OK! We kick off a new story from here… Redux will be a short 15-20 pages that goes looking for Gola Beh’s lost memory… and today’s update is the cover artwork. Doesn’t look very cheery, huh? If you’ve been reading Magellan for a while a number of faces (even the backs of heads) will be familiar to you… but some won’t be… hm, maybe we’ll be meeting some of them in the course of this story! Originally I was just going to have four people standing around the open grave but, being one not do things by halves, the number of mourners grew considerably by the time I got to drawing it.You can see members of Force Magellan in the upper right corner, the Academic Council (wearing the black and red uniforms) to the upper left, some of the Faculty in the lower left, Oz Magellan members at lower centre and some Magellan USA members to the mid right… with various miscellaneous individuals here and there. Oh, and yeah, that is a statue of Gola Beh in her 1970s costume on the pedestal… but what does it all mean???
So… Gola Beh… Gola started her journey with Force Magellan’s Vertigo on page 5.139 where they were seen heading off to the New York HQ of MagellanUSA. We’ll be meeting a bunch of never seen before MagellanUSA members in Redux plus also catching up with two who we have already met – Flambe and Dr Spooky! A brief recap – Gola Beh, a telepath, was a member of the International Justice Force in the 1960s and early ’70s and then a founding member of Force Magellan after the death of Magellan in 1972. She was also a founder of the Academy and a member of the Academic Council – unfortunately for her she was abducted, in her own mind, by Miasma (evil Maya from the future) and made to believe she was still in 1972. Gola finally managed to escape her mind trap through sheer force of will but lost all intervening memories after 1972. Some several months later, there’s been no luck in restoring those memories. WIll she have more chance in New York? Stay tuned… the story kicks off on Wednesday – but also check back before then because I’ll be posting some concept art for the MagellanUSA members!
When I saw this cover, the first thing I thought was that it was a reference to ‘Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?’. You’ve got the large central figure (which is even a statue, on some covers), set over a group of the character’s friends saying goodbye… was this a deliberate homage?
The title is a (perhaps none too subtle) reference to that story… but Redux itself will be nothing like Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow. The cover image kind of blends every grieving cover homage cliche into one!
might have been fun to stick a nonhuman religious icon on a tombstone for people to speculate about!
That’s a good idea! If I get a moment I’ll rejig the art a bit!
So anyone got any guesses about the person in the fedora? All I can think of is Knuckle Duster but he’s long dead.
P.S. a nonhuman religious icon is a great idea antman!
The guy who looks like a frog–he’s part of Magellan USA? Gee, THANKS…*Grin*
Indeed… that is a member of Magellan USA, but you’re only seeing about 25% of her in that pic and a “frog” she ain’t! stay tuned for character art…
Exciting! I love stories that show us more of the Magellan world. And I hope Gola Beh makes it through and recovers her memories, I quite like her.
I hope she gets her memories back.
well if she never gets her memories back you do lose a hero, though you also gain a new hero as well…
Have we seen the big guy in red,white, and blue anywhere before? For some reason he looks very familiar.
That is the first time we’ve seen him… more info in the next update!
you do realize that every time you say “this will only be [blank] number of pages” it always goes longer, right? oh poor us, forced to read more comics!
Yeah, I know – but I’ve got this one pre-plotted and plan on keeping it very tight. Mind you, I’ve already split the first page in two… so what you see on page one represents only part of what I planned for page 1, the rest will be on page 2… I felt I was rushing the intro of Magellan USA and, even though they’re mostly playing a minor role I figured I should at least give them their due when they first appear. But I take your point, I started out saying Chapter 4 would be about 100 pages, that Chapter 5 only 60… I have a better track recrd at estimating the length of shorter stories though, probably because they are more self-contained.