Kurt Busiek's Astro City: The Annotations

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               KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY VOL. 2, #6
                       The Gathering Dark
       collected as part of the CONFESSION trade paperback
                       Narrator: Altar Boy
                      Date: Late July 1997
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Cover:    Altar Boy and the Confessor I watch the marchers from
          Grandenetti Cathedral.

2/1:      Given that the heat wave is still building, this issue
          likely takes place just a few days after #5. More
          evidence for this is the fact that Sara-Lynne Felton is
          described on 5/3 as the eighth victim of the Shadow Hill
          Killer, while the discovery of the sixth body is
          announced on #5, 24/4, coming just a day and a half after
          the fifth body was found (see #5, 12/3). The month can be
          found by tracing backward from the date given in #9.

 /2:      First appearance of the Gunslinger.

8/5:      First appearance of Mordecai Chalk. Silver and cold iron
          are both metals known for harming or warding away
          supernatural creatures (especially werewolves and
          faeries, respectively). Wolfsbane is an herb which wards
          off werewolves and other lycanthropes.

10/1:     The Gaia Women's Clinic, an abortion clinic, has been
          bombed. Gaia is the Greek personification of the Earth,
          and hence is a traditional mother-figure. Note that
          Winged Victory's presence (stopping the bomber) does not
          imply a deeper association with the clinic: it is not one
          of her organisations, like her schools.

  /3:     "I've been there": as mentioned on Vol.1 #3, 6-7/1, Jack-
          In-The-Box has been pursued by the police in the past.

  /4:     "Simon-pure" is an expression which simply means pure or
          untainted. It is derived from a character, Simon Pure,
          who is the victim of impersonation in Susanna Centlivre's
          1718 play "A Bold Stroke For A Wife".

 /5:      First appearance of the Extranormal Activities Garrison
          for Law Enforcement (EAGLE) Troopers.

12/5:     "Gook" is derogatory slang for the Vietnamese.

13/2:     First appearance of the Frigians and the Thermians.

14/1:     First reference to the Mirror Galaxy.



Release History:
Version 1.1 released  7th June 1998
Version 1.0 released 28th May 1998

Notes:
Citation format is page/panel. For instance, 18/1 refers to page
18, panel 1. Two-page spreads are treated as a single "page" for
the purpose of panel enumeration; for example, 6-7/3 refers to the
third panel on a spread covering pages 6 and 7. Issue number is
included if different from the issue being annotated, with issues
from Volume 1 specified as such.

KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY, its prominent characters and their
likenesses are trademarks of Juke Box Productions. All quoted text
is copyright Juke Box Productions.

Additions, corrections and comments should be sent to the editor.
Reproduction of these annotations, in whole or in part, without the
permission of the editor is forbidden.

Annotations for other issues of KURT BUSIEK'S ASTRO CITY may be
found at http://strindberg.ling.uu.se/~anders/KBAC/main.html
(HTMLized versions) and http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/kbac/ (text
versions).

Sources:
"Comic Art & Graffix Gallery Virtual Museum & Encyclopedia"
(http://www.comic-art.com/enter.htm)

"Who's Who In Astro City" (http://www.bonner.rice.edu/morrow/kbac/
kbacww.html)

Contributors:
Shannon Patrick Sullivan, shannon@morgan.ucs.mun.ca (editor)
Kurt Busiek, kurtbusiek@aol.com
Randy Lander, rwlander@io.com
Douglas W Waldron, atldww@am.dames.com