Naw, he just knows Jin quite well and what it takes to calm her. By now he’s pretty nonplussed by her rants. After you find out you’re GF is an indestructable golem who has been around for about 100,000 years (and accept it), nothing much else is gonna faze you.
Of course, the ring-o-doom may yet appear from his pocket. Hope not.
The Hugging Squids of Lake Wazzapamani. Friendly, if a little disconcerting. Sort of the antithesis of the Shrieking Eels of the Florin Sea.
But I thought they were dormant in the winter months….
well robot pirates and zombie ninjas fighting while rideing on t rexes would not be made better by hugs either…mostly cause i am pretty sure you would die if you tried to hug any of them. *nods nods*
Seeing as how “squids” is also one of the epithets used to refer to sailors (former Navy here) I disagree with the idea that hugs don’t make us better. 😀
Quite possibly Alan was trying to get through to Jin about something that turns up a lot in SF and fantasy – the problem that immortal/extremely-long-lived characters and/or races have in understanding why anyone as ephemeral and fragile as a human takes the kind of risks that humans routinely do…
Because you take it for granted that you live as long as you live and you don’t let it worry you unduly … and you live.
I wonder how much of the risk taking has to do with the belief in an afterlife. If none of of believed in one, would we be much less prone to possibly throw our lives away? Would most of our effort go into trying to live longer and longer, striving for immortality?
Of course there is the theory that we’ve already done this and we, long ago, became “souls” and created an afterlife to inhabit. Then, finding being an immortal spirit wasn’t all we thought it would be, started inhabiting animal bodies from time to time.
Second part: interesting thought. Quite metaphysical in nature.
What we are now is the central question here hrm?
I love pondering reality. Although it hardly gets me anywhere 😆
Maybe we are just souls that hop from one existence to another.
On the other hand..If this life is all there is, there’s no use in not doing exiting stuff..You’ll never get a second chance to be exited…
To be honest, I have to admit that I am highly intrigued by f.i. Ray Kurzweil. Cooky as some of his projections on immortality may sound, they do open an intersting box of Pandora.
Without a major shift in our view of life, it would be absolute disaster for all of us to be certain of the existence of the afterlife and reincarnation. We would, as teens (or even younger), simply check out of the flesh hotel at our first heartbreak, hoping for better the next time around. Can’t stand going in to work? OD on pills and lounge around the glorious afterlife instead for a few hundred/thousand years. Eventually inhabit aniother body for a bit and enjoy pizza again. Anchovies??!! Slit your wrists on the spot.
Even the oldest possible civilization believes in afterlife of some kind.. It is just a reaction to death, to give some hope.. 😛
there was an old scifi series, that found a world where the existence of afterlife was *proved* – as a result, people got bored with life, and killed themselves to have a ‘better afterlife’ !!! 😮
People willingly killing themselves for a better afterlife has already happened several times..suicide-bombers, Jonestown, to name some.
There is of course quite the difference between knowing there is a glorious afterlife, and knowing You’ll live forever. The best illustration of the dangers/pitfalls of living forever was shown in some sci-fi story (cannot remember where I read it) where people were immortal, but came to nothing because “there was always plenty of time later”
They only started moving the moment they discovered their universe was doomed. Their looming mortality was the factor that got them to move forward at last.
So, all in all, mortality seems to have it’s uses.
Ah, I see. I recall one (I think from the new Twilight Zone series) in which everyone not only knew reincarnation was true, they remembered their past lives and were weighed down with past guilt. Suicide ran rampant for that reason and their present bad circumstances. This was seen through the narrative from a phychologist who, in the end, specialized in helping people forget their past lives. The twist was that she was “magically” transported to this world from the present in which she was helping people remember past lives.
Oh..Good thinking..gotta get me one of those (Hey Paul..an idea for extra revenue? Golem-joke bumperstickers?)
‘T is not the breaking that worries me, breaking can mostly be healed, it is the squishing into diamond and getting tossed in the general direction of the sun, car and all…
OK so how does Jin react?
.
That expression could lead to quite literally an unlimited number of possible reactions, including crying, dumping him for no reason, hugging him in a loving embrace, throwing a huge fart, smiling and saying “ok let’s have fun” and hitting him in the face with some snow, or having a long talk about her emotions as well as her .. um .. Greek chorus.
Yes, dumping him would be the cynical alternative. So, of course, that’s the one I’ll be going with. This episode may have impressed on her his mortality and she may begin to think it would be better to break it off soon than suffer the coming heartache.
OK OK honestly I don’t think she’d go so far out of left fucking field to dump him here and now. I mean that’d be stupid, and really depressing. I guess I’m just used to people responding in ways I don’t expect, don’t make sense, and basically un-train any social skills I still have.
I just hope she hugs back and smiles. UGH! The suspense is killing me.
Interesting point, Jabber. Could Katherine be manipulating the clues to this latest caper to find Monica a new adventure? Does she know more than it seems and is she smarter than she looks or acts? She’s in a good position to work behind the scenes.
Something I’ve thought about for some time. The love of Jin’s life was Monica’s grandfather. She’s probably been through that relationship almost as many times as she went through the time loop and knew each time it had to end. She’ll only ever have the one chance with Alan… that’s got to affect their relationship somehow.
I had not realized, until your comment, that Jin is transitioning from her “Oh, Christ, not again” world view to a ‘normal’ uncharted waters way of thinking.
I’ll have to rethink how I feel about her. Again.
Oddly enough, I’ve had this fanfic idea for some time about the end of the last time loop that involves Jin and Sully staying together and the wrong Monica being born, leading to complete chaos and death at the calendar machine site…
I’ve got an idea for a fan-fic that involves Shelly, Tina and Jaqui fighting a cadre of Dr. Zyn’s robot spies who are on Monster Island to steal technology from an ‘Independence Day’ UFO crashed by disruptions caused by Jack McClane in the air duct systems.
But I don’t have a hook.
:gasp: You lost me at “I’ve got..” 😛
Could be a disaster, could also become an instant literary classic, popping-up in every book-list in High-school..
Yeah. Or Marvel’s Araña – Heart of the Spider – not only did they “wind it all up” in one double-sized issue by a different writer, but the way they did it completely invalidated everything that went before.
(And now they’ve “revived” the character – except now she has Spider-Man-like superpowers, instead of being a {physically, anyway} more-or-less normal teenager…)
This is undiscovered territory for her. For once in 10.500(give or take a few) years, history isn’t repeating.. i imagine that the recent “fix” of the creepy clock will give her that one important human feeling back: Hope.
Bud and Brandi are the kids at 12,000 yo. Jin and Mayahuel were already long lived at the time they were made into golem.
