In panel 3, Dhama Suul’s comments are based on him thinking that Roka and company are working with Goshen. A bit of a misinterpretation of the actual events, but it’s certainly a logical conclusion from where he’s standing.
I have to admit the design for Suul is a bit wonky when I go for the extreme close-ups. In panel 6 on this page (and in the last panel of page 4), the angle and cropping cuts off the eyes, so the big side nostrils end up looking like eyes. Not a huge issue, but something I noticed while doing the art on these pages.
I’m surprised Dhama Suul would be all hunky-dory about one of his minions calling him out like that. “You DARE to tell ME to WAIT? Guards! Kill HIM too!”, etc. Maybe there’s more to him and his relationship with his uh… employees… than I imagined. Under typical villain stereotype scenarios, it tends to be unhealthy to uh… “rockblock” the boss in front of the other employees and his victims.
Well, let’s hope Sean keeps away from the tired cliches and continues this fresh approach. 😉
In the whispering in panel 5, I think I see the word “slave” or maybe “last” but that’s mostly just guessing.
The last three words to me look like,
“CENTIPEDE SURE
LAST LATTE DORA
SOUP PORK HIM.”
Which we all know is KV code (got the decoder ring in a box of beetle rinds) for, “Have Baso kill him slowly with a Dora the Explorer bowl and tippy cup to prove his dedication.”
You are funny Exxos… No really I mean it.
I guess I never really spelled it out in the story, but Dhama Suul has his regular henchmen, and then he has the three Kaagan Vas mercenaries in his employ (although I guess it’s more accurate to say 2 KV, with Baso being a KV-in-training). I imagine the KV being a step above regular henchmen, almost equal in clout to Suul. Basically you don’t wanna mess with KV and you don’t really get to boss them around like regular flunkies. So that’s why Warsaw and Suul don’t have a regular boss/underling dialog here.
As for the whispering, I think I actually just typed random letters since it’s not supposed to be read anyway. By the “1000 monkeys typing for 1000 years” rule, it’s possible there might be some real words in there rather than random strings of letter, but somehow I doubt it. I think the actual balloon is Warsaw saying, “Can we take a time out for a couple minutes? I have to use the bathroom and I don’t want to miss anything.”
If that piece of dialogue is true, would that mean Warsaw is about to ask Baso to guide him to the nearest bathroom?
I wonder if a pose would have worked better for Suul instead of the extreme close-up considering the limits of his face.
Resting his chin on a tentacle, perhaps? I think that look would suit him.