Graphic Novel — Art Direction¶
Status: ART DIRECTION — NOT CANON. Verified 2026-08-27. Owner: delan
Eighteen panels of visual development for the EchoSpire prologue. Some of the strongest imagery in the project. It conflicts with story canon in a specific, load-bearing way, and it is not published to the docs site.
Use it for look: composition, palette, the industrial-cathedral register, the sense of the Spire as a workplace rather than a monument. Do not use it for canon: names, prose, narration, or what a character looks like.
Why this is not canon¶
story/bible/ is canon. Where this material and the bible disagree, the bible wins.
Confirmed conflict: the Wilson rule¶
story/bible/10-alden.md:239 — hard canon, all media:
no one ever sees Alden's face. Not in the sim, not in camp, not in the reveal.
The panel briefs violate this directly and repeatedly:
- Panel 5 describes his face: "not pain, not fear. Grief."
- Panel 10 describes him as "exactly as he did in Panel 4: same weathered face"
- The cover art and Panel 4 show his face (per
docs/evaluations/2026-08-27-architecture-story-kickstarter.md)
The rule exists precisely so Alden does not become "a tired janitor with a noble face." Everything a face would do, his hands do instead.
Reported conflicts — in the rendered art, not these files¶
The August 2026 evaluation also reports that the rendered panels put a narration box over
the temporal lock (Panel 5), have Alden monologue his own premise (Panel 10), and stuff
combat tutorial text into speech bubbles (Panel 18). Those claims are about the finished
art, which was not re-checked in this pass — the Text.txt files in this directory are
visual briefs for the artist, not script, and contain no dialogue. Verify against the
images before acting.
Other drift¶
These briefs predate the 2026-07-03 canon ratification and use the pre-July House names. Canon is Valerii, the Axiom, the Syndicate, the Censors, Salvari.
What each panel directory holds¶
| File | What it is |
|---|---|
img.png / Img.png |
The rendered panel |
Text.txt |
The visual brief written for the artist — description, not dialogue |
Graphic.html |
A viewer that assembles the panels |
Before this ships anywhere public¶
The evaluation's recommendation, which stands: do not print this as a Kickstarter reward or
put it on a campaign page until either the Wilson rule is formally revoked in
story/bible/canon-decisions.md, or the offending panels are redrawn.
Revoking a hard-canon rule is a story decision and belongs in the decision log, not in a commit message. Do not resolve it by quietly shipping the art.