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Dan Schkade and Matt Bogart are back with Jesse Snavlin on the letters, all to bring you the conclusion of their two-part Madeline Cross mystery, FINGERNAIL CUTS. Refresh your memory on the first part here and dive. Back. In.

start at the beginning of arc 2

start at the very beginning

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#Madeline Cross #Elba Tolbert #tak montri #Dan Schkade

start at the beginning of segment 10 start at the beginning of arc 2 start at the very very beginning

*please be advised that jesse's taught herself lettering over the course of a year, and earlier chapters are in the process of being updated.

She and the gun made him strip. They made him pull his drawers back on, because he looked dumber that way.

#the fowl #webcomics #comics on tumblr #dr. fell #elba tolbert #hungry man #dan schkade #jesse snavlin

Click the image above or the image below for the page on the web. ----

four theories on what the fuck he's gonna show her.

It took 'em three whole years to train the tigers. At least, that's what Erasmus tells everybody, because he just wants them to think he's some sort of effort-filled vigilante of the Circus crowd. But fuck it, I don't think it's three years to train a tiger to do THAT. I think it's more like eight or twenty or maybe a hundred, who the fuck knows how old that guy is anyway? Damn. I don't. That's all I'm saying. Tigers doing that shit can't take that long and he could be a million years old. Those tigers could be a million years old. I mean, you've seen the place. Those tigers could be a million.

Expecting a spiral of stairs or a gently sloping tunnel, I was instead met with a gaping, lightless abyss. I placed my hands on either side of the opening and probed my head and shoulders inside. It was as if I had entered an inky conch shell; I heard an endless, empty, whispering roar, without any discernible origin. It had all the qualities of the wind, yet also of language. The pitch was cool against my face, thick, almost creamy in texture. Yes, texture, though it was nothing empty air! A conflicting, peculiar experience. It seemed to numb me. I could no longer feel my feet, or the wood I was gripping to anchor myself. It was then I realized that I had been too open to new stimuli, too unprejudiced in my conclusions. The bastard had seen fit to push me inside.

The enormous altar casts a pale amber glow upon the arch-laden walls. Beneath the candles the crushed velvet of the bloody cloth spreads across the cracked cement floor and bunches at the bases of the embellished gold candlesticks. Wax drips and mottles itself along the folds. The candles are her own height—they are her own width—and they populate the dim cavern like a flickering forest. She weaves between each waxen oak, delicately picking across coins and gems and leaves, signs of the elemental directions. The marble fountain, a classical affair with fish burbling beneath two cherubs, hums to her left. "It's amazing," Elba gasps, though she shivers even if she's sweating. The candles' warmth couldn't warm her bones. What would happen here, she wondered? A place so large she could sit at the fountains edge and throw within it the gold coins, wish herself a new life and a new place... What was that he said? She'd fallen within herself. "Oh, a satisfactory solution for wind?" She mumbled, relieved she'd automatically processed a response. "If you don't have a good solution, how can you possibly do any craft...?"

"Here we are."

"Jesus. This is... old. I mean, really, really old. This arch -- who built this?"

"Slaves, I imagine."

"This is older than America, Doctor -- "

"So are slaves. It's the oldest profession. Now, just through here."

"I'm -- I'm not sure. What's this on the floor? This dampness."

"Go on through the arch. Go on, girl. It's just a bit of stone."

"...

Doctor, who is that, up ahead?"

"I'm afraid I don't know who you mean."

"Don't --! That old man! My god, is he still alive! Don't pretend you don't see him!"

"Ah, haha. I do apologize. Over the years, my eyes have changed a bit... where's my lighter...

There.

You see where we've miscommunicated."

"Christ. Jesus Christ. How... many...?"

"You'll have to count."

"You monster! You evil -- you don't even know?"

"Again, we're talking past each other. I want you to count, girl."

"Why? For the love of god--"

"Educational purposes."

#Doctor Fell #Elba Tolbert #the committee buiding #TCB #The Fowl #The Private Files of the Fowl #Dan Schkade #Jesse Snavlin

Click the image above for the full comic

The Private Files of the Fowl: SIGN/Theory -- Written and lettered by Jesse Snavlin, art by Dan Schkade, story by both.

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All Elba can think of is this bit of a Dylan song, and she plays it over and over in her head like a bad running gag:

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world Inside of a leather cup But all his sexless patients They’re trying to blow it up Now his nurse, some local loser She’s in charge of the cyanide hole--

That's it, that's all she knows.

Elba also knows, on like a physiological level, she's not supposed to be there. The El Quortez hotel. It's wrong. It shouldn't still be standing. And neither should they. But there they are, overvivid, talking nonsense in strange voices.

#Elba Tolbert #Doctor fell #doctor erasmus fell #Hungry Man #Froid #Jimo #Parris City #The Fowl #voodoo #the private files of the fowl #the committe building #TCB #comics #webcomics #Jesse Snavlin #Dan Schkade

Click the art above for full comic!

