Favorites pages, panels, scenes?

[Jitter]

User Turnstylus asked on Disqus today: “This may be a question for the fan forum, but I'll ask here anyway: what are some of your favorite scenes/panels?”

I agree with them! So, share your favorites! I’m sure we’ll remember many great ones by reading each other’s faves!


I responded on Disqus so I copy here:

Some of my favorites:
- the Dalahästen train in the night, passing by some buildings, some blood on the circular saw but before the giant’s attack
- aerial view of the Danish base at Øresund
- the dusklings flowing out of the old building after Emil fires a shot
- Lalli arriving alone at Reykjavik, and the seawall subtly shows what kind of world we are in
- chapter cover of the team walking among the cartrolls
- aerial view of the old settlement/ ex petrol station, where they went for supplies and met Speedy McPlorp and the other Kalma (acid trolls)
- the lake cows emerging from the water in the night

Oops quite many! I like this comic!

More keep coming to mind but one I have to add:

- the underwater skulls Lalli is standing on in the Scary Reedy Place when he and Reynir go looking for Onni for the first time.

[dmeck7755]

The language tree page.  It is what got me hooked on the webcomic. 

[Kevin_Redcrow]

• Lalli invoking the moon goddess at the train station. The large panels were so atmospheric, I could hear Sibelius' 2nd Symphony, 1st Movement playing in my head
• Lalli hopping onto the train immediately after, and the guard being startled that Lalli was not going to cause the fuss he seemingly expected 
• Reynir bashfully asking the gods for guidance on being a mage
• Mikkel interrupting Emil's blunt inquiry about washing facilities at the pick up point by bear-hugging him and Lalli

[wavewright62]

  I agreed about Lalli's invocation to Kuutar.
  Lalli leaving the dream sea behind at the close of our first view of Lalli's travels there.
  the blood drip onto Emil's face, followed by ...Tooth Scary
  Cthulhund's transformation into spider-beast.
  The page as the team waits in the dark to make its last stand. Kitty's eyes grow huge. A spark ignites as the first beastie encounters the perimeter.
  Lalli floating in the dream sea after escaping Emil's dream space, with the coils of huge serpent filling the whole background.
  Reynir escaping the Kastellet infirmary with Tuuri.
  The sequence of Onni falling chasing after Tuuri & the Swan, segueing into Lalli kneeling by the waves (the single most beautiful page in the comic imho).
  The family tree, which has supplied me with endless inspiration.
  Reynir starts praying for aid, and the stave glows around him.
  Reynir & Onni have coffee & cake with Pastor Anne.

Spoiler: deja vu episode • show

I just got a deja vu episode, and I remember having had that dream.
I was writing down my favourite scenes from SSSS, because the comic was ending (at the time, I thought, no say it's just a dream!).  I laughed because many of them featured Lalli, and were the really scary & tense scenes.
Then this thread started today and halfway through answering it, I laughed....

[tehta]

I agree with many of the Lalli & Reynir pages. I get the sense that Minna used to enjoy drawing them (and their magic, and the dreamspace) particularly.
To add one that has not been mentioned: the double-page spread where Lalli blasts the housetroll and knocks himself out of the dreamspace.
Onni's magic is awesome too: I love his owl attacking the ghosts, and his summoning of Kokko.
Also:

the Dalahästen train in the night, passing by some buildings, some blood on the circular saw but before the giant’s attack

the skeletons in one of the buildings it passes! So creepy.

Finally, I could add a whole series of Emilalli moments, but I will settle for the one where Emil tries to say 'good job'. The facial expressions are priceless.

[thorny]

Ohhh, lots of them. Here's a couple that haven't been mentioned:

Reynir opening the door and seeing what's become of Pastor Anne.

The page in which Pastor Anne tries to remember where the church is, and flashbacks -- the mix of current and past in that panel really got to me.

[LooNEY_DAC]

Some more which haven't been mentioned:
Page 310
The return of Cthulhund
And
Onni dive-bombing the Swan of Tuonela to save Lalli

More later, probably.

[Maple]

That first time we fully see a troll, on the Dalahästen. That whole scene is honestly fantastic, it's a slow buildup of tension to that moment and it pays off immensely. While we had kind of seen trolls before (like the one stuck on the fence that Tuuri saw), they hadn't been clear shots that showed us just what level of horror we were dealing with. Hell, you could say that reveal had been building up ever since the comic started. Definitely one of my favorite pages in the comic.

I also really like some of the 'blink and you'll miss it' humor, like Lalli dropping the squirrel in the pot of stew, or the rumors about the extra toes on the feet of Swedes.

[yung_chrysanthemum]

That first time we fully see a troll, on the Dalahästen.

Similarly, I loved the moment we saw ceiling-troll in Adventure 1. If I'm remembering correctly, it was the first troll that the team encountered in the silent world -- the first time that the audience realized "oh, the crew is actually in extreme danger at all times..."

The ceiling troll was also illustrated in extreme, gory detail, more so than the giant on the train IMO. It brought grosslings into focus as a real, concrete threat... at least in my mind.*

Continuing with the horror theme, a runner up for me is the panel from when they're in the hospital and Sigrun casually looks past the body of someone who died in the middle of trollifying. Clearly it was something she'd seen before and it didn't phase her at all. As a reader, we didn't get much if any insight into what happens during trollification, so that panel was definitely interesting from a lore perspective. It was highly understated (I didn't even noticed it until a 2nd readthrough) but a great example of worldbuilding.


* The way grosslings were slowly introduced in Adventure 1 was pretty interesting. In the prologue you see the survivors erecting fences and learning to use guns, so there's clearly SOME threat but we have no idea what it is. When Tuuri and Lalli leave Keuruu on the ship, once they get out on the water the ship turns its lights off and shutters all the windows, and all passengers are instructed to be quiet. Again... some threat is implied, but still abstract. Then we gradually progress from seeing an electrocuted troll on a fence in the distance, to the giant on the train, to ceiling troll... and after that Minna basically introduced whatever Eldritch horrors she pleased haha. A slow, understated, but very real buildup in the story's tension.

[Maple]

In the prologue you see the survivors erecting fences and learning to use guns, so there's clearly SOME threat but we have no idea what it is. When Tuuri and Lalli leave Keuruu on the ship, once they get out on the water the ship turns its lights off and shutters all the windows, and all passengers are instructed to be quiet. Again... some threat is implied, but still abstract. Then we gradually progress from seeing an electrocuted troll on a fence in the distance, to the giant on the train, to ceiling troll... and after that Minna basically introduced whatever Eldritch horrors she pleased haha. A slow, understated, but very real buildup in the story's tension.

Yes, I loved this too! The way it gradually built up, revealing more and more of the horror in waves, really helped set the atmosphere of the story. If we had eldritch horrors from the start, then I don't think it would have had as much of an impact. The progression in Adventure 1 really is an excellent bit of storytelling.

[Jitter]

The whole sequence with Emil and the spiderdog is so so good, among my favorites in the entire comic! Horror, danger, action, Feels, heroism, closure…

[dmeck7755]

I like when they meet up with Onni in Adventure II. 

Where Lalli will not let Onni bully him.  And he wins!!