Lucas —

My very first (and so far, only) experience of a total solar eclipse was in Salem, Oregon in 2017. It was, to put it lightly, the closest thing to a purely spiritual experience I have ever had. That moment of totality, the mere seconds when the entire sky goes dark, feels like a plug has been pulled out of the sky and the universe is swirling around the drain. It’s a humbling and magical sight only available to those lucky viewers directly under the path of the eclipse.

Everything up to that, until 99.99999% totality, is invisible to the naked eye. Even if you were stupid enough to stare directly at the sun, you would’t see that anything has happened. But the quality of the light changes: bokeh shadows take on a mottled crescent shape, and the light seems imperceptibly dim. It’s a sensation similar to when you’ve been wearing sunglasses all day and have forgotten they’re on.

And the wind: a chilly evening breeze sweeps across the landscape, chasing the shadow of the Moon across the Earth. It’s uncanny, almost creepy. If I was a more literary-minded person, I might even say the sensation is Lovecraftian.

That’s the inspiration for this latest chapter of the comic, and one of the reasons I wanted to bring sound and motion into the experience.

Have you ever witnessed a full solar eclipse? Tell us your story in the comments!