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Post by smjjames on Nov 5, 2012 15:51:37 GMT
This update and the last update lead me to assume that Jones is in the same spot in both updates (lava cooled into rock, ocean formed around her), and had been for a very long time, but makes me question what caused her to awaken suddenly in 1112?? I would guess the presence of life (multicellular life anyway), and the fact that there wasn't any rock or sediment blocking her vision. Being in a wasteland without any visible life forms would be boring as hell for an immortal. With life, there would be something to observe every day.
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Post by jasaebushae on Nov 5, 2012 15:52:22 GMT
im becoming more convinced by the 'jones dreamed up everything and coyote is a dream within a dream' idea XD
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Post by smjjames on Nov 5, 2012 15:55:50 GMT
I would just like to say that something interesting has happened in this page. This is the first time that she's done absolutely nothing since (until?) we last saw her. She's been sleeping in that bed of rock for who-knows-how-many millions/billions of years. I won't say this is the last one because honestly I have no idea, but this page is at least meaningfully different from every one that's come before it. Edit: drat, Bruzer beat me! XD Well, at minumim, 4 billion years, that's for sure.
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Post by solono on Nov 5, 2012 16:08:15 GMT
I see this a lot, but people complaining about the "lack of forward progress" are ignorant of how a story-as-art functions. Lots of people are also ignorant of brevity, sacrificing it in the name of the grandiose and l'art pour l'art for no reason. Simple is beautiful, mystery is intriguing, plots are not so cut and dry as you are portraying them. No, not all should be about plot but once you neglect it for something 'epic' or having some sort of feeling of grandeur, you're eating your pace by the handful due to overindulgence. As much as I'd love to joust with the nature of creativity, I will simply say this: You are appearing to view things as absolutes, in a very laissez-faire manner. Which is both fine and nightmarish at the same time. (I would never do it, myself, I would not bother asking questions or exploring things not relevant to my own arts logic because, quite frankly, its old hat) Got it, Jones is old. Doesn't need to go on for as long as she appears to be alive to establish that.
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Post by OrzBrain on Nov 5, 2012 16:18:43 GMT
The strong current comes from natural convection, the powerful dynamic interaction of the hot molten rock and the cold (assuming it is cold) object. The object becomes warmer until it reaches equilibrium with its environment but the molten rock near it becomes cooler and contracts; these tiny changes may be invisible and seem meaningless but they can be felt, in this case as a downward pull. The molten rock near the object becomes slightly denser than the molten rock around it, etc. creating a current. The bigger the difference in temperatures the more powerful the effect is. So Jones herself may be invincible and standing on solid rock but I think for her hair to move as it does in the comic it must be about equal in temperature to the molten rock around it. And: I'm pretty sure lava doesn't work like that. See, the top part of the lava is always colder than the lower part. In fact, sometimes the top part of the lava gets so cold that it solidifies into rock: That is a picture of the lava lake at Erta Ale. You can see the crust, which is many many times as dense as a human hair, and substantially cooler than the underlying lava, floating atop the liquid lava. According to your theory of convection in lava, the cooler top part of the lava should immediately shoot to the bottom, and the lava should churn furiously until it has all solidified. However, this does not happen in reality, at least in part due to the extreme viscosity of lava, which almost completely overwhelms such convection effects. Since Jones' hair acts somewhat like human hair, rather than hanging straight down (the previous comic shows her hair floating in water), it must be lighter than rock, and hence Tom got it exactly right in showing her hair floating on top of the lava. Edit: I just noticed that her hair goes up through the rock in the previous comic. If that rock is lava which closed over her head and then solidified, then that would make perfect sense, since her hair would be trying to float away upward and only be held down by its attachment to her head. Of course, why Jones doesn't also float in lava is a whole other question.
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Post by smjjames on Nov 5, 2012 16:35:00 GMT
@all the discussion about lava and whether her hair should sink into it or float: It's called artistic license, Tom probably doesn't know for sure whether it should float or not even though he obviously does his homework.
I think Jones might even be immune to a point blank blast from a nuke (and be very radioactive for a very long time, for us that is. It'd be less than a blink of an eye on the timescale she has existed.)
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Post by nero on Nov 5, 2012 16:44:21 GMT
I wonder if she was sleeping because she wanted to and she felt like there was nothing else to do. Or if she really woke up for the first time in the previous page.
Even after this chapter finishes we'll still want to see Jones appear much more in the comic.
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vebyast
New Member
Usually I'm the Blue Marble, but this seems more appropriate
Posts: 45
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Post by vebyast on Nov 5, 2012 16:45:19 GMT
What if...what if she IS the Theia impact? Long before there could be any life on a very young Earth, the very first word was heard by only the one who uttered it: CANNONBAAALL !!! The Theia impact was a large, slow-moving impactor. The ejecta thrown out by a small, fast impactor (and Jones would have to be well into the relativistic realm to have enough energy) would be moving too fast to be recaptured and coalesce into a moon. Which just means that it'd give us evidence that Jones is the most powerfully etheric being on the planet.
