This hits hard, and it hits close to home. Very good. Very on-point.
It’s actually even a little bit accessible. You’re not going soft, are you, Dorothy? The next update needs to be Cat glaring at a jar of a different condiment in each panel, talking about cowboys and indians and old civil war soldiers while Girl rattles off the names of musicians and activists know best for their work during the nineteen-sixties while her expression grows increasingly despairing, Cat becomes increasingly enraged, and the panel orientation rotates ninety-degrees with every row.
I actually have a question to people: in these comics in which Cat & Girl each speak a different monologue simultaneously (speaking past each other, rather than interacting), how do you read them? Do you read each panel in order, or do you read all of one character’s speech bubbles first, then the other’s? I’ve been trying to read the panels in order but I’m having a lot of difficulty keeping track of both monologues at the same time when the two characters don’t directly interact for more than a few panels. It’s a frustrating experience, even when I really like what both Cat and Girl are saying (as here).
Esn: at first I try to read it as it’s written, then when I detect they’re not interacting I go back to the start and read them individually. Once I’m done I go back and read it again as fast as I can as if they were talking over each other.
@Esn: First, count the total number of words (WITHOUT READING THEM, of course!) Find a number prime number which doesn’t divide the count evenly. Read the first word, skip forward the prime number of words, read that one, and so on. Wrap around to the beginning. Since the two numbers (the count and your prime) are mutually prime, you’ll read all the words, and (if you picked the RIGHT prime!) you’ll get the hidden secret meaning.
Ooops… Sorry, Dorothy, was I allowed to reveal that? Hang on, someone’s knocking…
@Erika, that’s true enough. It seems to me that the major science fiction authors these days write stories that have an undercurrent of despair and dystopia running through them, saying that the universe is basically enormous, incomprehensible and uncaring. For example, Stephen Baxter, David Brin, Alastair Reynolds…
It may come as little surprise that much of the public has responded by preferring to read about magic and fantasy, and using technology primarily for the purpose of escaping into an ever-smaller fantasy…
September 10, 2013
One of your best, I think. And uniquely yours. Kudos and thanks.
September 10, 2013
Syd Mead is kept in perpetual torment at the heart of Omelas.
September 10, 2013
I got a rock.
September 10, 2013
This hits hard, and it hits close to home. Very good. Very on-point.
It’s actually even a little bit accessible. You’re not going soft, are you, Dorothy? The next update needs to be Cat glaring at a jar of a different condiment in each panel, talking about cowboys and indians and old civil war soldiers while Girl rattles off the names of musicians and activists know best for their work during the nineteen-sixties while her expression grows increasingly despairing, Cat becomes increasingly enraged, and the panel orientation rotates ninety-degrees with every row.
September 10, 2013
I actually have a question to people: in these comics in which Cat & Girl each speak a different monologue simultaneously (speaking past each other, rather than interacting), how do you read them? Do you read each panel in order, or do you read all of one character’s speech bubbles first, then the other’s? I’ve been trying to read the panels in order but I’m having a lot of difficulty keeping track of both monologues at the same time when the two characters don’t directly interact for more than a few panels. It’s a frustrating experience, even when I really like what both Cat and Girl are saying (as here).
September 10, 2013
Esn: at first I try to read it as it’s written, then when I detect they’re not interacting I go back to the start and read them individually. Once I’m done I go back and read it again as fast as I can as if they were talking over each other.
September 10, 2013
@Esn: First, count the total number of words (WITHOUT READING THEM, of course!) Find a number prime number which doesn’t divide the count evenly. Read the first word, skip forward the prime number of words, read that one, and so on. Wrap around to the beginning. Since the two numbers (the count and your prime) are mutually prime, you’ll read all the words, and (if you picked the RIGHT prime!) you’ll get the hidden secret meaning.
Ooops… Sorry, Dorothy, was I allowed to reveal that? Hang on, someone’s knocking…
September 10, 2013
The best … the best comic!
September 10, 2013
I was promised computers I could talk to. I got a telephone I type on.
September 12, 2013
I think our own ideas of the future aren’t really sad and small, they’re more dystopian and apocalyptic. Sad, yes, but small, no.
September 13, 2013
@Erika, that’s true enough. It seems to me that the major science fiction authors these days write stories that have an undercurrent of despair and dystopia running through them, saying that the universe is basically enormous, incomprehensible and uncaring. For example, Stephen Baxter, David Brin, Alastair Reynolds…
It may come as little surprise that much of the public has responded by preferring to read about magic and fantasy, and using technology primarily for the purpose of escaping into an ever-smaller fantasy…
October 23, 2013
I want my house with chicken feet.
Science fiction requires a Zoloft factory to get through it anymore. Eternal war and death is enough of the current SOP that I’ve given up on it.