Appears to be a hatch in an unnatural, but convenient, position on U296’s flank. Suggest exploration will ensue, perhaps with lead-in to planned quest.
U296. I didn’t notice that. Hrm… Searches Google. uboat.net. I shoulda know. Hrm. An actual Uboat. 5 Patrols. Sunk on the 6th Patrol north of Ireland!! :/…wait. The island is in the Bermda Triangle. *jawdrop*. HOLY MOLEY!!! He crossed the Atlanatic and back? How fast is Stinky?
*other brain cell fires*
How far did far did Bud casually toss that anchor?!?!
Indeed. The story line becomes denser. So the Germans were carrying something they hoped would give them a super weapon maybe? Perhaps they already visited the cemetary and have the sought after object? A sub was often used for covert missions. Now how Stinky would know Bud wanted it is another question.
That was my thought also. The Nazi’s seem to have dabbled in black magic for real (shows how coockoo they were to begin with..) Look f.i. at the weirdness surrounding the “Vril Genossenschaft” Plus their hang towards norse mythology…
Suffice to say: This is getting really intrigueing now..
The german high command under Hitler had strong ties to the occult. They did pursue several mythic objects of power both before and during world war II. Look at all the movie plots that made use of this fact. As to being lost off Ireland all governments will misreport the location of lost subs. Sometimes to keep secret material out of enemy hands, or just to hide what really happened.
As to ireland both the Isle of Man, The isle of Sky, and a few other of the islands have very interesting myths about them. Toss in the stone circle builders and all sorts of possibilities are laying around to confuse and help the story line.
Way to go Paul. Let us get one step forward and then increase the paths we have to choose from. A nice little maze is being built.
@Jay-Em:
I tried to lookup “Vril Genossenschaft” (in quotes) and got only one hit. Your comment in this comments section. Is that the correct spelling? Without quotes I got all sorts of stuff, even Avril Lavigne, but nothing I could connect with Nazis and the occult.
@SoWhyMe: Vril and the German Vril Society started as fiction (in 1870!), but quickly leaked out into real occultism circles; it was in tune with the zeitgeist for a brief time, anyhow. See here or here for essays about the Vril Society and Germany.
Perhaps it didn’t sink where it was presumed to have been lost or there was a deliberate bit of subterfuge by the Germans. Maybe they were on their way to someplace in the Bermuda Triangle area to pick something else up. It may even be the object from Ireland which caused the boat to sink. Ok, enough wild speculation.
In any event, if this isn’t an April Fools joke, it’s a stupendous turn of events and another amazing addition of actual history to make the plot all the more incredible.
I’ve heard of sunk ships being dragged miles upon miles away from where they were supposed to be, even to the Bermuda Triangle (or out of it)– don’t know how close to Ireland the strong currents go, but perhaps the sub got caught in one.
There very decent records about U-Boats and their know fates. If records (past and/or present) show that it was sunk at a given time and location, you can be certain that’s that happened to it. If the fate of a boat is unknown or uncertain, the records will reflect it.
Look for “Vril’ (Or Vril-society)That will immediately get You all about that. Interwebs, and especially weird stuff, is English biased ,so sometimes german words are only found way waaaay down..
Don’t think it’s a hatch, but rather sprung plating. The opening near the bow is the hawespipe, through which the anchor rode passes, and where the anchor is attached. I wonder if that’s where Stinky got the anchor?
I’m not sure what that class of U-boat weighs – somewhere between 550 tons and twice that.
Fatuncle, the U-296 was a Type VIIC (see a picture here or here) and she displaced 769 tons surfaced and 871 submerged.
The U=296 was born in Bremer Vulkan-Vegesacker Werft in Bremen-Vegesack, with her keel laid 23 January 1943 and launched 3 September; she met her end, suspected to involve a mine field, around 12 March 1945.
Having said all that…Pablo has drawn a very good picture of a Type VIIC. That’s not just a random old-time submarine; that’s what the U-296 looked like. He did his homework.
Thanks for the link, Wyvern. I was under the impression the American Gato class was the most numerous built, but there were twenty-odd more of the VIIC.
On the other hand, the VIIC’s were rather small – the Gato displaced more than 2,000 tons, full up, larger than some destroyers of the day.
Fatuncle I think you’re right. The forward hatch is about a quarter of the way down the starboard side of the hull. That opening is where the anchor would be. The hatch is probably that faint line under the forward portholes, just above the foremost point of the dive tank.
Well, of COURSE we get upset about the mouse ‘gift’! Because the dumb cat usually brings it back alive, drops it the moment they get inside, and the mouse runs under the refrigerator, setting off hours of hilarity as we try to get it out while the cat either interferes constantly or watches in a bored manner. Compared to that, a WWII sub is a minor matter… O_O
Unfortunately, it would also have plenty of left-over explosives and such–and who knows what condition all fo that nice stuff would be in after 67 or so years?
Latest theory is that the mice and such aren’t meant as gifts — cats can’t grasp that concept. What they’re doing is trying to teach you how to hunt, since you clearly suck at it, and what they’ve brought you is homework.
The UB-65 was not a pleasant boat (as well as being a coastal boat that wouldn’t cross the Atlantic); in contrast, the U-296 is not known to have ever lost a man to enemy action or the perils of the sea until the boat herself was lost.
