Man, John really was just taking everything we could throw at him and knocking it out of the park. “Hey, you’ve had twenty pages to acclimate yourself to our usual style, now we need a chapter that’s halfway in a completely different style, and we need you to draw these three guys from photo reference and we need you to re-draw five of our six main characters as humans in silhouette, only tweak all five designs slightly, even the ones who were already human, because it’s simultaneously them and not them.” I appreciate “Frigg’s” arms on… multiple levels.

Phil modified panel 2 to make “Frigg” less blustery. He’s the reason she shows a hint of regret and self-criticism there, and it’s a better fit. These guys were happy to be here, but that frame reminds you that they had unfulfilled ambitions, which gives their plight more weight.

There was never a good moment to elaborate on the “difficult events” to which “Gravedust” refers. IIRC, he lost a college-aged child, who just didn’t check in one week and was never seen again, and the grief tore his marriage apart. As a result, he’s desperate enough for companionship that he’s prepared to mischaracterize his fellows a bit. This ain’t actually Madame de Stael territory, but I ain’t tellin’ him that. I have a friend of a friend who disappeared like that, and it hurts to think about.

On a lighter note, I’m currently typing this with one cat on my stomach and another perilously close to my legs. When I had “Syr’Nj” here give the punchline, I just had one cat who kept to herself, mostly. “Cats don’t respect anything?” I didn’t know the half of it.