Purifier creator commentary pg.51 (Patreon)

I like a good fakeout, which is one more thing the last panel of page 50 does that pays off here. Did the hostage's throat just get slit? No, but this is arguably just as bad. Muskgrave and Leach finally arrive to support Tilly but it's all but over.The empty space in panel three allows the understated cough, disbelief and blood a moment to breathe. A short, dreadful beat before panel four when the gruesome effects of the plague claim another. I've been playing a little fast and loose with how yerstinia pestis actually affects the human body because horrible as it is it's probably not quite so dramatic on cue. Retching blood is actually a personal squick of mine, which is exactly why I include it here. It really viscerally disturbs me because in my mind it's a visual shorthand for profound and lethal sickness. And my aversion to it is exactly why I use it here, to maximize the horror element in this sequence. And even then I use it sparingly and from an angle that doesn't make it fully explicit. In all, this is the first time we've actually seen a plague death in the comic and I wanted it to measure up to all the fears and precautions characters had undertaken to this point. The result is a grisly and ugly death. Cooper's timid remark neatly bookends this eruption of gory violence and takes us out of this chapter.