Rawhide Vindaloo w/ Commentary, Page 20

   Here' where the entire thing becomes worth it. Focusing on the panel layouts gives me perfect opportunity to draw your attention to the panel borders on the "bathing" scene. The edges at the bottom ripple, in a widening circle from Rawhide, as if the panel itself were bifurcating the water. It's actually a pretty convincing illusion. Pretty clever, eh?

   I really can't put into words much else of the panel bordering on this page. The edges of some of these panels are doubled over, as if it weren't trippy enough. And exactly which borders become incorporated into the drawings and vice versa just defies logic. Look at that establishing shot there for an example. The first panel, except it's reversed. I suppose you could treat these page backs as manga, read them that way I mean. Okay, the first panel.

   Half of the river flows out of the panel, half is cut off by the edge, the moon is also open, the bank and background with the trees there... When Rawhide dips his hoof-foot toe into the river to test the temperature, his leg doesn't open up into the edge of the panel, but the border lines of his foot do open up into the water in the middle of the panel. Where Rawhide looks over his shoulder, the arm facing us is closed off, but the rest of him is open. The rim of Jeff Bridges's hat forms a panel border in spite of being a line of normal thickness and not a border thick line. In fact, the only panel with normal edges on this page is the last one, the one with the needle record scratch and, "Dad?" As if the comic weren't weird enough, up and along comes this. Let's just acknowledge that this is a very, very trippy page, and move on.