So Jin could be close to 100,000…
As I recall she said she had to give him up 7 times in all. http://wapsisquare.com/comic/nofoolin/
Though there may have been cycles when she didn’t give him up and things didn’t go properly. Still, I don’t think she had an affair with him every time.
Indeed.
I can imagine that she desperately tried several approaches to get the calendar machine fixed, love being only a couple of times the “mistake” that upset all..
She even tried to keep Shelly away from her to prevent a repeat of a former debacle, however much she liked her as a friend.
Though, come to think of it, however much she refuses to aknowledge it, Jin’s been consistently motivated by “love”
Love for humanity, love for Brandy and Bud, love for those she considers friends etc.
If she were real, I would really admire her for still refusing to give up on “love” despite being betrayed seriously by someone she loved.
She’s reluctant, true, but tenacious in her refusal to give up and just hang her head, also.
That’s why I waffle so much on Jin.
She’s quite a pill to be around. Between her crazies and her all knowing cynicism, and then you find she’s lived that unforgiving Myst puzzle for 56 times. All she’s had to do and experience and give up. And my heart melts for her.
And then she acts like a prick again, and you’re mad at her…
Oh, hell. I’m in love with Jin?
I do realize it’s the level of writing on this strip. I read a handfull of web comics and this is only one I comment on. It’s the only one where the characters feel as real as my actual friends do…
when bud let him in and she stabbed herself with a kitchen knife and turned the knife into paper mache
from what i recall he wasnt bothered about her being an imortal golem rather he was bothered about her acting loopy just to make him go away so she wouldnt be hurt.
All this talk of Jin’s manipulations and time loops and all brings up what to me is a glaring plot hole in the whole thing. Maybe I’m just not understanding it right.
Tepoz brought forth the 3 Golem Girls as drunk college students, doing it on kind of a whim. It seems they were in “storage” before that. This included Jin, as if she had been in storage as well. Yet, we know, she was already on the scene causing things to happen the whole time before he did that (and after). Also she said shen had been feeding Tepoz false info. to make him do what she wanted as well. It doesn’t add up. Where am I going wrong here?
Isn’t Jin also “Tochtli”?
-A physical-body independent entity?- Inhabiting an inert clay golem somewhere in time, or even just clay, wouldn’t stop her/him/it in that case.
I wonder if it was constantly the “Jin” shell we see, that did the manipulating.
It could be that Jin is an amalgamate of “Jin”, the girl that died to prevent powerful forces mis-using a chimera, and the deity “Tochtli” that has been busy trying to prevent calendar-machine-like mishaps for far longer in many more shapes…
As I understood it, to make the chimera inert, Tepoz split it up and created the current looks of the golems on a whim.
I am sorry that I don’t have time to hunt the links, but there has been a bit about Jin’s willing sacrifice creating a loophole in the ‘control program’ that was supposed to lock the GGGs down. Brandi and Bud were indeed under control – Jin was not. In this she seems to have used Mayahuel’s technique, which permitted Maya to shuck off the commands of the Lanthian priests, and escape with the calendar machine.
Jin was operating outside that framework – as “Tochtli”, and fianancial advisor to the immortal politicians and as Monica’s abuela, among others.
This may have to do with the fact that Jin voluntarily became a GG, with full knowledge (or at least, believing she had full knowledge) of the consequences.
I think the GG were brought in to play their part when called for. Jin joined them because that was what worked best in the past and Tepoz was keeping the GG drunk because it kept them docile and they were less dangerous that way. Mind you the whole thing was writtent very seat of the pants as Jin was one of the GG at first and was kept drunk as well and yet later she was the leader then truly an Overlord of things as the being who lived in the time loop 56 times.
My take on her troubles now and something that explains her face in panel 1 is this: She is living life now with no idea what is coming next and after 56 “do-overs” that has got to be scary.
I think that aside from the adreniline rush Alan was showing Jin, I think he could also have been showing her that even tho’ he’s not an indestructable clay golem, he’s not made of porcelain either.
Funny hm? In her quest to restore “normalcy” for the whole world, Jin has gambled and lost all several times, yet, when “normalcy” finally knocks at her door she cannot wholly grasp it.
I just love how much she complains about that it could have killed him, showing how much she really cares about. And being scared mainly for him and not for her own sake. (She still hates the cold of course.)
When I saw Jin’s face in panel one I thought she was looking at an avalanche heading towards them, or a horde of Yetis, or the Fenris Wolf, or something REALLY bad that endangered Alan and maybe even herself, not residual shock from the leap. Glad to see I was wrong. But it did make me think: What if Jin HAD seen something like that? She’s already hallucinating at times, how can she tell anymore what’s a real danger and what’s her mind playing tricks? I would suspect her only useable tactic would be to poit away from the perceived danger until it stopped following her or she could get independent verification as to its reality.
Hey, snow going people? Aren’t they suppose to have gloves or your fingers get frostbitten and fall off? (I’ve never seen snow but I have heard of it. Snow, not the finger thing, that is.)
well…snow usually happens around 30-40 degrees Fahrenheit (0-10 Celsius) . So yes prolonged exposure can get you frostbite, but it won’t happen as fast as I think you think it does. As for not seeing any snow ever, I suggest you remedy that ASAP. =D
grr..starting to hit post too soon… plus Jin can’t get frostbite since she is clay, and its hard to tell if Alan isn’t wearing gloves, or he might have taken them off after getting off the snowmobile.
I got frostbite or something very close to it riding a bicycle without gloves in 40-plus F weather. The wind-chill temperature (that is, the temperature you’d have to be exposed to in still air for a given effect) can be pretty dramatic … here’s a chart of windchills calculated by the latest method.
So, let’s say that the temp is 0C. Let’s say that they’re bucking a 15 KPH wind, and going, oh, 65KPH (not an unreasonable speed to assume the snowmobile would be capable of, i find online) for an effective wind of 80KPH.
That, according to the chart, gives -10C (about 14F), which, over not too much time, would likely do some damage to hands without gloves….
Oh, yeah – here’s a pic of a couple of snowmobiles doing something similar to (but likely just a bit more extreme than) what Alan pulled in the previous strip…
Damn, always forget about wind chill…. but I did say prolonged exposure. I could have meant 2 hours, or I could have meant 20 minutes. 😉
The way Ann described it made it sound like could happen in less than 2 minutes, and anything longer would cause the Hollywood effect, where your blood becomes ice and then you could shatter the body part by hitting it. Not saying it couldn’t happen, but why would you ever be outside without proper gear in conditions like that anyway?
