Nemesis the Warlock: Eps 11-12 The Catoblepas & The Pillory of Pain
It’s horrible and yet it still makes me laugh.
I’m blown away by Nemesis the Warlock: the Definitive Edition. My compliments to the publishers, Rebellion, and especially their designer Gemma Sheldrake for the truly inspired front and back covers.
Such a Definitive Edition requires a Definitive Commentary, a companion piece for when you’re looking at the beautiful art by art-creator Kevin O’Neill and the other talented artists that followed him. So it’s time for The Secret History of Nemesis the Warlock, an episode by episode revelation of what really went on behind the scenes.
Episode 11 The Catoblepas
This is one of my favourite episodes. Two pages of Mek-Quake recalling Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein and how badly he wants to punish them. What a trio those robots were!
Then we come to Sir Evric’s fate. He is turned into the catoblepas, a mythical creature I had discovered in a mediaeval bestiary. I love the name.
According to Wikipedia:
It has the body of a cow and the head of a pig. Its back is covered with scales that protects it and its head always looks downward. His gaze of ella or her breath of ella could turn people to stone or kill them.Pliny described it as a medium-sized, slow creature, with a heavy head always turned towards the ground. He thought his gaze of him, like that of the basilisk, was lethal, which made it quite fortunate that his head was so heavy.
Claudio Aeliano described Catoblepas as a herbivore about the size of a bull. According to the description, he had long hair, it was narrow, his eyes were bloodshot, he had scales on his back and woolly eyebrows. His head was so heavy that the beast could only look down. In the description of him, the look was not lethal, but his breath was poisonous as he fed on poisonous herbs.
Kevin rightly took the key description here ‘His head was so heavy that the beast could only look down’ and made the pig-like monster into one of the most horrifying creatures that has ever graced the pages of 2000AD. Doubtless its breath was pretty vile, too. It’s horrible and yet it still makes me laugh. I’ve looked at endless depictions of the catoblepas online and there’s nothing to compare with Kevin’s awesome interpretation.
But Nemesis says, ‘I’ve always regarded the young catoblepas as the most handsome creature in the Galaxy.’
Episode 12 The Pillory of Pain
Sir Evric – as a catoblepas – is driven through the tubes of Termight in a motorised pillory. In front of him in another pillory is Brother Gogol, Torquemada’s right hand man who betrayed the Grand Master and is slowly turning into an alien grotusk. The reason they have not been subject to the most cruel death is because Torquemada hasn’t come up with a suitably awful way for them to die. Their crimes are so terrible, so heinous that he needs time to reflect on their fate.
As I relate in the story, ‘They would be driven through the tunnels of Termight every day – until Torquemada had thought up a suitably horrible death for them.’
This, too, was inspired by my school days – primary school, this time.
When I was around eight years old, I had drawn a damning image of a Priest Knight of St Columba who was a child abuser.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Iconoblast to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.