^ 23 Comments...

1. The MacNut
   April 10th, 2009 at 1:22 am

   Damn, a turn to a darker mood. Here’s where the whole thing with Ginsha comes out, and probably Mentl also gives voice to his fears that he “enchanted” Zona into loving him…

   …though how they’re even able to have a conversation with the giants LITERALLY banging away in the background mystifies me.

2. Jim Farris
   April 10th, 2009 at 1:28 am

   Argh. Forgot about that.

   Well, it has been over a year since it happened.

3. Jim Farris
   April 10th, 2009 at 1:29 am

   The “smackdown the enchanted lizard-girl’ scene, I mean.

4. The MacNut
   April 10th, 2009 at 1:32 am

   Over a year for us readers. For them, not much more than a day or so, and probably only a few hours. So for Mentl, the memories are still fresh and nicely painful, like a deep wound that’s only now starting to scab over.

   And the scab’s about to be peeled off.

5. silentsteel
   April 10th, 2009 at 3:12 am

   Ooh my . . . yeah, this is going to be a very, very hard conversation for Mentl. And for Zona. The whole event with Ginsha . . . *shudder* That creeped me out bigtime. I wonder at times if Ginsha had issues that made the spell so much /WORSE/ considering how she was raised.

   I don’t know if he’s realized he ‘may have’ enchanted Zona. Heck, we don’t even know if he was capable of doing so at that point. We do know she did have strong responses to his music, but on the other hand, she’d never heard anything like the music he knows.

6. The MacNut
   April 10th, 2009 at 4:32 am

   Zona wasn’t the only woman who responded strongly-and lustfully-to Mentl’s music. Haven’t you noticed throughout the comic that whenever he sang around women, they all got a major case of the hots for him? Remember the other women at the Kivalian castle? The Queen herself? Even Tula wanted to jump him when Zona had him play for them both, remember? She had to run to a cold stream to cool off? Heck, even the good but gay Kivalian Count Tethik was trying to get with him before Zona dragged him away!

   The first time he and Zona had sex was right after he sang for her!!! She stripped off her top and jumped him right after he finished!!

   Mentl enchants through his singing, I’m sure that’s been made clear by now. Even when he wasn’t aware he was doing it, he was. That’s how scary powerful he is. So yes, there is a definite possibility that he “enchanted” Zona into being in love with him, and he probably realizes that by now, mainly thanks to what he did to Ginsha. And I have a feeling Zona realizes it as well-she may not be the magickal expert her sister is, but she’s no dumb blonde either. She just may not want to admit to herself that she may have been enchanted.

   But if their conversation goes the way I think it will, she’s going to have to face the possibility head on. The next page or two is gonna be tense. Very tense.

7. Rocko
   April 10th, 2009 at 4:42 am

   I thought I read somewhere tha zona was too.. attached to the physical realm that she wouldn’t be effected? might of been vito, I’ll have to look back.

   As for the Ginsha scene, Yeah, you could tell Mentl was very shaken up by what he had one. Kudos to the author

8. MaryLynne
   April 10th, 2009 at 6:52 am

   Oh man! This is so powerful and so beautiful. This is my favorite comic and the first I check every day.

9. Lebbrin
   April 10th, 2009 at 8:35 am

   You know, true artistry is when you can say volumes with out one printed word. That’s panels 4 and 5. JE, you are really getting the hang of making the facial expressions say what you want. Excellent page!

10. Squire James
    April 10th, 2009 at 8:42 am

    I’m sure the story’s going to clear it up eventually, but that’s not going to stop me from offering my theory, of course.

    I doubt Zona is so weak-willed that she would allow one of Mentl’s songs to make her do something she wasn’t already inclined to do. Even the half-urtt was really only acting in an exaggeration of her natural inclinations, and the song he was using for her was more compulsive than anything he’s sung to date.

    That being said, I think he ought to be REAL careful with songs like, “Another One Bites the Dust” in the future!

11. nentikobe
    April 10th, 2009 at 9:48 am

    Just a little note from me, given that I read this entire archive for the first time a couple of weeks ago…

    I have to wonder if Zona was ligitimately spelled into loving him. Everyone else got over everything really fast. Tula, the Queen - lust passes. He’s done things that have nothing to do with singing to win her. It could also just be wistful thinking on my part that it all comes out for them.

    I’m completely hooked.

12. JE Draft
    April 10th, 2009 at 9:52 am

    Macnut, Jim Farris, Silentsteel and Squire James, Thanks very much for the comments! Here’s where I get all quiet, don’t comment on your speculation and just let the story be told on the page, though. All will be revealed in the next few pages. Well … okay, SOME will be revealed, muahaha…>:)

    Rocko, what Vito actually said was that she was so grounded in the physical plane that she couldn’t possibly see *him.* Whether that translates into a unique immunity from magickal influence, I ain’t sayin’.