“The way Ann described it made it sound like could happen in less than 2 minutes, and anything longer would cause the Hollywood effect, where your blood becomes ice and then you could shatter the body part by hitting it. Not saying it couldn’t happen, but why would you ever be outside without proper gear in conditions like that anyway?”–Kramegame
The Hollywood effect is almost impossible. If you stick your hand in liquid nitrogen it doesn’t freeze because your hand’s heat boils the nitrogen. (I think; it’s been a while.)
Those of us that live in this weather have, uh, skewed vision of what proper gear for the weather is. (I’m working with degrees F here because that’s what I’m used to.) It works kind of like this: in fall, as it gets colder, we bundle up a little. But because winter is such an annoyance, we try to avoid dressing for it until the last possible moment. When it gets into the 30s, we break out the hats, but gloves/mittens wait for the actual snow.
Midwinter (January/February) it gets really cold, easily reaching -15 and sometimes down to -30 or so. At that point we’re in hats, gloves, those poufy down coats that make everyone look fat, scarves, boots, and long underwear. All that just to go outside–annoying, huh?
After that, the weather starts warming up again, and we get a little crazy, since we just survived another midwinter. We’re ready for water, mud, and even colors other than black and white (even cars and houses get dingy because of road salt and too much snow). So as it warms up, we ditch the gear as fast as possible. Around 27 degrees the hats and gloves become optional.
(Little kids don’t do the same as us grownups, though–they get the full bundle-up from first snowflake to last drop of snowmelt).
As for Alan… you can’t be terribly expressive with gloves on. Plus they promote hand sweat, so taking them off every now and then lets your hands cool and dry off, which actually keeps them warmer. 😀
Windchill isn’t the most treacherous. It’s the false sense of warmth that a clear frosty day gives.
Wind-chill is so bloody cold that no-one voluntarily strips off gloves, shawls and the like, however, clear sky, a nice bit of sun, and it can feel much warmer than it actually is, so, one tends to shed clothes…buuuut, That’s the point where frostbite can be dangerous.
(windchill can get Your extremities frost-bitten, but only if dressed inappropriate..say, All Stars in -10C..for Your fashion-sense, You’ll get some un-fashionable frozen toe-ends after a short while, especially when cycling to school, like most kids overhere do..)
Danzier you misunderstood me, I wasn’t saying that the Hollywood effect could happen, (do you really think I would have called it that if I thought it could?) I was saying that frostbite can happen in less than two minutes. Also you’re correct about liquid nitrogen and I live in Northern New York, so I know those exact conditions you’re talking about, but I didn’t know about the gloves, so I’ll have to try that next time it gets cold. (It’s been warm enough for freezing rain, so when we don’t have too far to go, we’re [college students] in shorts and hoodies or other forms of sweaters)
Speaking from quite a bit of personal experience – i worked in a place where LN2 in litre Dewar flasks was common and the overall effective maturity level was about thirteen years – what happens is, not only does it boil off fast, but the vapour produced insulated you from almost all of the chill so it doesn’t even feel much colder than cold water.
A little LN2 sealed into a two-inch-square ziplock bag and left sitting innocently on the bottom shelf of a workbench makes a nice firecracker-like noise after you’ve had time to be somewhere else establishing an alibi.
Oh – and troubleshooting freeze spray (used to detect thermal intermittents by chilling/freezing components) can be used to freeze the back pocket of a pair of jeans. The cold will not penetrate to the flesh a couple of layers below until you’ve had time to make your escape…
Hey, Fairportfan – If you’re going to borrow somebody’s ideas, it’s courteous to give them credit for it!
“razors pain you;… ” is from the brilliant mind of Dorothy Parker. Give the lady her props!
My ears!.. My precious ears!.. Aaaargh! (reaches for ear-bleach)
Karaoke is the only true manifestation of satan on earth, something nabbed by him from the 4,5th th circle of Dante’s inferno. Bolgia 4,5 was actually meant for sins not yet invented, so karaoke would do fine….
Orb (by Boiled in Lead, a Twin Cities-based folk-punk band, and highly recommended) features a song titled “Tapedecks All Over Hell”, in which Dante Aligheri takes a bootleg of the protagonists’ latest song with him, and it becomes hugely popular.
They say verbalization of an act makes the brains of everyone involved focus on it, intensifying the action.
.
.
.
. I hear it also does wonders in bed. 😉
The Google Doodle today (6 March 2011) commemorates the great comics innovator Will Eisner (creator of The Spirit, victim of a “friend” who pissed on his grave with the movie version).
Comic-movie-creators are the ones that Be elzebub has made one pretty interesting bolgia:
Those comic-movie-creators (especially the “live action” kind) get ALL punishments of ALL bolgia’s rolled into one:
skinny-dipping in boiled blood, wearing nothing but a gold covered lead tabbard that gets even hotter than the boiling blood when they stand still, their heads screwed on backwards, pushing forward huge diamonds, while demons roam about to push sharp, pointy poles up their butts under a sky that constantly rains fire. Every two days they get swept up by huge winds and dropped from great height back into the boiling blood…
I think I covered all of it there… Yes ,I LOATHE all comic “based” or “inspired” movies..totally loathe them.
There we have to disagree; there have been a couple of really excellent such, and a few more that weren’t bad.
At one time Harlan Ellison and William Friedken were trying to develop a “Spirit” TV movie; it fell through. (There was one, but it wasn’\t theirs.)
And, before he made The Iron Giant and </The Incredibles, Brad Bird worked hard trying to sell the idea of an animated Spirit. No joy there, either.
Ans then Eisner’s alleged “friend”, who said he considered Eisner his mentor, and certainly borrowed a lot from Eisner in his early work for Marvel Comics … well, i’ve already emitted one vulgarism thinking about that film…
I just prefer the static, printed medium, or webcomic variation. For me, seeing comic characters animated mostly falls flat. “Live” versions flatten even worse. To me the only comics that do reasonably well on-screen, are those that already have a hefty cinematographic character like “Ghost in The Shell”, and are made by non-American/non-European movie-makers..
However, You’ll have to admit there are a load of shipwrecks about (mostly churned out by hollywood…say Aeon Flux..great cartoon serial, admittedly a “movie”, killed completely and utterly when made into a “live” version -ptoei!-, orrrr “catwoman” -hiss, hiss, hiss- or X-Men-booooh boooh, whistle ,whistle..) that are aching to mental torture.
Maybe I should nuance for a bit : ILOATHEhollywood produce as far as comic-movies go. They invariably rape the basic premise of a comic to make it palpatable for the average movie-going Joe and Jill. (Europeans are no better if it comes to trying to make grossing “adaptations’ see “Asterix and Obelix” for a horrible example)
It’s not something to agree-or disagree about, it’s just a personal preference.
I have to admit though that comic-movies are a pet-peeve of mine, the only one that didn’t immediately gave me a mental rash, was “Watchmen”, and even that one was skirting the bad side of hollywood-glitz dangerously close here&there.
