Cool things I only noticed on reread.

[lurkerbot]

Jul 28, 2023 2:05:22 GMT ysenfrown said:

Something I just noticed when rereading the last few chapters: in the last page of page 2747, Annie's smile is EXACTLY the same as Paz's smile on page 2769.

I initially just thought that perhaps it was a drawing idiosyncrasy, but now I'm starting to wonder—Paz's smile strikes me as reading as false, or someone who is pretending that everything is OK, given the context of her and Annie's conversation right before, where she says that she's going to Spain and weeps. Therefore, I think it could be reasonable to assume that Annie's smile, the same close-eyed, close-mouthed expression, is also her pretending that everything is OK. Maybe you could interpret it as general unease over what happened between her and Paz—and I think that's a very reasonable interpretation!—but I've been turning Annie's crush over in my head for, oh, the years since Court!Annie confirmed that there WAS a crush. And I think now that perhaps she's been secretly pining after Kat & that they're perhaps endgame.

Do I have anything ELSE to support this? No, not really; I gave up the idea of Kat being Annie's secret crush around the time of the cruise, when Annie seemed so genuinely supportive of Kat and Paz. But I'm just stuck on that smile !

Antimony's expression in panel 8 of page 2747 immediately reminded me of her smile in panel 7 of page 970, which I always interpreted as her non-verbally reassuring another person that a difficult situation has been resolved satisfactorily.

[mturtle7]

Thread revivification!

In Chapter 21: Blinking, Anja hides Annie's blinker stone on the roof of Kat's storage unit.But it seems like she only stepped outside for a brief moment, and while Kat's storage unit has a very high ceiling, it's still a one-story building, not the sort of thing you'd expect to have roof access. In hindsight, I can't help but see this as a delightfully subtle indicator of the true extent of Anja's magical abilities, e.g. levitation.

[blazingstar]

Dec 8, 2023 21:26:33 GMT mturtle7 said:

Thread revivification!

In Chapter 21: Blinking, Anja hides Annie's blinker stone on the roof of Kat's storage unit.But it seems like she only stepped outside for a brief moment, and while Kat's storage unit has a very high ceiling, it's still a one-story building, not the sort of thing you'd expect to have roof access. In hindsight, I can't help but see this as a delightfully subtle indicator of the true extent of Anja's magical abilities, e.g. levitation.

Subtle? The woman yeeted Annie's blinker stone into the sky a few chapters previous.

[blahzor]

Did we ever figure out of Y's was lying about the tic-toc growing in the walls? Doesn't seem like something intended

[Druplesnubb]

I assumed that was foreshadowing for the holes in his memory.

[blazingstar]

All this talk of psychopomps made me look into what we actually know about the "afterlife bureaucracy". In a recent comment, I recapped the afterlife's jurisdictions as something like this: who they take is a source of their identity and pride; Mallt-y-nos guides Welsh people, Moddey-dhoo guides English-speaking people from the Isle of Man, Ankou takes most mainland Britons, Ketrak guides spiders and bugs, etc.

But I was unsure of where Muut fits in. That's because this entire time, I assumed he was Egyptian! (I think my brain mixed him up with Maat, who is associated with death, and also feathers. But the Egyptian god who actually guides most dead people is, famously, Anubis, although I'm not sure who Annie is talking to on this page.)

This entire time I had never looked him up. It turns out Muut is from the culture of the Cahuilla (Ivilyu-qaletem) peoples from the American Southwest. Which means he probably came to Britain because of Coyote, who he would know very well!

I wonder who Muut guides? ONLY Cahuilla people? Cahuilla people and any creations of Coyote who die, like the glass-eyed men? Why was he in Good Hope hospital when Annie lived there?

[mturtle7]

Dec 14, 2023 18:01:50 GMT blazingstar said:

All this talk of psychopomps made me look into what we actually know about the "afterlife bureaucracy". In a recent comment, I recapped the afterlife's jurisdictions as something like this: who they take is a source of their identity and pride; Mallt-y-nos guides Welsh people, Moddey-dhoo guides English-speaking people from the Isle of Man, Ankou takes most mainland Britons, Ketrak guides spiders and bugs, etc.

But I was unsure of where Muut fits in. That's because this entire time, I assumed he was Egyptian! (I think my brain mixed him up with Maat, who is associated with death, and also feathers. But the Egyptian god who actually guides most dead people is, famously, Anubis, although I'm not sure who Annie is talking to on this page.)

