dpk431

For the few of you who read this issue before the relaunch, this page plays out just a smidge differently than it did before.

Originally, Calgary tells Demon to, “Go to hell.” To which Demon responds by gutting him like a fish, akin to what Bullseye did to Elektra once upon a time.

Powerful and shocking? Absolutely.

Magic? I would say not.

In the intervening years I’ve pondered these final published pages from the original run, and something in the back of my brain kept telling me this wasn’t the right way to close out this issue and this epic fight.

So forgive my George Lucas moment (above and lovely retconned from The Geek Twins), but I hope you’ll agree that I made the right decision. And if you don’t, wait until next week.

Page Seven Notes:

• You will notice this page features five, count’em, five panels. Six is probably the absolute max I can pull off in the space I’ve allotted because this page is pretty crowded. But I also had a lot of dialogue to deal with and this felt like the most expedient way to do so.
• “…gestures with his right hand and lit CIGARETTE.” Let me be clear. I do not condone smoking. I understand it. And I’ve had my own battles with Mr. Butts over the years. But this is a hero from a bygone era. To some extent, an anachronistic era for many of us now. But back then it was all about the cigarettes and the scotch, especially for for someone like Calgary. As for gesturing with a cigarette, let’s check in with Rust Cohle about that.
• Hercule Poirot. Tony Randall. Albert Finney. Peter Ustinov. David Suchet. And most recently, Kenneth Branagh. Not exactly bloodthirsty or full of profanity, but there did feel a kinship with the classic drawing room scene.
• I wasn’t planning on using profanity in dpk431, but this moment felt right, much like the judicious use in Breaking Bad as a result of AMC’s limit of three curse words per season. If I’m counting correctly, I just used my whole allotment on this page, motherfucker!
• The one True Cross is most definitely a thing. A disputed thing, true, but still a thing. Much like the Kreuzpartikel or fragment of the True Cross in the Schatzkammer, Vienna. Just in case you think I made this up out of whole cloth (there’s a Shroud of Turin joke in there somewhere.)
• I was tempted to have Calgary use “The Clapper” for the final panel, but a finger snap felt more elegant. Six of one, I guess.