Worshipping The Wicked + The Divine #19

Or an attempt to explain the quiet brilliance of lighting in WicDiv #19
by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matt Wilson, and Clayton Cowles; Image Comics

The thing I struggle to write about the most in comics is colouring. Colouring is obviously an important aspect of comics; fleshing out the world, influencing the mood of the story, and frequently participating directly in storytelling. It is absolutely integral to comics. Colouring is also obviously a craft filled with meticulous choices by creative experts. And I think there is valuable insight in talking about the thought process underlying colouring decisions. When colouring is participating in storytelling by doing something unorthodox or obviously deliberate, it can be fairly straightforward to analyze and build an essay around. But a lot of the time colouring is kind of subtle, something that permeates the composition but is so... there... that it can maybe be taken for granted as a creative choice. It's like... colour in the real world: filled with beauty and information, but easy to not dwell on directly. And I think that ignoring the way colouring, even the more subtle aspects of it, builds the comic world is a mistake.

So bearing all of that in mind, I think WicDiv #19 is subtly a masterwork in comics colouring.

There will be *SPOILERS* for WicDiv #19 below.

An aspect of colouring that I feel doesn't get it's due is lighting. (And I say this as someone who has never written an article on lighting.) Lighting in visual media can be as simple as making things seem real, since real-life human vision experiences highlights and shadows. An absence of attention to light sources can, with certain styles of pencils, distractingly deviate from our expectations. Lighting can also add certain elements of mood. On a simple note, cultural/biological training means people are trained to view bright things as cheerful and safe and darkness as uncomfortable or dangerous. The way lighting is used can dramatically change the experience of art. And, in a coloured comic, the light quality is governed by colour choice and how the shading of those colours are effected by light sources more than anything else.

Take the above selection which shows Dionysus being dragged out of a cheap-looking takeaway restaurant into the shadowy underground. The sequence first shows the fluorescent lighting of the restaurant, with its institutional even lighting causing soft highlights and shadows. Then the comic switches to the Underground, a virtually lightless world of shadowy, desaturated figures. Portraying the Underground as greyed-out characters on a black background is an inspired choice because it replicates human night vision. Human night vision is effectively colourblind since the most sensitive light sensing cells of the eye operates on a light/no-light binary; designing a colour palette that is true to that sells the darkness of the location and helps make the comic feel more real. The choice of plunging the Underground in a nightvision darkness also, I think, plays into making this location feel desperate, paranoid, and hidden which helps inform the mental state of the characters. All of this lighting collectively provides a clear scene change break, but also helps cement the Underground as a real and particular kind of place. 

(Looking at this sequence again makes me wonder to what extent the WicDiv use of the Underground is inspired by the use of the London Underground as a bomb shelter during WW2...)

An area of particular strength in WicDiv #19 is the use of discrete light sources. Because so much of the comic occurs in low lighting, light sources stand out more than they would in a brighter comic. The above selection has one very obvious light source in the third panel, where the green light from the owl's projector eye is especially apparent. In this panel, the path, highlights, and shadows of the light are apparent. In addition, the open doorway throughout the composition is a source of blue/white light that influences the overall colour and the highlights of all of the depicted characters in the scene. What is great about this selection, is that you can see how the system of highlights and shadows change in response to the two light sources above. It's such an effortless thing to read through, but dealt with in a granular, deliberate way it becomes apparent how much thought must have gone into crafting the lighting in this sequence.

I kind of can't get over how effortless the execution of these multiple light source sequences are in WicDiv #19. Like, this page here has diffuse green projector glow, a dark panel, and then panels governed by the concentric glow of a cigarette. Which again, is a lot of visual information for the colourist to build into the page. On top of that, this sequence does such smart things with the colour. In the top row of panels, Gentle Annie is suffused with an otherworldly green glow, while vicious Badb is plunged into darkness. This, I think, captures the differences and transition between personas. The next panels are governed by Persephone's cigarette, which in the third panel give her visual primacy. This gives he a kind of leader-type-feel and, by planting the reader's attention so firmly on Persephone, sets the pacing for the final dramatic beat of the comic. This is all really smart storytelling predicated largely on the use shadows and light sources. Which again, is so subtle but so smart.

