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Post by Mishmash on Jun 11, 2010 11:27:11 GMT
I am totally confused and a little creeped out!
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Post by swordfish on Jun 11, 2010 11:35:37 GMT
Spider-Jack is ridiculously scary.
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Post by todd on Jun 11, 2010 11:43:58 GMT
As for the point-of-view shift we are still following the character who *thinks* she is Annie. So in some sense it's still Annie's point of view. Maybe. It still seems a little too bizarre (from a metafictional standpoint) to me.
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Post by Aris Katsaris on Jun 11, 2010 11:51:37 GMT
Tom's last twitter - a few mins ago: "This chapter gets a little weird after this point." Hehe.
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Post by nikita on Jun 11, 2010 12:16:25 GMT
Why does Jack kidnap himself?
PS: and no claiming Memory-Jack is actually Zimmy!
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Post by Rex on Jun 11, 2010 12:19:01 GMT
I just stopped to think about this a bit, and I realized if Annie really is Zimmy... this trap has just succeeded.
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Post by rebecca on Jun 11, 2010 12:22:59 GMT
Annie is Zimmy is Annie, I think. I don't know how it would work, but I suspect that it's somehow a combination of the two. She has Zimmy eyes started in panel 1, then loses them and returns to Annie-ness.
And no, I have no clue how it would happen and there are holes in the theory big enough to drive a truck through, but there you go.
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lovecraft1024
Full Member
What does anything mean? Basically
Posts: 118
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Post by lovecraft1024 on Jun 11, 2010 12:27:28 GMT
Wow, great comic! I'm much happier waiting 'till Monday now having seeing this one than the last couple of Fridays.
Obviously there are still questions of identity. I've always felt Annie was really Annie. Some may feel this is still unresolved, and perhaps that's true, but I think it's really her.
As far as Jack, well that's really interesting, especially since we now see spider-Jack as well as nice-Jack. I don't mind waiting for the full resolution on this, because I think a lot of people have made good guesses.
The ones that really bug me are "Gamma" and "Zimmy". A lot has been said on them, but here are a few other observations not mentioned.
If this is really the real Zimmingham, why is Zimmy not actively seeking out Gamma? How can she just hang out with a memory of Jack in a large public square? Perhaps because she showed Jack how to gop people, but still, doesn't she want to find Gamma?
And then, Gamma - she's messed up thinking Annie is Zimmy, so perhaps that's why she's not seeking out the real Zimmy. So why is she that way? And why isn't she just waiting for Zimmiy in Toyland (#468)? Not to mention the telepathy and understanding English thing.
So mostly what's weird to me I guess is what's going on with Zimmy. Definitely not her garbage-can heaving self (#463).
If these are all the real guys, something must have happened before Annie got there that we have still to learn about. And if not, well, I still question the reality of Z&G.
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Post by djublonskopf on Jun 11, 2010 12:29:29 GMT
Well gosh golly, that was triple creepy. Also what's with the continual 'buzz'ing? I keep thinking flies in spider webs. I think he's got it.
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Post by legion on Jun 11, 2010 12:33:49 GMT
I'm still betting on "they're in a holographic simulation" (possibly with some etheric enhencement), and everyone is who they appear to be (except nice-Jack who is a hologram), but is confused on purpose by the simulation.
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Miri
Full Member
Posts: 211
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Post by Miri on Jun 11, 2010 13:05:45 GMT
As for the point-of-view shift we are still following the character who *thinks* she is Annie. So in some sense it's still Annie's point of view. Maybe. It still seems a little too bizarre (from a metafictional standpoint) to me. I agree. I never got the impression that Annie was Zimmy - especially after they both appear in Panel 7. Annie's something of an empath and she's been hanging out in Zimmingham with Gamma after not sleeping, so she's more susceptible to etheric forces than usual...and these are freakier etheric forces than she's used to. She's picking up a lot of Zimmy's thought processes and unconscious responses, but that doesn't mean she's turning into her. All that said, holy crow this page scared me. Jack is such a creeper.
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Post by Aris Katsaris on Jun 11, 2010 13:55:56 GMT
It's Zimmy who we have seen affected mentally by the presence or absense of other people around her, not Annie. Though Annie has been said to have a special empathy with etheric beings, I wouldn't call her an "empath" in the sense you seem to be suggesting.
That doesn't explain why Gamma thought Annie was Zimmie immediately upon seeing her -- before Annie had a chance to hang out with her. And it wouldn't explain why the person we see as Zimmie is telling them to stay away.
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Post by 5lizak on Jun 11, 2010 13:58:22 GMT
Consider the comparison of Zimmy to Coyote & Renard earlier [725] and how it causes stress on her psyche and distortions in the physcial world. The power station doing a similar effect could amplify these symptoms.
