Upcoming new bunny comics i.e. Minna’s next work

[Dilandu]

Sorry for delay - was on vacation)

And so we have a new, exiting episode of "Zealous Squirrel Adventures":

* Squirrel/fox/whatever is a worst prophet ever. Really, she/he basically could not open its mouth without offending someone. Celestial Lamb clearly should hire better televangelist to preach "let's go uphill!"

* Minna have zero understanding how wolf's pack operates. She is hopelessly under the outdated "alpha male" concept.

* She also does not realize, that predator species - like wolves - have in-build blocks against in-specie violence. The dominance/submission behavior exists specifically so wolves could avoid actually fighting to death (which would inevitably cause disabilitating injuries for the victor, too). The last thing sapient wolves may think about is killing the leader - father/gandfater/uncle for the most of the pack! - for stepping down from his position.

* The largest wolf pack in recorded history was only 37 wolves. Minna apparently have zero clue, how hard is to feed a hundred (!) of large predators. Especially if the prey is sapient, and could defend itself much more efficiently.

* The wolf leader is essentially the only characters around, with whom I could sympathise. He is calm, intelligent, and knew when to fold it. I wish he eat the annoying squirrel in finale)

P.S. It would be utterly hilarious, if the next comics would be like that: squirrel, assuming himself/herself/whatever safe, praise the Celestial Lamb... and then wolves return with beavers in company)

[dmeck7755]

* Squirrel/fox/whatever is a worst prophet ever. Really, she/he basically could not open its mouth without offending someone. Celestial Lamb clearly should hire better televangelist to preach "let's go uphill!"

Yeah for someone/thing that is supposed to be righteous, it is a rather annoying nasty prick...

* The wolf leader is essentially the only characters around, with whom I could sympathise. He is calm, intelligent, and knew when to fold it. I wish he eat the annoying squirrel in finale)

Which may be why he is the leader.  Calm head..smart .  Yeah the squirrel can go (though in the drawings it looks like a bunny...)

P.S. It would be utterly hilarious, if the next comics would be like that: squirrel, assuming himself/herself/whatever safe, praise the Celestial Lamb... and then wolves return with beavers in company)

LOL

[Dilandu]

(though in the drawings it looks like a bunny...)

Frankly, I initially thought it's a fox. And yeah, it looks like bunny, too. Doubt that Minna really put much efforts into this character.

[thorny]

As I think I more or less said earlier: some of Minna's artistic ability seems to have packed up and deserted this comic. The only thing remotely squirrelly about that creature is its tail.

Agreeing that she has no idea how a wolf pack works.

And does that squirrel, or whatever it is, actually think -- or rather, does Minna actually think that the squirrel gave the wolves any reason to follow the squirrel, or to go uphill, or anything else? It's just 'come with me' and no reasons why. And why would wolves want to "walk in the light"? They're mostly nocturnal. That's a disincentive, not an incentive.

Oh, and squirrels get moisture from dew and from their food, as well as from drinking from pools of it. If there's plenty to eat in that tree, then there's water in the leaves and in the food, and probably dew on the leaves in the morning. I suppose that without the flood (is that flood supposed to be divine intervention?) a squirrel stuck up in a tree might eventually die of thirst, but it would take quite a long time if it happened at all.

[Dilandu]

And does that squirrel, or whatever it is, actually think -- or rather, does Minna actually think that the squirrel gave the wolves any reason to follow the squirrel, or to go uphill, or anything else? It's just 'come with me' and no reasons why. And why would wolves want to "walk in the light"? They're mostly nocturnal. That's a disincentive, not an incentive.

That's a big problem with "realistic animal concept" she chose for this comics. We expect a - more or less! - realistic animal behavior from the realistically-drawn animals. And "animals are metaphorical humans" just didn't work here at all.

Oh, and squirrels get moisture from dew and from their food, as well as from drinking from pools of it. If there's plenty to eat in that tree, then there's water in the leaves and in the food, and probably dew on the leaves in the morning. I suppose that without the flood (is that flood supposed to be divine intervention?) a squirrel stuck up in a tree might eventually die of thirst, but it would take quite a long time if it happened at all.

Yep, the wolves would be out of commission long before that. They are predators, and their food require much more efforts and energy to catch. Sitting around the tree and waiting till the squirrel ate every single nut & leaves... it's basically suicide for wolves.