Hrm..I should be clearer; it is the “adaptation’-part that pees me off in no uncertain way. The moment that word falls, my stomach sinks. (Like Ghost in the Shell that will have a “live’ -adaptation somewhere in 2012-read:b-rape by Spielberg-…bueeeerk.brrargfll..)
The Incredibles was nice, because it was fresh&new, and made as a movie. No adaptation anywhere.
I used to dream of Asterix live action films starring Terence Hill and “Bud Spencer” (when they were both young enough).
The upcoming Tintin film gives me the twitchies.
Altman’s Popeye was a fascinating case – i loved it, both of my wives love it, a lot of people hated it. But i observed at the time that the more you knew about comics in general and Thimble Theatre in particular, the more you were likely to like it…
I think the only adaptations I have seen were Popeye and Superman. Popeye was ok. Would have been aided by modern CGI probably. I liked the first Superman movie. I’ve seen a few of the original superman TV shows on the web and thought Christopher Reeves portrayal was much better than Steve Reeves. Steve wasn’t really all that “mild mannered.” After the first movie thougth, they went straight downhill. I don’t intend to watch the new one, for other reasons, however.
I could care less about any of the others, either the comic or game adaptations and never intend to watch any, not even The Incredibles. Well, that’s not quite true. I suppose if I tried really, really hard and put in a lot of effort, I could care even less.
Alan, you are the man.
The. Man.
He is way too cool to be human. Somethings up…
Naw, he just knows Jin quite well and what it takes to calm her. By now he’s pretty nonplussed by her rants. After you find out you’re GF is an indestructable golem who has been around for about 100,000 years (and accept it), nothing much else is gonna faze you.
Of course, the ring-o-doom may yet appear from his pocket. Hope not.
Hugs make everything better. :3
Except squids. Nothing can make something as awesome as squids better.
You are a strange, strange person.
Yes I am… :3
…and fit right in here.
Hugging squids?
Squids Looooooooooooove to hug. And hug. And hug. And hug. And hug. And, depending on species, hug.
Let’s be tangle-buddies!
The Hugging Squids of Lake Wazzapamani. Friendly, if a little disconcerting. Sort of the antithesis of the Shrieking Eels of the Florin Sea.
But I thought they were dormant in the winter months….
I’ve found hugs aren’t always the solution. Sometimes it just gives the other person a better angle to stab you.
Tsk, tsk, tsk, what a vue sombre on people..
There are nice people in the world too You know?
True. We call them the “stabees.” The un-nice being the stabbers.
I see..sooo..give me one good reason You haven’t jumped off some high bridge?
Acrophobia.
Because the low ones only break bones?
Guns are lawful some places 😛
Ms. Parker was, i believe, writing in 1930s New York.
http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=177
What a bunch of existentialists here.. 😆
“L enfer c’est l’autre” indeed….
Existentialism makes me want to become violent…I’m very NOT existentialist. 🙂
How many existentialists does it take to change a light bulb?
Two … one to bemoan the darkness until the other redefines something else as light.
What do you get when you cross the Godfather with a existentialist?
An offer you can’t understand.
I wouldn’t make much of an existentialist since I never use hypothetical situations … but let’s just say I did …
That strip is worthy of something you’d see over at Frog Applause. “Beak job” indeed… O_o
well robot pirates and zombie ninjas fighting while rideing on t rexes would not be made better by hugs either…mostly cause i am pretty sure you would die if you tried to hug any of them. *nods nods*
everyones goes out of context…. hugs are only for fiends.. 🙂
uggh, where is my EDIT???? 😛
-> friends…………..
Well, you’ll never know, maybe a hug for a fiend would redeem them… 😆
illiad–in this strip, friends…fiends…friends…fiends…what’s the difference?
I don’t know, fiends works for me if you hug hard enough. 😉
LOL 😀 😀 😛
Opus: as in “hug the hell out of them?” LOL!
Someone agrees with you. 🙂
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/namegame/8416-Name-Game-A-Messy-Relationship
Seeing as how “squids” is also one of the epithets used to refer to sailors (former Navy here) I disagree with the idea that hugs don’t make us better. 😀
You are strange. I like that.
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww… <3
I love her expression in the last panel!
Agreed! Jin’s expressions in the first and third panels are both wonderful. I feel all warm & fuzzy now.
Captain, there’s been a major malfunction and our shields have failed!
Love Jin’s face in the first panel!
and Alan: “Hug” whilst thinking to himself:”Like A Boss.”
yes Jin is definitely a goober. XD
D’aaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwww 🙂
Preeecisely. 🙂
Yup..sitting here, suffering paroxisms of “Daww-ness”
My thoughts exactly. 😛
Yes, not that any of it could have so much as bruised Jin, but she’s all wound up over the threat to Alan!
Growth, eh?
That may be why she was screaming in the previous comic. Fearful for Alan’s safety, not her own.
Indeed. The “anger” looks like the typical reaction of a worried and angry parent when a child does something hare-brained…
Me thinks HUG is the right reaction by Alan. Next thing will prolly’be a muffled “I do not want to lose You in some stupid accident” by Jin…
Orrr she will golem-power-kick him to Portland Or.
Quite possibly Alan was trying to get through to Jin about something that turns up a lot in SF and fantasy – the problem that immortal/extremely-long-lived characters and/or races have in understanding why anyone as ephemeral and fragile as a human takes the kind of risks that humans routinely do…
Because you take it for granted that you live as long as you live and you don’t let it worry you unduly … and you live.
I wonder how much of the risk taking has to do with the belief in an afterlife. If none of of believed in one, would we be much less prone to possibly throw our lives away? Would most of our effort go into trying to live longer and longer, striving for immortality?
Of course there is the theory that we’ve already done this and we, long ago, became “souls” and created an afterlife to inhabit. Then, finding being an immortal spirit wasn’t all we thought it would be, started inhabiting animal bodies from time to time.
Second part: interesting thought. Quite metaphysical in nature.
What we are now is the central question here hrm?
I love pondering reality. Although it hardly gets me anywhere 😆
Maybe we are just souls that hop from one existence to another.
On the other hand..If this life is all there is, there’s no use in not doing exiting stuff..You’ll never get a second chance to be exited…
To be honest, I have to admit that I am highly intrigued by f.i. Ray Kurzweil. Cooky as some of his projections on immortality may sound, they do open an intersting box of Pandora.
Without a major shift in our view of life, it would be absolute disaster for all of us to be certain of the existence of the afterlife and reincarnation. We would, as teens (or even younger), simply check out of the flesh hotel at our first heartbreak, hoping for better the next time around. Can’t stand going in to work? OD on pills and lounge around the glorious afterlife instead for a few hundred/thousand years. Eventually inhabit aniother body for a bit and enjoy pizza again. Anchovies??!! Slit your wrists on the spot.
