Latest Page Discussions/Comic Update Chitchat

[JoB]

*cue series of Minnions all channeling their inner Edna Mode and going, “No capes!”*

I'm still amazed they came up with a character whose name is "Edna Mode" working in a business that's called "fashion" in English but "Mode" in German (and, of course, same or close in several other languages).

Yes, that gives me the perk to reply to "no capes!" with "ist aus der Mode!" (out of fashion) etc..

[thorny]

Thanks for input, Róisín. Maybe capes do make sense after all. I've just got them associated with superheros, I think; and one of the things I like about this strip is that it's so non-superhero-ey.

       ETA: sometimes I like superhero stuff, too. But it's a pleasure to sometimes read comics that aren't like that.

-- JoB, "mode" can mean "fashion" in English, also; though I think it's currently less common.

[Róisín]

'Mode' is fashion in English and also French.

And thorny, the thing with capes and cloaks is that they need to be heavy and well fitted, not all loose and floaty. The heavy and well fitted ones are warmer, safer and more comfortable to wear, and don't get caught up on things.

I can just imagine a superhero in one of those floaty decorative ones getting caught up in some machinery and dragged to death.

[Purple Wyrm]

I can just imagine a superhero in one of those floaty decorative ones getting caught up in some machinery and dragged to death.

Exactly a thing in Moore and Gibbon's Watchmen. "Dollar Bill" (the only superhero who wears a cape) gets it caught in the revolving door of a bank while trying to stop a robbery and gets shot to death.

[Ragnarok]

Well, the comic has ended...

Now what?

[Mebediel]

Well, the comic has ended...

Now what?

Now we wait for the next beginning!

[Windfighter]

Now we speculate about the next adventure!

Fixed that for you

[JodyS]

I only discovered SSSS a couple of months ago, have been putting off reading A Redtail's Dream until the break.  Time to get started on that.

[thorny]

I'm thinking of it pretty much as another chapter break. The length's apparently going to be similar.

-- they're not going to keep Kitty in that little box for a month, are they?!! She'd be horribly upset, and unable to move around properly. Maybe at least she gets an entire isolation cell? though sharing one with a human would be better. She's not much past being an infant, after all; and she doesn't understand the reason for isolation, or that it's temporary.

-- it suddenly occured to me: do we know that Kitty's a she?

[LooNEY_DAC]

Yes.

[thorny]

Thanks, LooNEY_DAC. I'd forgotten that page.

[Sc0ut]

I'm thinking of it pretty much as another chapter break. The length's apparently going to be similar.

-- they're not going to keep Kitty in that little box for a month, are they?!! She'd be horribly upset, and unable to move around properly. Maybe at least she gets an entire isolation cell? though sharing one with a human would be better. She's not much past being an infant, after all; and she doesn't understand the reason for isolation, or that it's temporary.

I feel the same about the break. The "end of the first adventure" has a bit of an undeserved finality to it. It naturally means a lot to Minna, since this was the minimum she was going to do with the comic in case she burned out. She reached her goal so it's an achievement, and congratulations are in order. But for us as readers, this is pretty much another chapter break. I'd feel different if, say, there was a significant time skip involved, but based on the illustrations she made with the new outfits, that's not the case.

And I'm sure a culture that is so centered around cats knows better than to lock a cat in a transport box for a month, so don't worry!

[Windfighter]

I agree that it feels like just another chapter break and I think the reason for that is that... how do you say this in any language... the premise (?) of the first adventure hasn't concluded yet. Like, compared to the Harry Potter-books (because everyone knows about them) the setup is that "Harry goes a year to Hogwartz" and what follows is Preparations for the year, Actual year, and then Returning home. Here the setup was "The crew goes to Denmark to fetch books which then gets sold for large sums of money". While the "large sum of money" was always questionable we still need to actually see them return with the books and attempt to sell them off to Danish scholars or something for this adventure to be concluded.

At... at least that's what I think.

There also isn't really any feeling that "new adventures await (for this crew)", we just know about it because Minna has said so.
(I mean unless you count The Crews' Battle Against the Chef's Food as the next adventure I guess... And I have a feeling we're not gonna see that )

But I'm very happy for Minna for managing to reach this milestone anyway, and I'm really excited about the next adventure! Bring on all the new ideas for fanfics!

[Sc0ut]

That's a good point, Windy. Things do feel incomplete until we see them reunited with the crew back home, processing what has happened, and deciding if the expedition was a success or not. It doesn't make sense to end the adventure in a place that feels conflict-free but not all "wrapped up", and without a conclusion or thought given to the reason why they set out in the first place. I almost feel like a (short) chapter would have been in order to tie up the minor loose ends even knowing we won't get answers to the bigger questions such as what is "It".

[thorny]

... the premise (?) of the first adventure hasn't concluded yet. Like, compared to the Harry Potter-books (because everyone knows about them) the setup is that "Harry goes a year to Hogwartz" and what follows is Preparations for the year, Actual year, and then Returning home. Here the setup was "The crew goes to Denmark to fetch books which then gets sold for large sums of money". While the "large sum of money" was always questionable we still need to actually see them return with the books and attempt to sell them off to Danish scholars or something for this adventure to be concluded.

I suppose it depends on whether you think of the setup as "the crew goes to fetch books so they can sell them, will they make money?" or "the crew goes to the Silent World to see what's going on there, will they get back alive?" Presuming nothing happens to the ship enroute, the answer to the second way of phrasing it now seems pretty clear. The collecting-books-for-money was indeed part of the intention; but it always seemed to me to be secondary.

I wonder, though, whether there's going to be something in the books that they brought back that they haven't even noticed as important, but that's going to spark the second expedition -- not even the records they collected knowing they might have information about the failed "cure" that caused the ghosts, but maybe somebody's diary or record book they picked up in a pile of other books and haven't read yet, but which turns out to have really useful but incomplete information?