Comics are a team enterprise. The writer may ask for changes to an illustration to maintain consistency. In this story, we wanted some small details corrected in the illustrations.

There are validation steps that help us detect any errors that might slip into the illustrations, but we aren’t infallible.  In “The Auction” we were at the lettering stage when we noticed that Monarque was tying the bracelet onto Noren’s wrong wrist.

At the end of “Virus Part III,” Fabien, Benson and Jason are outside the hotel and Fabien asks where Marion is. But in the original script he asked where Volcanne was. We decided to make this change because we felt the trio had left Marion too quickly, seemingly with little thought for their colleague. This little adjustment was all that was needed to correct a flaw in the script.

In” Packing up,” there is a scene where Blascovitch comes upon Gypsie undressing. We considered several ways of dramatizing this: Gypsie going to Blascovitch’s room, Blascovitch breaking down Gypsie’s door, etc. Finally we settled on a more subtle rendering, where Gypsie forces fate.

In the story “Tête-à-tête,” there is that image of Cesar’s decapitated mistress. The goal of that image wasn’t to shock the reader. And, really, it’s easy to find much gorier image online. But the drawing’s purpose, in addition to its dramatic effect, was to show Votan’s resolve and to illustrate how far he is willing to go to inspire terror.

In the story “Tête-à-tête,” when Cesar meets Votan for the first time, he is naturally intimidated. However as he starts to understand Votan’s intentions, Cesar regains his self-confidence. We wanted this movement in the power relations to be visible in the drawings. That’s why we decided to show Cesar’s posture on the sofa.

Comics are a team endeavour. It sometimes happens that the writer will ask an artist to modify an image to enhance the overall consistency. We asked for several small touch-ups to this story: the impact of bullets on the wall, falling debris, some clothing details, cellphone towers, eyeglasses, etc.

Comics are a team endeavour. It sometimes happens that the writer will ask an artist to modify an image to enhance the overall consistency. In this story we asked the artist to add some panels—the equivalent of one full page—to make the characters’ movements on the battlefield very clear.

Wherever possible we try to give our characters a social life. We want to give them a life that extends beyond the scope of the story they are in. For example we wanted Cesar to have a wife and kids. That way he doesn’t exist solely to interact with the other characters in the story; he also has a life outside it.

Comics are a team endeavour. It sometimes happens that the writer will ask an artist to modify an image to enhance the overall consistency. With this story we changed the order of two of the panels to make the scene flow more naturally.