Indeed. I recall seeing a movie of a German sub (maybe that one with English overdub or an English version of the movie) when I was a kid. It sank in the end. In the final scene, the last man alive took off his hat to put his mouth in a last air pocket just before drowning as well. That scene really bothered me at the time and still haunts me to this day just to think of it.
The Boat does sink at the end, but it doesn’t take the whole crew with it.
Also, technically, the English-language version of Das Boot isn’t dubbed – because the cast {most of them bi-lingual, like Jurgen Prochnow, who played the Captain} did the English dialog, and even most of the German dialog had to be post-looped because of the nloisy environment. (And, since most of them have full beards, it’s hard to see their lips moving.)
That said, i prefer the German version, subtitled, because it has the original dialog, which is mistranslated in a couple of pages because there was no way to get the same concept across in English.
This also applies to the subtitles in at least two places, where the Captain’s nickname, “Der Alte” is translated as “The Old Man”*, and when one of the other U-boat captains refers to Goebbels’ propaganda about Churchill, which claimed that he was “paralitica”, translated as “paralyzed/paralytic”, when, in fact, the Ger refers to the paresis of tertiary syphillis.
(*”Der Alte” literally means “The Old One” – he’s in his mid-thirties and has served in U-boats since the beginning of the war; the rest of the crew’s age averages out in the early twenties, and not is likely to get much higher, given the loss rates…
(The funny thing is that the subtitles were translated/written by the same translator who did the original book some years before; the extra space on a page as compared to a subtitle allowed him to explain – possibly translating an explanation by the original author – where he didn’t have room {or time} to do so in the subtitle.}
Subtitles are much better than dubs. You get to hear the original dialog by the original actors which is half the performance. Though seeing Bonanza dubbed into Japanese was a laugh riot.
Yes; the band UB40 is named after the UK’s UHSS Unemployment Benefit form 40. It’s also referenced in the Bangles’ Going down to Liverpool: “Hey there, where you going with that UB40 in your hand?”
For this thread, we should not confuse the form with the very successful UB-40 U-boat of WWI.
LOL .. being one of those who is looking for work, after 30 years in education, I am not really surprised at the *still* low braincell count in the jobcentre … 🙁 🙁
She asked for my ‘documents’ and I replied “UB40??” – she looked shocked and said “no, I’m 26!!” ROFL..
They have changed the old UB40 small card into a 10-page leaflet, now called ES40JP… bureaucracy, huh???
Another British charge-sheet phrase is “of no fixed abode/address” – Neddy Seagoon is identified in one “Goon Show” segment as “…a strolling Prime Minister of no fixed abode…”; in the alternate-universe fantasy novel Journey to Fusang, the narrator/protagonist translates his name from Gaelic to English as “Finn of No Fixed Abode” – the more common form in fantasy fiction ebing “…the Wanderer”.
However, given the character of Finn (and his best friend), the charge-sheet phrase seems more applicable.
(A Chinese secret-service chief, reading a letter from his cousin, tells them that his cousin says that one of them would steal a hot stove … and the other would sell it to a drowning man.
(“I have never, in all my years in Intelligence,” he says, “seen a more glowing recommendation.”)
Aw! Sinfest cuteness. Hm, it’s too bad Fuchsia can’t make friends with the Golem Girls; they might be able to relate to her relationship troubles. I’m sure Brandi would be sympathetic.
Now this is a nice cliffhanger plus a nice intro towards the next story.
I love the way Paul drew Bud’s eyes while she’s being bounced-up in the air by the “THOOOM” of the U-boat…
I think the tossed anchor cojncidentally ended-up inside the broken hull of the U-boat. So Stinky is bringing the correct toy back….with “some” junk attached…
Hmmm, you may be right Jay-em. I believe you can just make out the anchor chain in the last panel – kind of snagged in the rigging just aft of the conning tower.
He… seems to me like Paul has used a stranded U-Boat museum somewhere as a model. There are the doors on both sides they cut into it to make it easier for visitors to enter it, aren’t they? – on the other hand, I have no problem imaging Stinky in the shallow beach waters of this islet. It’s a mollusk after all, they don’t have rigid inner structures, expecially not octopodes, which are capable of an amazing amount of shape shifting, including squeezing through veeeeery small holes. And if you ever have seen how near white sharks come to the beach in order to hunt seals without being seen, you belive.
In the end, it doesn`t matter if there is a slight bend in reality depicted. It`s a story after all, and we have seen other, more unrealistic things happen in shows that didn`t claim to be supernatural, haven’t we? Like politicians sticking to their ideals, exploding cars in street accidents (honestly, how many cars did you see in flames irl?), or triggerhappy cops playing lone ranger and being called hero instead of getting suspended afterwards. So no complaints here, just being a geek.
No nukes there. Two supercharged Germaniawerft six cylinder, 4-stroke M6V diesels totaling 2400 horsepower, plus a battery bank to push it past 7 1/2 knots underwater. But no fission pile.
In reality, U-235 had a rather unfortunate career:
Sunk 14 May, 1943 at the Germaniawerft dockyard, Kiel, by US bombs. Raised, repaired, and returned to service on 29 Oct, 1943.
Sunk in error in the Kattegat at 0700hrs on 14 April, 1945 in position 57.44N, 10.39E, by depth charges from the German torpedo boat T17. 47 dead (all hands lost).
