[309] New Dorms

[Yin]

Ooh.

No roomies, huh. They look pretty cool, though.

[spritznar]

wow, those remind me of that one world in Myst... channelwood? i could never keep the names straight... and the village in Riven

[Mezzaphor]

Apparently the Court is big enough to have a bottomless chasm with no discernible walls. Inside.

Tom promised that Year 8's accommodations would be spectacular, and he delivered.

[Yin]

I'm suddenly wondering if there are other dorms on top/below these.

[faxmaster]

I guess Gunnerkrigg contracted out whoever was responsible for all the exceedingly dangerous bridges spanning across gapping chasms in Star Wars (and pretty much every other sci-fi movie ever) when they built their dorms.

But yeah, this is a very nice page. Interesting architectural design (reminds me of... was it channelwood?... in Myst too, or just that aesthetic in general), and I love the fisheye perspective in the second panel. Its great watching the art improve in this comic.

[Mezzaphor]

I really like Annie's smile in panel 3.

Those doors... it's a good thing Annie and her classmates are all so skinny.

[La Goon]

These dorms look safer than the ones in year 7.

Not really safe though

EDIT: Is "safer" an actual word in English? I'm not sure...

[Hazel]

Guh, what's the stance around here on pointing out mistakes in the comic? Am I committing a huge faux pas in stating the fact that it should really be "much farther into the court", not "farhter"? I'm sorry, I'm so painfully nitpicky it couldn't pass my attention. Beautiful architectural design, though.

P.S. La Goon, 'safer' is definitely an actual English word. Safe - safer - safest.

[todd]

Tom said that he'd correct the typos when he could (and, we might as well face it, the Internet is rife with typos. If you type too quickly and don't watch for spelling errors, they're certain to turn up). Perhaps the worst part of it is that they've come close to upstaging the revelation of the new dorms.

The look on Annie's face seems particularly sly and mischievous.

[UbiquitousDragon]

faxmaster said:

I guess Gunnerkrigg contracted out whoever was responsible for all the exceedingly dangerous bridges spanning across gapping chasms in Star Wars (and pretty much every other sci-fi movie ever) when they built their dorms.

But yeah, this is a very nice page. Interesting architectural design (reminds me of... was it channelwood?... in Myst too, or just that aesthetic in general), and I love the fisheye perspective in the second panel. Its great watching the art improve in this comic.

It does look very Myst-esque. It's quite eerie to see such a complex (for want of a better word) in such a vast space.

Heh, and I love the Star Wars comment ;D


EDIT: Tom is not the only one to make typos.

[Uglyhead]

Carver should enjoy the quiet while she can. Once others start to move into adjacent rooms, they'll be blastin' their new-fangled hip-hoppin' and rip-rappin' all hours of the day and night, no doubt.

[todd]

One question that I suddenly wondered after my last post is: when Annie and Shadow2 were running through the corridors on the previous page, were they running to the new dorm? (Of course, that raises the question of where they were running *from*. Maybe they'd gone up to some look-out point in the school, to see if there was any sign of the Donlans - especially Kat - approaching on the horizon, and were racing back to the dorm afterwards, so that Annie could get dressed and be ready to greet Kat when she enters the school.)

[La Goon]

hazelly said:

P.S. La Goon, 'safer' is definitely an actual English word. Safe - safer - safest.

Hmm, I just thought it sounded weird. Is "more safe" used more than "safer" then?

todd said:

One question that I suddenly wondered after my last post is: when Annie and Shadow2 were running through the corridors on the previous page, were they running to the new dorm? (Of course, that raises the question of where they were running *from*. Maybe they'd gone up to some look-out point in the school, to see if there was any sign of the Donlans - especially Kat - approaching on the horizon, and were racing back to the dorm afterwards, so that Annie could get dressed and be ready to greet Kat when she enters the school.)

I assumed she was just running around, up and down the corridors, but yeah, your theory sounds plausible.

[Tom Siddell]

She was running from breakfast to the dorms, to get ready for Kat's arrival, since she knew when Kat was coming back.

[La Goon]

Arh! I was just about to add that she also could be running from the phone (as seen here) back to the dorms.

Oh well. From the breakfast, then

[Tom Siddell]

She can be running from the phones if you wish. It is not said in the comic exactly what she was doing before we came to her.

[wanderer]

Those dorms are freaking me out. I think it's the infinite black space surrounding them. Makes me shiver. Seriously.

