Bonus
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Touch-ups (“Clearly”—Part II)
The scriptwriter can ask for corrections to an illustration to maintain the overall consistency. When Benson leaves the airport, he turns around completely to be seen in profile. We asked the illustrator to have Benson turn toward the camera instead, to give a polarization effect between him and Eva, who had turned her back to him a few panels earlier.
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Expansion-compression
In the Apatrides universe, 1995 is a milestone year. Initially, it marked a change in the leadership of the Consortium and an ensuing change in their attitude to Black Orchestra’s assaults on them. But in the end, the repercussions of that change went much further. Blascovitch dies, Gypsie attacks the Black Orchestra, Votan/Travis is defeated and Benson is replaced. Though we usually pace our stories over months, for the year 1995, a whole cascade of events happened in only a few weeks. As we’ve said before, many of these events were planned. However, others were added as a result of certain other developments (the Travis-Gypsie saga).
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What Are They Saying? The Great Game – Part II
There is a lot of Spanish dialogue in this story. We won’t translate it all—we have to maintain the story’s magic after all—but here is an essential segment.
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Where does that character come from? The example of Wood
We like to send our collaborators photos of places or people, to set the groundwork for developing their illustrations. Wood was very loosely based on Spanish politician Jose Socrates.
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Touch-ups (Clearly—Part I)
Comics are a collaborative effort. The scriptwriter can ask for corrections to an illustration to maintain the overall consistency. In the heat of the action, our illustrator had confused two characters, so Valasquez had a well-knotted tie, and Markham’s tie was undone, rather than the other way around. Valasquez’s tie was important there, as it indicated his level of exhaustion.
