NOW DECLASSIFYING:

OPERATION:

Prologue – Issue One – Issue Two

Issue Three: 066 - 067 - 068 - 069 - 070 - 071 - 072 - 073 - 074 - 075 - 076

077 - 078 - 079 - 080 - 081 - 082 - 083 - 084 - 085 - 086 - 087 - 088 - 089 – 090

- Notes -

If you’re one of the lucky owners of our books, you’ll notice that they all end on a blank page with a single image, usually as an artsy way to end the book while retaining a character or arc that persisted through that issue.  The idea came to us with our first book, Operation: For the Love of Russia, when it put a nice little button at the end of the book-only secret epilogue.  D. Bethel said he did it for no good reason other than it looked kind of classy, inspired by, of all comics, Calvin & Hobbes.  The Calvin & Hobbes books always with a simple, single drawing in the middle of a blank white page, and he always liked it, so he figured “Why not do the same for Eben07?”

Binder has been a character in the making throughout the entirety of Operation 3-Ring Bound and, if you look back, has come a long way from his first full appearance back in issue 1.  One of the things we’ve wanted to show was his character go through a physical metamorphosis as thing got more out of hand, so by the time he gets his hands on Eben07 his true appearance is  revealed.  In one sense, especially with the hair, we see a man becoming unkempt, descending into a madness he was able to (mostly) keep private before.  Or it can be viewed as a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, fully-formed and ready to gift its new and true brilliance to the world.  Which one is Milton Binder?  Both, perhaps.  I’m sure there are some people in this world who would find Binder completely sane, and there are other who consider butterflies nothing but vermin.

And so, here Binder is “complete.” He has abandoned his elbow patched tweed jacket for a long coat (which seems to be a trend of Eben07′s nemeses as of late). Because of the fact that Abel wears a long coat, there was much consternation about whether to do the same with Binder.  From the original drawings back in high school, Binder always had the long coat.  The original design of his long coat was essentially given to Abel.  Instead, we move, with Binder, from the comfortable earth-tones that his teaching jacket had to a darker ooze-green palette, hinting at his more sinister urges. We concluded that Binder has always worn a long jacket, why not keep it and just give it a new design.  We see it as a little bit of Silent Bob with a sci-fi bend to it.