Bocce mentions a little bit about the galactic political system here. Early on, I would have found the idea of developing a political and historical context for the Runners universe very boring and uninteresting.
But in certain contexts, I find that sort of thing fascinating, especially within the context of world wars and opposing alliances. For instance, WWI and WWII can’t really be attributed to such simple events as the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand or Hitler invading Poland. In order for so many countries to commit to so much hardship for such a long time, there was also a vast history of archaic alliances as well as myriad political, social, economic, and military angles that forced those powers into war.
That sort of thing is really interesting to me, much more so than a war story about a fairly two-dimensional force of Evil trying to conquer and destroy the forces of Good for no other reason than being Evil (although that kind of set-up can of course be done well in select cases, like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings). But I do feel like it’s overdone in most sci-fi and fantasy, which is why I’m hoping to add a bit more nuance to the Runners universe.
Bocce looks kind of…..off in that last panel. hehe. (Did I spell his name right.)
Sometimes it’s hard to nail a consistent look to a character in every single panel. I know it’s the bane of many an artist, myself included at times! Bocce actually looks about right to me though in this panel. Although maybe his hands are a little big. Let’s call that artistic foreshortening, shall we?