This is another of the trades I picked up recently. The note inside the back cover from P. Craig Russell says he originally wrote this story in the '70s, and he and Marv Wolfman later shortened it to work as an annual. 20 years later, he took Marc Andreyko's suggestion and resubmitted the idea. It was approved, but when he looked back over it, Russell decided it needed to be almost entirely redone, with some help from Andreyko. Which means, in a sense, the original vision he had in the 1973 never really saw print. I imagine he's probably happier with how it turned out, that's just something that occurred to me.
The plot is that Strange is enjoying a quiet dinner, until he receives a fortune cookie saying 'What is it that disturbs you, Stephen? 7 - 63 - 7 - 66' This brings about a feeling of unease, and upon Stephen's return home, he learns Wong has been abducted. The trail leads to another realm, one called Ditkopolis, ruled by Electra. She wants Stephen's help. Her father split his power between her and her sister Celeste, who appears to exist deaf to the world. The realm is dying, and Electra can not access Celeste's power, so she needs to Stephen's to help. Stephen perceives things are not as Electra has depicted them, and takes steps to set them right. The problem being, this sends Electra into a self-destructive fury, and Stephen is only narrowly able to save Wong, but not Ditkopolis, which is lost to him forever.It's Wong's abduction that sets things in motion, but the story seems to forget about him in the interests of detailing the truth about Electra, Celeste, and the swan sculpture. Strange gets so wrapped up in the whole thing that when Wong reappears it's as if, "Oh, right, that's what I came here to do!" That being said, I love the last line of the book, the sense of this having been only a small part of something larger. That it wasn't this that was disturbing him, but something more.
I do wonder how much the story is meant to represent real life events. I mean, "Ditkopolis", and the numbers on the fortune correspond to Ditko's tenure as Strange's artist (and for the latter half, writer/artist). Is Celeste Ditko, and Electra Stan Lee, taking all the credit, casting blame for failure in other directions, destroying something beautiful because of an inability to accept that you can't always get your way? I have no idea who or what Galtus would represent in all that. Praise, acclaim?
That's all just spitballing, I don't have any idea, and the artwork is the real show. Russell has a nice sense of design, he incorporates some of the dialogue or sound effects into his art well. Trash blowing across the page from one panel to another, and serving as a caption box where convenient. There's a bit when Strange first enters that other realm where the caption box for his internal narration is circular, but his speech balloon is square, different from all other times throughout the book. Like he hasn't quite adjusted to the rules of the realm yet. A sentence may get sucked down a whirlpool with a character, or a word broken in half as one falls through it. These bits are more prevalent in Electra's realm, which gives it an air of being a realm of the mind. Words could have physical properties there, especially among sorcerers, who use them with their power.
Also, Strange's magic tends to manifest as shapes. Squares, odds spheres with growths coming off them. Electra and Celeste's are limited more to jagged lines, the way a kid might lightning bolt. A mirror plays a pivotal role in the story, sometimes it reflects properly, sometimes, the expressions or positions don't match, which I don't think is an accident. Russell gets several close-ups to show off facial expressions, and he shows a good range, especially with Electra, whose moods shift so frequently.
We have to talk about Lovern Kindzierski's colors as well. A lot of the locales are done in a particular hue, but then Kindzierski uses it as the baseline for contrast. So the interior of the Sanctum Sanctorum is a sort of mellow blue, with black shadows around the edges, but that makes the kitchen, done in a canary yellow stand out noticeably. It's like a different reality entirely. Stephen's dark suit and his lavender caption box seem out of place, which creates a sense of unease, especially as the page continues and Stephen moves through the empty house, but Russell keeps coming back to the teapot.
When Stephen first enters Electra's realm (when his voice balloon is square), it's primarily a warm yellow. Electra's initial appearance brings a green hue in, and until Stephen manages to repel her initial attacks, the color scheme shifts to greens and blues, only to move back towards yellow and orange as he gets his bearings.
It's a beautifully done book. The copy I picked up was about 15 bucks, but it looks like new, so if you're a fan of Dr. Strange or P. Craig Russell's work, I think it's worth a look.
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