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Post by Refugee on Nov 5, 2012 17:05:12 GMT
<solemn nod> Except for one thing: I can no longer refer to this entity as "Jones". I'm going for "Wandering Eye". I'm sticking with the feminine pronoun, as opposed to "it", more as a matter of courtesy than anything. === Physics, esp. density: pft. What about temperature. She should be red hot. I'm going along with the idea that such things simply do not matter to her. She is not material. === Contradicting my self: Look at the first frame, the fountains of lava. That one towards the left strikes me as different from the rest, more flowing, no sparks flying. I swear I can see a human figure in it. And compare today's scene with the burning of Rome. Is her robe on fire there? === It's getting harder and harder for me to understand why she has any interest in individual humans at all. Nor can I apply human standards to her. So she takes in young boys, raises them to adulthood, to positions of wealth and power, as we mere mortals understand it, for all we know granting them sexual favors or not along the way as their own needs and desires dictate. I honestly don't believe such matters are of any interest to her, except as necessary to the mental health of her charges. We still don't know why she does this. Is she raising the boys, or their civilizations? Are they companions, well cared for pets she takes as her due for the long watch she stands to whatever end? === Is this what Annie imagines her to be? I hope not; Tom's spending an incredible amount of time and effort to troll us otherwise. Same-same with Wandering Eye telling Annie, "It's a long story. Another time.", without showing us the answer to Annie's question. === I also note the recurrence of fire here, and think of Annie's own Fire Nature. Is this why Annie's mother was so willing to pass her life on to Annie? She takes something of the long view that Wandering Eye does? Was Annie Psychopomp, not to her Mother, but to her own recurring self? === And "Wandering Eye". We see a lot of wandering here, through time and space, but I'm getting the idea that although she helps out a lot, she doesn't really exert a great deal of influence. Is she in fact a Watcher, an Eye for some greater power?
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Post by aaroncampbell on Nov 5, 2012 17:09:08 GMT
Jones can't be much more dense than rock, otherwise wouldn't she be in the mantle, or deeper in the core of the earth. I do agree that she appears to be in the same place as in Friday's page, which is fascinating. This seems to be post Theia impact. Jones could have something to do with life on proto-Earth or Theia. I'm still leaning toward time travel or retrograde creation, though. What if...what if she IS the Theia impact? I was thinking the same thing myself! Apparently this was scientifically shot down later, but even so it's a great idea. I wonder what the rabbit-owning goddess would think of that?
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Post by smjjames on Nov 5, 2012 17:11:41 GMT
And compare today's scene with the burning of Rome. Is her robe on fire there? I'm just saying that it puts the " thing in there, which breaks the link, not sure if you're putting quotation marks in, which aren't neccesary or if something else is breaking it.
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Post by smjjames on Nov 5, 2012 17:17:38 GMT
I haven't read through today's thread yet, so this may be a repeat (sorry) -- but it just occurred to me that Jones can't be much more dense than rock. Otherwise wouldn't she be in the mantle, or deeper in the core of the earth? Or more specifically, she can't be denser than the crustal rocks, but I'm sure she travelled through the depths a number of times over those billions of years. Also, who's to say that she didn't wake up every couple hundred million years to see if anything interesting is going on and she isn't encased in rock still. Would have been cool if she awoke during the Cambrian Explosion or earlier, then she would know what things were the ancesters of what.
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Necropaxx
Full Member
The natural choice for a shoulder to cry on.
Posts: 135
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Post by Necropaxx on Nov 5, 2012 17:23:19 GMT
The fact that Jones' eye is now closed is fascinating to me. I feel like she was placed there until such time as the earth has settled down a bit and life exists, where presumably she can begin her mission.
But what is her mission? Why is she so old? Who put her there, or is she the Fount from which all life comes (and therefore without a master)? Did the earth form around her? And what in blue blazes does any of this have to do with Gunnerkrigg Court?
Still, I can't imagine this "Space Odyssey"-like dream conduit will go on much longer. Maybe the next page shows her in space while asteroids and whatnot cluster around her, creating the Earth.
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Post by grahamf on Nov 5, 2012 17:46:51 GMT
*Reads the latest page* She's older than the hill, I get it. What's the point?
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Post by Stately Buff-Cookie on Nov 5, 2012 17:49:10 GMT
In a world of dreams, the only thing that's real holds all the power?
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Post by Refugee on Nov 5, 2012 17:55:06 GMT
And compare today's scene with the burning of Rome. Is her robe on fire there? I'm just saying that it puts the " thing in there, which breaks the link, not sure if you're putting quotation marks in, which aren't neccesary or if something else is breaking it. Sorry, did the thing that works on another board. Fixed now. Thanks for the heads up.
