By George, I believe you have founde a clew. And with that, it may not be too soon to declare that my first guess from a number of days back was half right, and the broken thing that needs fixing is related to that.
I don’t recall British-isms being a quirk of Mel’s (could be, I don’t recall). But I *do* recall that making geeky, comic-book analogies *was* a quirk that Dave (and later daughter) had.
It was definitely one of Mell’s less alarming quirks. She swore like a Brit, certainly, with a lot of “bloody” and so forth, but also used oddly British word choices.
Without going back and looking, I’d say it was a fairly equal balance. “Cheese on toast” was one of my favourites, but she was definitely into the British-speak.
It was also a quirk of stupified Gavotte (regular Gavotte didn’t use any kind of slang, but did once use the phrase “spit-spot”, from which I inferred she sounded like Julie Andrews). It’s not something I noticed when Sweetheart met Pavone, though, so I’m not entirely sure what it means for my current theory.
No—the Anti-Life Equation really is something from Jimmy Olsen comics. Specifically, its from Jack Kirby’s Fourth World mythos, which he first put into Jimmy Olsen comics when he was plotting and drawing them.
And it was also a part of the New Gods storyline from I dunno when. I do remember that the equation “pieces” were hidden on Earth & that nice Mr D fellow wanted them & managed to get at least one.
Maybe not, but it was in his own commentary on the book (sometime back in the early 80s, not long after the BBC miniseries was broadcast) where I first saw the above trivia mentioned. So he still gets credit, as far as I’m concerned.
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The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought ’42 will do’. I typed it out. End of story
Though there has been much debate, Douglas Adams insisted there was no symbolic reason he decided to use 42. Eventually, people realised that 6×9 actually does equal 42 in base 13. Douglas said he didn’t know about this at the time, saying ‘you don’t write jokes in base 13’.
Well, I never said that he chose the number 42 for any reason. I knew that he had plucked the number out of the air. I only said that he was the first one I had heard mention the base-13 connection.
As somebody on Tumblr pointed out, in Japanese the number four can be translated to “shi,” and the number two can be translated to “ni.” So there’s a subroutine on Earth that is researching whether or not the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is death, and constructing the question from there.
They say Phillip K. Dick plotted his stories by throwing the I-Ching. I think he had a better chance of coming up with something interesting than using this method.
She couldn’t be that old. Narbonic was set during the years it actually ran (or maybe a year later, I forget whether that was actually canon), and we have no reason to believe that Skin Horse is any different. Since the daughter was unborn at the end of Narbonic (in 2006), she couldn’t be any more than twelve now. I have to conclude that, unless she time travelled again and was extirpated for some reason in the present, this isn’t her.
Also, Shaenon gives lots of women bangs and glasses.
Assuming that the comics run approximately in “real time” and that she was conceived immediately after the end of Narbonic (not likely, but theoretically possible), Rosalind would be a bit past 11, a few years younger still than when she visited Dave (a bit past 13, given the commentary and reference to a seemingly recent birthday debacle).
And of course, the avatar need not look like the person. Still, if this is Rosalind, I sincerely doubt she’s acting alone (which I guess would just mean it’d most likely be a family affair).
Well, to assume that the comics run in real time is questionable at best. There have been story arcs that lasted for several months, but only covered a few days of in-universe time. And there are time skips of indeterminate length between some of the story arcs. So it’s unknown how much time has passed – either between the end of Narbonic and the beginning of Skin Horse, or from the beginning of Skin Horse to now. Even Jeff and Shaenon won’t say what the time frame is. I know… I’ve asked.
However, it is a fair assumption that Rosalind was indeed conceived very shortly after the end of Narbonic – less than a year after, based on the events in the story Lovers and Madmen. Unless you consider the final collage of guest strips – in which we see Dave propose to Helen, we see Rosalind being born, and then see her as a toddler and later as a (roughly) 10-12 year old girl at what appears to be Thanksgiving dinner – to be part of the end of Narbonic, in which case, her age today becomes even more uncertain.
And while I know full well that one’s avatar need not look like them, I still find it unlikely that this is Rosalind. If they are indeed AIs as Melanie suggests, I think it’s likely that they are members of the Daughters of the Air, tampering in A-Sig’s domain.
The time skips between stories are to make up for the fact stories take months for a few days action. Over long periods, the comic runs in real time. This isn’t an assumption, it’s a conclusion based on the evidence.