And in amazing burying the lead news, WicDiv #19 also has a drag out battle between the gods in the darkness of the underground. Which is really just a total fucking light show, since so many of the gods have powers that involve glowing things. Baal is throwing out white-blue lighting, Persephone controls glowing green tendrils, Amaterasu flies like a radiant sun, Woden and company have fluorescent Tron armour, and Baphomet is laying about with a big flaming stick. It is a riot of different light sources throwing out highlights and shadows interacting in a complex, motion heavy scene. Making this lighting mess visually sensical and effortless is truly epic comics colouring. 

Previously:
WicDiv #1 and popart head-splosions
WicDiv #2 and the use of black-space
WicDiv #3 and character design
WicDiv #4 and body language 
WicDiv#5 and facial acting
WicDiv #6 and possessions as character
WicDiv #7 and the power of lettering
WicDiv #8 and the disorienting layout
WicDiv #9 and the economics of design
WicDiv #10 and powers as character design
WicDiv #11 and stretching the moment
WicDiv #12 and layout encoding
WicDiv #13 and retroactive narratives
WicDiv #14 and re-mixing comics

WicDiv #15 and fading out

WicDiv #17 and some things I liked

Deep Sequencing: Space Crime Scene Investigation

Or a look at the use of setting in The Fuse Vol. 1 and Mercury Heat Vol. 1
by Antony Johnston, Justin Greenwood, Shari Chankhamma, and Ryan Ferrier, as well as, Kieron Gillen, Omar Francia, Nahuel Lopez, Digikore Studios, Kurt Hathaway, respectively

In my day job I have often meet accomplished clinician-scientists who have built careers on studying people with diseases caused by rare mutations. These researchers find interesting, serendipitous comparisons between people that uncover novel facets of biology and also potentially treat people with rare diseases. I think the same principle can be applied to comics: finding comics with some unifying aspect and contrasting how they approach that commonality can be informative. (A classic example is the different approaches to scripting a beach scene between Moore and Ennis.) And I think The Fuse and Mercury Heat are a pretty ideal pair to examine.

The Fuse and Mercury Heat are both Science Fiction comics that revolve around Space Police solving a murder. The Fuse takes place on an orbiting, power-collecting space station and is functionally a detective procedural that provides a social commentary and satisfying mystery. Mercury Heat takes place on Mercury, in a space colony built around exporting solar energy to Earth, and skews toward an Action-Sci-fi adventure with policing elements. While these comics are distinct from a plot/theme perspective, The Fuse and Mercury Heat have similar enough settings that comparing the two comics is interesting. Moreover, I think The Fuse does a much more effective job utilizing it's setting than Mercury Heat and I think it's instructive to examine this in more detail.

Before I do that, though, I'd like to just point out that I enjoyed both of these comics quite a lot. I think The Fuse is maybe the better social critique of the two, and is certainly the better police-comic with a much more granular and engrossing mystery. However, I also think Mercury Heat is a better work of Science Fiction: some of it's ideas, like everyone being freelance contractors working for a central-sorting AI-application, are kind of brilliant. My point is both comics have their strengths and both are worth reading; I just happen to think The Fuse makes better use of setting than Mercury Heat. 

There will be *SPOILERS* for both Mercury Heat Vol. 1 and The Fuse Vol. 1 below.

The cold open in Mercury Heat is that a man is stranded on the surface of Mercury. Mercury is noteworthy because dayside of the planet surface is inhospitably hot while the nightside of the planet experiences temperatures which are unendurably cold. The trick to surviving on Mercury, depends on living in the twilight/dawn region that exists between the two extremes and which, due to Mercury's very long day, moves at something like walking speed. So this man stranded on Mercury is trying to outrun the dawn and avoid frying to death. Except he can't and he dies by solar immolation.

The issue here is that this isn't at all clear from the artwork in Mercury Heat. The camera is focused in so far that as a reader I never get the sense of impending dawn or that the doomed man is running on the surface of the planet. Or really, that the comic is taking place on Mercury at all since what is shown is a non-descript Sci-fi setting. Which is, in my opinion, a shame because I think this could have been a grand, hook the reader kind of moment that doesn't quite work because the setting isn't used effectively.