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Post by smjjames on Nov 5, 2012 17:58:24 GMT
*Reads the latest page* She's older than the hill, I get it. What's the point? Everybody is asking that by now, but we are all in the same boat and will just have to enjoy the ride. I don't know how much Tom has tested the patience of his readers, but even the more patient ones are probably saying the same thing and for Tom to get to the point.
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Post by OrzBrain on Nov 5, 2012 18:05:39 GMT
Still, I can't imagine this "Space Odyssey"-like dream conduit will go on much longer. Maybe the next page shows her in space while asteroids and whatnot cluster around her, creating the Earth. Before this we have Jones floating in the primordial gas cloud that formed into our sun, then we have her floating in deep space, then we have her floating in the radiation soup between the time 4 minutes after the big bang when the first atomic nuclei formed and the point 3000 years after the big bang when electrons became bound to atomic nuclei and the universe became transparent, and finally we could have her floating unconcerned (though slightly shrunken) in supercompressed space during the Planck epoch 10 -43 seconds after the big bang. I will be very interested to see how Tom handles the artistic challenge of showing the universe in its early stages, particularly during the Planck epoch, which we have little to no theoretical understanding of. Will Mr. Siddell finally be the one to combine quantum mechanics with relativistic gravity in a coherent way?
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Post by Per on Nov 5, 2012 18:09:49 GMT
I don't know how much Tom has tested the patience of his readers, but even the more patient ones are probably saying the same thing and for Tom to get to the point. I have no idea if I count as "more patient", but I'm not saying anything of the kind. I have absolutely no idea why I should start to question Tom or the comic because this chapter is being told in this particular unconventional way. There's nothing wrong with it at all. There's no reason to call its legitimacy into question any more than that of any of the chapters preceding it.
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Post by smjjames on Nov 5, 2012 18:19:20 GMT
Going through the whole sequence like that in separate comics would seriously test people's patience, unless he decides to jump 10 billion years and go straight to the big bang and do a sequence of panels starting with nothingness (or a previous universe, if he is into an eternally repeating big bang), the big bang itself, some stages of it and jones along with other etheric beings (all of the creator gods for one, and yes that includes God as he is a creator god along with the creator deities of countless tribal beliefs) floating around in the primordial universe.
Also, if there are aliens in the Gunnerkriggs universe, wouldn't their creator deities appear as well? That's certainly food for thought given the vast number of stars, time, and the fact that even if only one civilization arose per galaxy, there'd be a vast number of them.
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Post by alexei on Nov 5, 2012 18:29:39 GMT
I very much hope that we see her(?) floating before a nebula in the next instalment; I believe that Tom would very much enjoy drawing one.
Maybe she existed before the universe or outside of time at some point; I wonder how he would visually represent that.
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quoodle
Full Member
Just a man on a planet
Posts: 168
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Post by quoodle on Nov 5, 2012 18:29:54 GMT
I don't know how much Tom has tested the patience of his readers, but even the more patient ones are probably saying the same thing and for Tom to get to the point. Naw, not at all. This is a fine story so far for me. However, I do find it ironic that people are asking Tom to "get on with it". He's said he has a very large buffer of comics (20?) and the comics come out in order. He doesn't even know what day they will come out. So, in reality, he's already gotten on with it - and these were written a while ago. The path has already been set.
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Post by Stately Buff-Cookie on Nov 5, 2012 18:33:00 GMT
I see this a lot, but people complaining about the "lack of forward progress" are ignorant of how a story-as-art functions. Lots of people are also ignorant of brevity, sacrificing it in the name of the grandiose and l'art pour l'art for no reason. I think part of the issue is just method of delivery. Webcomics update a page at a time, and as such it's best to make sure each page gives bang for the buck. You have to make readers feel like it's worth visiting the page every update. Tom has had these artistic moments, but they were always brief and explosive. The were there and gone, and the rarity made us appreciate those moments of flare all the more. I bet you, on a reread of the archive, all this will feel too brief. It just feels painful now because one page hangs around for a while. In truth it's really not been that long at all. Nor that many pages. This'll just be one of those times where you appreciate the story more when you can read the pages one after the other.
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Post by stormy on Nov 5, 2012 18:34:16 GMT
I see this a lot, but people complaining about the "lack of forward progress" are ignorant of how a story-as-art functions. Um, no, that wasn't condescending at all. /eyebrow I'm perfectly aware of the various concerns and demands of writing good fiction. Fantasy has always been a genre that celebrates world-building, and Tom is an expert world-builder. But there are other considerations too, such as timing, tension, and rising action. Saying that a long run of backstory and world-building are beginning to make me impatient doesn't make me an illiterate troglodyte. Also, what Buff-Cookie said. Maybe I'm being impatient b/c of the format. What would be a lovely interlude in a book starts to frustrate when you view it a bit-at-a time. Finally, I think there is a difference in how visually-oriented people and verbally-oriented people read comics. I see this in my husband and I all the time. So maybe, despite the art, I'm just "jonesing" for some dialogue!
