Commentary for June 15, 2013:

The states of Io are named after ancient regions and cities on Earth surrounding the Ionian Sea, which is part of the Mediterranean, just south of the Adriatic. This is due to the ostensible link between the nymph, Io, for which the moon is named, and the etymology of the Ionian Sea. Although it hasn't actually been confirmed that the sea was named after Io at all.

I kept forgetting to put Merlin and Marcellino's flag pins on them while I was doing this page. It got quite annoying. Also, I'm never sure about how to do applause in a comic format... I think the way I did it this time works though.

Addendum for October 3, 2019:

In order to bring the format of the earlier chapters into line with Chapter 7 onwards, I’ve made an updated version of this page, which is larger, with clearer text. Hopefully, this will make the earlier chapters easier to read.