|
Is that... a cluster of robots peering out creepily from the edges of the stage? I really like the Doctor Disaster prediction, though. If this is a chapter with Doctor Disaster, which turns into a Zimmy mind-twist debacle, it'll be amazing beyond words.
|
#
¿
Aug 22, 2014 14:52
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 16, 2024 20:32 |
|
|
The main "overarching plot" threads of GC are, kinda: (1) Annie learning more about her Mom and fire-elemental ancestry, the blinker stone, etc (2) Annie's relationship with her weirdo distant Dad. What's up with him? (3) The mystery of Jeanne and Diego, and the history of the founding of the court and its breaking from the forest (4) The mystery of the nature of the Court itself (it's giant, is it empty? what are its other three borders? the seed Bismuth, the Tic Tocs, etc) (5) Robot's creepy cult forming, and other stuff about the court robots (6) Mythology: Jones, Coyote, the Ether etc. (7) Reynard's life story and personal growth and stuff (mostly settled for now, I think?) Half of that is mystery solving and Big Backstory Revelations, which would be terrible if it were dumped on us too quickly. And the modern-day stuff, like Robot's cult and Reynard's life story and Annie's Dad, are naturally only to progress over time with (8): Annie and friends growing up through the court's school system and living life. Which never feels like "plot", but is actually the backbone of the comic. All these little character-watching, scene-setting moments define the world for us, and are the reason we actually care when info-bombs get dropped. And meanwhile, we actually learn a whole ton about the Court, in the background.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 23, 2014 17:53
|
|
|
Oh man. The intersection of Zimmy and the Robot Cult is sure to be intense. I can't nearly imagine where this chapter is going.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 25, 2014 17:05
|
|
|
If you want to read the previous chapters where Zimmy World Birmingham happened, that's Chapter 5, Chapter 19, and 28. And Chapter 38 is also one with Zimmy surreality, but it's not Zimmy Birmingham (she's helping Annie after that call from her father messed her up).
Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Aug 29, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Aug 29, 2014 21:35
|
|
|
I think, to the characters in the comic, they don't literally see dark fuzziness covering her eyes. It's probably a visual effect to represent more of a feeling. For starters, it's probably hard/impossible to make eye contact with Zimmy.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 30, 2014 14:27
|
|
|
I've been rereading random bits of GC a lot recently, and I've been wondering: Annie and Kat's class is Queslett North, Jack is from Queslett South. Zimmy and Gamma are Chester South. We learned that Foley students mostly are from the forest, and Shadow joined them. Do we know anything about Thornhill, or know any characters who come from there? Fish Noise posted:Rereading from this link, is that who I think it is? Oh man. I almost thought so too, but on further consideration, she's probably too old to be Jenny. She looks a couple years older than Kat and Annie (as of that old chapter), which means she'd be even older by the current chapter. Hard to tell for sure, though. Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Sep 5, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Sep 5, 2014 00:26
|
|
|
Ah, right, Parley! I knew there had to have been someone important, Thornhill didn't feel as mysterious as it would if it were completely unknown. I'd guess that Queslett and Thornhill are both just arbitrary divisions of the Court's students (like at a normal school with houses, unlike in Harry Potter), while Foley and Chester are the special cases. I doubt that every single student in Annie's and Jack's classes have pseudosuperpowers.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 5, 2014 04:47
|
|
|
I like how Winsbury, traditionally kind of a goofy jerk, becomes super helpful when poo poo gets real. And Annie is in automatically in charge (partly by virtue of how she was tossing around fireballs a minute ago). I'm curious how the Seraph robots ended up doing all this dirty work for the ship-bot. Are they just in this for the furthering of robotkind's "new realm of existence", or is there some reason the ship-bot was able to recruit them to its cause? Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Sep 8, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Sep 8, 2014 18:41
|
|
|