I trust Gamma would remain the most constant in Zimmy's mind, and as such Gamma's statements are probably the best anchor to reality. There are a couple reasons Zimmy could be mistaking herself as Annie:
- Perhaps she feels that Annie and Gamma have an emotional connection, and Zimmy wanted (subconsciously?) to be more like Annie to amplify that. - Zimmy has to live in fear and isolation all the time, while Annie is somewhat displayed as a paragon of Gunnerkrigg Etherics and is surrounded by friends
Furthermore, if Zimmy does think she's Annie, then seeing Annie would form an inconsistency in Zim City, so Annie would have to look like Zimmy instead. Perhaps OldJack here represents Zimmy's memories of Jack, Zimmy remembers Annie without the scar, and the drunken effect is Gamma trying to pull Zimmy out of her psyche-shattered state.
Zimmy DID say that "It's only as real as you let it be", but perhaps she's projecting? --- Of course, after today I say: "Jack, what ARE you trying to do?"
If Jack understood what was going on, perhaps he felt that ZimAnnie running into the memory of Jack would reinforce the delusion, causing ZimAnnie to behave more like RealAnnie, and thus chase down Jack into his own domain. Earlier we've seen the spiders jump on people in the buildings, for example, so it is not invalid to assume they 'live' there.
Or perhaps Jack was being wholesome and merely trying to reassimilate his old self. Or the spider is trying to destroy his old self so he'll never be the same again, and Jack is being controlled by the webs like a marionette.
Thankfully, Zimmy isn't familiar with Boxbot.
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Post by legion on Jun 11, 2010 14:27:35 GMT
Meanwhile, on Tom's twitter:
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Post by cheddarius on Jun 11, 2010 15:33:39 GMT
Annie is Eglamore. Everyone else is Boxbot.
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Post by violet on Jun 11, 2010 15:45:29 GMT
Thought: If, as seems likely, happy!Jack is a part of Jack that he left behind, it's not inconceivable that angry!Yet!Apparently!Invisible!Zimmy is a part of her that she left behind. That might happen quite a lot, actually. Maybe sometimes she comes back and picks them back up. Maybe sometimes she doesn't. The darkness around her eyes is also obviously different (compare today's panel 2 with panel 2 from that link). I still have a big problem with that theory; it rests on the argument that Tom has suddenly changed the chapter, halfway through, from being about Annie having to stop Jack to being about Zimmy having an identity crisis, in an out-of-left-field manner. I'm sorry, are you saying that if it happened to be the case that everyone was exactly who they looked like, this chapter would somehow not be about identity (Zimmy's in particular)? I just stopped to think about this a bit, and I realized if Annie really is Zimmy... this trap has just succeeded. Yup.
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Post by atteSmythe on Jun 11, 2010 15:56:15 GMT
If this is really the real Zimmingham, why is Zimmy not actively seeking out Gamma? How can she just hang out with a memory of Jack in a large public square? IMO, this is the million-dollar question right now. In Power Station, the response was pretty much "Good, you can gop people. Now let's find Gamma. Now." Here, our introduction to her is just sitting around, chilling it with the ghost of Christmas past. And again, in Power Station, Zimmy reacted to Annie's curiosity with frustration and anger. Here, she's apparently just telling Jack-that-was how the world works and enduring his fascination with it. Still doesn't add up.
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lovecraft1024
Full Member
What does anything mean? Basically
Posts: 118
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Post by lovecraft1024 on Jun 11, 2010 16:02:21 GMT
Meanwhile, on Tom's twitter: Uh, I'm a little confused about the meaning of "after this point", given the chapter's last few pages...
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Dentrala
Full Member
"I absolutely did not expect thiiiissss!!"
Posts: 156
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Post by Dentrala on Jun 11, 2010 16:18:53 GMT
I theorize that Tom has turned into a giant bee.
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Post by 5lizak on Jun 11, 2010 16:20:15 GMT
Meanwhile, on Tom's twitter: I look foward to a fully etheric realm like Coyote's. Ever wonder what Zimmy or SpiderJack might look like fully etheric?
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Post by Casey on Jun 11, 2010 16:27:15 GMT
Once again, I find myself thinking:
Using ether-sight would be really handy, right about now, silly old Annie.
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Post by Aris Katsaris on Jun 11, 2010 16:29:32 GMT
Meanwhile, on Tom's twitter: Uh, I'm a little confused about the meaning of "after this point", given the chapter's last few pages... It's called ironic humor, I think, mate.
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Post by lurker on Jun 11, 2010 16:41:22 GMT
Once again, I find myself thinking: Using ether-sight would be really handy, right about now, silly old Annie. If she still has the mental stamina to focus enough to do that. She has obviously been completely worn down by this point, and scarily enough, probably vulnerable to whatever twisted etheric monstrosities lurk in this place. While I don't question Jones' wisdom in sending her alone here, I'm starting to question her motives.
