#bwbcomic

Image IDs:

There are two floating panels which are popped out from the top panel. In the first, we see a panned shot of Eva opening the door for Martinez, who hunches over with her arms protectively covering her chest. Martinez has no face, while Eva has two little dot eyes.

In the foreground, the Secretary looks over their shoulder at both. 

In the second floating panel is a medium close up of Secretary as they raise their arm, calling out a frenzied little, “Wait up!” The opera glove on their raised hand rides down somewhat, revealing the little pinprick of some of the keratin scales covering their forearms.

The top panel shows a wide shot of the three. Martinez stands in the middle, trying to take up as little space as possible, as Secretary places themself between the window and Martinez, two long antennae wiggling out from their hair. As Secretary blocks the window’s light, Martinez glances at them, grateful. Eva, standing at Martinez’s other side, looks down at her curiously and cocks her head with a question mark floating above her.

The second left panel shows a close up of Secretary’s white gloved hand holding her badge up to a card reader with a BEEP. A timer attached to the reader ticks up to one second, showing that it’s timing their time in the breakroom. 

The third left panel shows the back of Martinez’s head as she reaches up with one hand to pull down a mug from the cabinet. The cabinet is full of shitty paper cups threatening to spill out and very few mugs, while the mug in her hand has the partial quote of “be a yardstick of quality” written on it. Martinez instead looks at her phone screen, which glows an ever-so-pale blue.

From the bottom left panel, Eva says, “Well, your boss seems… interesting.” She holds a paper cup in one hand and an expression of barely contained incredulity. The umbrella in her hand has the grip of her sword visible.

In the bottom right panel, Martinez says, “That’s one way to put it. She stirs the cup with a wooden spoon as Eva stands behind her, closing the cabinet door after her.

In the foreground, Secretary says flatly, “Not a good way. But a way to put it.”

“Is the pay alright, at least?” Eva asks.

“Barely-” Secretary raises a mug of their own, “I’m part-time, technically.”

Martinez glances at Secretary and asks, “Shouldn’t you be full-time by now?”

IMAGE ID: In the middle panel, Whit vomits speech bubbles. The strings flow through his fingers as he tries to keep it in and populate the rest of the page. 

A ring of speech bubbles in the middle read, “... Is he in there?”, “There isn’t much to tell.” “But it was quiet for a long while after.”, “Quiero ver tu cara de nuevo-”, “Right here.”, “He was always so gentle…”, “Is he in pain? Is he angry? Did he tell you what happened to him?”, “But the curse can’t be broken-”, “... but it’s not Danilo, is it?”, and “There was a monster.” 

In the center of the ring is a white-outlined sketch of Violeta from the sternum up, raising one hand, worry in every line. It isn’t that Whit is merely echoing what’s being said.

Whit mimics the exact sound of Violeta’s voice.

In the triangular panels in the top left and right corners of the page, Danilo stretches out, his line art stretching around the middle panel. The top right panel shows the formless gold sewn into abstract, flowing lineart. The top left panel shows Danilo’s shocked face, his white eyes wide with recognition. 

Danilo’s body flows into the middle panel and is partially lost among the dark grey of the background and the faint outlines of the mask of Whit’s face embedded into the mudbender’s head from case 1, containing Whit’s soul.

[Image ID: The top left panel shows a medium close up of Xi from the diaphragm up, a Chinese-American young person wearing a sleeveless cheongsam with a high neckline and a shawl around his shoulders. The shawl holsters six brush-like wands, three on each side, making the symmetrical framework of wings on either shoulder. His medium-short dark hair is slicked back and his smile is disarming as he says, “Eva. Dante. You’re doing well, I presume?”

From off-panel, Dante says, “Never been better.”

Xi holds a cloth bag with a mysterious blue glow emanating from the opening in one gloved hand. He asks, “And the honeymoon?”

“Never wanted it to end!” answers Eva cheerily in the top right panel. There is a medium close-up shot of both Eva and Dante as they sit in their respective seats and Dante looks fondly at Eva. Eva is a large Filipino woman with a muscular build, medium-short black hair to the nape of her neck held back by a black headband, and her hands and forearms permanently stained with what appears to be black ink. She sits backwards in her chair, resting her crossed arms over the back of it. As she makes a loose peace sign with her left hand, it’s possible to see her wedding band.

Dante is a chubby black woman of average height, medium-dark skin, and braids pulled partially up into twin-tails on either side of her head. There are white beads scattered throughout the black braids and she holds onto the back of her own chair as she leans ever so slightly into Eva’s space.

