Judge Anderson, 2000ad Annual 1990, page 42

On page 2, Grant revisits the plot device that he and Austin used in “Beyond the Void” (progs 612-613): a citizen’s deep mediation leads to a spiritual encounter that Anderson must deal with. Austin’s paints Fay Weldon block pink -- the colour of hope brought by the first rays of sunlight at dawn. The choice of Fay Weldon as a block name is telling. Not only is Weldon a feminist writer of popular novels, her “The Life and Loves of a She-Devil” was also bastardised from a complicated tale of envy by Hollywood into “She Devil”, a simple revenge fantasy about two women squabbling over Bruce Willis. Grant here presents without comment how modern media filters out subtexts or dumbs down difficult subplots in order to cater to as large an audience as possible, thereby making as much money as possible at the expense of the integrity of the original version. Grant also, perhaps wisely, only includes Bruce Willis in a single panel in this story (see page 7).

Turning to the “Christianity is bad, pagan beliefs are good” motif of another 2000ad writer, Grant wheels out the Anima Mundi (the “world soul” of the stoics, such that the world is a “living being endowed with a soul and intelligence” (Plato, “Timaeus”, 29-30, 360 BC)) as the spiritual MacGuffin that transforms Sondra, a sixty-something lady the likes of which hasn’t been seen since an episode of Coronation Street of the 1960s. Plato doesn’t assign the World Soul a sex (Plato, op. cit., 35) but Grant bases it on Fludd's 17th centuty illustration to make the Anima Mundi a goddess and Sondra her instrument of revenge. In comics, revenge-inspired avatars of goddesses are presented in a palatable way to its largely teenage male audience (cf. Marvel comics of the 1970s; the goddess Scathach made the chainmail bikini-clad Red Sonja her tool, the “She-Devil with a Sword”, according to her tagline, and Grant's script calls for the artist to make Fludd's Anima Mundi "like Red Sonja"). Grant is clearly aiming at Frank Thorne here -- who frankly needs something thorny aimed at him for writing Ghita of Alizarr (but if not something thorny, something cabbage-y) – but would Austin, an artist with no hitherto track record in cheesecake in comics*, be capable of delivering it? Can Austin illustrate a “foxy babe that’s dressed to kill” as required by the script? Drum roll, puh-lease… Austin, the consummate professional, launches himself into the cheesecake avatar thing with gusto -- thigh-high boots, flowing blonde locks, a skimpy bikini that shows serious underboob, big axe, big gun, plump red lips.

* the, uhm, hamster in "Zit" does not count as cheesecake nor do the interior illustrations in men's magazines.