(This post cannot be done without some spoilers for Providence #7. You’ve been warned.)
We don’t have a lot of background on this, but a handful of ghoul photographs have emerged online related to the final panel of Providence #7, where Pittman develops his photograph “The Police Strike: A Settlement.” We’re hoping to bring a more full story soon, but what we know is that the ghoul prosthetics were created by Susanna Peretz of SusannaPeretzFx, who has worked with Alan Moore and Mitch Jenkins on several productions.
John Higgs mentioned that Alan Moore has, possibly jokingly, called this “the most expensive panel in comic history.” And it very well could be. We’ll soon gather and share more of the story of the prosthetics, photographer, and people behind that dramatic final panel.
Frequent Moore collaborator photographer and filmmaker Mitch Jenkins’ website has a half-dozen higher-resolution photos from the same photo shoot, including some shots of the policeman by himself. Check them out.
Facts in the Case of Alan Moore's Providence 
Yikes! Terrifying in several ways.
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If you go to MaXimal FX’s facebook page there’s a much higher res version of the shot from the comic there. You can see what the ghouls are doing much more clearly. You can also see their naughty bits… so be warned!
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What’s more disturbing is these appear to be Ghoul children, or at least young Ghouls, given that they’re far smaller in proportion to “King George”.
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Would the height of ghouls be an indicator of age, or are there just different kinds of ghouls of random heights? (I think Ronnie might be a “boy” because he’s not 100% ghoul yet?)
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My impression is that perhaps like the hybrid children of male Deep Ones there’s no limiting factor to their growth, and they just keep getting bigger as they grow older. King George may have been named after the opposition leader of the Revolutionary War when it was still a current event.
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If you look at the hi-res version the ghoul on the left if holding the dead cop’s head up, the one in the middle appears to be putting a (wedding?) ring on the cop’s third left hand finger- he is NOT wearing a ring in the pages earlier so the ghoul does not appear to be taking the ring off— and the ghoul on the right is holding up a little bottle and pointing at it (prussic acid?). The photo is for a painting called Police Strike Settled or some such. What does anybody make of all that?
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Doesn’t anybody have any thoughts or ideas or interest in this weird ghoul photo and the name of it what’s going on and what it means???
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I do, but I can’t figure it out. Ok, so the cop’s dead, hence the “end” of his particular strike, but the ring? I mean, he was probably poisoned with the prussic acid (wouldn’t that taint the meat for the ghouls?), so I get that, but the ring? A ring and death leads me to metaphysical poetry, and I don’t think John Donne’s poems are any answer. I’m stuck, I admit it.
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The cop’s wearing a ring in the photos, but not in the illustrations. Obviously, he eschewed wearing it during the riots, but felt better at Pitman’s house…ok, I don’t know.
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Me neither! : ) Hence my putting it out there for the geniuses to answer!
Also it would SEEM to be a wedding ring based on the finger it’s on… ?!?!
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Anyone got a link to the photos? Mitch’s own site uses a pretensious and completely non-helpful system of just dumping hundreds of photos in front of you with no way of finding a particular one. Far as I can tell so far, at least.
A lot of the conversation here was covered in the discussion for Providence 7. We communally guessed that cyanide doesn’t harm ghouls. Perhaps it’s a dosage thing. It would take one very big ghoul to finish off Officer Eamon, so the dose in mg per kg body weight would be lower. Or shared between several smaller ghouls who each ate bits of him.
The ring I dunno but I’d put that down to a mistake, Alan not specifying it for the photos, but perhaps the photographer thought it would be good to picture a ghoul stealing (surely not placing!) the ring. It’s unlikely ghouls can go to the pawn shop, but maybe Ronnie could do it for them. Or it might just be to make identifying the body harder, though I don’t think that’s going to be a problem from what’s going to be left of it.
Good to see the original photos though, how did we find those?
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Let me quote my own post here as to where to find the original picture at good size: “If you go to MaXimal FX’s facebook page there’s a much higher res version of the shot from the comic there. You can see what the ghouls are doing much more clearly. You can also see their naughty bits… so be warned!”
Remember, the photos are taken to be used as reference – not as they actually appear, It’s just possible this will make sense down the line… like if we see the painting Pitman makes using elements from this photo, these questions will be answered.
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Yes, I also had assumed the ghouls were posing the corpse for modeling purposes, and they may or may not be in the painting as they are in the picture. Before I spotted the ghoul removing the ring I also thought they were posing him in a hand-shaking position (a bit of a stretch), due to the title of the future painting.
Although, it could be argued that the “underclass” ghouls murdering a copper and pilfering his valuables is at the sarcastic heart of the title “The Police Strike: A Settlement”
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[…] здесь даже есть история о том, как готовилась эта […]
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[…] is one of the ghouls from Providence #7. There is more on the photoshoot […]
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