Talk about bad luck. Sunk twice and finally done in by it’s own side in the end!
ah
would have been good for this comic to be posted 12/3 as thats when it apparently was sunk 😀
im interested how paul knew about this sub.
Im having difficulty finding it without its number on the web.
google searching “submarines sunk in ireland”
doesnt give anything 😛
Heh, for some reason, when I read these last strips, I keep thinking of the U-553, which was the wreck off the British coast that was featured so vividly in one chapter of the Cryptonomicon. I can imagine the mechanical detritus and less savory detritus caroming around the hull on its landing…
IF, and that’s a big IF, the anchor Bud threw wound up stuck to the submarine, what are the astronomical chances, not only that it would hit a man made object under the ocean, much less one connected to the plot line!!!
Oh wait, Wapsiverse. Nevermind me, full steam ahead Paul!
Oh how I love this comic! I started reading it dang near at the begining, in 2001 on my first deployment to the Gulf on a Navy destroyer, when we had really SLOW limited internet. And the art and story has just gotten better, and Better, and BETTER!
Well, aside from the fact that she’d sink in the sand at least to her waist if she attempted to lift it…
(In one of MaryJanice Davidson’s “Betsy, Queen of the Vampires” novels, Betsy picks up an overturned taxi and sets it upright. While wearing stiletto heels. Betsy may have incredible vampiric strength … but i guarantee her Manohlo Blahniks don’t…)
Correct. Even if she had a firm footing, her hand would likely just go right through wherever she tried lifting it. That much weight on such a small area and all. If she tried to grab and lift it, she would just end up with a couple handfulls of crushed steel. Same for superman cartoons and the like where they lift a huge object (like a ship or mountain size chumk of earthy). Stinky can do it since he can spread the force over a large area.
John Byrne always said that, in his opinion, Superman (unknown to anyone – including himself) wasn’t using actual physical strength to hoist things in the air, etc. (or to fly, for that matter), but actually a form of telekinesis that required physical contact.
That would make more sense in some ways. Still, it would also mean there would be some oddities. Such as keeping a damaged passenger jet in the air from the inside just by touching it. Or lifting a car by touching it on the roof. Supe’s a pretty smart guy. Seems like he would have figured that out at some point.
But what if, since he “knows” he’s lifting such things with his hands, he’d never try.
OTOH, the latest (or maybe not – they lost the rights and now i understand they’ve recovered them) incarnation of Superboy knew (as did everyone else) that he flew by TK and lifted heavy things by “tactile telekinesis”.
Of course, he wasn’t from Krypton – he was a clone grown from some of Superman’s cells and some of the S.T.A.R. Labs scientist who created him, so what he could do/did didn’t necessarily correlate to how Superman did the same things…
Which wouldn’t bear the load that much vetter than sand…
Heck – when she sent the squished calendar machine to its final destination (considering the mass of the thing, no matter how compressed, and the specific impulse needed to accelerate it from rest to .6C in a small fraction of a second), the Third Law recoil should have been sufficient to do some Serious Damage to the neighbourhood.
The magic in the Wapsiverse seems to have a fuzzy logic component. Monica’s teleporting the bullet fired at her, and the teleports that need no physics fixes. Why wouldn’t it give Bud a broader footing, and handholds if needed?
Magic is a funny thing indeed.
Kate and i were just going back and watching the fifth season of Angel.
And there’s an episode titled “Why We Fight”, in which Angel is blackmailed into diving down to a captured U-boat that was being brought back to the US when … something(s) … got loose aboard…
Given that it’s “Angel” (I can’t figure out how to italicize, sorry) I can guess what the “somethings” were…and I kind of hope Paul doesn’t take us on that tack.
From my earlier research, depth charge damage is one of the best ways to sink a U-boat without leaving major obvious damage. Once some hull seams are burst, the air inside gets out, but without the large obvious holes of gunfire or torpedo damage. Your example does suggest it’s not unreasonable for a U-boat to make it to the Carribean.
Most of us have read the bow plate and identified this as the U-296. Did you have an alternative hypothesis?
The shock of a depth charge could often rupture welds internally, on some of the thru-hull fittings, and seals around the prop shafts; you could get water coming in from several sources at once, with the hull still intact. Not to mention lights going out, and all sorts of debris coming down on your head and tripping you up in the dark, as the lighting would also go out.
Lights.Out.Under.Water… as in NO.Light..as in Small.Space.No.Light.Lots.Of.Water.Around.Pressing.Inwards…..”clickck” human brain shuts down, lizard brain takes over.
That same thought struck me just a moment ago too. Especially love how Pablo shows us how “little” that little shit is (compared to Bud) in the last panel. 😀
Hmmm, pretty intact for being sunk some 65 years ago, must have been really deep. Hate to think how unstable those torpedoes might be. Still, funny page.
A good author will never let a good idea go to waste, and they never tell either. It’s like DM’ing a session of Dungeons and Dragons. Sometimes the players can come up with something even more convoluted than what your think of. A good DM will toss his ideas out the window and go with what the players come up with. And the DM never will tell. 🙂
Some has mentioned the german movie “Das Boot (the boat)”. It has a very good and tight soundtrack, here’s the title score. I think it fits very well to the comic
It’s a gift for U(-Boat)!
