Hey, she’s been through a world and a half of craziness, it was about time that Brigid lost her cool. Truthfully, the real-life Brigid Alverson was always cool as a zucchini no matter what geekery or idiocy Steve and I were spouting, so to think of her blowing her top in this way is to imagine a scenario that I hoped would play out many, many times while recording podcasts but sadly, never did. Thanks goodness for the magic of cartooning!
There is so much going on in this page, most of which is still playing out in my head (Why go so far to change the already menacing Father Dimmon? Why so little dialogue? What is that back there on the hill in panel 5?), so I hope to find the time to post about it all throughout the week. However, as last week was slammed with a head-cold and a random power outage and this coming one is sure to be full of fun leading up to the closing of my wife and I’s very first house, I make no promises. Isn’t that what makes webcomics so much fun? UNPREDICTABILITY!
This brings up some interesting ideas about Lonely Land. I think our heroes might have wills strong enough to mitigate two of its major effects upon visitors. Firstly, people who enter Lonely Land immediately find themselves alone. But here, our heroes have willingly split up (except for the mysterious wise man – assuming this takes place after Rice Boy, it can’t be Parod, because he’s deda, and besides, the ruler of Lonely Land, the Brain Child, hates Parod’s guts – but he’s probably mastered travelling in Lonely Land). It seems that, unlike Rice Boy and Gerund, they are aware of Lonely Lands group-splitting affects and instinctively understand that they can’t be fought. Secondly, Rice Boy and probably Gerund were unable to speak. Perhaps Brigid and the wise man are the only ones in the group with wills strong enough to allow them to speak. For the dimension-hoppers, all of these differences might instead simply be because they are from another universe.
Our heroes aren’t immune to everything, just those things which affect the mind. That explains why they can talk and the wise man has it’s own immunity. The only reason they were not split up is because they are with the wise man. I debated making the device serve that purpose but it felt better to let the magic of the world they are in lead them.