Compiled and edited by Laura Drescher
In Defense of His Country
First story reprinted in ???
First published in May 1999.
Writer and artist: Peter Gross
Colorist: Sherilyn Van Valkenburgh
Separations: Jamison
Letterer: Comicraft
Cover artist: M.W. Kaluta
Assistant editor: Cliff Chiang
Editor: Stuart Moore
Disclaimer: The Books of Magic, The Books of Faerie, and all related characters and titles are copyrights and trademarks of DC Comics, Inc.
The Books of Magic, The Books of Faerie, and these annotations are intended for mature audiences only. Comments and additional information should go to Laura Drescher.
Reproduction in any form without permission of the editor (as agent for the contributors) is forbidden.
- Page 8
- Panel 1: Sascha Segan notes on the mailing list that Cyril rode a bus, not a coach (coaches in England, he says, are buses that go long distances).
- Page 10
- Panel 10: Sascha Segan posted this to the mailing list on Tuesday, February 16, 1999:
To Tim's rescue ... :)
Not to be pedantic, but the little things do count. I'm looking at Page 5, and Tim says: "I won't let magic come between us, and I'll be there to help you through this. It's wrong to run away from pain ..." By Page 10, Thomas is saying Tim said: "... you vowed to your father that you would never touch magic again ..." But no! Tim said, "I won't let magic come between us ..." which is PERFECTLY CONSISTENT with, on Page 9, "I won't leave Dad, again." He's not saying he's giving up magic. He's saying that he's making his father his priority. And all of his actions during this issue, at least, bear that out. Sure, jumping into the Collector is pretty headstrong and stupid. But
Tim is starting to get a primitive form of a clue in this issue. He's decided he needs to face up to situations - a tough lesson when after a dozen issues of needing to face up to things he's been running away from, he's now being asked to run away from something he finally feels like facing up to. He's decided to become active instead of simply reactive, or passive. He's realized turning away won't make things go away, and that 'magic' and the 'real world' can't be taken separately, as two distinct areas where you can escape from one to the other when you don't like one of them. That's a big step forward. (Now, of course, we need to keep him alive while he works this one through ...)
Thomas, meanwhile, is starting to give me the creeps, because he's so obviously a victim of post-traumatic something-or-other. He's "lost the capacity for horror," and when you do that you start breaking eggs and making lousy omlettes. And he's missed something that Tim does realize, though it's not Thomas's fault that he can't feel the importance not only of Tim but of the Real World he lives in. This is just another world to Thomas, so what's the importance of leaving yet another world?
I don't want Tim to end up like Thomas. Thomas, I'm realising, might be just one step away from people like those Tuskeegee doctors who experimented on hapless black people to find out Greater Things That Could Help Humanity, losing track of the immediate immorality of their actions. Protecting Tim seems to be Thomas's sole and only priority, sensible when you consider who he is, but there are scary moral consequences lurking in there.
- Page 15
- Panel 1: On February 16, 1999, Sascha Segan contributes this to the mailing list: "St. Bart's is probably the most recognizable of London hospitals; it's an old Victorian contraption on the edge of the center city that's been running for ages and is much beloved by the residents of the East End.
Recently the government has been trying to shut it down against community protests; right now it only has accident, casualty and emergency wards and no general medicine. And hey, why is that EMT getting out the electro-cardiac pads for a guy who is so obviously dead he's been bisected by several shards of glass?"
- Page 22
- Panel 1: The Fake Tim that Tim created is essentially the one from Thomas Currie's reality, which we saw in Issue 55.
Contributors include:
Greg Morrow is the editor of the Sandman Annotations, whose format and legal information I have used here.
Sascha Segan inspired me with his page, Suburban Mythos: The Books of Magic, and helped me begin these annotations. Sascha also provided information on buses versus coaches and St. Bartholomew's; also he reflected on Thomas' assesment of Tim's promise to his father and on the characters of both Tim and Thomas.