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Post by Dvandaemon on Jun 11, 2010 17:28:30 GMT
Well gosh golly, that was triple creepy. Also what's with the continual 'buzz'ing? I keep thinking flies in spider webs. Exactly it They're all flies in the web
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Post by edisdead on Jun 11, 2010 17:52:15 GMT
I think I'm getting it a little.
It seems that when Jack and friends made that journey into the ether a while back, Jack's etheric manifestation of himself (soul, collective identity or what have you) got left behind. When Jack became all weird it was really just his soulless shell, with Jack's true self trapped in Zimmy and Gamma's ether-verse. It would also explain the metaphysical cobwebs that Annie can see. They represent something derelict and dead. With Jack's "soul" absent from his body, he is, in a spiritual sense, dead.
Though that'll probably end up being completely wrong by the end of this. All in all amazing arc regardless.
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Miri
Full Member
Posts: 211
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Post by Miri on Jun 11, 2010 18:00:55 GMT
It's Zimmy who we have seen affected mentally by the presence or absense of other people around her, not Annie. Though Annie has been said to have a special empathy with etheric beings, I wouldn't call her an "empath" in the sense you seem to be suggesting. That's the only sense I was suggesting. And Zimmy would fit my definition of etheric being at this point in time (at the very least a person so deeply affected and intertwined with the ether that it's impacting her actions and personality), so if Annie has an empathy with etheric beings, then she'd be picking up on or sort of absorbing Zimmy's feelings, and since her defenses are pretty low right now, she acts on them in panel two. In panel three, it seems to me she has no idea why she just did that. Gamma was expecting to see Zimmy and had seen Zimmy manifest as different people before. She had no reason to believe it wasn't Zimmy. Although she should now, since she's seen Zimmy and Annie side-by-side, unless Zimmy has been known to bilocate.
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Post by unlikelylass on Jun 11, 2010 18:04:29 GMT
I have to agree with several people about 'buzz'. Antimony (and whomever else is present) is pretty clearly caught in a web. I'm not convinced that the web is actually Zimmingham, however. Evidence? 1. No cut on Annie's cheek -- on either her or on Zimmy-who-may-actually-be Annie. 2. Aside from Good!Jack's comments about 'Gopping', we haven't seen any people other than Gamma, Good!Jack, Spider!Jack, Zimmy!Annie and Annie!Zimmy. Zero no-face people in evidence, and during Power Station there seemed to be an awful lot of them milling about. Maybe they're staying away from Gamma, but I'm not convinced. As for whether Annie is Annie or Zimmy (and vice-versa) -- no idea. The person we see as Annie, that Gamma claims is Zimmy, appears to be the person we've been following all along -- Antimony. She both looks like Annie (despite a few zimmy-isms, like the eyes, and the me/zimmy slip) and appears to have continuity with the Antimony who was with Jones and Reynard. Unless the first-to-second panel transition [ here ] is also a shift from Annie-being-Annie to Zimmy-being-Annie, I think we have to accept that this is Annie having fallen into whatever trap Spider!Jack had set for Zimmy. Since the trap is 'primed' for Zimmy, the person in it is being treated as Zimmy. Alternately, there could be a discontinuity in that transition -- the first panel could have Annie going through the roof door. A moment later, Zimmy passes through the same/a similar door, becoming the "Annie" of the second panel, and seeing the Annie already present as "Zimmy". It's certainly true that the Zimmy we have seen since the trap has sprung has been behaving in an Annie-like-manner. But it's also true that Annie isn't entirely being like Zimmy -- more like a mix. Shrug. Pretty obviously, we don't have enough information, it's just a comic, and we should really just relax... =) EDIT TO ADD: Ah, actually, there are some vague silhouette people [ here ], but I'm still not convinced we're in Real Zimmingham. I don't think we'll be able to really tell what's going on 'really' until we get more story under our belt. probably several strips-worth, I bet...
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Fen
Junior Member
Posts: 85
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Post by Fen on Jun 11, 2010 18:23:45 GMT
Is that shadow, or something holding Jack's arm? (Look maw, I done gone planted another tree in Epileptic Forest)
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Post by Ulysses on Jun 11, 2010 18:29:49 GMT
I was going to say that we can be pretty certain this isn't in a sim, but then I checked and there's nothing to suggest that it isn't other than it feeling too soon after the last sim chapter. All Jones says is that it will be more interesting for the Court to not stop Jack (implying that they do actually have the capability to stop him) and that Annie seems content to handle the situation by herself. Apparently my memory of Jones saying the Court wouldn't interfere was completely false.
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Post by violet on Jun 11, 2010 18:38:35 GMT
Using ether-sight would be really handy, right about now, silly old Annie. These last few pages, she just hasn't been herself.
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