I love the use of repeated panels in comics.

Dave Sim was the first I saw do so, with Cerebus — specifically in High Society (above and lovingly homaged from Thoughts of a Workshy Fop), along with his countless other panel experiments.

Bill Watterson used the same effect in Calvin & Hobbes to make a point about the size (or lack thereof) of comic strips in 1987.

In the late ’90s, Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon did a variation on the them with Preacher… to varying degrees of comedic effect. And scene.

More recently, Brian Michael Bendis employed similar techniques on his various Avengers runs.

And I would be remiss if I did not mention Robert Kirkman poking fun at the practice in Invincible.

Page Eight Notes:

• “Demon blood everywhere,” is a tip of the hat to the greatest Robot Chicken skit of all time.
• “PACKING PEANUTS float sequentially and serenely…” There is a method to my madness. Calgary just bought the the Holy Blunderbuss of Antioch, right? And was in the process of unpacking the thing when Demon arrived. So when he fired it, it was stilled packed tight with residual packing peanuts. Pretty cool, right?
• “Headless body of DEMON sits up…” Another tip of the hat, this time to the original Halloween. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen it (shame on you!), but this clip is priceless, incorporating actual audience reaction from 1979.

Uncanny X-Men #207 was famous for ending the issue with a full-paneled sound effect, the savagely rendered… SNIKT! (Above and lovingly snatched from Chris Claremont: Mind Control Central.)

Mark Millar one-upped Chris Claremont in “Old Man Logan,” using a two-page SNIKT spread on the penultimate pages of Wolverine #72. I guess for some people, size really does matter. Or might it just be a case of overcompensation?

Speaking of snikt, let’s make sure to never mention the infamous “Route Snikty-Snikt,” nor “th’ whole snikt-pack,” both courtesy of Garth Ennis. Seriously. I can’t even…

Page Seven Notes:

• The BOX OF AMMO should be eerily reminiscent of many fine Acme products: here, here, and here (now with Oxford comma). Hence my variation as “Ye Olde Blunderbuss Ammo.” I’m sure it will come as no surprise by now that I am most entertained by the anachronistic, pseudo early modern English prefix. My favorite versions? Here and here. Yea, verily!
• What exactly does blunderbuss ammo look like? It’s usually gunpowder, wadding and grapeshot, loaded into the muzzle of the blunderbuss. But for our purposes, we can go with something vintagely cool like this or this.
• “No one screws with Calgary Smith.” Great line, right? That is until I realized it was from Police Academy. <sigh>.

Perhaps not the exact arc I was envisioning, but Mike Tyson certainly provides the intended result. (Lovingly pried from Giphy’s Toasty collection. Yeah, I’m not sure what the connection to “toasty” is either.)

As I said in the last commentary, I am STOKED to finally get to these pages.

Why? Because, well, awesome!

Page Six Notes:

• “Gah!” is one of my favorite exclamations, one that originated early last century. Felt more appropriate than “Ack!” from late last century in my humble opinion. Or “Ack! Ack!” for the that matter.
• Some of you may have noticed there’s no sound effect for Thor’s hammer. I don’t think this page really needs one. And judging from past sound effects employed (here, here, here, here (seriously?), here, <sigh> and here), I think I made the right decision.
• “Careers could be made from this page.” Seriously. Much like the “Draw me!’ ads of yore. Of course, I was always partial to Tippy and the pirate. And the clock. Most definitely the clock. Lots and lots of clocks. I know — I am so immature.

I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to this page.

I mean, I can try, but words genuinely cannot express the joy I have in finally sharing this page. You see, I wrote this sequence some time ago, I mean a long time ago, and…

Wait… give me a second…

Let me amend my earlier statement. I CAN put it into words. Ready?

IT FUCKING ROCKS!

And you know what? The next page is even better.

<sheepishly returns to note that the above was lovingly palmed from Giphy’s Mic Drops…>

Page Five Notes:

• All that aside, “grinning savagely” needs to be scary. Creepy ass evil scary. With a touch of haughtiness. But not too much.
• “All out of bullets” is a bit of an homage to Chuck Jones, Bugs Bunny and Daffy.
• Speaking of which, this page reminds me a little of what I think was a Sylvester cartoon. I can’t seem to find the exact one that’s lodged in my brain, but it involves a first-person shot from a drowsy character’s perspective as he tries to keep his eyes open… and another character with a wooden mallet keeps coming closer after every blink (Don’t blink!) I can almost hear the Warner Bros. orchestra on the last panel.
• A little foreshadowing along the way. Sandman’s pouch (#000, page 3). Hammer of Thor (ditto). Trench coat (#000, page 2).
• “Swing in Demon’s general direction.” Another tip of the hat to Monty Python (and the Holy Grail).

