notes on the beating heart of the institute
[Image description: a full-color comic about Jonah Magnus.
fig. a; body as performance. Elias is smoking in front of a wall of portraits of his former bodies. He extends his hand. Jonah nervously undoes his cravat.
fig. b; body as a tool. Jonah reclines in his chair, extending one leg. Four hands reach for it, one with a letter. Elias smirks across a table. He swings a pipe, spattering blood.
Three panels build to show Jonah with his eyes closed, skin grayed.
fig. c; body as an inconvenience. James stares furiously down at a struggling body, knife in his hand. It falls beside the two of them. Elias cries out, eyes squeezed shut, as James’s bloody hand touches his chin.
fig. d; body as a prison is a single yellow panel, showing a golden eye trailed by nerves. The panel is set into fig. e; metamorphosis, which shows each of his bodies emerging from the others, bracing themselves to reach higher. They are all alive. Roses cover the ground and weave up the pile of bodies. At the top is Elias, winking at the viewer.
The final panel is a thin box of static.
End image description]