Chapter 8's author commentary video is up. Rereading reminded me of three Big Questions posed in this chapter that are still hanging around: What the hell are the Tic Tocs? How did Jeanne cross the water to cut Annie, when she isn't supposed to be able to? And, most frustratingly to me, the question posed by the characters on this page: "...this isn't just a school, is it?" "I've been wondering that myself." "I think we should try to find out what it is." Three years later, we still only have a couple vague hints about the wider nature of the Court (the institution) outside of the school. We know that they do sciencey experiments of indeterminate nature, and we have an inkling about the Court (the physical buildings) growing and spreading automatically, but that's about it. You'd think that Annie would have done a lot more poking around than she has. (My complaints are probably wrong, though, because Gunnerkrigg's plot-layout/pacing is its strongest quality. So much has happened during the comic, but without ever becoming overcrowded or monotone.) Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 07:26 on Sep 10, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Sep 10, 2014 07:18
|
|
|
SHISHKABOB posted:lmao "I just whipped up this lil hovercraft thing" I know, all I can think is "what did he make that out of?" All of Kat's crazy science projects have involved her using a lab with extensive resources. Jack just... throws together a drone in 5 minutes in the hallways of a cruise ship? Meanwhile, apparently Jenny has a kind of magic we haven't seen before. And a wink is the most appropriate response to the question "You... did this?" Also meanwhile, purple fumes coming off the water out the window. That looks like the Power Station experiments.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 10, 2014 08:16
|
|
|
There's a big difference between that drone finding its way to someone in the court or forest (this body of water is adjacent to the Court), and finding its way to someone who could be on the other side of the world. It may be magically-guided, but it appears to still be a basic mechanical device. Plus, if all it took was a flying robot and a "little seeking spell" to find Antony, Annie would have many better opportunities to do so. Remember, Anja, Donald and Jim have been trying and failing to track down Anthony. Actually, my money's on the next page being "another turn of events" rather than Annie actually choosing someone to send the stone to. Something still feels weird about Jack + Jenny's quick solution here, and those vapor-spires coming off the water aren't attributable to anything we've seen so far in this chapter.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 11, 2014 21:14
|
|
|
SHISHKABOB posted:Other than these fuckin things????? http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1400 Ah poo poo, that panel didn't stick in my memory at all, what with the superheroics and the "zoooop!" I am a failure. EDIT: I still don't think Jack and Jenny's plan is going to happen at face value. Do they even know what's going on with the robots? They left before the robots started doing their thing. I think their drone plan is only about Zimmy, because Jack distrusts her so much apparently. Now that the robots are involved, the drone probably doesn't even have time to reach shore before they force a "level 6 etheric distortion" out of her. Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Sep 11, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Sep 11, 2014 21:19
|
|
|
setafd posted:I forgot the students even like, do things and have abilities. We've never been told that all the students have special abilities. As far as we've been aware, it's just a normal ("normal") school system, except for the court's odd culture. All the especially weird students are in Chester, all the ex-forest students are in Thornhill, and the other two houses are, as far as we're aware, just "the rest". Magic and other abilities are pretty common, but I've always attributed that to the fact that the entire fictional universe is full of stuff like that. Then again, earlier today I was just shown to be obviously wrong about something happening in this very chapter, so.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2014 05:03
|
|
|
My point was only that, as far as I know, the school at the Court isn't specifically "for magically gifted students" or anything in that vein. It's also just the school that is in Gunnerkrigg. There's no warrant to start selecting each classmate of Antimony's and ask "what's his special power? What's hers?". If a bunch of the students in Annie's class happen to have unusual traits or powers, that's a matter of circumstance, i.e. because the court is highly involved with that sort of thing.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2014 05:45
|
|
|
MikeJF posted:It's been hinted at very heavily that it's all of the very weird and not-quite human are in Chester, all the Ex-forest are in Foley, all the relatively normal still-human kids they think have some kind of standout Capital Letter Talent are in Queslett, and all of the Boring Normal Kids are in Thornhill. Tollymain posted:the court does try to recruit/study kids with various potentials
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2014 06:37