Thass-a no U-boat, Thass-a MY boat!
World War 2 era submarine! Scary!!!
No, it’s obviously a SUB plot.
“We all live in a yellow submarine”
Out-frikken-standing! 😀
And here I was expecting an April Fools Day payoff!
Then again….
Appears to be a hatch in an unnatural, but convenient, position on U296’s flank. Suggest exploration will ensue, perhaps with lead-in to planned quest.
U296. I didn’t notice that. Hrm… Searches Google. uboat.net. I shoulda know. Hrm. An actual Uboat. 5 Patrols. Sunk on the 6th Patrol north of Ireland!! :/…wait. The island is in the Bermda Triangle. *jawdrop*. HOLY MOLEY!!! He crossed the Atlanatic and back? How fast is Stinky?
*other brain cell fires*
How far did far did Bud casually toss that anchor?!?!
Sunk somewhere around Ireland???..Where was that thingymabob they were looking for to fix Jin…Aah..ireland… O_0
Oohkay Her the clowncar goes again.
Indeed. The story line becomes denser. So the Germans were carrying something they hoped would give them a super weapon maybe? Perhaps they already visited the cemetary and have the sought after object? A sub was often used for covert missions. Now how Stinky would know Bud wanted it is another question.
That was my thought also. The Nazi’s seem to have dabbled in black magic for real (shows how coockoo they were to begin with..) Look f.i. at the weirdness surrounding the “Vril Genossenschaft”
Plus their hang towards norse mythology…
Suffice to say: This is getting really intrigueing now..
The german high command under Hitler had strong ties to the occult. They did pursue several mythic objects of power both before and during world war II. Look at all the movie plots that made use of this fact. As to being lost off Ireland all governments will misreport the location of lost subs. Sometimes to keep secret material out of enemy hands, or just to hide what really happened.
As to ireland both the Isle of Man, The isle of Sky, and a few other of the islands have very interesting myths about them. Toss in the stone circle builders and all sorts of possibilities are laying around to confuse and help the story line.
Way to go Paul. Let us get one step forward and then increase the paths we have to choose from. A nice little maze is being built.
“…a maze of twisty little corridors, all alike”
Hrm. I didn’t make the Irish connection. Curiouser and curioser, indeed. l.
@Jay-Em:
I tried to lookup “Vril Genossenschaft” (in quotes) and got only one hit. Your comment in this comments section. Is that the correct spelling? Without quotes I got all sorts of stuff, even Avril Lavigne, but nothing I could connect with Nazis and the occult.
@SoWhyMe: Vril and the German Vril Society started as fiction (in 1870!), but quickly leaked out into real occultism circles; it was in tune with the zeitgeist for a brief time, anyhow. See here or here for essays about the Vril Society and Germany.
Thanks Wyvern.
Perhaps it didn’t sink where it was presumed to have been lost or there was a deliberate bit of subterfuge by the Germans. Maybe they were on their way to someplace in the Bermuda Triangle area to pick something else up. It may even be the object from Ireland which caused the boat to sink. Ok, enough wild speculation.
In any event, if this isn’t an April Fools joke, it’s a stupendous turn of events and another amazing addition of actual history to make the plot all the more incredible.
I’ve heard of sunk ships being dragged miles upon miles away from where they were supposed to be, even to the Bermuda Triangle (or out of it)– don’t know how close to Ireland the strong currents go, but perhaps the sub got caught in one.
There very decent records about U-Boats and their know fates. If records (past and/or present) show that it was sunk at a given time and location, you can be certain that’s that happened to it. If the fate of a boat is unknown or uncertain, the records will reflect it.
Look for “Vril’ (Or Vril-society)That will immediately get You all about that. Interwebs, and especially weird stuff, is English biased ,so sometimes german words are only found way waaaay down..
Drnt!! That was meant @ SoWhyMe
“Vril Gesellschaft” will work also.
@Jay-Ern : Vril is not a German word.
@spzeidler:
nanu, das wiss ‘i doch… Es geht hier um die eigenartige geschichte von d’n “Vril gesellschaft…”
Thanks Jay-Em.
Ugh. And I even proofread that post too.
Note to self: Don’t bother proofreading posts before bed. It’s of no use.
Maybe Stinky thought she was hungry, and brought her canned Germans?
Well, way beyond the “best before” date I guess…
The U-boat crews did refer to their craft as ‘Sardine Tins”!
The real problem with German food is that no matter how much you eat, an hour later you’re hungry for power.
ROTFL
The original version of that joke was from a skit with an old couple I saw when I was younger:
her: “I really wish you hadn’t eaten that German-Chinese food!”
him: “why?”
her: “because an hour from now you’ll be hungry for power!”
Which made me laugh, because of the way they mixed two different common cultural memes (at the time) into one.
Don’t think it’s a hatch, but rather sprung plating. The opening near the bow is the hawespipe, through which the anchor rode passes, and where the anchor is attached. I wonder if that’s where Stinky got the anchor?
I’m not sure what that class of U-boat weighs – somewhere between 550 tons and twice that.
Fatuncle, the U-296 was a Type VIIC (see a picture here or here) and she displaced 769 tons surfaced and 871 submerged.
The U=296 was born in Bremer Vulkan-Vegesacker Werft in Bremen-Vegesack, with her keel laid 23 January 1943 and launched 3 September; she met her end, suspected to involve a mine field, around 12 March 1945.
