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Waldorf dolls

Gustaf Grundgens

Tiffin

Ashfaqulla Khan

Khan was born in the Shahjahanpur district of the United Provinces on Oct 22, 1900. His parents, Mazharunissa and Shafiqullah Khan, were in the landlord class.

In 1918, while Khan was in the seventh standard, police raided his school and arrested the student Rajaram Bhartiya in relation to the Mainpuri Conspiracy, in which activists organized looting in Mainpuri to fund the publication of anti-colonial literature. The arrest spurred Khan's first involvements in the revolutionary movement in the United Provinces.

Khan met Ram Prasad Bismil, a revolutionary who was closely involved in the Mainpuri Conspiracy, through a friend. He soon became closely tied to Bismil and joined him in activities related to non-cooperation, the Swaraj Party, and the Hindustan Republican Association.

The revolutionaries of the Hindustan Republican Association organised a meeting in Shahjahanpur on 8 August, 1925 to determine how to raise funds for arms and ammunition. They decided to rob a train carrying government cash through Kakori. The HRA had previously executed similar train robberies, inspired by the Russian Bolshevik technique of using robbery to fund revolutionary operations. Khan was originally against the Kakori train robbery, but eventually agreed to participate when others in the HRA expressed approval of the plan.

After the robbery, Khan fled to Nepal and then Kanpur to evade capture. From Kanpur, he traveled to Daltonganj, when he worked as a clerk under a pseudonym.

The trial of the Kakori train robbers was held for over a year in Lucknow and received significant interest from the public. The HRA had released an official statement in 1925 claiming that they did not consider themselves terrorists and instead saw their revolutionary activities as a way to fight back against the violence of the colonial government. While in prison, Khan wrote a letter that expressed a similar sentiment, confirming that he did not aim to spread violence through the HRA but only hoped to ensure India's independence.

Enigma

Publication history

Enigma was originally spearheaded by Vertigo editor Art Young. DC had recently acquired the characters from Charlton Comics, including Peter Cannon. Young was inspired by the description of Peter Cannon as the smartest man in the world. He reached out to Peter Milligan, who was working on comics like Shade the Changing Man with Vertigo, to create a pitch based on the character. Young, who is a gay man, wanted to introduce gay characters in Vertigo comics. When he was given the opportunity to lead the development of Enigma, he introduced the idea of making the character of Michael Smith gay. Young originally aimed to publish Enigma under his planned adult imprint with Disney Comics, Touchmark. However, after Touchmark failed to materialize, he brought the pitch to Vertigo.

Young had worked with Duncan Fegredo on Kid Eternity and reached out to him to collaborate with Milligan on Enigma. Enigma was one of Fegredo's earliest projects and the first of several collaborations with Milligan. Fegredo would later work with Milligan on the Vertigo comics Face, Girl, and Shade the Changing Man.

Plot

Michael Smith is a telephone repairman in his late 20s who lives with his girlfriend in Pacific City, California. His father was killed in an earthquake that buried his home, and he was abandoned by his mother soon after. His highly structured life is disrupted when he sees a lizard that seems to be floating down the street. After following the lizard, he happens upon the Head, a strange monster that sucks people’s brains through their noses. Michael is attacked, but before he can be killed, he is saved by a mysterious superhero. He recognizes the superhero as the Enigma, a fictional character from a short-run comic series that he loved as a child.

Michael’s revelation about the superhero inspires him to abandon his life and travel to Arizona, where he meets up with Titus Bird, the man who wrote The Enigma comic series. Michael convinces Titus to return with him to Pacific City, which is being terrorized by a series of new supervillains. All of the supervillains are warped versions of ordinary and seemingly unconnected people, and all are targets of the Enigma. In hopes of finding answers, Michael and Titus track down a relative of Roger Cliff, the man who originally morphed into the Head, and discover that Roger once collected a lizard from a murder site in Arizona where a woman shot her husband. After returning home, Michael encounters the supervillain Envelope Girl, who forcibly transports him to the farm in Arizona where the murder occurred. He speaks with a relative of the murder victim, who tells him that he had the farm exorcised due to a series of strange occurrences, including floating lizards.

