Whose mind is it anyway?

Discuss Scott McCloud's current online comic project. Be sure to check out <a href="http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/mi.html">the latest improv</a>!

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somneo
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Error in page

Post by somneo »

There is a link error in the current MI series. On page two[2] the link that should point to page three[3] actually points to the current page[4] (which is currently page 4). This makes for a jarring first read (though I have been following along so it didn't throw me off too much).

I'm just posting this here in case Scott reads this forum more often than his email ;-)

[2]http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/m ... -25-2.html
[3]http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/m ... -25-3.html
[4]http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/mi-25/mi-25.html
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Post by Fett101 »

zerofoks wrote:Okay then, someone explain to me what "fwothehs" is!
Fathers.
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Of two minds and no name

Post by wansley »

I just realized that we don't know the names of either of the protagonists in this comic. Who does Scott think he is, Gene Wolfe? :D

[Gene Wolfe is a contemporary science fiction writer who is critically acclaimed and notorious, among those who read him, for writing stories told in the first person in which the protagonist never gives his name.]
http://www.sfbookcase.com/author.asp?fo ... name=Wolfe
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Post by Rip Tanion »

zerofoks wrote:Okay then, someone explain to me what "fwothehs" is!
He's married to the mullah that issued him. [rim-shot]

"The mudder eats the fodder?"
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Post by CleverUserName01 »

Rip Tanion wrote:Actually, it's a Nor'Easter (no N at the end). Someone else can look up the etymology. We get them here on the North-east seaboard, from New England to probably as far south as the Jersey Shore, if not further. They're not much fun when they blow by your neighborhood.

But that's no nor'easter. That Red Sox fans riotting and setting fires after learning that A-Rod is coming to the Bronx. I wonder if either of our two (I mean four) park-psychos have an Oliver Stonesque conspiracy theory concerning that one.

Can't type....laughing!
I don't think there's any particular etymology to it - I think it simply began as a nautical term, and nautical terms have a tendency to be shortened: "forecastle" becomes "fo'csle," "boatswain" becomes "bosun," "coxswain" (hee hee hee!) becomes "coxs'n," so on and so forth.

And A-Rod is, indeed, on his way to the Bronx, where he will be hamstrung by playing 3rd, despite being a massively superior SS to the always-overrated Jeter. Big, fat, hairy deal.
tim333

Post by tim333 »

Has anyone else noticed how closely the bit about going to the top of the "Pru" parallels Scott's recounting of his own experience with the building in "My Obsession With Chess"? I thought that was interesting.
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Post by Greg Stephens »

Hey, yeah. And I just re-read that comic a week or so ago. I must have skimmed that panel.
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Post by Rip Tanion »

Snnfff, I smell a promo line coming...

Scott McCloud presents a special love story about two (or four) special people....
CleverUserName01 wrote:And A-Rod is, indeed, on his way to the Bronx, where he will be hamstrung by playing 3rd, despite being a massively superior SS to the always-overrated Jeter. Big, fat, hairy deal.
Ah, I love the sour grapes that come out of the so called "Red Sawks Nation" this time of year. Jeter has four rings. He didn't get them by accident. A-Rod and Nomah have zero. 'Nuff said.
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Post by Ben Sutter »

I think some of us are reading into this waaaaay too much. I'm all for breaking open the author's skull and finding meaning in every little panel, but I think the meaning of a work of art (especially sequential art) isn't clear until the work is completed.

Maybe that was too serious in itself?
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Post by DecafSilicon »

It probably was. Half the time we're joking.

But Scott, you might want to put a little more periwinkle in the background. And more monkeys.
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Post by Bjorn »

Regarding "Noah-Eastah's"... Now my knowledge of the American dialects is very limited, but I think this should have been "Nor-Eastah's". This is north-eastern dialect I presume (can't say what city, but I'm sure you can and already have :)), and those are what is called non-rhotic, i.e. 'r's aren't pronounced in certain places. Like carpark -> cah-pahk.

But with most (all?) non-rhotic accents it's not that simple. They have this thing called "intrusive r", which puts an 'r' inbetween vowels, even where there's no 'r' in writing! You may have noticed this with the Brits (although they often don't notice it themselves) in sentences such as "Chinar is a large country" but "China man" or whatever. The same thing happens with words that do have 'r' in writing, like "the bar is open", but "the bah closed eahly". Or "Women's sheltah" but ".. wheah the Women's shelter is".

So basically, they 'drop' the 'r's when there's a following consonant or nothing, but insert an 'r' (regardless of whether it's there in writing or not) when there's a vowel. (Very much simplified, it's infinately more complicated than that in reality ;))

Wow, that wasn't relevant at all, but hey... I jump at any chance I get :)
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Post by Scott McCloud »

Relevent and fascinating, actually, Bjorn. Thank you.

I was wondering why I'd felt like writing "Nor'Eastah". Now I know.

I'm too lazy to fix it on the jpg, but I've fixed it on the origninal, in case there are future uses.
DrWhom

Boston English

Post by DrWhom »

Following up on Bjorn's comments - there's a whole bunch of places where the pronunciations look really false ("stahries", "sweahing") and they really distract me from being able to follow this charming story by making me think "That's not anything like a Boston accent!" 'Fyou want me to go through and find all of them, I will....
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Post by CleverUserName01 »

Indeed, New Englander John F. Kennedy was notorious for the "phantom R" during his presidency - he appeared to be dealing with Soviet missiles in a Caribbean nation known as "Cubar."