Having said all that…Pablo has drawn a very good picture of a Type VIIC. That’s not just a random old-time submarine; that’s what the U-296 looked like. He did his homework.
which probably means Paul’s Up to Something (yipee!)
Thanks for the link, Wyvern. I was under the impression the American Gato class was the most numerous built, but there were twenty-odd more of the VIIC.
On the other hand, the VIIC’s were rather small – the Gato displaced more than 2,000 tons, full up, larger than some destroyers of the day.
no, that is a classic ships anchor.. newer ones are much more compact, different design.. 🙂
Fatuncle I think you’re right. The forward hatch is about a quarter of the way down the starboard side of the hull. That opening is where the anchor would be. The hatch is probably that faint line under the forward portholes, just above the foremost point of the dive tank.
Wait, that hatch wasn’t original. Which explains why it’s so faint on this drawing. I think Paul converted it into water droplets.
um, I see no hatch… ??
Correct. Paul probably realized he’d drawn an exhibition-adapted U-boat (hence the door) and edited it.
Yeah–that hatch was about as useful as a screen door on a submar…
Possibly what I took to be the outer torpedo tube door?
Yes, I’d agree – that’s pretty much exactly where the torpedo tubes would be fitted on a submarine of that period…
…and some people are upset ’cause their cat brings them mice as a gift…
Well, of COURSE we get upset about the mouse ‘gift’! Because the dumb cat usually brings it back alive, drops it the moment they get inside, and the mouse runs under the refrigerator, setting off hours of hilarity as we try to get it out while the cat either interferes constantly or watches in a bored manner. Compared to that, a WWII sub is a minor matter… O_O
Seriously, at least the U boat would have all that steel to make stuff with.
Unfortunately, it would also have plenty of left-over explosives and such–and who knows what condition all fo that nice stuff would be in after 67 or so years?
Not a problem for Bud, aside from blasting off her suit. The GGs would make great bomb defusers. If they “opps” no harm done.
Fortunately the sub can’t skitter under the refrigerator.
It would have to be a heck of a fridge…
Latest theory is that the mice and such aren’t meant as gifts — cats can’t grasp that concept. What they’re doing is trying to teach you how to hunt, since you clearly suck at it, and what they’ve brought you is homework.
uhh…my cat used to bring me mice and would drop them on my feet…soo…i should be glad it was just dead mice now..
Love her expression, in the second panel.
At least he didn’t dredge up UB-65.
…or UB-40…
(I swear, if I hear that “Red Red Whine” song one more time, pain will ensue… My rage will make the Golems cower in fear…)
Thanks. I have that song stuck in head, now….
UB-65 was a haunted U boat. I could just about see something like that showing up in this comic, some day.
The UB-65 was not a pleasant boat (as well as being a coastal boat that wouldn’t cross the Atlantic); in contrast, the U-296 is not known to have ever lost a man to enemy action or the perils of the sea until the boat herself was lost.
Yes, well, with death traps like those subs, I doubt many lost just one or two crewmembers. I would imagine it was pretty an all or nothing deal.
“All or nothing” is right. Something like two-thirds of WW2 German submariners did not survive the war.
Das Boot is a harrowingly accurate look at what it was like in those iron coffins.
At least it’s not this one… http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0310292174/1n9867a-20
(Good book, kinda creepy, on my wish list 🙂 )
Indeed. I recall seeing a movie of a German sub (maybe that one with English overdub or an English version of the movie) when I was a kid. It sank in the end. In the final scene, the last man alive took off his hat to put his mouth in a last air pocket just before drowning as well. That scene really bothered me at the time and still haunts me to this day just to think of it.
You want “creepy with lost submarines? Try SImpson & Burger’s Ghost boatGhost Boat
SoWhyMe: No – that wouldn’t be Das Boot.
The Boat does sink at the end, but it doesn’t take the whole crew with it.
Also, technically, the English-language version of Das Boot isn’t dubbed – because the cast {most of them bi-lingual, like Jurgen Prochnow, who played the Captain} did the English dialog, and even most of the German dialog had to be post-looped because of the nloisy environment. (And, since most of them have full beards, it’s hard to see their lips moving.)
That said, i prefer the German version, subtitled, because it has the original dialog, which is mistranslated in a couple of pages because there was no way to get the same concept across in English.
This also applies to the subtitles in at least two places, where the Captain’s nickname, “Der Alte” is translated as “The Old Man”*, and when one of the other U-boat captains refers to Goebbels’ propaganda about Churchill, which claimed that he was “paralitica”, translated as “paralyzed/paralytic”, when, in fact, the Ger refers to the paresis of tertiary syphillis.
(*”Der Alte” literally means “The Old One” – he’s in his mid-thirties and has served in U-boats since the beginning of the war; the rest of the crew’s age averages out in the early twenties, and not is likely to get much higher, given the loss rates…
(The funny thing is that the subtitles were translated/written by the same translator who did the original book some years before; the extra space on a page as compared to a subtitle allowed him to explain – possibly translating an explanation by the original author – where he didn’t have room {or time} to do so in the subtitle.}
Subtitles are much better than dubs. You get to hear the original dialog by the original actors which is half the performance. Though seeing Bonanza dubbed into Japanese was a laugh riot.