I felt like a kid at Christmas when I opened up my mailbox this afternoon and discovered a rather large package from a certain Shaenon Garrity! Now I’m going to be up all night reading my new Narbonic books! (…as if I hadn’t read the e-book versions a dozen times already…)
It was suggested that the women are parts of Virginia’s mind, but why would one of Virginia’s mind fragments be like Mell?
But I just remembered that Virginia has literally had part of Unity (partly based on Mell) inside her, sharing her mind (Willie Nelson posters and all).
Could these women be fragmentary remnants of Unity’s mind? How long does Unity’s sludge persist?
So, wait…. Mell Kelly? Which of those characters do you think is like Mell? Melanie here is anti-social, but so is roughly 75% of the population of the USA – especially in that age group. But she doesn’t want to go around spontaneously blowing stuff up or beating people up, so I’m just not seeing any striking similarity.
Beatrix has the attention span of a gnat, and likes to do stupid stuff without thinking, so she shares some traits with Unity, but not with Mell.
As for how long Unity’s sludge lasts, it’s not terribly important. Since Virginia and Unity shared the same brain, they each would have retained some of the same memories and thought patterns – sludge or no sludge. Probably not enough to affect their behaviour, but enough so that they each would remember the experience.
See the top comment thread about Mel and Melanie both being Americans using British slang. It’s not meant to be a close resemblance; indeed, it’s more faint than Unity calling Sergio “kid” and having Willie Nelson posters in her mind (while not being particularly interesting in Willie Nelson otherwise).
Remember that the animals that Unity possessed retained enough of a connection to her that they came when she wanted them to, so if the sludge is still partially active in Virginia, there could still be some potential connection to Unity.
Regarding the animals… that was only a day or so after Unity had possessed them. It has now presumably been several years. It is estimated that every cell in a human body is replaced every seven years. It has never been made clear how Unity’s nanomachines replicate themselves, but logically they must to replace any that are lost through events such as dismemberment, etc. So, with a living host (such as Unity’s brain, or Virginia’s body) they could theoretically survive forever. That, of course, brings up a whole nother potential problem, if the nanomachines that may have remained in Virginia’s body decide to replicate too much. Then again, Virginia’s body may have eventually rejected any remaining nanomachines, and processed them out like any other foreign substance.
That ‘every cell replaced every seven years’ thing is a complete myth though. Some types of tissue the cells are replaced very quickly, some types of tissue cells are never replaced.
“knackered”; “Bloody” — Are we supposed to be inferring an English accent from Melanie? Or is she just a fan of the BBC?
By George, I believe you have founde a clew. And with that, it may not be too soon to declare that my first guess from a number of days back was half right, and the broken thing that needs fixing is related to that.
If you read back, it’s not the first time she’s used English slang.
Which was a quirk of Mell Kelly, as some may recall.
I don’t recall British-isms being a quirk of Mel’s (could be, I don’t recall). But I *do* recall that making geeky, comic-book analogies *was* a quirk that Dave (and later daughter) had.
It was definitely one of Mell’s less alarming quirks. She swore like a Brit, certainly, with a lot of “bloody” and so forth, but also used oddly British word choices.
Honestly I recall her being more into weird non-swears than British swearing, such as her ‘Cheese on Toast!’ from ‘Madness’.
Without going back and looking, I’d say it was a fairly equal balance. “Cheese on toast” was one of my favourites, but she was definitely into the British-speak.
It was also a quirk of stupified Gavotte (regular Gavotte didn’t use any kind of slang, but did once use the phrase “spit-spot”, from which I inferred she sounded like Julie Andrews). It’s not something I noticed when Sweetheart met Pavone, though, so I’m not entirely sure what it means for my current theory.
I’m telling you, they’re in the Village
Bwahaha
The equation to Anti-life, Anti- the Universe and Anti-Everything?
No—the Anti-Life Equation really is something from Jimmy Olsen comics. Specifically, its from Jack Kirby’s Fourth World mythos, which he first put into Jimmy Olsen comics when he was plotting and drawing them.
As I just discovered, there’s even a Wikipedia page about it.
Heck, it was apparently a major part of Zack Snyder’s plans for the DCCU, before everything went belly-up.