Even the oldest possible civilization believes in afterlife of some kind.. It is just a reaction to death, to give some hope.. 😛
there was an old scifi series, that found a world where the existence of afterlife was *proved* – as a result, people got bored with life, and killed themselves to have a ‘better afterlife’ !!! 😮
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfkGIjXcQwg
That wasn’t quite the premise of “Sliders.”
No, the premise is in the youtube vid.. carefully chosen as the others dont show it …. :/
I was talking about *one* episode… 😛
People willingly killing themselves for a better afterlife has already happened several times..suicide-bombers, Jonestown, to name some.
There is of course quite the difference between knowing there is a glorious afterlife, and knowing You’ll live forever. The best illustration of the dangers/pitfalls of living forever was shown in some sci-fi story (cannot remember where I read it) where people were immortal, but came to nothing because “there was always plenty of time later”
They only started moving the moment they discovered their universe was doomed. Their looming mortality was the factor that got them to move forward at last.
So, all in all, mortality seems to have it’s uses.
Ah, I see. I recall one (I think from the new Twilight Zone series) in which everyone not only knew reincarnation was true, they remembered their past lives and were weighed down with past guilt. Suicide ran rampant for that reason and their present bad circumstances. This was seen through the narrative from a phychologist who, in the end, specialized in helping people forget their past lives. The twist was that she was “magically” transported to this world from the present in which she was helping people remember past lives.
The above comment was supposed to be @Illiad
heh.. have you never take a ‘newbie’ out to ‘extreme sports’ and watch their faces??
He makes a quick jump, that to him is as simple as walking.. to the fright of jin..
But she sees he is calm, so she stops… 🙂
I’ll bet she’ll want her own skidoo soon! 😛
Only if he also gets her a heated snowsuit.
Okay. Everyone said what I was gonna say, so I’ll just remark on Jin’s cute butt.
Do you drive the car with the “Golem Butts Drive Me Nuts!” bumpersticker on it?
Nope. That must have been me.
Yeah, I’m the one with the bumper sticker which reads:
……….I brake for Golems………
(so they won’t they break me)
Oh..Good thinking..gotta get me one of those (Hey Paul..an idea for extra revenue? Golem-joke bumperstickers?)
‘T is not the breaking that worries me, breaking can mostly be healed, it is the squishing into diamond and getting tossed in the general direction of the sun, car and all…
…..aaaaaaand now I know what her face looked like under the helmet! Thanks!
Knows how to treat a woman! Even if it is Jin
jin is still a woman 🙂
shes just wrapped in a clay golem package.
A little bit of body heat will keep you warm.
OK so how does Jin react?
.
That expression could lead to quite literally an unlimited number of possible reactions, including crying, dumping him for no reason, hugging him in a loving embrace, throwing a huge fart, smiling and saying “ok let’s have fun” and hitting him in the face with some snow, or having a long talk about her emotions as well as her .. um .. Greek chorus.
Yes, dumping him would be the cynical alternative. So, of course, that’s the one I’ll be going with. This episode may have impressed on her his mortality and she may begin to think it would be better to break it off soon than suffer the coming heartache.
nah she’s been through that with him already
OK Dora XD
OK OK honestly I don’t think she’d go so far out of left fucking field to dump him here and now. I mean that’d be stupid, and really depressing. I guess I’m just used to people responding in ways I don’t expect, don’t make sense, and basically un-train any social skills I still have.
I just hope she hugs back and smiles. UGH! The suspense is killing me.
aaaand, to make things even worse..it’s cliffhanger friday..a whole weekend of panicking about Jin and Alan ahead…:lol: 😆
If the world’s still here on Monday, I guess it worked-out allright…
… annnnddd – Monday’s strip will be about Katherine.
…and, if it is about Katherine, i’m gonna get lynched…
Not by me, I’m very curious what she will do to follow up on her last comments…
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/another-adventur/
(take note of what happens to the wallpaper)
Interesting point, Jabber. Could Katherine be manipulating the clues to this latest caper to find Monica a new adventure? Does she know more than it seems and is she smarter than she looks or acts? She’s in a good position to work behind the scenes.
From absolute terrified rambling to stunned silence in 4.3 seconds!
Yeah. Ain’t love the strangest thing?
That second frame made something very clear:
Jin really cares about Alan….
3rd frame? Dawwwwwww…
You know, it occurs to me…
Something I’ve thought about for some time. The love of Jin’s life was Monica’s grandfather. She’s probably been through that relationship almost as many times as she went through the time loop and knew each time it had to end. She’ll only ever have the one chance with Alan… that’s got to affect their relationship somehow.
I had not realized, until your comment, that Jin is transitioning from her “Oh, Christ, not again” world view to a ‘normal’ uncharted waters way of thinking.
I’ll have to rethink how I feel about her. Again.
Oddly enough, I’ve had this fanfic idea for some time about the end of the last time loop that involves Jin and Sully staying together and the wrong Monica being born, leading to complete chaos and death at the calendar machine site…
I’ve got an idea for a fan-fic that involves Shelly, Tina and Jaqui fighting a cadre of Dr. Zyn’s robot spies who are on Monster Island to steal technology from an ‘Independence Day’ UFO crashed by disruptions caused by Jack McClane in the air duct systems.
But I don’t have a hook.
It’s been done.
Dammitall! Oh, well, on to the next one…
…you should write that. It would be completely insane and rather awesome.
:gasp: You lost me at “I’ve got..” 😛
Could be a disaster, could also become an instant literary classic, popping-up in every book-list in High-school..
Hmmm, it is Friday, and I’ve got to do something to keep my Wapsi level for the next 48 hours…
Hook: If they don’t get it in an hour zombie robot mavericks take over the world and turn it into facebook live. (shudder)
Probably pretty much what happened in one or more of the 56 cycles that didn’t work out.
BrianX: nah, thats what they do with some serials… we gotta wind this up quickly, no loose ends…
eg SG1..
Yeah. Or Marvel’s Araña – Heart of the Spider – not only did they “wind it all up” in one double-sized issue by a different writer, but the way they did it completely invalidated everything that went before.
(And now they’ve “revived” the character – except now she has Spider-Man-like superpowers, instead of being a {physically, anyway} more-or-less normal teenager…)
Oooh..good one! :thumbs:
This is undiscovered territory for her. For once in 10.500(give or take a few) years, history isn’t repeating.. i imagine that the recent “fix” of the creepy clock will give her that one important human feeling back: Hope.
Actually 81,200. Give ot take a year.