Wasn’t “UB-40” like a social security-form or something in Great Britain?
Yes; the band UB40 is named after the UK’s UHSS Unemployment Benefit form 40. It’s also referenced in the Bangles’ Going down to Liverpool: “Hey there, where you going with that UB40 in your hand?”
For this thread, we should not confuse the form with the very successful UB-40 U-boat of WWI.
LOL .. being one of those who is looking for work, after 30 years in education, I am not really surprised at the *still* low braincell count in the jobcentre … 🙁 🙁
She asked for my ‘documents’ and I replied “UB40??” – she looked shocked and said “no, I’m 26!!” ROFL..
They have changed the old UB40 small card into a 10-page leaflet, now called ES40JP… bureaucracy, huh???
Yup. Unemployment Benefits Form 40.
And GBH is the British charge-sheet abbreviation for “Grievous Bodily Harm”.
Another British charge-sheet phrase is “of no fixed abode/address” – Neddy Seagoon is identified in one “Goon Show” segment as “…a strolling Prime Minister of no fixed abode…”; in the alternate-universe fantasy novel Journey to Fusang, the narrator/protagonist translates his name from Gaelic to English as “Finn of No Fixed Abode” – the more common form in fantasy fiction ebing “…the Wanderer”.
However, given the character of Finn (and his best friend), the charge-sheet phrase seems more applicable.
(A Chinese secret-service chief, reading a letter from his cousin, tells them that his cousin says that one of them would steal a hot stove … and the other would sell it to a drowning man.
(“I have never, in all my years in Intelligence,” he says, “seen a more glowing recommendation.”)
Lord… Stinky is just a big cat with tentacles.
Ironic u say cat, cause thats how M talked to Tina about the GGGs
at least its not ‘Fresh’
(i.e. still occupied)
Fresh, no. Still occupied? We’ll see…
http://www.uboat.net/boats/u296.htm
http://www.uboat.net/boats/patrols/u296.html
U296 was sunk on 12th March 1945 (all hands lost)
ALLEGEDLY! DUN DUN DUNNNNN
This is pretty much the naval animal equipment of throwing a stick into a forest and the dog bringing back a tree… 😀
http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3237
Aw! Sinfest cuteness. Hm, it’s too bad Fuchsia can’t make friends with the Golem Girls; they might be able to relate to her relationship troubles. I’m sure Brandi would be sympathetic.
And the last panel with the crossed eyes says…
What… ???
It says he’s looking down at her. I had no idea it was that big. The island must have a really sharp dropoff to conceal so much of him at first.
He changes size.
Now this is a nice cliffhanger plus a nice intro towards the next story.
I love the way Paul drew Bud’s eyes while she’s being bounced-up in the air by the “THOOOM” of the U-boat…
I think the tossed anchor cojncidentally ended-up inside the broken hull of the U-boat. So Stinky is bringing the correct toy back….with “some” junk attached…
Hmmm, you may be right Jay-em. I believe you can just make out the anchor chain in the last panel – kind of snagged in the rigging just aft of the conning tower.
I absolutely loved panel two! Bud’s expression is great, and who doesn’t love an earth-shaking THOOOM?
And nobody asked where Stinky found that anchor in the first place, now did we?
Good point.
He… seems to me like Paul has used a stranded U-Boat museum somewhere as a model. There are the doors on both sides they cut into it to make it easier for visitors to enter it, aren’t they? – on the other hand, I have no problem imaging Stinky in the shallow beach waters of this islet. It’s a mollusk after all, they don’t have rigid inner structures, expecially not octopodes, which are capable of an amazing amount of shape shifting, including squeezing through veeeeery small holes. And if you ever have seen how near white sharks come to the beach in order to hunt seals without being seen, you belive.
In the end, it doesn`t matter if there is a slight bend in reality depicted. It`s a story after all, and we have seen other, more unrealistic things happen in shows that didn`t claim to be supernatural, haven’t we? Like politicians sticking to their ideals, exploding cars in street accidents (honestly, how many cars did you see in flames irl?), or triggerhappy cops playing lone ranger and being called hero instead of getting suspended afterwards. So no complaints here, just being a geek.
Sounds like you’re thinking of U505 – Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago.
Yeah, the sub in Manitowoc (USS Cobia – http://www.wisconsinmaritime.org/index.php) they take you down via a deck hatch.
No, I thought about U995 in Laboe near Kiel at the baltic coast. I’m German.
Sorry, don`t know how to embed a link:
http://www.deutscher-marinebund.de/u995_geschichte.htm
Frikken’ awesome.
I hope he doesn’t go after a ‘live’ one.
Is that a little “stick-out tongue” grin I see on Stinky’s face? Huge win for today! 😀
I sincerely hope that is not a nuclear sub. XD~
Nah. WW2 German U-boat.
Diesel electric.
No nukes there. Two supercharged Germaniawerft six cylinder, 4-stroke M6V diesels totaling 2400 horsepower, plus a battery bank to push it past 7 1/2 knots underwater. But no fission pile.
Nope, that would be the U-235.
hsssss
My God, I read that one three times before the penny dropped. Hssssssss indeed.
No penny-dropping here… *scratches head, seriously confuzzled*
Some popular-culture reference I am unaware of???
No, just an bodacious pun.