It had to happen sooner or later.

Demon runs out of time, Calgary runs out of bullets, and I run out of space in my panels.

So apologies for moving the page info from the first panel into the second, but much like a cat faced with the prospect of a small box (above and lovingly poached from somewhere deep in the bowls of soup.io), desperate times call for desperate measures.

Page Four Notes:

• “No, this is the part where you die.” Can you blame me for channeling a bit of Goldfinger in my dialogue? Interestingly, whilst Auric Goldfinger was played unforgettably by Gert Frobe, he was voiced by Michael Collins (the actor, not the Irish leader, nor the actor who played the Irish leader).
• See what I did with the ‘buss? Calgary didn’t have a chance to load the Blunderbuss because he was still unpacking it. Continuity, bitch!
• Back in the scripting stages of dpk431, Calgary’s catchphrase was, “Crap.” Rather like The Maxx in MTV’s Oddities back in the day. Of course, now The Maxx is available as a Cubee, and I’ve moved on to, “Not good.”

“I believe the proper term is ‘sniped,'” sayeth Calgary.

Perhaps with a little more menace than Dr. Evil (above and lovingly “sniped” from Giphy’s collection of air quotes).

Think more along the lines of Charles Bronson at the end of Death Wish. Or Michael Madsen finger pistoling in Reservoir Dogs. Alison Pill in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World? Not so much.

Page Three Notes:

• To my knowledge, there is no kittylover431 on eBay… yet.
• “Eyes squinting with rage…” A pretty cool description, but made infinitely cooler by Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson and Philip J. Fry.

I really do love the concept of two sworn occult enemies competing for a priceless artifact on eBay.

Too often, we fall into the trap of placing our occultism in dark, dusty rooms.

Kinda like Calgary’s apartment. Doh!

(Lovingly transmatted from the Doctor Who Reaction Pic Dump.)

As I was saying, dragging such stories into the Internet age always brings a twinkle to my heart, to mix my metaphors.

Page Two Notes:

• “You bastard!” Think John Cleese. I don’t believe anyone has ever owned a word as well as he has. You vicious bastard!
• Bonus points to anyone who does a pinup of Demon hunched over a laptop, perhaps with reading glasses on, bidding on eBay.

My first thought when approaching the commentary for this page was, “I got nothin” (as noted left and lovingly usurped from Just Post).

My second thought? “No really. I got nothin’.”

So after procrastinating for a few more days, I came up with this: “Seriously. Nothin’.”

A few more days passed as I stared blankly at my computer screen, realizing I couldn’t work on the next page until I finished this commentary. I mean, I could. Technically. But that’s not how my brain works.

So here goes nothin’.

I wanted to give the start of dpk431 #002 the feel of a classic western showdown, what with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly motif hanging over this issue.

Calgary facing down the bad guy, Demon.

Granted Calgary’s apartment is not as wide as the O.K. Corral, but you get my drift.

So I started researching cool widescreen western showdowns. You know, the ones wedged firmly in my memory. Good guy on the right. Bad guy on the left. Lots of empty dirt in between. Kinda like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The only problem was that the more I researched, the more I found filmmakers cheating the camera angle to show more depth.

With apologies to John Nathan-Turner, perhaps my memory cheats, too. I did grow up on a steady diet of Bugs Bunny and Akira Kurosawa after all.

So with more apologies, this time to Sergio Leone, think of the classic Sanjuro sequence as the intended expression of said showdown in this panel.

Page One Notes:

• Notes? I don’t need no stinkin’ notes!

Ah, yes, my parody of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly movie poster (above and lovingly looted from All Posters).

If this were an actual cover with, you know, actual art (hint, hint), all three dpk431 characters thus far would be featured.

Cue theme music. The incredibly cool theme music…

• The Good: Calgary, dressed as a spaghetti western hero in classic Clint Eastwood pose. Or classic Bill Murray pose. Calgary should look unbelievably cool in this getup and have the HOLY BLUNDERBUSS OF ANTIOCH in addition to his revolvers.
• The Bad: Demon as Lee Van Cleef. He should look menacing, not silly.
• The Ugly a.k.a The Criminally Insane: The Dark Punishing Knight. Imagine an Eastwoodian poncho over his costume as he stares intently down the barrel of his own six shooter.

Cover Notes:

• I really wanted to use the Good Bad Ugly font (I mean, who wouldn’t?), but that just ended up looking wrong. Then I moved to the Eastwood font (again, who wouldn’t), but that looked just plain kooky. I finally fell back to my old western standby, RosewoodStd-Regular (someone has got to come up with a better abbreviation for standard than Std). Not perfect, but I think it provides the spaghetti western aesthetic I’m looking for.