Following the end of “Island of the Ur-Gerbils” (and the false end of Narbonic) with another chapter of the Victorian story was a totally classy move. Good one, me.

Ugh…I set the color way too yellow on this installment. Usually I did the sepiatone in the Victorian story by using one of the sepia presets on Photoshop, but sometimes I got dissatisfied with those and fiddled with the color myself. It didn’t work out this time. Sigh.

A lot of the architecture here is sort of loosely based on photos from the London Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851. The Crystal Palace comes up repeatedly in Skin Horse, too. I’m really into World’s Fair type events. The object at the foot of the bridge is Dr. Merryweather’s Tempest Prognosticator, invented by George Merryweather and exhibited at the Crystal Palace. Dr. Merryweather believed that leeches were extremely sensitive to weather changes. The device consists of twelve jars, each containing a leech; when a storm approaches, the leeches climb to the tops of the jars, ringing tiny alarm bells.

Go, Victorian mad science!

I gave Victorian Madblood slicked-back hair in these installments, then promptly forgot about it and started drawing him with the spiky hair he has in the daily strip.

Obviously, the best part of this page is that I only had to draw the Hapax Legomenon once. Oh, and those trees in the first panel are pretty boss.

The Martian ladies speak very bad Italian. Andrew did the translations for me. In panel two, they say, “Not quite, coglione!” Coglione in this context means “idiot,” but it’s also a word for “testicle.” In panel four, they say, “We are soldiers of the rebel army of Mars, and we are here to kidnap the Hapax Legomenon!”

I don’t think there can be any question that “Amazon Women of Mars, Exposed” is the best title I came up with for anything, ever.