Doctor Strange (2015) #5, p.19

My son, bless him, thinks comics and comic art are “cool”, but he’s never REALLY been bitten by the bug (radioactive or otherwise). When he “ooh!”s and “ah!”s over a piece in my collection, I can tell he’s doing so completely for my benefit. It’s all good. I’ll take it.

This was the first time that was different. We’d had a wonderful time reading the Bachalo/Aaron run on ‘Doctor Strange’ together, and it is still one of our household's favorites. When I saw this page was available and showed it to him, he absolutely freaked out.

Since so much of parenting is in reaffirming and underscoring your kid’s “correct” response in those moments of decision-making that life invariably throws at you, I felt it was my moral duty as his father to do what I could to help bring this kick-ass piece to its new home. For the children, of course. Awesome parenting, FTW! :)

In a recent re-read, I was surprised at how few actual splashes there were in this run, given the epic, wondrous events and scenes depicted... It certainly FELT splashy, but that’s the true power of a great and expansive well-told story, I guess. And although I usually lean towards multi-panel pages and spreads (as I love the narrative nature of the medium and the techniques employed by the masters to “lean into that”), what’s not to love about a big reveal of the Big Bad, the Grand Inquisitor of the Empirikul, himself?

(Interesting that they put him in boots on the published page... While it does arguably fit the theme of a 'tech-based' bad guy better, I'm partial to the disconnect and character texture the clawed feet add, to say nothing of the fact that it underscores the notion of the Grand Inquisitor’s (er…) foot-soldiers being created in his self-image (like some tech-based god and his disciples steam-rolling over heathen magic...)

A truly heartfelt ‘thank you’ to Jason at Essential Sequential for enabling me to be a “cool dad” for 'round about 20 minutes (hey, the boy’s 12... ;) ).