So if I recall, the passage I misread which inspired the idea for Elsbeth was something like the character opens her spellbook and pulls something out of it. It turned out to be something you could reasonable expect to keep in a book though, like a bookmark or a warrant or something, but my mind went to, well, what you see on the page here.

Actually my initial idea for Ellie was that she could pull basically anything out of her book, assuming that at least 2 dimensions of it fit within one of those pages. Then as I was writing the page I realized I needed to limit that ability slightly, cause what would keep her from pulling out the Wand of Orcus or some other game ender right away? Or, I don’t know, all the individual parts she needs to build a nuke or whatever. So she does have some significant limitations, or rather, the book does. I’ll get into those as she continues to appear in the comic. Regardless, she’s pretty handy to have around. The one thing I’ll say is that it does have to be a real thing that actually exists, but in a world of superheroes, magic, aliens, demons and epimeliads, that’s not much of a limitation.

I don’t know why I gave her multiple braids, but I guess they’re not so hard to draw. Maybe Sydney will have a french braid in the next arc.

Also, as I was drawing this page it occurred to me that there’s virtually no chance that Gault wouldn’t be walking around without some basic adventurer gear on him, including a mana potion or two of his own, but I guess he was busy preparing the report on the situation with the Sigils and left his mage overcoat in his other magic closet portal or however he got here.

Be sure to check out Wearing the Cape: Team-Ups & Crossovers. Sydney’s first Crossover! I’ve made a dedicated blog post for it, please comment there.

Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like :)

Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.