[thorny]

I suppose the theory might be that one or two wolves could stay at the tree while the others went hunting, and the hunting wolves could bring some back for the tree guarders, and/or they could take turns. But the whole thing still doesn't make any sense.

[LetsEatBees]

Okay i'm still kinda confused on why people keep trying to apply realism to this comic, it was pretty obvious from the opening chapter this is going to be a story about ideas and heavily allegorical, realistic animals are being used because they provide useful short-hand and are visually interesting(as well I've noticed that Minnas' back-catalogue of work consists mostly of animals drawn in a similar style).
I think the only reason people are thinking this way is because in SSSS there was some thought put into how it's world works(less in some areas than others) and didn't really try to explore much in the way of themes or ideas, it was a very literal story. Personally I don't the realistic animals detract that much from the message, it reminds me a lot of fables, but I do think the kinds of animals don't really tie in that much to what they represent(outside of the celestial lamb) but it's still early and I feel it might become more thematically important later, who knows.

[LetsEatBees]

Something that I picked up on as well, that I think thorny also mentioned, is I think the wolves were sacrificing the squirrel probably as a reference to human sacrifice, that and the use of a coin flip to decide if the squirrel lives or dies I think the wolves are stand ins for pagans or non-Christians that worship (what Minna/her sect believe to be) chaotic amoral gods, their ceremonial garb is further evidence.
The water appearing for the squirrel I think is meant to represent the common theme in Christianity of that those believe in god and follow Christ will be protected from hardship and enemies, or receive great rewards in times of need.
The horse from earlier I think represents those that give in to despair on their journey to find/understand god, or just for one reason or another have lost faith, what I find interesting about him is that I don't think the story frames him as evil just kind of sad and as an example of someone who couldn't go on.
The biggest questions I have are about the way station the group finds themselves at, we don't get much information before the flashback and i'm interested about the staff there.

[Jitter]

LetEatBees, in the main story it seems to be less important what animals they are since there is at least one family consisting lf at least three species. But in this part it’s clearly intended that wolves are this and rabbits are that.

I think it’s more for the heck of it than actually trying to work out what each animal species means, but just because they could be used to represent something (shorthand like you say) it adds to the confusion that they are and are not the animal they are drawn as.

I lost mu train of thought. I’m sure you are right that this is not intended to depict these animals as animals, but it’s still a mess.

[thorny]

Okay i'm still kinda confused on why people keep trying to apply realism to this comic, it was pretty obvious from the opening chapter this is going to be a story about ideas and heavily allegorical, realistic animals are being used because they provide useful short-hand and are visually interesting

I addressed this to some extent earlier:

I suspect Minna's not thinking in any real way of her creatures in this story being of any species other than human; I think they're just supposed to be standins for Timid Humans, Predatory Humans, and so on. (Which also explains all the gear they haven't the hands to make or use, and also the wolves treating their pack member as one of the nastier sorts of human king; complete with having two of them stand there and fan him.) This is definitely a style of Talking Animal Writing; it just happens to be one that I strongly dislike. I'm in favor of humans putting other species in their/our writings: but they ought to be, as much as we can manage, actual other species, whether they speak human languages or not. If not at least trying to pull that off, IMO, just make them humans.

And to add -- I don't see how they provide useful shorthand if they're depicted as massively uncharacteristic of their species. What is useful shorthand about making a squirrel a preacher? Depicting Jesus as a lamb at least has a lot of history behind it; as does depicting wolves as evil murderers, however inaccurately; but if there's any established shorthand explaining the squirrels and the rabbits and the horse and the birds in this story, it's not established well enough for me to know it.

Plus which, if the "visual interest" is a matter of trying to figure out what species a creature's supposed to be, because the squirrel's drawn so poorly that some of us mistake it for a rabbit and at least one of us thought it was a fox: that adds to the confusion, in a fashion rather the reverse of "visual shorthand". Minna's capable of very clear and massively detailed artwork, as she proved over and over again in SSSS -- but, for whatever reason, she's not producing it in these talking-animal comics.