Eva laughs, eyes closed and smile wide as she says, “But when the Xings call…”

“Strictly between us,” Xi says in the middle panel, raising a hand to cover his mouth scandalously, “The Xings didn’t call.” 

“Oho?” Eva asks from off panel.

Xi leans forward shown from the waist up across the table as he sets the cloth bag on the table. He says, “I did.”

“About the demon you saw,” Dante says, shifting into professional mode. We see her profile from the waist up in the foreground as she sits across from Xi, her eyes directed toward the cloth bag Xi has set precariously close to his still very full cup of coffee. The bag opens more, revealing its contents to be strange, bulbous, and glowing electrically blue.

The bottom left panel shows a close up of the contents of the bag. There is the lightest bit of eyestrain as the contents of the bag take on a strange, bismuth like consistency, though it’s impossible to tell where the sharp lines and angles begin or end. Xi says, “And more besides.” in a speech bubble in between the bottom left and right panels.

Xi continues, “There’s been a certain material I’ve been collecting for personal study…” 

[IMAGE ID: The left panel takes up a full half of the page with an establishing shot of an enormous, intricate Catholic church of gothic architecture. There are trees seen in the background, as well as Whit’s van parked out in front of the steps, though the reader cannot see Whit yet. The church is built symmetrically, with two looming towers framing the centerpiece of the building. The steps lead to a shaded area with three enormous, heavy wooden doors, each door framed by an arch that someone would have to walk through to reach it.

Above the entrance are two additional, slimmer towers of stained glass. Behind them is the enormous face of the rest of the church and an enormous stained glass window depicting indistinguishable saints.

The right tower is bulkier than the one on the left, with a central chamber near the top being surrounded on at least two sides by enormous round windows of stained glass. There are three crosses at the tops of the three highest points.

While the trees, the van, and the building of the church are in greyscale, the windows of the church itself are a myriad of rainbow color. The colors seem to glow from within the glass.

Two grey text boxes identify this as the Church of St. Matthew, 6:43 P.M.

At the bottom of the left side panel are three free floating stained glass windows in the shape of pointed arches. The first window, rendered with a mildly blue border, shows a profile view of a medium-dark skinned man with loosely coily black curls to the nape of his neck. He is a Puerto Rican man of approximately middle-age, and he wears the vestments of a priest. The man is rendered in black and white and his expression is stern.

In the background, the stained glass is rendered in full-color, albeit in tones of saturated blue. It shows the first scene from the story of Abraham and Isaac- Isaac, kneeling to the right of his father, has his head bowed and his hands obscured by the priest in the foreground. Abraham raises the dagger in his hand over the bowed head of his son, preparing to strike. Both father and son have halos of sharp, geometric lines.

The second stained glass window, rendered with a green border, shows the same man in the foreground, but now his face is obscured. He is in motion and is walking from the panel. In the background, the second part of the story is rendered in warmer tones. An angel appears to Abraham, one hand outstretched and the other raised as a motion to halt. Abraham’s back is turned to the viewer as he gazes up at the angel. The angel has indistinct features but has short blond hair and feathery wings, wearing a perfectly round halo. The priest in the foreground obscures Isaac.

The third stained glass window, its border rendered in maroon, shows that the man has mostly gone. In the background, Abraham holds tightly onto his son as Isaac slowly rises, although his head remains bowed. Abraham looks to where the angel points to the right side of the panel, where a ram colored in pink is depicted. The tones of the glass are now more red than blue, and Isaac is revealed to have been bound with his hands tied together.

In the foreground, the priest’s stole, swaying as he walks, makes a cut across the ram’s throat.

The top right panel shows a perspective shot looking up at the priest’s feet as he ascends the stairs with a clak… and the rainbow colors of stained glass are seen through the bars of the railing. Rainbow light spills from above.

The middle right panel shows a shot of the priest’s hand as it rests on the banister. Rainbow light spills over the back of his hand and he wears a rosary around his wrist. Three of the rosary beads have rainbow colors to them, with the middle bead showing a full rainbow sphere while the two beads on either side show slivers, like marbles, or like eyes in the motion of blinking.

The bottom right panel takes up the majority of the right side of the page and shows a perspective shot of the priest ascending a long, spiral staircase. The greyscale of the stairs is a stark contrast to the rainbow color of the stained glass windows reaching floor to ceiling alongside it, depicting the same story of Abraham and Isaac as was described earlier. There is the gentle clak… clak… of his footsteps in the empty room as he ascends toward the higher floor and the enormous circular stained glass windows there.