While he certainly profits from his celebrity, he seems at the same time to hate the fact that he can no longer completely retain his underground persona. Moore yearns to transcend his status as a commodified cult icon, but this very struggle keeps consumers buying his comics

To see the symmetrical layout of the issue, one has to shift consciousness away from the content of the issue. Noticing the layout probably takes a second reading of the issue or reading outside annotations that explain the relationship between Blake's poem and the issue proper.

Traumatized people feel utterly abandoned, utterly alone, cast out of the human and divine systems of care and protection that sustain life. Thereafter, a sense of alienation, of disconnection, pervades every relationship, from the most intimate familial bonds to the most abstract affiliations of community and religion" (Herman 52). The images of Jon Osterman in the story after he has rebuilt his body &ndash his blueness, his blank eyes, and his nakedness &ndash represent his difference from everyone around him, his alienation from society and his literal removal from humanity. Even the very first picture of his reconstituted body accentuates his separation (Figure 2).

In a set of six side-by-side panels, Bernard and Bernie reach out to comfort each other, their bodies, black in shadow, mimicking the physical connection of the Hiroshima lovers and their inability to console each other in the face of destruction (Moore 9: 28). The two Bernies, likewise, cannot find consolation. Like Jon's attempt to reconnect to mankind, Bernard's attempt at connection comes too late, their isolation shown to be too great of a hurdle to overcome

Having become extremely thin

Mr. Oldbuck increasing his speed, advances at the rate of ten leagues an hour.

and dries himself in the sun.