Michael realizes that he recognizes the motifs of one group of supervillains from the decor of his childhood home. He travels to his buried home and finds the Enigma living in the ruins. Enigma explains that he was born on the farm in Arizona that Michael visited, and that he had the power to manipulate anything in his surroundings from birth. As a baby, he inadvertently mutilated his father, causing his mother to kill her husband and drop her son into a well. The Enigma lived his whole life in the well, until the exorcists who arrived at the farm set him free. After hearing the Enigma’s story, Michael confesses that he has recently been struggling with his sexuality and a newfound attraction to men. He ends up sleeping with the Enigma.

Michael and Enigma visit the hospital, where Titus has been confined after an accident. They are attacked by a new monster, who Enigma admits is his mother. He confesses that after he left the well, he was unable to cope with the lack of rigid limitations governing his life. He happened upon Michael’s childhood home and his buried belongings, including the old Enigma comics. Driven by a desire to create some purpose for himself, he decided to become the superhero Enigma. While using his mental power to warp ordinary people into the supervillains from the comics, the Enigma accidentally warped his mother as well, creating an entity determined to destroy him. In hopes of becoming more human and thus receiving some mercy from his mother, he manipulated Michael into falling for him so that he could experience compassion and love. Though Michael is initially horrified at this realization, he finally declares that he is happy being gay and affirms his love for Enigma. The story ends on an open note, with Michael, Titus, and the Enigma joining hands and waiting as Enigma’s mother approaches.

One of the minor characters in Enigma, named Envelope Girl, made an appearance in Peter Milligan's run of Animal Man.

Die

Volume One: Fantasy Heartbreaker

In 1991, Dominic Ash spends his sixteenth birthday playing a tabletop role-playing game with his younger sister Angela and his friends Solomon, Isabelle, Matt, and Chuck. The game was uniquely created for Ash by his best friend Sol, who plays as the gamemaster. As soon as the group roll their dice, they are transported into the fantasy world of Die. After two years, Ash, his sister, and three of his friends manage to escape Die, but they are forced to leave Sol behind.

On his forty-third birthday, Ash unexpectedly comes across Sol's original twenty-sided die and convinces the old role-playing party to come together again. When they are all in the presence of Sol's die, they are again transported to the world of Die, where Ash takes the form of a woman. The party discovers that Sol is still alive and in control of all of Die's realms. He states that he will only let them return home if they play his game. The party travels through a war-zone overseen by a man that Ash believes to be J.R.R. Tolkien and finally manage to catch Sol's attention by orchestrating the destruction of the city of Glass Town. When Sol refuses to help them return home, Ash kills him, only for him to return as a Fallen, an undead being desperate to kill living players in Die.

Volume Two: Split the Party

After the death and resurrection of Sol, Isabelle and Chuck decide that they find more purpose in Die than they do in the real world and leave the rest of the party. Isabelle takes responsibility for the displaced citizens of Glass Town and calls upon her ex-lover, the vampire Lord Zamorna, to help her confront Ash.

Without the rest of the party, Ash, Angela, and Matt are unable to return home. Ash begins a campaign to develop allies against Isabelle and discovers that one of the rulers of the realm of Angria is her son, who she had after having an affair with Zamorna. Her efforts to build political support are disrupted when Isabelle arrives in Angria and admits that the party destroyed Glass Town. The party, minus Chuck, is imprisoned in a jail run by a woman they recognize as Charlotte Brontë. The jailer claims that she is the original Charlotte Brontë, transported to the fictional world she created with her siblings after her death. Zamorna arrives at the jail and releases Ash and Isabelle. Isabelle convinces Ash to stay in Die for the sake of her son, and the two of them leave without Matt and Angela. Ash then forces Zamorna to marry her, thus becoming the queen of Angria.

Volume Three: The Great Game

As queen of Angria, Ash faces unexpected hostility from the realm of Little England. When she meets the man who runs the realm, he identifies himself as H.G. Wells. Wells admonishes Ash for the destruction of Glass Town and describes how he combated the negative influence of wargames in the real world by writing his own anti-war manual, Little Wars. Ash explains that Little Wars actually inspired the continued creation of wargames, which eventually lead to the creation of the game that brought her and her party to Die. Wells is horrified by the realization that his actions, like the actions of the Brontës, were moved by the spirit that runs Die. Ash joins forces with Little England and sends an army to drive Eternal Prussia out of Glass Town.

