[398] Real slick, Donlan.

[Yin]

Oh my.

The perils of a kid with a teacher-parent, eh?

[Mezzaphor]

I guess this is the reason why someone as outgoing as Kat doesn't seem to have any friends besides Annie?

[edzepp]

I'm beggining to think that "S1" is Semester 1 or something. This looks like a flashback. Just an assumption.

[reeds]

I agree with edzepp. She definitely looks... different.

[edzepp]

It's definitely her in the days before Annie came to the court.


Note the haircut.

And she said "First day" after all. If this was taking place recently, it wouldn't be the first day anymore. That was in chapter 15. And THAT was the first day of the new, current term. This looks more like the first term in general for Kat, before Annie pops up.

I could be wrong about the actual meaning of "S1", though. But I think the above applies.

[mudmaniac]

Her hair. its long and round. and this cant be the first day this current year, cause she was tanned brown that time.

[neal]

Oh man, Kat, I know how you feel! My mom followed me through every school. She is a developmental therapist, and she worked at my elementary school, my middle school, and my high school. It was only begging and pleading and my dad refusing to move to the ass end of Norcal that kept her from applying at my college.

It totally sucks.

[monkeybucks]

My mum taught me for a year at primary and it was fine. I guess it depends on a lot of things.

Edit: One things for sure, I never had to put up with being ditched because of it

[headwired]

Apr 30, 2008 5:46:55 GMT edzepp said:

I'm beggining to think that "S1" is Semester 1 or something. This looks like a flashback. Just an assumption.

I think it may stand for Senior or Secondary 1, which is the name some schools call your first year at Secondary school.

1st year - senior/secondary 1 (age around 12 - 13)
2nd year - senior/secondary 2 (age around 13 - 14)
etc.

the ages might be a bit out, since i live in Scotland and went to a comprehensive school. Private school i think you go into senior one when your round about primary 7 age. Not really that sure though.

EDIT: Actually here's a bit of a wikipedia about it:

In Scotland, students transfer from primary to secondary education at approximately age 12. Pupils usually attend the same secondary school as their peers, as all secondaries have 'intake primaries'. Pupils either attend a Roman Catholic, or non-denominational school according to their or more commonly their parents' beliefs. Pupils in Scotland attend the same secondary school throughout their education; there are no sixth-form colleges in Scotland.

The first and second years of secondary school (abbreviated to S1 and S2) is a continuation of the 5-14 curriculum started in primary school. After which students choose which subjects they wish to study with certain compulsory subjects such as English and mathematics. These are called standard grades and take two years to complete with an exam at the end. After standard grades, some students leave to gain employment or attend further education colleges, however nowadays most students study for Highers, of which five are usually studied. These take a year to complete. After which some students decide to apply for university or stay on for 6th year, where other Highers are gained, or Advanced Highers are studied. Due to the nature of schooling in Scotland, undergraduate honours degree programmes are four years long as in take is normally at the completion of highers in S5 (age 16-17), which compares with three years for the rest of the UK.

Link

and before you go off on one, i know Gunnerkrigg Court isn't in Scotland (since Kat's postcard seemed to suggest it wasn't) but i think some of this terminology is used across the UK

[Riess]

We have rounded corners too. So yeah, pretty much has to be flashback.

[edzepp]

Oh, yeah. Didn't see those.

[todd]

I missed the rounded corners as well. (Now I'll have to check to see if they're there.)

I'd thought that this might be a flashback story when Tom said that this chapter would focus on Kat and that Annie would have a small role (if any) - one way of doing that would be to have it about Kat's life at Gunnerkrigg before Annie came. But I wasn't certain, at the same time, since Chapter Sixteen (just two chapters ago) had also been a flashback chapter, and I didn't think that Tom would have two flashback stories so close to each other. But the tone and subject matter will probably be different enough that it'll be able to work.

And, as Mezzaphor pointed out above, this does explain why Annie seems to be Kat's only friend in her class.

One other thing: we're going to have to compare the way that Kat is drawn here to the way she was drawn in Chapter Two (and do the same with Annie if she eventually shows up in the flashback in this chapter), to see how much of the change in the way that they're drawn is due to them getting older in the comic, and how much of it is due to Tom's art style changing.

[cenit]

This does not compute. From the chapter of Doctor Disaster, I got the feeling that Kat and Annie were reasonable well adjusted to the class, they form their own duo, but without being like rejected by the others...

still, that could have been a later development in the story, so this will add a lot to Kat's character then

on the other side... the blinker stone training never felt sooo far away T.T

[AluK]

The rounded corners show that this flashback ends in this page, also.

[starban]

so..... why is Kat smiling?


does she like being alone?

[rc5]

She's just an upbeat person. =D

Apr 30, 2008 10:37:35 GMT todd said:

One other thing: we're going to have to compare the way that Kat is drawn here to the way she was drawn in Chapter Two (and do the same with Annie if she eventually shows up in the flashback in this chapter), to see how much of the change in the way that they're drawn is due to them getting older in the comic, and how much of it is due to Tom's art style changing.

I second this.

[silvercat]

Perhaps she's used to this situation : if both her parents are teachers, this reaction is probably neither a surprise nor an exception, eh?

Also, since Antimony's class doesn't seem to consist op normal pupils, perhaps Kat has enough selfconfidence to expect that her coolness and her warm personality will get a second chance.

[Mezzaphor]

Apr 30, 2008 15:29:43 GMT starban said:

so..... why is Kat smiling?


does she like being alone?

As rc5 pointed out, she's good at looking at the bright side of things.

[todd]

I said once (during Chapter Thirteen) that one thing we haven't seen yet in "Gunnerkrigg Court" is a clique of snooty girls being mean to Kat or Annie. That's just changed. (The red-haired girl in the group definitely both looks and acts like a clique leader.)

[fr4tbrn]

Also, Kat may be smiling out of sarcasm. That's what I'd probably do.

*hugs Kat* I wonder who Kat's telling this to. Probably Annie.

[Boksha]

Apr 30, 2008 15:29:43 GMT starban said:

so..... why is Kat smiling?

Her mouth is stuck that way.

[Tenjen]

kat must think she's at fault, and that she didnt greet them right thus "real smooth Donlan" as in herself.

[SlothPaladin]

Both my parents were teachers in the 6-8th grade for me, it sucks becouse you can't get away with not doing homework

[Boksha]

I kind of wish I didn't get away with not doing homework when I was in high school.

[Per]

In the first Kat panel I thought it looked like she had a goatee.

[Mezzaphor]

If this chapter is going to alternate between flashbacks and the present day, I wonder if we'll get to see when Annie and Kat first met.

I always thought it interesting that Annie met Kat sometime "off-scene" during chapter one, so when we meet Kat in ch 2 they're already acquainted. Almost as if Annie were too preoccupied with helping Shadow2 to notice the moment she met her future best friend.