GUEST COMIC BY GRAVEDUST DESERTHAMMER. The original plan was for this sequence to begin with the journal as a voiceover, while we saw a few flashbacks to Gravedust preparing for his pilgrimage to Gastonia. It was Phil who decided we needed to focus our visual attention on the journal itself throughout this sequence. The words on this and page 4 are mine; 2-3 are Phil’s.

I got kind of defensive about it at the time, but we should’ve found some way not to use computer lettering here. It’s a strange irony that as some parts of comics production have gotten much easier, tricks that rely on the old techniques, like producing a handwritten journal that could’ve belonged to one of our characters, have gotten far more difficult. However, it does feel right that the lines are imperfectly centered on the page.

I like the illustrative style Erica adopted here. The first illo here almost feels like it’s taken from some ancient religious art, while the second nearly has the tone of a political cartoon.