The Capital of Helsinki

Author notes

29. Checkmate

Air Raid Robertson

on Oct. 29, 2009

You're getting this one a bit early since it's Halloween and I want to go out without worrying about finding time to post this.

Anyways, this one lampoons all those European folk tales about mortals gambling their souls in chess matches with Satan and/or the personification of Death. Of particular inspiration was the 1957 Ingmar Bergman film The Seventh Seal. I modeled the supernatural creature in this strip after the Death figure in The Seventh Seal. It's also why I made this strip in black and white.

I made a few stylistic choices on top of this. I gave the supernatural figure red eyes in order to help the reader immediately "get" who the robed guy actually was. I also inverted the colors of his word balloons for that reason.