The background of panel two is a pretty obvious composite – I just couldn’t find any classical depiction of Okeanos drinking something. Had Robert E. Howard used “the years when Dionysos drank Atlantis” instead, I would have been spoilt for choice, but…I guess it wouldn’t have been as evocative. I’m also not sure why somebody would spread out blue mantles beneath the stars…possibly to reserve a place on the beach for the next day, or something like that.

But, yeah, I’ve absolutely overused Howard’s phrase by now, out of sheer fondness…and I can only hope that making my own characters call me out on it in the middle of a strip will somehow help me to break that habit. Fingers crossed…

And, anyway, it does serve a useful purpose here: illustrating just how epic the Professorian’s adventures in the Realm have been…without having to relate them in detail, which would turn the new chapter into a retread of the penultimate one, with the proportion of filler upped to 100%. The only relevant outcome is, anyway, that the Barbessor made it through a whole lot of stuff and grew more powerful and knowledgeable by leaps and bounds throughout that – as a PRG character does. The size of his character sheet illustrates the same point in a much more direct way. Just less evocative than the words of Robert E. Howard…

More on Monday.