And it was also a part of the New Gods storyline from I dunno when. I do remember that the equation “pieces” were hidden on Earth & that nice Mr D fellow wanted them & managed to get at least one.
Seems an unlikely title for such a goddamned dark plotpoint to make a debut
What do you get when you multiply six by nine? Or, I guess, anti-six by anti-nine.
They usually refer to that as “minus six” and “minus nine.” And you get “plus 54.”
But if you use a base-13 number system, 6 times 9 really is 42.
And thank you, Douglas Adams, for letting us in on that little bit of mathematical trivia.
Douglas Adams doesn’t write jokes in base 13
Maybe not, but it was in his own commentary on the book (sometime back in the early 80s, not long after the BBC miniseries was broadcast) where I first saw the above trivia mentioned. So he still gets credit, as far as I’m concerned.
Since I guess I can’t post links
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Well, I never said that he chose the number 42 for any reason. I knew that he had plucked the number out of the air. I only said that he was the first one I had heard mention the base-13 connection.
The answer to the anti-universe is …… 24!
Dammit, beat me to it.
Very good. Now what is the actual question to the anti universe?
As somebody on Tumblr pointed out, in Japanese the number four can be translated to “shi,” and the number two can be translated to “ni.” So there’s a subroutine on Earth that is researching whether or not the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is death, and constructing the question from there.
Now you’re just shini-ing us on…
Maybe they’re AIs planted in the system to give comic strip artists story ideas? That would explain Jeff.
Come and see the AIs implanted in the system! Help! Help! They’re being repressed!
I just want you to know I see what you did there, and I appreciate it.
Going by Virginia’s face, she did indeed go cliff diving with Beatrix.
An especially silly idea: I wonder if there’s some sort of musical rebus encoded in the places Virginia has gone?
Beach-Beach-Beach-Arcade-Arcade-Arcade-Beach-Beach
Astrologer(A sharp?)-Astrologer-Astrologer-Astrologer-Forest
(I’m not sure the forest counts, but there’s a lot of F’s if so)(maybe the Barracks break the monotony?)
Forest-Beach-Cliff(High C!)-Arcade
(the Forest and the Barracks might be flatted notes)
They say Phillip K. Dick plotted his stories by throwing the I-Ching. I think he had a better chance of coming up with something interesting than using this method.
The answer is in the Walnuts!
I bet she forgot to give Madam Delphi her good Yelp review! ^o^
Are Jimmy Olsen comics still published?
“What, are you dense? Are you retarded or something? I’m the bloody Jimmy Olsen!!”
So the mayor never answered the door? Why didn’t they try to break in?
Dr. Lee is too polite and civilized for that. You’re thinking of U.N.I.T.Y., who wouldn’t have knocked first (without explosives).
I mean, this is obviously Helen & Dave’s daughter, right?
She couldn’t be that old. Narbonic was set during the years it actually ran (or maybe a year later, I forget whether that was actually canon), and we have no reason to believe that Skin Horse is any different. Since the daughter was unborn at the end of Narbonic (in 2006), she couldn’t be any more than twelve now. I have to conclude that, unless she time travelled again and was extirpated for some reason in the present, this isn’t her.
Also, Shaenon gives lots of women bangs and glasses.
Age-wise, the two girls look like they could be close. However, Helen & Dave’s daughter’s name is Rosalind. And she has a different nose.
Assuming that the comics run approximately in “real time” and that she was conceived immediately after the end of Narbonic (not likely, but theoretically possible), Rosalind would be a bit past 11, a few years younger still than when she visited Dave (a bit past 13, given the commentary and reference to a seemingly recent birthday debacle).
And of course, the avatar need not look like the person. Still, if this is Rosalind, I sincerely doubt she’s acting alone (which I guess would just mean it’d most likely be a family affair).
Well, to assume that the comics run in real time is questionable at best. There have been story arcs that lasted for several months, but only covered a few days of in-universe time. And there are time skips of indeterminate length between some of the story arcs. So it’s unknown how much time has passed – either between the end of Narbonic and the beginning of Skin Horse, or from the beginning of Skin Horse to now. Even Jeff and Shaenon won’t say what the time frame is. I know… I’ve asked.