Angela and Matt are broken out of jail by Chuck, who reveals to them that he is dying of cancer. While searching for Fair gold to power her Neo abilities, Angela comes across a Fallen that appears to be an older version of her daughter from the real world. Angela is disturbed by this discovery and tracks down the Fair to demand answers. The Fair explain that the world of Die has been reaching into the past to ensure its own creation. It ensured that Sol created the twelve toy soldiers that inspired the Brontës to create Angria, and it brought the party back to Die to spark the creation of the magical dice that they first used in 1991. In her quest to overthrow Sol, Ash allowed Glass Town to be taken over by the realm of Eternal Prussia, who are now using it as a forge to craft the dice. Once the dice are completed, the time loop will be closed and Die can fully merge itself with the real world. Angela, Matt, and Chuck travel to Glass Town and try to destroy the forge, but fail to do so in time. Ash arrives with Sol and Isabelle, and Sol suggests that they try to track down the dice before they reach the real world.

Characters

• Dominic Ash: In the real world, Ash is a middle-aged man working in marketing. He is married to a woman named Sophie. He was best friends with Sol before they were transported to Die. In the world of Die, Ash lives as a woman. She plays the game as a Dictator, a diplomat character archetype represented by a four-sided die. She has the ability to manipulate people's emotions and convince them to do her bidding with her words. During her time in Die as a teenager, Ash had numerous relationships with men, including an affair with Isabelle's lover Zamorna that resulted in an unexpected pregnancy.
• Angela Ash: Ash's younger sister. In the real world, Angela is a coder who develops video games. She has two children and is in the process of divorcing her husband after having an affair with her co-worker Susan. In the world of Die, Angela plays as a Neo, a cyberpunk-inspired character archetype represented by a ten-sided die. She can gain control of machines and teleport herself, and she is able to manifest a robotic version of her childhood dog that acts as her companion. Her abilities are all powered by fair gold, resulting in a dependence on the substance that is akin to addiction. As a teenager, she traded one of her arms for a cybernetic limb, which resulted in her losing an arm when she returned to the real world.
• Isabelle: A Vietnamese-French adoptee who dated Sol when they were teenagers. She had a contentious relationship with Ash, made worse by the affair that Ash had with Zamorna. As an adult, Isabelle is divorced and teaches English literature at a high school. In the world of Die, she plays as a Godbinder, a character archetype represented by a twelve-sided die. She is able to demand favors from twelve gods, each representing different elements and ideas, though she must perform favors for them in return. She strongly believes that the party should treat everyone in Die as if they are real and take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
• Matt: Matt is a statistics professor with two daughters. In the world of Die, he plays as a Grief Knight, a variant of an emotion-based character archetype represented by an eight-sided die. He carries a sword that verbalizes his worst fears and insecurities and becomes more powerful as he becomes sadder. Of all the members of the party, he is the most invested in leaving Die and returning home to his family.
• Chuck: After leaving Die for the first time, Chuck became rich and famous writing popular fantasy novels. He has been married three times and is estranged from his children. In the world of Die, he plays as a Fool, a character archetype represented by a six-sided die. As long as he maintains a carefree attitude and doesn't seriously consider consequences, he is granted an unusual degree of luck in all his actions. His recklessness and insincerity regularly antagonize the other members of the party.
• Solomon: Sol was Ash's best friend, and designed the game that led the party to Die as a gift for Ash. In the world of Die, he initially played as a Master, a character archetype equivalent to a gamemaster and represented by a twenty-sided die. When the party made their first attempt to leave Die, an unexpected disruption resulted in Sol being left behind. He ended up becoming the Grandmaster of Die, ruthlessly controlling the rules governing all the realms instead of just one. Ash kills him after it becomes clear that he won't return home, and he is resurrected as an undead Fallen. Fallen Sol is kept prisoner by Ash, who regularly interrogates him to try to uncover the true origins of Die.

Other

Gillen has stated that the idea for Die came from a conversation with his longtime collaborator Jamie McKelvie about the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, in which a group of children are magically transported to the fantasy world of the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. The final episode of the show, in which the characters return to earth, was never produced, and Gillen wondered what might have happened to the children. Additionally, Gillen was inspired by Stephen King's horror novel It, and particularly the theme of adults returning to childhood experiences of horror. Die's focus on role-playing games and game mechanics was born from Gillen's own interest in role-playing games. He has stated that while he played RPGs for most of his life, his interest was reignited in 2013, when he started to seriously consider "the nature of fantasy, and where this weird form actually came from." These ideas became core themes in Die.

Gillen collaborated with artist Hans during his run on Journey into Mystery, after which they began discussing a collaboration on an ongoing comic. Hans had primarily worked as a cover artist, and Die was her first ongoing comic. Thus