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Post by GK Sierra on Nov 5, 2012 18:45:39 GMT
I don't understand why people are miffed. This is one of the best chapters we've had in ages.
If people don't want to stick around for the tension-building, then come back in a week or so. It'll all be done by then and those of us who aren't annoyed by one beautifully drawn page after another will let you know when it is safe to return.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Nov 5, 2012 18:50:47 GMT
Ah, I see many new people posting! Welcome all! There is an intro thread somewhere but it is not mandatory. What does a 5 foot 4 woman of her build weigh you think? She might even be more dense than that. Look at how she is not pushed by the lava flow, she stands bolt upright as it just goes around her. Rocks and landscape resist the flow by being strongly attached to much larger objects, but unless she is attached the the ground beneath some way, she has to be heavier than my 300 lb estimate. What is the relationship between the horizontal force of a flowing fluid and its density? I eyeballed it out a while ago that Jones has to be at least 110% Parley's mass. There's no way she could possibly weigh less than 150lbs. Because we can't see below her armpits she could be buried pretty deeply so I'd rather not speculate how much force she's resisting though if you only go by her head not moving you might actually be able to assign some decent numbers there as adult skulls fall into predictable ranges... [No time for a longer response now, will think more and write more later if I come up with anything useful...] [later edit] I was thinking I could assign a time span of 3 seconds or more between panels as that's the minimum for a film cut and most cartoonists use a similar strategy for displaying action. If anyone's interested in this still, any thoughts on how we can judge the lava's rate of advance? [/later edit] I'm pretty sure lava doesn't work like that. See, the top part of the lava is always colder than the lower part. In fact, sometimes the top part of the lava gets so cold that it solidifies into rock... That is a picture of the lava lake at Erta Ale. You can see the crust, which is many many times as dense as a human hair, and substantially cooler than the underlying lava, floating atop the liquid lava... According to your theory of convection in lava, the cooler top part of the lava should immediately shoot to the bottom, and the lava should churn furiously until it has all solidified. However, this does not happen in reality, at least in part due to the extreme viscosity of lava, which almost completely overwhelms such convection effects. While the crust on lava is much cooler than the lava at the bottom of a magma chamber it is still way the hell hotter than a normal living person. The crust is supported by both viscosity and surface tension. And yes, the lava beneath the crust is churning slowly. I finally thought of an example some people may be able to relate to. Have you ever made hard candy at home? It is tricky but when you get the candy to the correct temperature you can just drip the cold flavoring and color onto it and it gets pulled all through the mix very quickly, no stirring needed. If the candy cools too much then the distribution is uneven, if it is too hot then it is completely even and nearly instant but it takes on a burned taste. Yes, a hair has more resistance than liquid flavor but compared to a human it has nearly none, which is why I said it would shoot down into the lava if its temperature was "normal."
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Sola
New Member
before the wave's collapse
Posts: 1
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Post by Sola on Nov 5, 2012 18:58:12 GMT
I really don't feel impatient about this part of the story at all, and it's a little surprising (though i guess not unexpected) that other folks are. Jones is such a deep and central mystery that i think she deserves every moment that's paid to her unfolding. It's been years already; a few more pages, a few more weeks devoted to the beauty of her span is nothing at all against the arc.
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Post by Eversist on Nov 5, 2012 19:46:29 GMT
This update and the last update lead me to assume that Jones is in the same spot in both updates (lava cooled into rock, ocean formed around her), and had been for a very long time... I thought the very same thing. So the star thing could still stand; she plummeted to the earth during this period? We probably have a few more pages to go, though.
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Post by jercos on Nov 5, 2012 20:18:31 GMT
I don't know about you guys, but I lava this storyline.
I'm sorry, I'll go now.
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Post by Refugee on Nov 5, 2012 20:46:04 GMT
I am notorious elsewhere for excoriating the artist for excessive filler. I do not have that problem here. Like nothing else could, Tom is giving us a feel for what the Wandering Eye entity has endured. Going back to star dust in only a jump or three would not have given us a sense of her experience. "The scandal and the estate mean nothing to me."No, in light of all this, I suppose not. I hope we are approaching the time when we learn what does mean something to her. Jones is such a deep and central mystery that i think she deserves every moment that's paid to her unfolding. It's been years already; a few more pages, a few more weeks devoted to the beauty of her span is nothing at all against the arc. Yes. Go ahead, start with Annie's question, and page forward. In its totality, even so far as we have seen, this is worthy of Kubrick or Clarke. [I just had a pleasant little thrill imagining Wandering Eye as one of Alvin's companions in City and the Stars.]
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