|
|
|
This chapter got intense. I suppose we should have expected Big Events, since we've reached the end of a school year, but drat. The contrast between this and the easygoing beginning of the chapter is really well done.BobTheJanitor posted:That panel of Gamma is ominous. I mean the whole page is ominous, but that one in particular is pretty grim. Looks like she's trapped, separated from Zimmy, and possibly just emotionally stunned. Like she's probably rocking back and forth and whimpering. How are they going to meet up in their usual place and escape? This doesn't bode well for our fair heroes. Yeah, Gamma's supposed to be the person who can handle Fun City. If she's freaking out, everyone's boned.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 15, 2014 19:12
|
|
|
It's not like we've been seeing Jack around a lot. He's in another class from Annie. Of course there are other people in his life than our main characters, who encounter him only occasionally. We're "suddenly" meeting Jenny now, because this is a rare event that brings people from Queslett North and Queslett South together (and Chester, and Thornhill I assume). Tom even let us see her tangentially for a while (just as "Jack's girlfriend who is vaguely reminiscent of Zimmy") before bringing her into the spotlight as a character. Honestly, I'd say the pacing has been pretty spot-on. Part of that "jarring" feeling might be because of tangential factors: I think it's meant to seem a bit odd that Jenny is acting so comfortable in this nightmarescape. Also Annie's trying to get over being uncomfortable seeing Jack with a Zimmy-lookalike, and these recent pages have had an undertone of "hey look at how Jenny has her own full personality and life, not just some prop in the ongoing developments between Jack and Zimmy and Annie". Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Sep 18, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Sep 18, 2014 21:47
|
|
|
mr. stefan posted:Jenny knows she's a silver medal and doesn't give a gently caress. Maximum confidence. I think they're both just aware that Zimmy as a romantic rival is such a ludicrous concept that it's not worth worrying about. It's like her boyfriend has an odd fetish, nothing more.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 19, 2014 18:59
|
|
|
Kat is a girl who is absurdly good at science and mechanics. But there's a chance that, with all the robots believing her a god/angel, she might become one of a sort. Depends on how you feel about Coyote's interpretation of the Ether and humankind.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 25, 2014 18:58
|
|
|
Still. Wouldn't it be absurdly terrible and hilarious if the robots get there, look around the situation in Zimmy's Brimingham, and say: "Wait, dearest Angel, all this dude wants is for you to make him flesh. Why won't you make him flesh?"
|
|
#
¿
Sep 29, 2014 17:10
|
|
|
Lanky Coconut Tree posted:Is no one going to comment on how painful that pun was in Tom's comment I think when I read it, I blacked out from the pain.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 30, 2014 02:20
|
|
|
Everything is definitely as it appears. There will be no mind-blowing narrative subterfuge in this visit to Zimmytown, no sirree.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 1, 2014 08:31
|
|
|
Elysiume posted:Calling it a "living being" is wildly overstating it. It was basically a piece of lab-grown meat. It wasn't sentient and couldn't do anything without direct electrical impulses. Yeah, Robot has developed an overgrown sense of drama, and just fits everything into his increasingly-culty narrative that he preaches to the other robots. It's been troubling to watch one of the core characters gradually develop into someone a bit creepy. Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Oct 6, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Oct 6, 2014 19:37
|
|
|
Captain Oblivious posted:I mean, if you want the comic to be nothing but frolicky harmonious good times I guess. Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Oct 6, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Oct 6, 2014 20:51
|
|
|
The Lord of Hats posted:There's a ship made of flesh in the etheric distortion in the hole in the middle of the sea. MikeJF posted:A half formed lump of flesh and bones full of children, no less. There's a child in the class in the ship made of flesh in the city in the etheric distortion in the tear in the middle of the sea
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2014 18:05
|
|
|
Jack whipped together a functional drone from spare parts in less than 20 minutes. I'm sure the robot kingdom has access to explosives somewhere.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 13, 2014 10:20
|
|
|