Still...trying to get across an accent in writing is difficult. Though Scott's effort here may have certain inconsistencies with the standard Boston accent, it's close enough to give readers familiar with the accent the right idea. Think back to all the stuff in UC about icons - that's more or less what he's doing here (perhaps not intentionally or consciously, but, well...you know...). He isn't literally transcribing a Boston accent, but generally getting the idea of one across. Ceci n'est pas une wikid pissah.

***

Call it "sour grapes" if you want, Rip - but the stats back me up. Jeter isn't as good a shortstop as Nomar, and isn't fit to hold A-Rod's jock. Not as good as Miguel Tejada, either. The Yanks are idiots if they're really going to put A-Rod at 3rd and leave Jeter at SS, that's all I'm sayin'.
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Post by Rip Tanion »

If you ask me (make it a habit) it should be "Nah-Eastah". I've been to a lot of Red Sox@Yankees games, and for every game, bus-loads of chowder-heads (hey, that's what we call 'em) come down from Boston, and infest The Stadium; so I've heard a lot of Boston accents in my day. In fact far too many for my liking. :wink:

In the Bronx we say, "Naw-Easta."

All I got to say to C.U.N.01 is "stats, schmats" Besides, still about a month and a half until opening day. Anything can happen between now and then. Still too early to really start talking any "smack", either way, yet.
"Park the beers, and grab the smiles. It's flight time." - LtCdr. J. Robert "Bobby" Stone, USN (R.I.P.)
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Post by gareis »

How long before she realizes that he's pumping her for information? Then he'll have to call in the spooks to sedate her and take her to an interrogation facility.
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Post by Rip Tanion »

Wait a minute! I thought SHE was the CIA agent.
"Park the beers, and grab the smiles. It's flight time." - LtCdr. J. Robert "Bobby" Stone, USN (R.I.P.)
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Post by Chronosome »

Rip Tanion wrote:If you ask me (make it a habit) it should be "Nah-Eastah". I've been to a lot of Red Sox@Yankees games, and for every game, bus-loads of chowder-heads (hey, that's what we call 'em) come down from Boston, and infest The Stadium; so I've heard a lot of Boston accents in my day. In fact far too many for my liking. :wink:
I'm going to have to agree with "Nor-Eastah". I'm a native, ya see...
Not thatchya heah anyone othah then weathahmen use the term--and they all have that alien newscastah accent. :)
-R o n A m o r i M
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Post by gareis »

Rip Tanion wrote:Wait a minute! I thought SHE was the CIA agent.
No, no, no. He's the one asking all the questions.

On the other hand...
Perhaps it's a stakeout?
Perhaps it's Another Stakeout?
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Post by Rip Tanion »

Questions are a burden to others. Answers are a prison to one's self.
"Park the beers, and grab the smiles. It's flight time." - LtCdr. J. Robert "Bobby" Stone, USN (R.I.P.)
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Re: Boston English

Post by Veleno »

Anonymous wrote:Following up on Bjorn's comments - there's a whole bunch of places where the pronunciations look really false ("stahries", "sweahing") and they really distract me from being able to follow this charming story by making me think "That's not anything like a Boston accent!" 'Fyou want me to go through and find all of them, I will....
While reading the comic, I interpreted the woman's speech patterns as being a result of her learning disability. That is, I assumed that she was talking with more child-like pronounciations, such as replacing "r" sounds with "w" sounds somewhat the way Elmer Fudd does (on a side note, I once had that problem, which a speech therapist solved by having me gargle water to hear better what an "r" was supposed to sound like). I hadn't tried to pin the accent to a particular reason. Likewise, with the man, I guessed that he somewhat developed odd speech patterns as a result of talking mostly to himself for years.
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Her accent

Post by spinclad »

I haven't noticed anywhere that an r became a w. The ws are coming from vowel splitting: for example, aw -> u aw (with a quite distinctive tightening and lowering of the throat in the second half), as in twok and Bwoston. You can also hear it in her why, which might have been spelled whoy, with the same retracted aw (not to be confused with boy -> bwoy, which has a proper high o in it), if my ear doesn't lie. I'd place her home ground somewhere in or near Philadelphia (not Baltimore, or I miss my guess). Growing up in suburban North Jersey, we had a couple of classmates hailing from there. I didn't notice that their speech was particularly odd or different than the rest of us, but once someone pointed it out, I could hear the difference quite clearly.
evaristo

Post by evaristo »

i know it has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion, but last night i dreamt a continuation of the improv...it turned out they were actually living in 1940's nazi germany(which contradicts most of the dialogue, their style of clothing and the dunkin' donuts bag), and the reason they weren't to be caught outside in the nighttime were the ally air raids. They tried to escape, but found nothing but brick walls, brick walls everywhere.

Uh...ok, i'll shut up now :-?
Does it show i'm really enjoying this improv? Well, i am :)
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Post by Tim Mallos »

I just had the notion that a dialect translator moight be an interestung thing to make. Enter text, choose region, whammo bammo. Help for everyone who wants to try dialect in narrative....

Tim

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=U ... nslator%22

Don't have time to look, but may have been done...

Tim
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