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/fiftysixtimes/
Bud and Brandi are the kids at 12,000 yo. Jin and Mayahuel were already long lived at the time they were made into golem.
So Jin could be close to 100,000…
100,000???? And I was admiring her butt…I feel dirty…
What? You don’t like older women?
Older is one thing. Ancient is quite another.
^^ That..
Jin is one serious cougar…
I thought she was the snake. 😛
…and, man, can she give you a hug…
hey, *chronological* age means nothing, when **everything else** is about 18…
As I recall she said she had to give him up 7 times in all.
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/nofoolin/
Though there may have been cycles when she didn’t give him up and things didn’t go properly. Still, I don’t think she had an affair with him every time.
Indeed.
I can imagine that she desperately tried several approaches to get the calendar machine fixed, love being only a couple of times the “mistake” that upset all..
She even tried to keep Shelly away from her to prevent a repeat of a former debacle, however much she liked her as a friend.
Though, come to think of it, however much she refuses to aknowledge it, Jin’s been consistently motivated by “love”
Love for humanity, love for Brandy and Bud, love for those she considers friends etc.
If she were real, I would really admire her for still refusing to give up on “love” despite being betrayed seriously by someone she loved.
She’s reluctant, true, but tenacious in her refusal to give up and just hang her head, also.
Well..’s just my $0.02
That’s why I waffle so much on Jin.
She’s quite a pill to be around. Between her crazies and her all knowing cynicism, and then you find she’s lived that unforgiving Myst puzzle for 56 times. All she’s had to do and experience and give up. And my heart melts for her.
And then she acts like a prick again, and you’re mad at her…
That’s called “love” 🙂 It’s the inevitable result of very good writing of a character.
No people can be more maddening than the ones you love (read that somewhere)
Oh, hell. I’m in love with Jin?
I do realize it’s the level of writing on this strip. I read a handfull of web comics and this is only one I comment on. It’s the only one where the characters feel as real as my actual friends do…
10+ years and 2159 comics (including guest comics) will do that to you.
It means that – despite how little she believes it, much less others – she’s human.
A Very Special Case of human.
But human.
I’ve been reading this strip for a while.
When did Jin do the “Alan, there’s something about me you should know…” talk?
when bud let him in and she stabbed herself with a kitchen knife and turned the knife into paper mache
from what i recall he wasnt bothered about her being an imortal golem rather he was bothered about her acting loopy just to make him go away so she wouldnt be hurt.
*jin stabbed herself
and
*hurt emotionally
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/expectinganyone/
Start here and read on, McDuff…
he wouldnt have been killed
jin would have prolly poited them in case of an accident
but its nice to know she cares 🙂
Argument over, move directly to the ‘making up’ phase.
All this talk of Jin’s manipulations and time loops and all brings up what to me is a glaring plot hole in the whole thing. Maybe I’m just not understanding it right.
Tepoz brought forth the 3 Golem Girls as drunk college students, doing it on kind of a whim. It seems they were in “storage” before that. This included Jin, as if she had been in storage as well. Yet, we know, she was already on the scene causing things to happen the whole time before he did that (and after). Also she said shen had been feeding Tepoz false info. to make him do what she wanted as well. It doesn’t add up. Where am I going wrong here?
Isn’t Jin also “Tochtli”?
-A physical-body independent entity?- Inhabiting an inert clay golem somewhere in time, or even just clay, wouldn’t stop her/him/it in that case.
I wonder if it was constantly the “Jin” shell we see, that did the manipulating.
It could be that Jin is an amalgamate of “Jin”, the girl that died to prevent powerful forces mis-using a chimera, and the deity “Tochtli” that has been busy trying to prevent calendar-machine-like mishaps for far longer in many more shapes…
As I understood it, to make the chimera inert, Tepoz split it up and created the current looks of the golems on a whim.
*indeed on a whim
I am sorry that I don’t have time to hunt the links, but there has been a bit about Jin’s willing sacrifice creating a loophole in the ‘control program’ that was supposed to lock the GGGs down. Brandi and Bud were indeed under control – Jin was not. In this she seems to have used Mayahuel’s technique, which permitted Maya to shuck off the commands of the Lanthian priests, and escape with the calendar machine.
But Topez thought she was under control.
Hadn’t gotten this far before i typed my comment…
Jin was operating outside that framework – as “Tochtli”, and fianancial advisor to the immortal politicians and as Monica’s abuela, among others.
This may have to do with the fact that Jin voluntarily became a GG, with full knowledge (or at least, believing she had full knowledge) of the consequences.
And she did it fifty-six times.
Arrrgh.
Note to self: Remember to put the </i> after you put the <i>, dumbass.
I think the GG were brought in to play their part when called for. Jin joined them because that was what worked best in the past and Tepoz was keeping the GG drunk because it kept them docile and they were less dangerous that way. Mind you the whole thing was writtent very seat of the pants as Jin was one of the GG at first and was kept drunk as well and yet later she was the leader then truly an Overlord of things as the being who lived in the time loop 56 times.
My take on her troubles now and something that explains her face in panel 1 is this: She is living life now with no idea what is coming next and after 56 “do-overs” that has got to be scary.
So, was the ski jump anywhere near the 131m and 134m jumps Gregor Schlierenzauer did yesterday to win the world championship? 😀
Nah, it was somewhere between “slightly annoyed”-meter, and “scared shitless” -meter
Prolly more like Norwegian and Swedish unlimited rally car “yumping”…
(I love Wikipedia! I just knew there’s be an entry before i even typed that sentence…)
Well, if it’s anything like they’re doing pancakes I’m not surprised… 😉
okay, I’ve watched all the Epic Meal Time videos, and some of the parodies, but I’ve never had to stop watching one before….Swedes are twisted.
Ditto on the “Aaawwwwww.”
I think that aside from the adreniline rush Alan was showing Jin, I think he could also have been showing her that even tho’ he’s not an indestructable clay golem, he’s not made of porcelain either.
And, of course, he just plain loves her.
That, while he lives, he’s going to live. And that, if she loves him, she’s gotta understand that.
Alan is one rock-solid dude – he knows exactly what Jin needs. Hugs. Security. Normalcy.
Funny hm? In her quest to restore “normalcy” for the whole world, Jin has gambled and lost all several times, yet, when “normalcy” finally knocks at her door she cannot wholly grasp it.
exactly. most insanity is caused by the lack of normalcy.
panel #1: Best. Face. Ever.
Well played, good sir, well played indeed.
I just love how much she complains about that it could have killed him, showing how much she really cares about. And being scared mainly for him and not for her own sake. (She still hates the cold of course.)
that and she knows that it wouldn’t have killed her.
Even more than her facial expression, i love what her left hand says about the action in the final panel.
