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This page is one of those key moments that we’ve been planning for years, and as exciting as it is to finally put it in front of you, it was one of our more difficult pages to realize. I’d always envisioned Anke being nude when the Baron and Magda found her, her clothes having been disintegrated or burned off as a side effect of her transformation after grasping the sword. But when we actually started working on the page, we had trouble deciding exactly how nude she should be. We felt like having strategic wisps of smoke or other obstructions seemed a bit contrived, but at the same time, we didn’t want our intentions to be misconstrued. The nudity in this case was meant to indicate that Anke had been transformed (reborn, if you’ll allow me a moment of pretentiousness) and to heighten the drama of the revelation. It wasn’t meant to be titillating or gratuitous. But we were afraid that it may come across that way, at least to some. So we compromised and ended up with her clothes being in the process of disintegration, but still able to preserve some sense of modesty. It was the safer choice. Still, I love the way the page turned out. The light effects and coloring really make for a dramatic image!
That’s the end of chapter 4. We’re going to take a few weeks off, but we’ll be back in the second half of May to kick off chapter 5!
Last week’s Geek Chorus discussion about Marvel’s Daredevil and the new Star Wars trailer is still open, so feel free to join in. Tomorrow, we’ll be talking about the differences between Marvel’s and DC’s approaches to movies.