U235
In reality, U-235 had a rather unfortunate career:
Sunk 14 May, 1943 at the Germaniawerft dockyard, Kiel, by US bombs. Raised, repaired, and returned to service on 29 Oct, 1943.
Sunk in error in the Kattegat at 0700hrs on 14 April, 1945 in position 57.44N, 10.39E, by depth charges from the German torpedo boat T17. 47 dead (all hands lost).
Talk about bad luck. Sunk twice and finally done in by it’s own side in the end!
Oh, and it never even went on patrol or damaged any enemy ships.
ah
would have been good for this comic to be posted 12/3 as thats when it apparently was sunk 😀
im interested how paul knew about this sub.
Im having difficulty finding it without its number on the web.
google searching “submarines sunk in ireland”
doesnt give anything 😛
May have been a bit of trivia stored in Paul’s brain for some time that was put to good use here.
Seeing that Ireland is mostly made of …land…
try “near”. 😛
My comment doesn’t look nearly as funny in print. Sorry.
nope I got it! 😀
Heh, for some reason, when I read these last strips, I keep thinking of the U-553, which was the wreck off the British coast that was featured so vividly in one chapter of the Cryptonomicon. I can imagine the mechanical detritus and less savory detritus caroming around the hull on its landing…
I do love a good THOOOM! and nice to see I wasn’t the only one that looked up U-296
Good April Fool’s strip at Sequential Art.
IF, and that’s a big IF, the anchor Bud threw wound up stuck to the submarine, what are the astronomical chances, not only that it would hit a man made object under the ocean, much less one connected to the plot line!!!
Oh wait, Wapsiverse. Nevermind me, full steam ahead Paul!
Oh how I love this comic! I started reading it dang near at the begining, in 2001 on my first deployment to the Gulf on a Navy destroyer, when we had really SLOW limited internet. And the art and story has just gotten better, and Better, and BETTER!
Bad Stinky! You put that back right where you found it!
I’d like to see Bud toss THAT back in the water…
Well, aside from the fact that she’d sink in the sand at least to her waist if she attempted to lift it…
(In one of MaryJanice Davidson’s “Betsy, Queen of the Vampires” novels, Betsy picks up an overturned taxi and sets it upright. While wearing stiletto heels. Betsy may have incredible vampiric strength … but i guarantee her Manohlo Blahniks don’t…)
Correct. Even if she had a firm footing, her hand would likely just go right through wherever she tried lifting it. That much weight on such a small area and all. If she tried to grab and lift it, she would just end up with a couple handfulls of crushed steel. Same for superman cartoons and the like where they lift a huge object (like a ship or mountain size chumk of earthy). Stinky can do it since he can spread the force over a large area.
John Byrne always said that, in his opinion, Superman (unknown to anyone – including himself) wasn’t using actual physical strength to hoist things in the air, etc. (or to fly, for that matter), but actually a form of telekinesis that required physical contact.
That would make more sense in some ways. Still, it would also mean there would be some oddities. Such as keeping a damaged passenger jet in the air from the inside just by touching it. Or lifting a car by touching it on the roof. Supe’s a pretty smart guy. Seems like he would have figured that out at some point.
But what if, since he “knows” he’s lifting such things with his hands, he’d never try.
OTOH, the latest (or maybe not – they lost the rights and now i understand they’ve recovered them) incarnation of Superboy knew (as did everyone else) that he flew by TK and lifted heavy things by “tactile telekinesis”.
Of course, he wasn’t from Krypton – he was a clone grown from some of Superman’s cells and some of the S.T.A.R. Labs scientist who created him, so what he could do/did didn’t necessarily correlate to how Superman did the same things…
well, there has to be some toon/superhero physics that explains that…
y’know, there could be only a few inches of sand, then rock/coral.. 🙂
x-ray vision would help, she would be able to see the thickest points, to get a handhold.. 🙂
Which wouldn’t bear the load that much vetter than sand…
Heck – when she sent the squished calendar machine to its final destination (considering the mass of the thing, no matter how compressed, and the specific impulse needed to accelerate it from rest to .6C in a small fraction of a second), the Third Law recoil should have been sufficient to do some Serious Damage to the neighbourhood.
…Or perhaps the Twin Cities…
The magic in the Wapsiverse seems to have a fuzzy logic component. Monica’s teleporting the bullet fired at her, and the teleports that need no physics fixes. Why wouldn’t it give Bud a broader footing, and handholds if needed?
Magic is a funny thing indeed.
bulletS
Weren’t the girls looking for an object in Ireland? Maybe the Nazi’s found it first, but never made it home with it.
I like the thought process Bud has in the first panel. I know exactly what she is talking about. XD
Squids eat nautiluses don’t they? So Stinky’s bringing back the empty shell?
Old Man Nemo is gonna be pissed…
This reminds me of the joke where someone throws a branch and the dog brings back a whole tree.
If someone else said this I just skimmed the commends. Boss may be back any time.
Wasn’t that “dog” a dinosaur?
In joke-World anything is possible. Elephants in pajamas, talking animals and normally inanimate objects walking into a bar, etc.
“How an elephant got in my pajamas, I’ll never know.”
Kate and i were just going back and watching the fifth season of Angel.