Foul! Alan isn’t fighting fair… ^_^
When I saw Jin’s face in panel one I thought she was looking at an avalanche heading towards them, or a horde of Yetis, or the Fenris Wolf, or something REALLY bad that endangered Alan and maybe even herself, not residual shock from the leap. Glad to see I was wrong. But it did make me think: What if Jin HAD seen something like that? She’s already hallucinating at times, how can she tell anymore what’s a real danger and what’s her mind playing tricks? I would suspect her only useable tactic would be to poit away from the perceived danger until it stopped following her or she could get independent verification as to its reality.
nope. I’ll bet she would just say “oh, you again..” 🙂
The scream is from the ‘lizard brain’ shock of falling..
Despite being female, I have a mean anti-mushy streak in me. Still, I must say… these two are cute.
I like how she specifies “*you* could’ve been killed.”
Well, she’s had fifty-six trips through the loop to accept that she can’t be killed … or even (physically) injured.
Love Is…
Scaring Your Nigh-Immortal Squeeze Nearly Half To Death.
Ha! I love those!
I just love how he says hug. It’s so cute!
Hey, snow going people? Aren’t they suppose to have gloves or your fingers get frostbitten and fall off? (I’ve never seen snow but I have heard of it. Snow, not the finger thing, that is.)
well…snow usually happens around 30-40 degrees Fahrenheit (0-10 Celsius) . So yes prolonged exposure can get you frostbite, but it won’t happen as fast as I think you think it does. As for not seeing any snow ever, I suggest you remedy that ASAP. =D
grr..starting to hit post too soon… plus Jin can’t get frostbite since she is clay, and its hard to tell if Alan isn’t wearing gloves, or he might have taken them off after getting off the snowmobile.
I got frostbite or something very close to it riding a bicycle without gloves in 40-plus F weather. The wind-chill temperature (that is, the temperature you’d have to be exposed to in still air for a given effect) can be pretty dramatic … here’s a chart of windchills calculated by the latest method.
So, let’s say that the temp is 0C. Let’s say that they’re bucking a 15 KPH wind, and going, oh, 65KPH (not an unreasonable speed to assume the snowmobile would be capable of, i find online) for an effective wind of 80KPH.
That, according to the chart, gives -10C (about 14F), which, over not too much time, would likely do some damage to hands without gloves….
Oh, yeah – here’s a pic of a couple of snowmobiles doing something similar to (but likely just a bit more extreme than) what Alan pulled in the previous strip…
Damn, always forget about wind chill…. but I did say prolonged exposure. I could have meant 2 hours, or I could have meant 20 minutes. 😉
The way Ann described it made it sound like could happen in less than 2 minutes, and anything longer would cause the Hollywood effect, where your blood becomes ice and then you could shatter the body part by hitting it. Not saying it couldn’t happen, but why would you ever be outside without proper gear in conditions like that anyway?
“The way Ann described it made it sound like could happen in less than 2 minutes, and anything longer would cause the Hollywood effect, where your blood becomes ice and then you could shatter the body part by hitting it. Not saying it couldn’t happen, but why would you ever be outside without proper gear in conditions like that anyway?”–Kramegame
The Hollywood effect is almost impossible. If you stick your hand in liquid nitrogen it doesn’t freeze because your hand’s heat boils the nitrogen. (I think; it’s been a while.)
Those of us that live in this weather have, uh, skewed vision of what proper gear for the weather is. (I’m working with degrees F here because that’s what I’m used to.) It works kind of like this: in fall, as it gets colder, we bundle up a little. But because winter is such an annoyance, we try to avoid dressing for it until the last possible moment. When it gets into the 30s, we break out the hats, but gloves/mittens wait for the actual snow.
Midwinter (January/February) it gets really cold, easily reaching -15 and sometimes down to -30 or so. At that point we’re in hats, gloves, those poufy down coats that make everyone look fat, scarves, boots, and long underwear. All that just to go outside–annoying, huh?
After that, the weather starts warming up again, and we get a little crazy, since we just survived another midwinter. We’re ready for water, mud, and even colors other than black and white (even cars and houses get dingy because of road salt and too much snow). So as it warms up, we ditch the gear as fast as possible. Around 27 degrees the hats and gloves become optional.
(Little kids don’t do the same as us grownups, though–they get the full bundle-up from first snowflake to last drop of snowmelt).
As for Alan… you can’t be terribly expressive with gloves on. Plus they promote hand sweat, so taking them off every now and then lets your hands cool and dry off, which actually keeps them warmer. 😀
Sorry for the novel-post…
Windchill isn’t the most treacherous. It’s the false sense of warmth that a clear frosty day gives.
Wind-chill is so bloody cold that no-one voluntarily strips off gloves, shawls and the like, however, clear sky, a nice bit of sun, and it can feel much warmer than it actually is, so, one tends to shed clothes…buuuut, That’s the point where frostbite can be dangerous.
(windchill can get Your extremities frost-bitten, but only if dressed inappropriate..say, All Stars in -10C..for Your fashion-sense, You’ll get some un-fashionable frozen toe-ends after a short while, especially when cycling to school, like most kids overhere do..)
Danzier you misunderstood me, I wasn’t saying that the Hollywood effect could happen, (do you really think I would have called it that if I thought it could?) I was saying that frostbite can happen in less than two minutes. Also you’re correct about liquid nitrogen and I live in Northern New York, so I know those exact conditions you’re talking about, but I didn’t know about the gloves, so I’ll have to try that next time it gets cold. (It’s been warm enough for freezing rain, so when we don’t have too far to go, we’re [college students] in shorts and hoodies or other forms of sweaters)
Speaking from quite a bit of personal experience – i worked in a place where LN2 in litre Dewar flasks was common and the overall effective maturity level was about thirteen years – what happens is, not only does it boil off fast, but the vapour produced insulated you from almost all of the chill so it doesn’t even feel much colder than cold water.
A little LN2 sealed into a two-inch-square ziplock bag and left sitting innocently on the bottom shelf of a workbench makes a nice firecracker-like noise after you’ve had time to be somewhere else establishing an alibi.
Oh – and troubleshooting freeze spray (used to detect thermal intermittents by chilling/freezing components) can be used to freeze the back pocket of a pair of jeans. The cold will not penetrate to the flesh a couple of layers below until you’ve had time to make your escape…
heard of Gortex?? keeps you warm, and lets the moisture out.. 🙂
If you jump one comic back you clearly can see that jin is wearing gloves 😉 while holding tight to alan
Yes, but Jin isn’t the one I was questioning, it was Alan. there is still no definite proof that he is wearing gloves.
So, you’re going to go snowmobiling, without gloves, and try to put those hands on Jin?/
You’d be the next diamond in the jar.
