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RE: Phill from GCHQ - page 72 - Sweet Dreams
Great page indeed and the insights about its creation is valuable as always. When I first saw the page it reminded me a lot of the surreal sequences in the "Blazing World" (or "Ideaspace") of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Also, the blending of religious environment (temple) & symbols (triple goddess) with totally out-of-place objects (spectrum!) is somehow similar to the hallucinations in the obscure comic "PREY".
I regret missing the first volume of your comic, as it would have introduced me to the "mythology" you use and I'd not have to constantly draw connections to other favorite comics -- but, hey, you do it too!
Btw, I love how hir brains spill out and into the dream, awesome depiction!
The whole comics is available here: Phill from GCHQ. I publish it as Creative Commons so it is free. When I started the comic I had no idea what it was supposed to be, so the ideas I had initially was very whimsical. For example was the thee Celtic Gods on the first page just a joke on the nature of the Western intelligence services both now and historically (in the cold war). Later I have respected the early decisions and tried to put it all together in a great puzzle. I have read up on what we know about Celtic mythology and mixed it with real history about the intelligence forces for example. It has actually become a major research project :)
That is exactly what I felt when I was making scenarios for role-playing games, several years ago -- mostly for NEPHILIM and Call of Cthulhu. At first, a character was abruptly mentioned, then I gradually fleshed him out, giving him proper background and a role in the grand scheme. I always researched a lot, and then... researched even more, to have historic accuracy and a realistic reasoning for his motives and plans. Then trying to blend the occult/fantasy environment with real-world conspiracies and events. Oh, the joy of learning through gaming...
Roleplaying plays a big part in how I have learned to create a story. The fact that you sometimes need to improvise in seconds, makes it easy when you have a whole week.