However, it is a fair assumption that Rosalind was indeed conceived very shortly after the end of Narbonic – less than a year after, based on the events in the story Lovers and Madmen. Unless you consider the final collage of guest strips – in which we see Dave propose to Helen, we see Rosalind being born, and then see her as a toddler and later as a (roughly) 10-12 year old girl at what appears to be Thanksgiving dinner – to be part of the end of Narbonic, in which case, her age today becomes even more uncertain.
And while I know full well that one’s avatar need not look like them, I still find it unlikely that this is Rosalind. If they are indeed AIs as Melanie suggests, I think it’s likely that they are members of the Daughters of the Air, tampering in A-Sig’s domain.
As I recall, Narbonic ran approximately real time. Hence why I brought it up.
The time skips between stories are to make up for the fact stories take months for a few days action. Over long periods, the comic runs in real time. This isn’t an assumption, it’s a conclusion based on the evidence.
OGSXKFUG, WGP O, SJM WKL. SDFSKC SKG UBPBJFGL XASX NGKG RBKWGM OC XAG MFLKHDXFBJ BR YSQBXXG. XAG UBPBJC XASX NSL OKBTGJ WHLX OG RBKYGM SJGN.
New theory: Gavotte literally fell apart. Beatrix, Mel, and Mrs. Ape are pieces. Virginia needs to ‘fix what was broken’.
Eret Faciendum:
Bea – Bee
Mel – Latin for “honey”
Ape – Apis
Makes sense.
fuck’s sake, just use Rot13 next time.
I felt like a kid at Christmas when I opened up my mailbox this afternoon and discovered a rather large package from a certain Shaenon Garrity! Now I’m going to be up all night reading my new Narbonic books! (…as if I hadn’t read the e-book versions a dozen times already…)
Thank you, Shaenon!
The Narbonics books enlightened many a dull time sitting there in my bathroom…
Might not be such a good idea… I’d end up sitting there so long my legs would fall asleep!
Say . . .
It was suggested that the women are parts of Virginia’s mind, but why would one of Virginia’s mind fragments be like Mell?
But I just remembered that Virginia has literally had part of Unity (partly based on Mell) inside her, sharing her mind (Willie Nelson posters and all).
Could these women be fragmentary remnants of Unity’s mind? How long does Unity’s sludge persist?
So, wait…. Mell Kelly? Which of those characters do you think is like Mell? Melanie here is anti-social, but so is roughly 75% of the population of the USA – especially in that age group. But she doesn’t want to go around spontaneously blowing stuff up or beating people up, so I’m just not seeing any striking similarity.
Beatrix has the attention span of a gnat, and likes to do stupid stuff without thinking, so she shares some traits with Unity, but not with Mell.
As for how long Unity’s sludge lasts, it’s not terribly important. Since Virginia and Unity shared the same brain, they each would have retained some of the same memories and thought patterns – sludge or no sludge. Probably not enough to affect their behaviour, but enough so that they each would remember the experience.
See the top comment thread about Mel and Melanie both being Americans using British slang. It’s not meant to be a close resemblance; indeed, it’s more faint than Unity calling Sergio “kid” and having Willie Nelson posters in her mind (while not being particularly interesting in Willie Nelson otherwise).
Remember that the animals that Unity possessed retained enough of a connection to her that they came when she wanted them to, so if the sludge is still partially active in Virginia, there could still be some potential connection to Unity.
Regarding the animals… that was only a day or so after Unity had possessed them. It has now presumably been several years. It is estimated that every cell in a human body is replaced every seven years. It has never been made clear how Unity’s nanomachines replicate themselves, but logically they must to replace any that are lost through events such as dismemberment, etc. So, with a living host (such as Unity’s brain, or Virginia’s body) they could theoretically survive forever. That, of course, brings up a whole nother potential problem, if the nanomachines that may have remained in Virginia’s body decide to replicate too much. Then again, Virginia’s body may have eventually rejected any remaining nanomachines, and processed them out like any other foreign substance.
That ‘every cell replaced every seven years’ thing is a complete myth though. Some types of tissue the cells are replaced very quickly, some types of tissue cells are never replaced.
So did they never enter City Hall, or did the door loop back around to the arcade
Based on how rough Virginia looks here, I’m guessing they went cliff diving after all. Or just tumbling down the hill… whichever.
Melanie is Tip’s worst qualities. Self absorbed and singularly focused on repeating a pointless task with a meaningless reward.
…kind of funny that they have knowledge of Jimmy Olsen comics, in retrospect.