[Dilandu]

Okay i'm still kinda confused on why people keep trying to apply realism to this comic, it was pretty obvious from the opening chapter this is going to be a story about ideas and heavily allegorical, realistic animals are being used because they provide useful short-hand and are visually interesting(as well I've noticed that Minnas' back-catalogue of work consists mostly of animals drawn in a similar style).
I think the only reason people are thinking this way is because in SSSS there was some thought put into how it's world works(less in some areas than others) and didn't really try to explore much in the way of themes or ideas, it was a very literal story. Personally I don't the realistic animals detract that much from the message, it reminds me a lot of fables, but I do think the kinds of animals don't really tie in that much to what they represent(outside of the celestial lamb) but it's still early and I feel it might become more thematically important later, who knows.

To put it simply - because whatever allegories Minna wanted to implement here, they aren't working. A large part is because she apparently could not decide, how much realism she wanted here. For example: the opening basically states that predation is kinda like sin (we have a horse trying to ate cat, for example...), so presumably predators here are capable of eating plants and not hunting other sapient animals. Okay. But on later pages Minna resort to the staple of furry's fandom - that "good" predators should eat fish (which is for some reason non-sapient), instead of hunting other sapient animals. So what exactly Minna is trying to tell us?

Such inconsistences are all around comics. And they ruin all the allegories Minna tried to implement here.

[LetsEatBees]

I got the impression that it was violence toward each other not predation that was the equivalent to sin, because I distinctly remember a scene where a deer crushes a nest of eggs and doesn't eat them as well we're shown a pile of corpses that merely killed, cannibalism is the culmination of their evil. I don't see the fact that carnivores eat non-sapient sea food as some kind of inconsistency because humans only eat non-sapient animals as well, it singles out what happened in the flashback AS cannibalism (or even a stand in for other kinds of evil).
Did people really look at the semi-realistic animal designs and think "Oh this is going to be like call of the wild or warrior cats", because it's dumb to get mad at a story that does not do things that were never it's stated goal or intention, because to be brutally honest, these are nit picks. What were people here expecting?
I remember I think around when Lovely People was first announced and we got the character art that some people were lamenting that Minna was moving away from realistic humans in her future work, and I can't help but get the impression that this is related to that disappointment.
But to make an even bolder claim; I think some people are just don't like that it's a christian work(nominally as of now) they just dislike it on principle but since "It's bad because it's christian" sounds stupid and doesn't offer much material to complain about they have to find problems and make small problems somehow worse than they are.
I don't love Journey Upstream, but it's already better than Lovely People, most of us are here because of SSSS myself included and i'm dissapointed that it's over, but I can't generate any hate for this comic either.

[Dilandu]

I don't see the fact that carnivores eat non-sapient sea food as some kind of inconsistency because humans only eat non-sapient animals as well, it singles out what happened in the flashback AS cannibalism (or even a stand in for other kinds of evil).

Think about it. Predators eating non-sapient fish meant that they are designed & build for predation. Now put those predators away from sea - on the Celestial Lamb first plot - and think, what they are supposed to eat here? Besides other sapient animals, you know...

[LetsEatBees]

Think about this, we see tiger eat a mushroom in the "Garden of Eden", as well the first instances of violence/cannibalism were done by herbivores so it has nothing to do with their design, we don't actually know who or what created these animals, for all we know carnivores don't look like that for any reason and them eating each other is just this worlds version of eve eating the apple and getting humans kicked out of eden.
The fact remains that eating the talking animals was apparently not what carnivores or herbivores were meant to do.
Dilandu I am curious about what your expectations for this comic were, you seem to think realism is the most important part of this piece of fiction.
This is all disappointing to me because it's the least interesting thing to be talking about, when I heard about the premise I thought people would get more upset about it's messages or ideas stuff about human nature or the flaws in how people see the world or just something. This is just the weirdest thing people could get hung up on.
Conversations about feasibility and how things function in these worlds was common during SSSS and there it made more sense because that was something Minna focused on, and lets be honest Stand Still was light on themes or meaning,(even then I got bored of it sometimes, we put way more thought into it then Minna did).

(Incidentally some sects of Christianity genuinely believe that carnivorous animals did not eat meat when they lived in the garden of eden, only after the fall did they start, like how humans needed to work the land and die after the fall)(I think that might be a coincidence in this case)

[Dilandu]

Dilandu I am curious about what your expectations for this comic were, you seem to think realism is the most important part of this piece of fiction.

I think that this piece of fiction is a confusing mess of annoying preaching, allegories that didn't work and nonexistent worldbuilding. I fail to see, why I can't poke some well-deserved holes in it. Without my commentaries, there would be zero discussion about "Journey Upstream" anyway