“Hug”
Reminds me of anime – you know: “Crazy-ass screaming loonie half-gainer left pinky to the third rib attack!”
Hey, Fairportfan – If you’re going to borrow somebody’s ideas, it’s courteous to give them credit for it!
“razors pain you;… ” is from the brilliant mind of Dorothy Parker. Give the lady her props!
I’m sorry – i presented it as a quote, and i assumed most people likely to see it here would know the source.
Um I really need to find me an Alan. NOW.
Mon pays, c’est ne pas un pays, c’est l’hiver!”
I think that that is Alan’s theme song.
[for the ligually challenged: “My land is not a country, it is winter”
lingually challenged
when it comes to typos, we are all lingually challenged.
Yeah. tpynig whit yuor tnogue is drah.
You’re doing it all wrong. You type with your nose, and use your tongue to hold down the shift key…
Fairportfan, with that avatar, typing with your tongue is cheating….
Heh.
Actually, i wasn’t thinking about that when i typed the comment…
(Please note that this avatar is not Pibgorn…)
Would that be a tongue-in-cheat comment?
Fell outta my chair Laughin’when I first saw Jin’s face.
…..and Jin does have a great Tush.
Dang! Didn’t mean to copycat anyone. Should’ve read the other comments FIRST, Sorry.
………..But Jin DOES have a great-looking A**.
♪♪♪ You’re snow bunni ’til some bunni loves you … ♪♫♪
Have we degenerated to karaoke?
(grabs mike)
I poit a glyph on you, because you’re mine,
Better stop your poitin’ around,
I ain’t lyin’..,,
My ears!.. My precious ears!.. Aaaargh! (reaches for ear-bleach)
Karaoke is the only true manifestation of satan on earth, something nabbed by him from the 4,5th th circle of Dante’s inferno. Bolgia 4,5 was actually meant for sins not yet invented, so karaoke would do fine….
Heh. Music from Hell, huh?
Orb (by Boiled in Lead, a Twin Cities-based folk-punk band, and highly recommended) features a song titled “Tapedecks All Over Hell”, in which Dante Aligheri takes a bootleg of the protagonists’ latest song with him, and it becomes hugely popular.
“…i’ve got a music award i don’t wanna see…”
Touring in support is probably Right Out.
Here’s a link to the MP3 on Amazon…
I just love that Alan actually said the word “hug” while doing the act.
They say verbalization of an act makes the brains of everyone involved focus on it, intensifying the action.
.
.
.
. I hear it also does wonders in bed. 😉
That is the best answer ever! You got a nerdy science reference in AND related it to sex.
The Google Doodle today (6 March 2011) commemorates the great comics innovator Will Eisner (creator of The Spirit, victim of a “friend” who pissed on his grave with the movie version).
Eisner pretty much created the current graphic conventions used in comic storytelling.
Comic-movie-creators are the ones that Be elzebub has made one pretty interesting bolgia:
Those comic-movie-creators (especially the “live action” kind) get ALL punishments of ALL bolgia’s rolled into one:
skinny-dipping in boiled blood, wearing nothing but a gold covered lead tabbard that gets even hotter than the boiling blood when they stand still, their heads screwed on backwards, pushing forward huge diamonds, while demons roam about to push sharp, pointy poles up their butts under a sky that constantly rains fire. Every two days they get swept up by huge winds and dropped from great height back into the boiling blood…
I think I covered all of it there… Yes ,I LOATHE all comic “based” or “inspired” movies..totally loathe them.
Niven and Purnell are true geniuses!
There we have to disagree; there have been a couple of really excellent such, and a few more that weren’t bad.
At one time Harlan Ellison and William Friedken were trying to develop a “Spirit” TV movie; it fell through. (There was one, but it wasn’\t theirs.)
And, before he made The Iron Giant and </The Incredibles, Brad Bird worked hard trying to sell the idea of an animated Spirit. No joy there, either.
Ans then Eisner’s alleged “friend”, who said he considered Eisner his mentor, and certainly borrowed a lot from Eisner in his early work for Marvel Comics … well, i’ve already emitted one vulgarism thinking about that film…
I just prefer the static, printed medium, or webcomic variation. For me, seeing comic characters animated mostly falls flat. “Live” versions flatten even worse. To me the only comics that do reasonably well on-screen, are those that already have a hefty cinematographic character like “Ghost in The Shell”, and are made by non-American/non-European movie-makers..
However, You’ll have to admit there are a load of shipwrecks about (mostly churned out by hollywood…say Aeon Flux..great cartoon serial, admittedly a “movie”, killed completely and utterly when made into a “live” version -ptoei!-, orrrr “catwoman” -hiss, hiss, hiss- or X-Men-booooh boooh, whistle ,whistle..) that are aching to mental torture.
Maybe I should nuance for a bit : ILOATHE hollywood produce as far as comic-movies go. They invariably rape the basic premise of a comic to make it palpatable for the average movie-going Joe and Jill. (Europeans are no better if it comes to trying to make grossing “adaptations’ see “Asterix and Obelix” for a horrible example)
It’s not something to agree-or disagree about, it’s just a personal preference.
I have to admit though that comic-movies are a pet-peeve of mine, the only one that didn’t immediately gave me a mental rash, was “Watchmen”, and even that one was skirting the bad side of hollywood-glitz dangerously close here&there.
Hrm..I should be clearer; it is the “adaptation’-part that pees me off in no uncertain way. The moment that word falls, my stomach sinks. (Like Ghost in the Shell that will have a “live’ -adaptation somewhere in 2012-read:b-rape by Spielberg-…bueeeerk.brrargfll..)
The Incredibles was nice, because it was fresh&new, and made as a movie. No adaptation anywhere.
I used to dream of Asterix live action films starring Terence Hill and “Bud Spencer” (when they were both young enough).
The upcoming Tintin film gives me the twitchies.
Altman’s Popeye was a fascinating case – i loved it, both of my wives love it, a lot of people hated it. But i observed at the time that the more you knew about comics in general and Thimble Theatre in particular, the more you were likely to like it…
I think the only adaptations I have seen were Popeye and Superman. Popeye was ok. Would have been aided by modern CGI probably. I liked the first Superman movie. I’ve seen a few of the original superman TV shows on the web and thought Christopher Reeves portrayal was much better than Steve Reeves. Steve wasn’t really all that “mild mannered.” After the first movie thougth, they went straight downhill. I don’t intend to watch the new one, for other reasons, however.
I could care less about any of the others, either the comic or game adaptations and never intend to watch any, not even The Incredibles. Well, that’s not quite true. I suppose if I tried really, really hard and put in a lot of effort, I could care even less.