MikeJF posted:Reyardine needs to tear off some of the other wards, I wanna see some other kids' superpowers. I feel like the Other Kids Get Wards (but we don't get a close look at them) event serves an important narrative purpose: It gives Tom freedom to do a lot of things with future stories without the plot hole of "Why didn't [kid] do thing with [power] back in Torn Sea?" He might not even know if he'll have a character with a relevant ability some time in the distant future, but he's preemptively covered that plot hole.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2014 19:18
|
|
|
idonotlikepeas posted:Here's one of ours: Actually wait, is that what what they were going for? I can't imagine a building complex looking more like a jumble of crumpled cardboard and aluminum. There's that half-banana, and what looks for all the world like a discarded coffee cup in the corner.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2014 01:08
|
|
|
Ha, you take a building with too few windows, and attach a section and top-floor made of windows, and I guess the building averages out to well-lit?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2014 05:38
|
|
|
For a character new to this chapter, Jenny is certainly making an impact. EDIT: Cat Herder, did you get a different new page tonight than the rest of us did?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 7, 2014 09:25
|
|
|
maswastaken posted:He has Kat's voice, doesn't he? Maybe something to do with that? Supposedly it sounds like a mix of Kat's and Annie's, by the time they'd finished teaching him how to talk. It might have developed further since he's been exposed to more people (and been pulled into the third dimension). But that's still a good guess for the plan, I wouldn't be surprised if he can easily fool the robots by mimicking Kat's voice.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 10, 2014 09:18
|
|
|
So, people who saw that page Tom accidentally uploaded early: have we come back around to it, yet?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 21, 2014 09:27
|
|
|
I think the joke is that it's just a meaningless background detail, but some fans probably went into a frenzy over it.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 24, 2014 03:05
|
|
|
Oh man. That huge mass of artificial muscle is presumably about to go Kapoof like the small test did before. The whole ballroom is going to fill up with smoke/dust?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2014 09:11
|
|
|
The ship probably still has its original computer brain. Kat's just getting rid of this half-finished, vestigal new body. A big ol' lump of useless tissue that can't yet contain the ship's consciousness without Zimmyland to support it. Doesn't stop Robot from mythologizing the event, but Kat doesn't have to be actually killing a living conscious thing right now. And why would she? She's mad at the robots for their kidnapping and endangerment, but she seemed fine to go along with the ship's requests. She doesn't seem in a mood where she'd actually want to kill the dunce. (And she'd understand better than anybody whether the action she's about to take would kill the ship's AI.)
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2014 20:55
|
|
|
They also call Diego "creator", since he actually created the first robots, created the "species". I wouldn't be surprised if they see Kat as a continuation of Diego to some degree. The second coming.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2014 22:58
|
|
|
The real question is: can robot belief create gods from ether like human belief can?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2014 23:20
|
|
|
I don't think Kat's a psychopomp -- the ROTD people who had minor beef with psychopomps were directing that at just Annie. They kept calling her an afterlife guide even when she didn't think of herself as one yet, so you'd think they'd know if Kat was one. When they pulled out "credentials", the receptionist recognized Annie's as "gillitie medium", "afterlife guide" (represented with the Antimony symbol), and the crown symbol associated with fire elementals. Kat had a symbol appear (the Diego/creator symbol), but he had no idea what it was. Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Dec 9, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Dec 9, 2014 00:10
|
|
|
HOOOLY poo poo.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2014 09:06
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 16, 2024 20:32 |
|
|
I'm pretty sure Annie would have noticed if Kat was a robot just from her regular peeks into the Ether. It appears to me like the robots are turning her into a Robot God, The Angel, The Creator As Was Diego, with the power of their belief. (Except Coyote, the main proponent of the belief-creates-gods theory, seems to think that it's a unique property of humans. Hmm.) The main thing to hope is that she doesn't start picking up any of Diego's personality traits. Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Dec 11, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2014 00:41
|
|