The issues with communicating setting continue past the opening sequence of Mercury Heat. While the comic takes place inside some sort of Mercury-based space colony, I still can't really describe what that entails or what it looks like. Most of Mercury Heat portrays its world as a series of generic looking space-corridors and while there are some establishing shots (I've tried to gather the best I could find above), they fail to provide good information on what the Mercury Colony looks like, or what the lives of its denizens might be like. Like, I cannot tell you if Mercury has a surface city, a buried city, or as is the case in a few Sci-fi things I've read, a moving city that paces the twilight/dawn zone. Which is a shame, because it deprives Mercury Heat a sense of place, some degree of believability, and fails to capitalize on the awesome fact that it takes place on Mercury.

(I'm willing to concede that the narrow focus and sheer corridor-ness of Mercury Heat *could* be a meta-commentary/nod to other Sci-fi works that, constrained by budget, also go heavy on the corridor and light on the awesome space setting. I'm pretty sure the tight outfit and undesirable "personality type" of the protagonist (among other things) are an unspoken commentary/satire of the Sci-fi girl-with-a-gun trope, so it's not impossible that Team Heat is Doing A Thing. Or that what I'm examining here as an omission may actually be a deliberate creative choice.)

The Fuse, in contrast does a much better job establishing its setting. The comic also opens with a murder, although this sequence is much more mundane and takes place in a fairly nondescript communal space that could literally be anywhere. Immediately following this, however, The Fuse gives us a double page spread showing us the entire space station. This gives the reader an immediate sense of place and established that the reader is in a fantastical, space world. The juxtaposition of the mundane murder with the space station also helps establish one of the thematic cores of the series: despite the futuristic and exotic setting, the denizens of The Fuse are beset by the same squalor, corruption, and immorality as humanity always has been. This contrast between the Sci-fi promise of the premise and the mundane reality of the story really drives home the social commentary of the comic.

The Fuse builds on this setting and continues to make use of the contrast between fantastical and mundane elements. The comic takes us to what is recognizably an inhabited city inside the space station, or a wealthy suburb inclosed beneath a space-dome. It shows us a vagrant camp built into an out-of-the-way bit of station infrastructure. The comic takes the reader to a gravity-free observatory where station inhabitants can watch Earth (and where they explain the super-clever origins of "The Russia Shift). These are settings that manage to incorporate the space-elements of the station and merge them with recognizable, contemporary elements which convey information to the reader about things like economic class, but also carefully maintain the juxtaposition of the mundane and futuristic. It is very effective comics that really makes the most of the setting a socially conscious police procedural in space.

Mercury Heat does have one sequence that makes great use of its setting. In one of the final chapters, the comic's protagonist finds herself marooned on the surface of Mercury and, like the poor soul in the opening sequence, forced to outrun the dawn to survive. In this instance the camera pulls back to give the reader a view of rugged, craterous Mercury and the context to appreciate the predicament of the protagonist. The sequence feels dangerous and suspenseful and great, in large part, I think, because of the large scale portrayal of setting. It is also, I think, one of the most enjoyable sequences in the comic, and I hope, a sign that setting is going to be a more active element of Mercury Heat going forward.

Listening to Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl #6

Or some thoughts on a great series and a great page in Phonogram: TIG #6
by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matt Wilson, and Clayton Cowles; Image Comics

Just assume this is going to contain *SPOILERS*

I first read Phonogram while on a vacation in Mexico. It was shortly after The Singles Club (Vol. 2) was collected in trade, and I bought the entire series to read during the trip. This was also a pretty odd moment in my life, since this Mexican vacation was taken immediately after my final set of undergraduate exams and a year of studies where I took things probably too seriously. Probably as a consequence of my inability to like, prioritize a personal life, this was also a vacation where my girlfriend and I were having some pretty serious relationship problems that we were both determined to Avoid Dealing With so that we could Enjoy This Damn Vacation. Which was stupid and unhealthy and meant that we spent the entire trip with a lot of uncomfortable baggage. So I read Phonogram laying by a poolside, stewing in an uncertain future and the angst of professional obsession and personal drama. This moment is still indelibly mixed up with how I experience Phonogram.

Now, years later, reading Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl is... a pretty powerful experience. A part of the comic that I've picked up on is moving past something, growing up and defining yourself by who you are and not entirely by your interests. Seeing Kohl and Emily Aster and Kid-with-knife collectively get their shit together in the fullness of time just hits me. I read this final issue of Phonogram just having finished writing my PhD thesis, married to the girlfriend from Mexico, and with a baby on the cusp of being six months old. I'm at a point of finishing a pretty significant chapter of my life and embarking on the adventure of parenthood and of moving with my family to another country for career reasons. Reading that final issue of Phonogram, with its coda to the series at just this moment really hit me. This comic means the world to me.

