This story is about a farmhand who becomes obsessed with the farmer’s daughter. Instead of letting him get close to her, she keeps asking him to do more and more dangerous things. Finally, she asks him to cut off his little finger. On this page, he does – then pulls a van Gogh and delivers the body part before disappearing.

The actual cutting takes place off panel, but that panel of him showing off the shears is ominous as hell, especially since the shears are colored in red and the tip actually breaks over the panel border. It’s a nice visual trick to draw the eye.

The frame story for this tale is that same farmhand relating the tale to the guy sitting next to him on the bus. When the get to the end of the line, the other guy is revealed to have no legs; it’s heavily implied that the daughter went on to marry the guy with no legs and asked him to cut them off to prove her love.

(Heavy Metal issue #127, July 1990 – Page 86 Brief Encounter by Theureau and Galliano)