    MaryLynne, Thank you! I love applause! (I’m a very needy lil artist-person, that way.)

    Lebbrin, thanks! It’s Poser puppetry, mimicking human body language as well as the faces and with practice - y’know. I am actually a great fan of puppeteering, and a really good puppeteer can tell a whole story with a ball and a block of wood. Look at how amazing this guy’s stuff is -

    http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2931/skeleton_street_show/

    - and all he has to work with is a painted face with a moving jaw and a minimally articulated skeleton body. You’d swear the little guy was alive!

13. Karyl
    April 10th, 2009 at 10:16 am

    I’m going to wind up going back to read that over again, but I don’t think Zona would be bespelled for very long. She’s way too strong-willed and capable. I think that Mentl will come to realize the power of their love in a way unknown to him before. It’s mutual, after all!

14. Lebbrin
    April 10th, 2009 at 10:33 am

    Okay, so I just re-read the whole thing. I agree with the comments above about the spell passing. I think Zona might have jumped in the sack the first time because of the song, but it’s what Mentl’s done since that has made her love him. (Defending her with the fry pan, turning down Yanora, etc.)

15. Matti
    April 10th, 2009 at 11:00 am

    And THIS:
    http://www.soulgeek.com/comics/zona/2007/08/31/page-149

16. hans
    April 10th, 2009 at 11:47 am

    Uhm, yeah. Where is that damned book anyway?

17. JE Draft
    April 10th, 2009 at 12:42 pm

    Karyl, you could be wright.
    Lebbrin, so could you or not.
    Matti, doing our homework!
    hans, on the floor on Mentl’s right, near his leg. See page 262, panel 5. Barely visible in the shadows, but it’s there.

18. The MacNut
    April 10th, 2009 at 10:15 pm

    Hmm, y’know, I’ve been thinking about it, and what I saw in the archives, and I think Matti, Lebrin and others are right-Mentl’s singing inspires LUST in the women who hear it, but not LOVE. It’s how he’s treated Zona while he WASN’T singing to her that has inspired her to fall in love with him.

    Now let’s see if THEY realize the difference. Too bad we’ll have to wait ’till next Tuesday to find out (WHAAAAAAA!!!!).

19. Joe
    April 10th, 2009 at 11:26 pm

    “Haven’t you noticed throughout the comic that whenever he sang around women, they all got a major case of the hots for him?”

    Heck, it doesn’t take magic for that. Rick Ocasek & Paulina Porizkova, anyone? That’s case closed, right there. Younger readers, Google for pictures of the 2 of them….

20. adtz
    April 10th, 2009 at 11:29 pm

    I think Tula would not have seen their Cha quite so balanced if Zona was under any kind of long term enchantment. I think Mentl’s songs were the moral equivalent of giving someone a drink to lower their inhibitions or an aphrodisiac to arouse someone. Given Zona does not appear to have many inhibitions in this area nor need much of a push to get her sex drive going, I suspect that the effect was, in fact, minimal.

21. Ed
    April 11th, 2009 at 11:26 pm

    IMO the magic got her in bed with him the first time.

    Mentl being Mentl keeps her there. Remember attacking the Urtts with the frying pan. Ripping Zona a new one in the tunnels, when she told him to run, and he went Jerry Lee Lewis on the creatures - and he said if she stands to die, he will die beside her - and it seemed a door opened - and her respect for him deepened. Not her love, her respect. He showed the depth of his love, and that he would not be babied. She then seemed to really see him as an equal - and not for the magikal firepower.

    The spells are lust, not love. They wear off - Mentl was not attacked leaving the castle, it was over. Zona is still around.

22. SylkRhayne
    April 12th, 2009 at 11:13 pm

    okay, second panel. A woman that looks like that and posing like that … i don’t care how bad a day i’d just gone through. All that would be gone and the sweet lovin’ would start.

23. Kamatu
    April 13th, 2009 at 11:27 pm

    Sylk, you haven’t had a bad enough day yet maybe.

    Let’s track it down:
    Mentl is told he is magic and needs training, look at 145-149

    Gets his pep talk 166-171

    Mentl has beaten to death (well, he thinks so) a pretty woman (he identifies her as such anyway), while she sat there and begs for more pain. 189-191 Oh, with his first intentional spell cast. Bet, all he wanted to do was do a mind control and get her to let him go, but he might actually have given her the strength to keep coming back.

    Then there was the entire meltdown sequence, where intent, will and (drumroll please)…….emotional energy (pg 170) combined to make a perhaps bit overpowered spell for the purposes.

    Note that in both cases, I’ll bet that the effect achieved exceeded the actual results Mentl wanted, if nothing else because that is typical of mad wands.

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