#off2025

I really enjoyed how Pablo was characterized in the comic. He is very very selfish. As a cat, part of that is to be expected, but it is the same selfishness that is ultimately exhibited by the other adults in the narrative who believe that Hugo is in proximity to something that they desire...

It makes it so that even though they are all well-meaning and do genuinely seem to care about him, they still don't really See him over their fixation on what they believe his Mother will allow them to accomplish. Their warmth to him has always felt incidental in that way. (Which is deeply ironic considering that Hugo is actually the "magician" responsible for the creation of the world, but it is very interesting that he does not seem to be aware of this himself at any point in the narrative.)

I have mentioned before that to me a core theme in OFF is the exploitation of children, and this comic really hammers that home to me- though the twist at the end re-frames a lot of The Guardian's behavior seeing as though they did not forget and abandon Hugo maliciously, but rather the Queen actively erased their memories of him once the Zones were complete...it adds a layer of tragedy, though It's not as if any of them protested much to his isolation even when they DID remember him- Judge moves on near immediately and Enoch resigns himself to the Queen's orders. To me that is an even greater tragedy- that either way, whether they were aware of it or not, Hugo probably would have most likely suffered the same fate.

This is our first good look of what the world of OFF looked like in the before times as mentioned by various characters, most notably the Zodiacs.

Going to state the obvious here for a moment, but it has been stated that Hugo is responsible for creating the world of OFF. It only makes sense that upon its death, his power would need to be utilized again to "fix" it. It appears that this process had already started happening during this comic, hence his sickness corresponding with the gradual shift of the landscape. The Queen then decides it would be best to hide Hugo away and erase all traces of him to cover up the suffering he must endure to create their new utopia. She reminds me so much of Batter in this way...they both abhor suffering. Though their solutions to it are very different.

Mortis Ghost - Debug Magazine issue #8