But it's still better than the old ones. The very idea of having to climb to the top of that ladder ever time one wanted to return to one's "room"... I'm scared of heights! (I love climbing, but I'm scared of heights. Go figure.) And what if you've been through a long day and are worn out, how do you climb 30 stories worth of ladder to get to bed?

I realize it's just one of the oddities of the Court, which are just taken for granted and thus shall never be properly explained. Adds to the atmosphere of the place. I think my mind is still too rational to quite handle such a school.

[todd]

I like the idea that she was specifically running back to the dorms rather than just around the corridors with no specific destination in mind, since the former fits her character much better. (While there's been some talk that Annie might have undergone a lot of changes during the summer holidays, I think that the protagonist's character evolution ought to take place on stage rather than between chapters. At least, I consider that better writing.)

[Tom Siddell]

You can tell she was running to the dorms because on the page after you see her running around, you see that she has arrived at the dorms.

[Mezzaphor]

admin said:

She was running from breakfast to the dorms, to get ready for Kat's arrival, since she knew when Kat was coming back.

This, of course, only raises further questions. Like, what was Annie eating for breakfast? And who prepared it?

Mysteries abound in Gunnerkrigg Court!

[todd]

Does anybody besides me think that the description of the new dorms as "further into the Court" is intended as symbolic as well as literal - a sign that the second year will lead to further discoveries and initiations into the mysteries surrounding Gunnerkrigg?

[spritznar]

mezzaphor said:

Those doors... it's a good thing Annie and her classmates are all so skinny.

that's what the 30 stories worth of ladder was for in their previous dorms

[todd]

admin said:

You can tell she was running to the dorms because on the page after you see her running around, you see that she has arrived at the dorms.

I think that some of the readers (including myself, initially) didn't fully realize it because they thought that we were seeing different scenes of Annie's stay at Gunnerkrigg during the summer jumbled about in a non-linear manner. For example, since the accompanying narration on the dorms page is about Annie moving into the dorms, the scene itself might have been mistaken for a flashback to Annie first seeing her new dorm, rather than her coming back to it on the same particular morning on the previous page.

[goonfish]

todd said:

Does anybody besides me think that the description of the new dorms as "further into the Court" is intended as symbolic as well as literal - a sign that the second year will lead to further discoveries and initiations into the mysteries surrounding Gunnerkrigg?

I certainly hope so! I'm so excited for this new chapter!!!

[quats]

Is it just me, or does she look a bit older here? I guess a summer has gone by and she's the age to get a growth spurt. Or is it just the slight fluctuations in style? (Not complaining, just curious if intentional!)

[nikita]

I think there are two reasons why she looks different now
1. She's smiling
2. She doesn't wear makeup
As an example, the combination of those result in her lips being drawn totally different. But it's consistent - Kat always looked like that since ever. I think it's just unusual to see her that happy and without makeup.

[Mezzaphor]

She also looks slightly taller. Though that could be just be her dress.

[Aspen d'Grey]

Eh... channelwood is the Age you're thinking of, while the supoprting structure does sort of remind me of Riven's village, not so much... maybe more like the village inside of the Great Tree, but that's not on Riven, remember.

I like the actual dorms, I'm wondering how big they are inside.

[spritznar]

wouldn't the village inside the Great Tree you refer to be Channelwood? or is there another village inside a great tree?


it's hard to judge the size of the dorms... based on the size of the door i'd guess they're 3 stories tall, depending on the height of the ceilings in the rooms... i wonder how you get to the other floors...
how tall is annie? it would be easier to estimate if i had something to scale to...

(one diagram doodle and a few equations later)
the dorms seem to be octagonal with 10-12 feet per side (i'm leaning toward 10) i think that'd make the individual rooms 10x10x10x2.5ish feet (the 2 and a half being the doorway) and that would leave about 6 feet diameter for the little circular hall (ok, technically it's an octagon too) in the center. the ceilings appear to be at least twice as tall as kat and annie unless that's an optical illusion so i'd guess 10 feet again, possibly higher since we don't actually see the ceiling in any of the shots of annie's room. if the ceilings are 10ish feet then it looks like the dorms have 3 floors... the windows are oddly distributed for that though...
if you wanted to go with 12 foot outside walls then just replace all the aforementioned 10s with 12s
i figure 7 rooms per floor with the eighth area being the entrance hall

of course this could all be total bull but i had nothing better to do with my time ;D
(i'd forgotten how much i liked geometry)

[Mezzaphor]

spritznar said:

the dorms seem to be octagonal

I'm pretty sure it's a decagon. There's nine walls visible in panel 2, and I suspect the tenth side is the entryway.

Nothing else to add. Those figures look pretty good.