Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1332040
H E L S T R O M | P E R S P E C T I V E 9 5 Ana reluctantly joins Daimon in Portland to find out what is happening with their mother but they are too late—the escaped patients are seen the night before, breaking into a mausoleum in Colma, California, known to locals as the City of the Dead. Here they would meet the first villain, the demon Basar, who wishes to be reunited with his Mother, the ancient demon who possesses Victoria Helstrom. Basar's remains have been held tight by a Keeper (a fallen demon who protects humanity). This particular Keeper has kept Basar asleep for centuries inside its sealed sarcophagus. The mausoleum would be shot both on location and onstage. Inside was a tomb rigged for the trespassers to pull heavy chains, sliding away a stone statue of the archangel Gabriel to reveal a secret staircase. Under the mausoleum they find a series of catacombs (a large, multi-room foam sculpture) with a series of glyphs carved into the stone archways. Several of these glyphs would come to represent other demons throughout the series and had to be designed as such ahead of time, so I thought of them as simple cuneiform lines: spears, knives, slashes and other primitive symbols of war. In the shadows of the catacombs, the Keeper's sarcophagus rests in an alcove untouched for centuries, its iron arms folded over itself like a huge dead spider. The elaborate surface of the sarcophagus depicted an ancient battle between good and evil: a bas relief sculpted in clay, cast in silicon and painted as rusty black iron. Twisting snakes with the heads of hellhounds comprised its faceplate in another Easter egg homage to the comics: the villainous Sons of the Serpent. DAIMON'S SCAR TALISMAN 108 TALISMAN 104 BONE SPEAR 109 MEAT MARKET YEN'S ARM BITE 110 BABY'S GLYPH (& YEN'S ARM) 110 DEMONIC GLYPHS C D E F