Q:First off, your visual storytelling and mood-setting (with a limited palette, too!) has been especially [Italian chef's kiss sound] as of these last few pages. Second off, all the discussion around them has me wondering - was the more straightfoward reading that people (myself too, guilty as charged) have had over the course of the comic something you intentionally evoked (but with foreshadowing otherwise) and then subverted, or have folks honestly read a different story than you intended?

spectershaped

Good question! (and I’m gonna try to keep my answer spoiler-free for readers who haven’t caught up) 

I feel like I sprinkled enough clues and information throughout the narrative that many readers who share Al’s experience were able to recognize what was going on early, like chapters and chapters ago. That’s not to be uncharitable to people who missed them, because I think a lot of those clues are easy to miss or misunderstand their significance if you are outside of that lived experience.

But additionally, I don’t think people were wrong for seeing the more straightforward option and rooting for a happy end in that direction. I love those kinds of stories myself, and within the world of OHS that story’s happy end would be appealing for everyone in the Sterling-Pinsky family and they were working towards it. Al probably saw the outline of that story and thought about how nice it would be for everyone if they could pull it off.

But at the end of the day, it would still be a lie.