And once more I’ve been forced to keep a key moment involving the twins off-screen – because depicting the absolute, stark reality of that moment was just way beyond my abilities as an artist. And despite the fact that these don’t rank very highly, I’m unsure whether there’s actually any artist who would have been able to do full justice to it and still escape with their sanity intact.*
Anyone displaying that sort of ability might be plausibly suspected of being one of the Great Old Ones in disguise… but, as panel 4 and 5 demonstrate, the sight is incredibly disturbing and mentally straining even for one of the Great Old Ones.**
With the main action taking place off-screen, George Geekish only had to deal with Latho’s reaction shots. For which he probably was thankful, since his sanity is pretty questionable on the best of days. Still, the shots required a clear and concrete depiction of a creature beyond imagination, so that should have been challenge enough…fortunately for George, budget constraints forced it all back not only into the realm of the manageable, but into the realm of the easily manageable.
Following in the footsteps of 1953’s classic B-movie “Robot Monster”, I combined an anthropomorphic gorilla body with a ‘space’ helmet, and then just added some tentacles (arms) to acknowledge the Cthulhuish nature of the monster. I think it’s entirely plausible as something they would come up with for this sort of production.
As for the strain of it all…I can sympathize with the Queen, since my hair is also greying and I have trouble sleeping. Admittedly, that already was the case before I drew this strip…but I’ll still blame it on the twins, that’s somehow more romantic than simple aging.
More on Monday.
* Well, or at least not less intact than before. For me, attempting this and escaping with my sanity intact would require the experience to have a positive effect on my sanity – which isn’t really within the realm of the possible.
** I guess the expanded canon ranks Nyarlathotep as one of the Outer Gods, rather than as one of the Great Old Ones, but I’m wary of any attempt to impose such a sort of artificial categorization on pure chaos.