Issue 17, Page 2
Landscapes are really hard to draw when you’re not used to them, oops. Gonna get in a lot of practice this issue.
Transcript
Full page: Julia stands on an alien planet, surrounded by strange alien plants in dark purple.
A forest of massively tall alien trees stretch to the horizon, their leaves a deep purple and their trunks a light, metallic gray coil of thick vines, twisting and spreading upwards. The ground is covered in a squishy, pale-purple ‘grass’ which grows in soft, bulbous shapes. Across trees and rocks grows blue and blue-green moss which spreads like geometric crystal.
In the far distance, a massive tower of marble extends above the tree tops. Peeking out through the trees are hints of other buildings, though it’s hard to say how many. Julia is on one of a handful of plateaus that break up the landscape into levels of flat ground, some linked by bone-colored bridges.
The pale orange sky is occupied by the large purple and red shape of a gas giant. Two distant suns light up the sky on this cloudless day.
That issue cover…Is Julia gonna die? Oh man…
My theories:
1. Julia is in the mind of the creature.
2. She ended up at the wrong destination.
A. This is based on the last scene we see of her through the portal, she looks like she may have been moving toward it. Perhaps in the event of someone entering a collapsing portal, they’re shunted off to a random destination?
3. Similar to 2, except wibbly wobbly timey whimey.
A. Since the portal seems to allow instantaneous transport, it’s possible that it screws with physics in a way would deposit Julia at the wrong point in time. Perhaps distant future?
My first thought was that’s Jupiter, in the sky.
But, what appears to be two suns says otherwise.
The second sun appears to be Mars as it looks like Earth is a bit further back so I am guessing that this is one of Jupiter’s moons.
Oughten Mars and Earth appear smaller, though?
I don’t think this is Jupiter … Jupiter’s spot is red. This one’s white!
based on what a 20 second google search if I had to guess location maybe, and that’s a big maybe this may be Themisto (Jupiter’s 18th(I think) moon) based purely on coloration of the surface.
Ah, claire ligne drawing style! Homage to Moebius?
From Earth, Mars and Jupiter are just bright “stars” in the sky – and the same is true in reverse. If this was a moon of Jupiter, Mars and Earth would not be visible discs in the sky.
Not a deliberate homage, though I do have some panels from that comic saved as inspiration (never read the actual comic myself). I’ll have to give them another few glances to help give this issue a real sci fi look…
I don’t suppose you’ve read the Area X trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer? Giving me some serious vibes here
Have not heard of it, honestly!
A binary star system. A moon around a gas giant …
the moon evolved complex life forms (plants)
One of the stars is a G2V(Yellow main sequence), the other is a M2VI, maybe M2VII (Red Subdwarf, or Red Dwarf)
The gas giant has another moon visible in its orbit…
Clearly
This is an alien landscape. Nowhere into the solar system!
Yellow sky. Hm. I wonder what gas would diffuse light in a way to favor blue and red scattering instead of red and yellow. Hm.
Hopefully not sulphur.
It’d be terrible to get stranded on a planet that reeked of brimstone. Were the sky pink, I’d suspect some sort of firmament. Perhaps an oddly orbital layer of water.
Julia,I recall, was possessed by an avatar of the monster in issue #1, but the “Men In Black” edited the event from her memory. All I can say is that it established a “rapport” bet her & the monster that memory editing could not get at, and now the god-monster is attempting to -communicate with her.
Whatever, you are doing well in depicting something utterly alien …
It was actually Melissa and Dr. Ahmes that were possessed by the BS/BI/OWC, Julia tagged it with the artifact but made no other contact with it on that occasion. Or since, until now.
I would hope otherwise, but I suspect that Julia is inside the thing’s mind (as Royell has stated), as the scenes shown to date do not include a portal station like the ones shown in previous issues.
To the left of the red object is a mesa in this “forest’ and something stands on it. Perhaps she’s to get to it. Perhaps her rapport with the -god-monster will enable her to understand what it wishes to say.