue energy that outlines Joel shoots out of JJ’s back)
JJ: (spitting blood, shocked) (coarsely) Sore wa… subarashī… kōgekideshita (colapses)
Joel: (The blue glow dissapears. Joel pensively pushes his glasses up his nose with his index finger while he turns and looks to the horizon) (inner monologue) Shanna-chan…
Not covering for Shanna is one thing. Putting his friend at risk is another. Not that I can fault him, but It’s not all about Shanna.
Since I’m likely in real life to overlook implied meaning when someone talks to me, I wondered for a long time if JJ couldn’t have made this work by not completely dropping the (fairly thin, of course) façade. I.e: after he got the address, he could have just thanked him in a very friendly casual manner, no further threats, implied or otherwise. He could have just asked if Joel still wanted him to carry the box for him (which he would of course have declined), then strolled off. Then Joel would have been left with just a spark of doubt whether he just imagined the threats earlier, and it would have made it much easier to later portray the whole encounter as just a friendly question from a concerned acquaintance of Shanna’s.