But, look, you guys aren't here to read about me getting verklempt about my favourite comics. So here is some wonky analysis:

I also want to talk about how great this page of comics is: everything on this page is designed to increase the sense of violence on the page. What makes this page so spectacular is how many different elements are being simultaneously used to create a jarring reading experience. The most brutal blood sprays are evocative and gross and awesome, but also provide clear vectors of motion which make every slam more kinetic and spectacular. Moreover, the blood-sprays provide directionality to the motion that is frequently opposing or tangential to the reading path of the page. This makes every panel of violence feel abrupt and disjointed, increasing the feeling of impact of every image. This jarring effect is enhanced by the broken page: the page transitions from 'normal' panels, to floating margin space, to jagged, torn floating panels creating further discontinuity and a visceral edge to the layout. The colours also play into this effect, with the furious red panel backgrounds and the always changing colour of Emily. The combined layout is a series of brutal images played out while the very fabric of the comic seems to break apart under the fury of the assault. It's a really smart, really effective page.

I love this comic.

Previously:
So I Read Phonogram: Rue Britainia
So I Read Phonogram: The Singles Club

Deep Sequencing: Phonogram: TIG#3: Magical layouts
Deep Sequencing: Phonogram: TIG#5: Complementary pages

Deep Sequencing: Phono-Infogram: Plot Maps
Deep Sequencing: Phono-Infogram: Timeline
Deep Sequencing: Phono-Infogram: Setting

Worshipping The Wicked + The Divine #17

Or a look at the importance of a blank page in WicDiv #17
by Kieron Gillen, Brandon Graham, Jamie McKelvie, and Matt Wilson; Image Comics

A thing about comics that I sometimes think doesn't get enough wonky attention is how important page order is to story experience. Individual pages function in printed comics are like discrete storytelling units, and controlling the rate and way readers encounter these units can dramatically alter the way the story is experienced. On a very basic level, the order of pages matters to how a comic is read much like how the order of panels matters. The most obvious example of this is the page turn, where readers suddenly get access to a new page that was previously hidden, making a kind of quick cut and the potential for a surprising reveal or comedic moment. But it goes beyond that, and I think WicDiv #17 does something interesting and really smart using a blank page to optimize the page reading order in the issue.

(This is also, a thing that I think is important to talk about because, incidentally corporate comics *SUCK* at this by jamming ads for like, beholder bobbleheads and Gumby the collectable card game into their magazines screwing with the delicate order.)

There will be *SPOILERS* for WicDiv #17 below. Like, serious spoilers!

Now before I try and convince everyone that what is basically a blank page is super interesting and ignoring the rest of the comic, I just want to point out that WicDiv #17 is pretty great ad features Brandon Graham's great artwork and style in the fantastic world of Gillen/McKelvie/Wilson's WicDiv world and that results of this collaboration are frequently pretty great. Like, there are few people who can draw an orgy that is somehow sexy and goofy looking and still somehow not exploitive or could make a scene where a dangerously unstable cat goddess wallowing outside the cage of a bird goddess look so lackadaisically charming. There are some really fun, unique moments in this comic.

(For the record, a 4.9 earthquake happened right now and... woah! It's been a while since a big one's hit in these here parts, and the first one I've lived on a double digit apartment floor for. Quite a lot of swing and torque, it turns out...)

There is also some really astute storytelling on display throughout the issue. I especially love this page and how it uses reader tracking to make the pacing of the page fit the action perfectly. The tangents in the first panel that cruise through the background lend that panel a sense of speed (which works beautifully against the static Baal). Or the second tier of panels which has a hard left-to-right directionality that captures the motion of the sequence wonderfully. The second panel also takes advantage of the transition from the first panel to the second row, and slams the reading motion in opposition to it making for an extra impactful panel (that additionally shows the a consequence of the motion that already happened). The next panel has also has a pretty great abrupt stop built into the panel. The bottom three panels have a looping meandering path through artwork and dialogue captures the lazy, calm after the intense top panels. Collectively this page, I think, captures the polarity of Sakhmet, her danger and fury, but also her playful laziness in how the page is read, and therefore experienced.

