And so we get to meet Doug or, to give him his full name, Douglas Chamberlain. Stan may be our point of view character but Doug is, perhaps, even more than Stan the true central character in "Shades".

Most of the key players in the story represent some aspect of the British national character but Doug is something more. He is very much a personnification of 20th Century Britain and his backstory (which we see a little of here) very much reflects that.

Artwise, as well as the shift from colour to B&W, this was the first page where we tried to move from the present day and into the flashback sequence using a subtle shift from dialogue balloons to caption boxes and back again, much as a movie flashback might use voice-overs. I don't suppose it's an especially original technique but it was certainly one of the features of the script which I felt would only work if it was handled well. As you can see, Harsho didn't let me down!