Robin’s Dream
Shaenon: Robin described this dream to me, so I drew it for him. Speaking of, he just had his fifth birthday! Happy birthday, Robin!
Channing: This is perhaps the best Nancy comic in existence, even considering its recent resurgence.
Skin Horse
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Robin knows Nancy and Sluggo?
And why wouldn’t Robin know them? They are one of the classics, after all.
Yeah, Andrew’s been reading him Nancy strips and he’s really into it.
It gets harder every year to figure out what anybody knows or doesn’t know. I once got blank looks for mentioning Paul Revere to my niece and nephew.
I once showed my niece a piece of Muppet fanart I thought she’d like, and Mum was amazed she even knew what the Muppets were, because that was a thing from my childhood.
And I’m like, she went to see the 2012 film. She’s borrowed my boxsets of The Muppet Show. And I’ve put Family Christmas on while we all have dinner together once a year for her entire life.
I got blank looks for referencing Scrooge McDuck to my little sister (who’s 21) while an ad for the Ducktales reboot was playing on TV
Mighty demonstration of Mama’s abilities. Mighty indeed. Trains, too, are very impressive, up close. Sometimes a visit to a firehouse has memorable moments. And by the way, I have not quite understood the progress implied in the placement of panels. Nevertheless, I too will persist. Ars longa, vita brevis.
I think the idea is that the train with a face on it, clobbered the fire trucks… Shaenon, does drawing that far below yourself, *hurt*? And if it’s not too late, tell Robin “It’s good to be five! Happy Birthday!”
“drawing that far below yourself”
You make it sound like Nancy and Sluggo and Thomas are drawn by amateurs or children.
Not my intention. Merely not in Shaenon’s league.
You might want to read this: https://twitter.com/shaenongarrity/status/1145060629100687360
I’d say rather that they are fairly simple and quick to draw. A big asset in animation where you need (according to a quick google) 24 images per second. Probably more in some cases.
You don’t actually need to draw anywhere near that many images. There are often several frames that are identical, and for subsequent frames, they only need to draw the changes from the previous image. And with a lot of animation being done on computers now, they can skip several of the intermediate images, and the computer can extrapolate them.
Yeah, there are a lot of tricks used to make animation easier. Not being an animator myself I only know a handful of them. Simple style drawings is just one of them.
I thought Pygar meant Thomas the Tank Engine
Based largely on the characters’ facial expressions, I understood the panel sequence as follows:
1. Sluggo hears a noise and inquires about its origin, and Nancy surmises that it is the sound of seven mighty fire trucks and seven mighty hoses.
2. The source of the noise is revealed to be Thomas the Tank Engine.
3. Nancy, out of some aversion or other to Thomas, denies the real source of the noise and doggedly insists it was seven mighty fire trucks and seven mighty hoses; Sluggo, sharing her aversion to Thomas, tacitly agrees to maintain this fiction.
Best not to try to put too much thought about trying to inject logic into a child’s dream. I’m well into my 50s and most of the dreams I can remember don’t make too much sense.
I feel like this is some kind of Biblical prophecy.
“These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.”
Reminiscent of “seven fat cows and seven lean cows.” Seven large, heavy fire trucks and seven thin hoses. Meaning, per Pharaonic precedent, seven years of abundance followed immediately by seven years of famine.
That’s what it was reminding me of too! In this case, though, they’re both mighty (trucks and hoses), so maybe it’ll turn out better. ^_^
“Seven Footprints to Satan.” “Seven Keys to Baldpate.”
The best I could hope to do is quote the Boring Prophet from “Life of Brian”…
Actually I was trying to reply to eternalfarnham above. There are a lot of sevens out there.
And I heard the angel say to the World, Lo! Mister Topham Hat decrees that all SHALL run on time!
Also today: Andrew and I got to draw a Popeye Sunday strip! https://www.comicskingdom.com/popeyes-cartoon-club
heh heh heh
“I love to go swimmin’ with bare-naked wimmen’, I’m Popeye the Sailor-Man!”
I see you’ve chosen to illustrate one of the sacred tunnel songs of the Mole Men.
(I’m now wondering if Mr. Lee from that storyline is any relation to Virginia.)
Easily the funniest Popeye strip ever.
Well blow me down!
(TUNE: “Yankee Doodle”, traditional)
Seven mighty fire trucks
And seven mighty hoses …
Thomas and his creepy friends
Have eyes and mouths and noses!
Seven mighty fire trucks,
Seven mighty hoses;
Those are the repeated words
That Nancy to Slug-go says!
This is great, Ed!
seven stars and seven stones and one white tree
Seven mighty fire trucks
and seven mighty hoses
face the red inferno
and out the fire goes-es
sounds like a nursery rhyme about firefighters coming to the rescue.
second verse anyone…?
you know, the only thing that’s really ever bothered me about Thomas is why he is #1
Thomas was originally just a wooden toy made by the Reverend Wilbert Awdry for his son Christopher. He began making up the stories about trains later to entertain Christopher when he was confined to a darkened room because of measles. Thomas is #1 because he was the first engine Awdry created, even though he wasn’t even in the first book in the series.
The “train with a face on it” is Thomas the Tank Engine (one of a number of trains running around the Isle of Sodor in the books by The Rev. W Aubrey, and more recently animated on TV, voiaced by Ringo Starr). I appreciate that Americans may not be so familiar with him as are Brits.
You realize that there have been several other comments mentioning Thomas by name?
The author’s name is Awdry, not Aubrey. And Ringo was the voice of the Narrator, not Thomas.