So knowing that WicDiv #17 is a pretty great comic for a lot of reasons, let's talk about how great the solid black page in the comic is. The story of this sequence is that Sakhmet has descended on her childhood home and murdered and eaten her father. This sequence works as well as it does because it reveals this information in a series of growing surprise reveals. The first page sets up the sequence, and looks downright benign, with Sakhmet reminiscing and smiling pleasantly (such a perfect panel btw) and then we get the all black page. It's ominous and empty, a long hard cut that it implies the passage of time and a significant story shift. The next page, which benefits from being after the page turn, shows cavalry arriving in an ominious situation. It's obvious something horrible has happened and that Sakhmet has been involved in some sort of altercation, probably violent and probably involving her dad. But it isn't until after the next page turn that we learn Sakhmet has *eaten* her father and the downright casual way she is reacting to that. It's a scene of slowly building horror that really benefits from having two adjacent page turns to ramp up and then up again the fuckedness quotient of the situation. And that black page shifts the other pages around just enough to make this construct work. Which is such a little thing, but such a smart, smart choice.

Previously:
WicDiv #1 and popart head-splosions
WicDiv #2 and the use of black-space
WicDiv #3 and character design
WicDiv #4 and body language 
WicDiv#5 and facial acting
WicDiv #6 and possessions as character
WicDiv #7 and the power of lettering
WicDiv #8 and the disorienting layout
WicDiv #9 and the economics of design
WicDiv #10 and powers as character design
WicDiv #11 and stretching the moment
WicDiv #12 and layout encoding
WicDiv #13 and retroactive narratives
WicDiv #14 and re-mixing comics

WicDiv #15 and fading out

Listening to Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl #5

Or a look at active backgrounds and smart layouts in Phonogram: TIG #5
by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matt Wilson, and Clayton Cowles

The thing about comics storytelling is that as readers we often get sucked in to the big exciting storytelling. The glorious splash pages! The crazy, deconstructionist, genre-bending layout we've never seen before! The totally rad super punch! But sometimes the smartest or most interesting parts of comics are quiet, deceptively simple constructions that effortlessly convey a more mundane chunk of story. And some of these moments are really worth examining as a lesson of savvy comics.

Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl has one of these deceptively simple, great bit of comics.

There will be *SPOILERS* for Phonogram: TIM #5 below.

The story of this page is pretty simple: David Kohl, the sometime ally and friend of Emily Astor goes to the other phonomancers of his coven to try and recruit them into helping save Emily from herself. He delivers a his speech over and over to each potential ally, and they each, in turn, decide not to help him and that Emily Astor can essentially go and fuck herself. It's a pretty simple bit of story.

The thing is, it's delivered in the absolutely perfect way. We get to see Kohl give his talk in one unbroken sequence, and then, in a series of snapshots we get the reactions. Which... if you stop and think about it, should seem like a really disjointed bit of story: a long talk followed by a careening series of scene changes. And yet, these two pages relate so well, that it feels like an organic whole.

What I think makes this pair of pages work as well is how layout, setting, and colour work to obviously pair panels on either page. The two pages have identical six panel structures, that gives them, when viewed next to each other, common feeling and the potential for an interwoven story. In this situation then, the distinctive backgrounds and unique colouring palettes, become active storytelling elements that inform the reader how the panels on the left and right pages relate. It's this flawless fusion of layout and setting to create an effortless sequence that is logistically very complex. It's so well done, that I'm almost willing to bet you missed just how cool these pages are. 

Previously:
So I Read Phonogram: Rue Britainia
So I Read Phonogram: The Singles Club

Deep Sequencing: Phonogram: TIM#3: Magical layouts

Deep Sequencing: Phono-Infogram: Plot Maps
Deep Sequencing: Phono-Infogram: Timeline
Deep Sequencing: Phono-Infogram: Setting

Deep Sequencing: Colourful Magic

Or a look at the use of colour as magic in Phonogram #4 and Doctor Strange #1
by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matt Wilson, Clayton Cowles/Jason Aaron, Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend, Cory Petit

An aspect of comics that I've found pretty fascinating lately is how different creators find ways to convey magic in their artwork. Making impossible, natural rule-breaking phenomena feel interesting and weird and significant can really help make a story work so finding a way to make magic visually cool is pretty important. I have seen all kinds of tricks used, including some endlessly cool compositions that violate the rules of comics storytelling in fourth-wall-breaking, disbelief stretching ways. Which, of course, works really well! But the thing is, sometimes simpler storytelling tricks work really well too, and one of the most effective ways of making magic feel significant is a really straightforward use of colours.