And there’s an episode titled “Why We Fight”, in which Angel is blackmailed into diving down to a captured U-boat that was being brought back to the US when … something(s) … got loose aboard…
Given that it’s “Angel” (I can’t figure out how to italicize, sorry) I can guess what the “somethings” were…and I kind of hope Paul doesn’t take us on that tack.
One of the “somethings” was, in fact, Spike. In full SS regalia.
“I might have guessed. You’re a Nazi now, huh?”
“No – But I et one…”
This forum uses standard HTML code – <i></i> is itals. <b></b> is bold. <blockquote></blockquote> is a block quote.
(Hope i got those right, because i was having to use HTML code to put in the angle brackets…
Thanks!! 😀
This comic and discussion sent me on a google hunt!!
According to this thing, U126 was downed in the carribean by a depth charge, which leads me to wonder how her hull is still intact.
http://books.google.com/books?id=5FVTihRxCo4C&pg=PA323&dq=u126&hl=en&ei=UwOWTZ2iOOaJ0QH8_pH8Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=u126&f=false
Um, I’m lost. Where does U126 come into things?
It comes in right here…
look again, its the U296, not U126.
From my earlier research, depth charge damage is one of the best ways to sink a U-boat without leaving major obvious damage. Once some hull seams are burst, the air inside gets out, but without the large obvious holes of gunfire or torpedo damage. Your example does suggest it’s not unreasonable for a U-boat to make it to the Carribean.
Most of us have read the bow plate and identified this as the U-296. Did you have an alternative hypothesis?
Yes. Hypothesis=”Not wearing his reading-glasses” Like I did at first. Put on mu’ glasses and “Oi, Presto! U296”
😆
erm, yes.
…sorry…
The shock of a depth charge could often rupture welds internally, on some of the thru-hull fittings, and seals around the prop shafts; you could get water coming in from several sources at once, with the hull still intact. Not to mention lights going out, and all sorts of debris coming down on your head and tripping you up in the dark, as the lighting would also go out.
Oh, yeah. And the lights would go out.
And not only that, it would be dark.
(Can anyone say phobia?)
Would that be light dark or dark dark?
Lights.Out.Under.Water… as in NO.Light..as in Small.Space.No.Light.Lots.Of.Water.Around.Pressing.Inwards…..”clickck” human brain shuts down, lizard brain takes over.
Thanks for that picture….. O_0
*shiver*
Stopitstopitstopitstopit
You started it…grmblgrr.. *wiping off trembling sweaty palms and forehead*
Also, the outer hull is not the pressure hull – it is mostly for streamlining and drag reduction, so ‘fatal’ damage wouldn’t necessarily be visible.
IN THE DARK
whimper
*whimper too*
And lo, lest the enemy be sunk in the phobic dark: http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/flashlight.htm
OMG. Stinky is just TOO cute! ^.^
Can we have a print of Stinky with the golem girls? 😀
He’s brought a sub for lunch?!
Oh, God. That was dreadful.
I just love how Bud can think of that immense leviathan as “that little shit”.
That same thought struck me just a moment ago too. Especially love how Pablo shows us how “little” that little shit is (compared to Bud) in the last panel. 😀
Hmmm, pretty intact for being sunk some 65 years ago, must have been really deep. Hate to think how unstable those torpedoes might be. Still, funny page.
Show-n-tell, indeed!
You reckon he knows where I can find a Great Pink Sea Snail?
Yeah, close to where Doc tends to swim…
Just ask the Pushmi-Pullyu. I’m sure it knows!
Sometimes I wonder if the comments are giving our dear author ideas…. (reads back a few pages)
Don’t know, but I do think he “answers” some of the points and questions posted here in the dialog of the characters.
A good author will never let a good idea go to waste, and they never tell either. It’s like DM’ing a session of Dungeons and Dragons. Sometimes the players can come up with something even more convoluted than what your think of. A good DM will toss his ideas out the window and go with what the players come up with. And the DM never will tell. 🙂
Having said that, it appears Paul’s sticking pretty closely to his narrative thread.
Teresa Burritt’s Frog Blog mentions a rather interesting item, given the subject of this Wapsi strip.
Argh. The “L” got cut off. http://obituarytypo.blogspot.com/2011/04/octopus-cup.html
Love that cup!
Bud throws an anchor and Stinky comes back with the rest of the damn ship…must be the squiddy chow! 😛
Das Unterseeboot.
Now more like “Das auf’n strand boot” Next thing You know, it’ll be digging a hole and fortifying itself…
*groan* Sorry, Dutch in-joke…
Nah, still got a laugh from me!
Some has mentioned the german movie “Das Boot (the boat)”. It has a very good and tight soundtrack, here’s the title score. I think it fits very well to the comic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJv9hwcTTqw
Quick what was the last German WW1 warship to be sunk by US warships – and where?
Sort of a trick question.
Yay another fun website!
Out of curiosity, does anyone else hear Bud’s last line in their head as if she was being played by a Greek Sarah Chaulk (Elliot from Srubs)?
NOW I DO!!!!! grr…I liked the voice i had for bud in my head…..
Yeah – for me, it varies – Joan Blondell sometimes, or Marcia Wallace, or maybe Arleen Sorkin…
Here is a blurb to the IRL U-296, if anyone is interested.
Forgot to paste the website (:-I
http://www.uboat.net/boats/u296.htm
since I have already read the comic into 2020 (and am now reading again), I’ll just say …
Vonderba!!