Story and art by Dan Schkade, lettering and cleanup by Jesse Snavlin, script by both.

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Almost as sentimental about outlaw firearm machismo as she is about the astronomical classification of Pluto, Madeline selected her service weapon by the same seventeen-step criteria as the Austrian Ministry of Defense. Some highlights:

(1) The weapon must be self-loading.

(6) The weapon must be secure against accidental discharge from shock, stroke and drops from a height of two meters onto a steel plate.

(9) The weapon's construction may not exceed fifty-six individual parts.

(12) All components must be fully interchangeable between pistols of the same manufacture.

(13) No more than twenty malfunctions are permitted during the first ten thousand rounds fired -- Not even minor jams that can be cleared without the use of any tools.

(15) When handled properly, under no circumstances may the user be endangered by case ejection.

Aged twenty six, in the preliminary stages of the case that'd get her noticed, these criteria led her to select something called a Glock seventeen. A few months on, she replaced the grip for something that better fit her hand, fixing a recoil problem that was spoiling her aim. She swapped out the barrel for something shorter, taller, easier to draw. A series of small and not so small practical modifications as the need arose. Eventually she'd replaced every part of the weapon, and here she is. Because she doesn't want a gun with a bunch of numbers and letters like a fucking R2 D2 action figure. She doesn't want anything. She needs a weapon. She needs to be able to intimidate a hostile into submission and she needs to be able to neutralize a living, breathing threat from a safe distance. This is what she needs to do her job. Everything else is just parts.

#Madeline Cross #Elba Tolbert #The Fowl #PCPD #Parris City #The Committee Building #TCB #comics #webcomics

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Cops talk about Madeline Cross, and sometimes Tak listens.

There's the usual locker room nonsense, but only from some meathead greenhorn who recognizes the name as a series of sounds and nothing else. Then no one laughs, and he looks around, and the others play an invisible game of 'not it' to determine who gets to tell him his first Cross story.

And like I say, sometimes Tak listens. Listening is eighty percent of being a police, so reads an academy missive bouncing around his memory. Ninety. Something like that.

Their stories are equal elements of sensationalism and scorn; the detective's unimpeachable talent and improbable, often gristly, case breaks, versus the woman's temper, causticity, and pervasive unpleasantness. These are the things they use to estimate a person.

Tak lingered on the edge of the squad room, suddenly aware she hadn't yet noticed him. Her cigarette, illegally lit on city property, bore coffee stains from a spill she'd made on her way to the first body all those hours ago. She was propped up on the desk, head hung over files, a sagging, tired crane holding up twin optical cameras, lenses and all. A human body tasked to a machine that solves crime.

Damn, he wished he'd thought to pick her up something from the diner.

----

Of course, no one talks about Elba. They just know her, and like her, and only speak of her, pleasantly, in relation to other things. This is her talent.

There's the locker room talk again, but different. It's only from cops who've met her. There's a sense they think it's respectful. This is also a talent.

It's known that she's a good cop, a good cop, a phrase repeated in reference to her, though if you pressed them, no one would have a story to back it up. No one really knows much about her. They never have reason to think about that, though. Base lack of information tweaked to the positive.

Primary Officer Elba Tolbert makes Tak feel all funny in the places that aren't owned by the PCPD. It's why he doesn't say anything when she slides past him, though him, over to Madeline Cross, decaying at her desk. He gets the feeling he ought to leave well enough alone. It overrides the feeling that well enough isn't.

This is Elba Tolbert's talent.

#the Fowl #Madeline Cross #Elba Tolbert #Tak #Parris City Blues #The Committee Building #TCB #comics #webcomics

The entire page revolves around this panel. Thematically, compositionally, even the timing hangs on this. In process, I thought this would be the weakest page of the story, and this its weakest panel -- instead, it's almost the exact middle ground of quality in the story, and this, the exact middle ground panel, in the exact middle of the story. It's spooky.

Here: I was eight when I first realized somebody could be shot in the back of the head. I mean, that it was even a thing that could happen. I was looking at a black-and-white comic strip in a copy of the Weekend XL someone had left in the Barton Creek Elementary art room. Until then, I must have assumed the skull was hard enough to repel any attack, the most dire result of head trauma being merely a Tintin-style KO. Instead, the artist made it shatter like eggshell in black silhouette as the killer, revolver in hand, looked on in horror at the damage she'd effected, was effecting. A bullet to the back of the head, stopped just a second to late in a black ink image that's preserved forever in this, my most vivid youthful memory.

The name of the strip was "Millennium Murder."

(And sometimes -- not always, but sometimes -- I begin to think this comic might be just the teensiest bit haunted.)

#the Fowl #madeline cross #Elba Tolbert #parris city #the committee building #TCB #comics #webcomic