There will be *SPOILERS* for Phonogram #4 and Doctor Strange #1

 One of the central conceits of Phonogram is that music literally is magic. Which, as someone who enjoys music, but isn't really transcended by it, is a cool metaphor for a metaphor for being really into something. But even I have to admit that magic has an ability to recontextualize a moment: I have definitely caught myself strutting to the badass tones of Tomoyasu Hotei's Battle Without Honour of Humanity while walking to the bus first thing in the morning. Which is an experience of music involuntarily changing my motion and attitude in a way that is beyond casual explanation; that is basically magical. Or put another way: the music coloured my experience. And Phonogram uses literal colour to show the magic of music in it's pages. It's a choice that does a brilliant job demarcating the bleak mundanity of normal, music-less life, and the way music can cut through the mundanity to generate magical, new experiences. Even strutting to the bus first thing in the morning.

Part of the first issue of Doctor Strange is the idea that the Sorcerer Supreme is lives in a supernatural, unseen world that straddles our own, doing weird doctor things to benefit we mundane folk. The comic uses a similar trick to Phonogram, where colour is used to highlight magical events. In this case though, the magical-colour shares space with a black-and-white mundane word. The brilliance of this is it showcases how vibrant and, well, strange the supernatural world is when compared to the everyday world of regular people. It also does a great job at highlighting the super position of the two worlds: the magical world is layered over the mundane world in a way that is completely distinct and separate, yet still inhabiting a common storytelling space. This is how this magical world exists here, and this is how Dr. Strange is able to move between them as a magician in a very simple, understandable comic composition. Which is really effective storytelling.

Worshipping The Wicked + The Divine #15

Or a look at the use of dialogue fade in WicDiv #15
by Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans, Jamie McKelvie, Matt Wilson, and Clayton Cowles; Image Comics

The thing about WicDiv I love is that it's always showing me something cool. It can be some dramatic trick of layout or colour that does something truly remarkable or unprecedented. It can be a shocking story twist or a slow burning irony that drags like an icebreaker through the series. It can be clever character design or some bit of fun mythology. Or maybe it's a cool artist you've never met before. Or maybe it's just something little and smart and worth taking a closer look at. 

WicDiv #15 manages to show me a couple cool things.

There will be *SPOILERS* for WicDiv #15 below.

One of the cool things about WicDiv #15 is of course the artwork of Stephanie Hans. Her painted style is perfect for the story since it brings a glow and attention to light that is distinct from the rest of the series. This is absolutely perfect for the issue which focuses on Amaterasu, the sun goddess of the WicDiv pantheon and Kami of Shinto mythology: it's as if the entire issue was bathed in sunlight. I am very pleased to be acquainted with the artwork of Stephanie Hans.

The other cool thing about WicDiv #15 is a small details kind of thing that I think is kind of neat. The issue ends with Amaterasu attending a Shinto shrine in Tokyo to hang Ema prayer cards for her dead and dying friends. She says prayer after prayer since she has many friends in dire need of help and because she is apparently, at her core, a good person in a shitty situation. (Despite her dubious cultural appropriation: sometimes good people do problematic things?) What I love about this sequence in a wonky comics kind of way is that the dialogue boxes go from normal and solid and fade in sequence until the last one is barely readable. This is cool because it's like the visual storytelling equivalent of a sound fade out where the sounds of Amaterasu's prayers slowly fade out as we leave the story. It's great because it's visually encoding a a sound-based storytelling tool and because it stretches this scene temporally: we can easily picture Amaterasu saying many, many more prayers after the sound fades out. It's a tiny choice in the grand scheme of things, but I think it's adroit stuff. 

The Wicked + The Divine, always good for a few cool things.

Previously:
WicDiv #1 and popart head-splosions
WicDiv #2 and the use of black-space
WicDiv #3 and character design
WicDiv #4 and body language 
WicDiv#5 and facial acting
WicDiv #6 and possessions as character
WicDiv #7 and the power of lettering
WicDiv #8 and the disorienting layout
WicDiv #9 and the economics of design
WicDiv #10 and powers as character design
WicDiv #11 and stretching the moment
WicDiv #12 and layout encoding
WicDiv #13 and retroactive narratives
WicDiv #14 and re-mixing comics