Copyright notice: Girl Genius, Agatha Herterodyne, Transylvania Polygnostic and all Girl Genius art, characters, design elements and logos TM & © 2000 Studio Foglio. Art by Phil & Kaja Foglio. All material is © & TM Studio Foglio unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved. The maintainer of this webpage is not an employee of Studio Foglio, merely a fan.

Inside Front Cover: Cutouts of Agatha and Gil
Back Cover: Dirigible Cutouts

Page One:
Full page panel: First Appearance of Prof P. Foglio. I don't believe the female figure behind him is meant to be his wife Kaja. The sign in his bowl reads: "You pay it. We say it!" The sign behind Foglio reads: "Frogs 2p Sugar Frogs 5p Sugar Sans Frogs 20p". Winslow is at his feet. Winslow is a character that appears somewhere in nearly every comic Phil Foglio does. The sign pointing to Winslow reads: "Weird But Harmless". At the top of the panel it says: "Prologue".

Page Two:
Full page panel: First appearance of Agatha Clay (bottom center). Phil is still in the center of the panel, but now we've pulled back for the long view. First glance is a Victorian street scene until you notice the details. The legless man is riding in a bowl with legs, one of the horses pulling the wagon is mechanical, the man in lower left is wearing a funnel which emits smoke. The storefront is labeled: "Kaja", the name of Phil's wife. A sign reads: "Long live the tyrant".

Page Three:
Panel One: Two headed beggar's sign reads: "Can't agree on a hat"
Panel Two: If the Jagermonsters are supposed to protect the Baron, why is this one in town by himself?

Page Four:
Full page panel: First appearance of a Portal. Portal contains an unidentified female construct saying: "Like THAT?"

Page Five:
Panel Two: Sign on wall reads: "Report all revenants immediately. Citizen Alert." This is the first mention of revenants.
Panel Three: Note small construct in lower right corner watching her fall.
Panel Five: First appearance of Moloch and Omar von Zinzer. They appear to be wearing brooches on their shoulders (signifying military?) Omar's right pant leg is missing the braid, but you can still see the stitch holes. Nice touch. His bottle reads: "??ata Mon?? Absynth" (Question marks are letters I can't make out.) Absinth is a now-illegal alcohol made from wormwood. The neutro toxins in the alcohol cause hallucinations. It would not have been illegal at the turn of the previous century. He's apparently wounded in his left leg.

Page Six:
Panel One: Sign behind Omar reads "Clanks -->". Moloch's bottle reads: "Old Electro Plate". Electroplating is the process of applying a metal coating to another material.
Panel Three: Agatha grabs Moloch's bottle...

Page Seven:
Panel One: ... and uses it on Omar!

Page Eight:
Panel One: First mention of The Big Jars, a form of capital punishment.
Panel Three: Agatha's brooch is stolen. This will be significant later.

Page Nine:
A five panel sequence shows that without the brooch, Agatha has the Spark! Symptoms (for Agatha) are megalomania followed by headaches.

Page Ten:
Panel One: Lettering on wall reads: "Transylvania Polygnostic University -- Know Enough to be Afraid".
Panel Two: First appearance of the clank Mr. Tock. It apparently speaks in an Old English font. Agatha's student number is 8734195.
Panel Four: First appearance of The Big Jars, a form of capital punishment. A student's book title is: "Reanima-- Principa--". Note: A principal is the head of a school, I believe this should be "Principles". Kolok suggests that the title is possibly Latin, "Reanimanus Principata".

Page Eleven:
Panel One: The lettering on the building is too obstructed to read. "LAB 1 No ---"
Panel Two: First appearance of Dr. Hugo Glassvitch.
Panel Three: The keg he's about to drop reads: "Fragile". The iron railing has the Beetle brooch design.

Page Twelve:
Panel One: Jar is labeled: "3".
Panel Five: First appearance of a ding-bot clank. This one doesn't work.

Page Thirteen:
Panel Five: The window has the Beetle brooch design. All of the windows in the lab have a beetle design worked into them. It's consistent throughout the books and I won't mention them again.
Panel Seven: First appearance of Dr. Silas Merlot.

Page Fourteen:
Panel One: Equations on blackboard can't be read.
Panel Two: Pistons are labeled: "1" and "2".
Panel Three: First appearance of Carassius Auratus (the goldfish).
Panel Four: Door is labeled: "Storage".

Page Sixteen:
Full page panel: First appearances of Dr. Tarsus, Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, Boris Vasily Konstantin Andrei Myshkin Dolokhov and Zudok, the Jagermonster Unit Commander. Note that both the clanks and the jagermonsters have both the Baron's brooch and the Jagermonster broach designs on their person. Boris has four arms, this is NOT a drawing mistake.

Page Seventeen:
Panels One thru Three: Kolok notes that the Baron towers over most people. Constructs tend to be larger than most humans.
Panel Four: Dr. Beetle notices that Agatha's brooch is missing. This is significant.

Page Nineteen:
Panel One: The waxworks is mentioned for the first time. This apparently a form of punishment. Capital punishment?
Panel Three: The Jagermonster states that if Gil does not pass the Baron's tests, the Baron will break him down for parts and try again. This implies that Gil may be a construct rather than a flesh and blood heir. Note that the Jagermonster's brooch now has a bat-winged tower.
Panel Four: The first appearance of the hum which indicates Agatha's spark at work.

Page Twenty:
Panels One thru Seven: Gils spark also has a megalomania symptom.
Panel Eight: Closet is labeled: Storage. It is rumbling, indicating contents under pressure.

Page Twenty-One:
Panel Two: The storage closet is opened and a large assortment of tools, parts and notes come pouring out, including the goldfish bowl first seen on page fourteen. Gil will carry this goldfish bowl for the remainder of the issue. The anvil (upper right) and cactus plant (middle right) were not previously seen in the lab.

Page Twenty-Two:
Panel One: The debris coming out of the closet includes the goldfish bowl, a book titled "How I Did It" which is a reference to the movie "Young Frankenstein", and a container labeled: "Phlogysten". Phlogiston is a hypothetical elastic fluid first proposed by Joseph Priestley, the discoverer of the oxygen atom, in 1796 to explain combustion. In short, something will stop burning when all the phlogiston has been combined with oxygen. If you could remove phlogiston from water, you'd get ice.

Page Twenty-Three:
Panel Six: The vat is lettered with: "Do Not Open Until Xmas".

Page Twenty-Five:
Full page panel: The first appearance of a hive engine. The control panel reads: "Don't touch". Boris' book is titled: "11".