This entire time I had never looked him up. It turns out Muut is from the culture of the Cahuilla (Ivilyu-qaletem) peoples from the American Southwest. Which means he probably came to Britain because of Coyote, who he would know very well!

I wonder who Muut guides? ONLY Cahuilla people? Cahuilla people and any creations of Coyote who die, like the glass-eyed men? Why was he in Good Hope hospital when Annie lived there?

I mean, Occam's Razor would suggest that there was a Cahuilla-British immigrant in Good Hope who died, and that's how Annie met Muut!

In my headcanon, though, Muut actually has kind of a wide jurisdiction over most of the Native peoples in the Southwest these days, since the cultural genocide there during colonial times left a lot of job openings there in the 'pomp realm; hence, why Muut has jurisdiction over Coyote and his creations.

[Eversist]

Rereading chapter 17 because someone posted a link to chapter 16...

I'm sure I'm not the first one to call this out, but nifty thing Jones says here:
www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=372

"The Court has its way of making decisions." Omega!

Edit: Yeah, someone mentioned it back on 2606.

[pyradonis]

When talking about the "most disfortunate accident" (which as we learn later, was a fire), the Moddhey Dhoo looks at a fire hose.

[Isildur]

I may have thought this before but forgot, so it may not fit the "only" part (and I'm not sure how "cool" this counts as, but I find it amusing, at least), but in his most cowed state, Ysengrin heavily resembles a guinea pig.

www.gunnerkrigg.com/extracomics/comic.php?c=Coyote&p=23

Attachments:

[Storel]

Dec 14, 2023 20:58:19 GMT mturtle7 said:

Dec 14, 2023 18:01:50 GMT blazingstar said:

I wonder who Muut guides? ONLY Cahuilla people? Cahuilla people and any creations of Coyote who die, like the glass-eyed men? Why was he in Good Hope hospital when Annie lived there?

I mean, Occam's Razor would suggest that there was a Cahuilla-British immigrant in Good Hope who died, and that's how Annie met Muut!

In my headcanon, though, Muut actually has kind of a wide jurisdiction over most of the Native peoples in the Southwest these days, since the cultural genocide there during colonial times left a lot of job openings there in the 'pomp realm; hence, why Muut has jurisdiction over Coyote and his creations.

When Annie meets Muut, he says he is here "to visit a friend in room 426", Mrs. Tolikna. Is Tolikna a Cahuilla name, or at least a Southwest Native American name? I have no idea. But I bet someone does!

[Hatredman]

Jan 2, 2024 23:56:25 GMT Storel said:

When Annie meets Muut, he says he is here "to visit a friend in room 426", Mrs. Tolikna. Is Tolikna a Cahuilla name, or at least a Southwest Native American name? I have no idea. But I bet someone does!

Uncle Google does:

Name Tolikna generally means Coyote's long ears flapping, and is a Feminine (or Girl) name, which means generally Women's or Girl's have this name. Name Tolikna has Native American origin.

From here:
mychildnames.com/mobile/meaning-of-name.aspx?name=Tolikna

[silicondream]

Jan 3, 2024 1:41:26 GMT Hatredman said:

Jan 2, 2024 23:56:25 GMT Storel said:

When Annie meets Muut, he says he is here "to visit a friend in room 426", Mrs. Tolikna. Is Tolikna a Cahuilla name, or at least a Southwest Native American name? I have no idea. But I bet someone does!

Uncle Google does:

Name Tolikna generally means Coyote's long ears flapping, and is a Feminine (or Girl) name, which means generally Women's or Girl's have this name. Name Tolikna has Native American origin.

From here:
mychildnames.com/mobile/meaning-of-name.aspx?name=Tolikna

It's Miwok, apparently. The Miwok are farther north than the Cahuilla and speak an unrelated language, but they both live in California.  Maybe Mrs. Tolikna is ethnically Cahuilla and married a Miwok, or maybe Muut's jurisdiction has expanded over the years.  There must have been a lot of psychopomp confusion and reorganization during the age of Western colonialism--lots of cultures going extinct or getting chopped up or smushed together or assimilated in a relatively short period.

[Storel]

True. Coyote appears in myths from several different tribal cultures, even before all that; perhaps Muut did too, possibly under different names.

[Hatredman]

Other two things I realized rereading the comics.

First is that Ankou easily gave up Mort's soul the moment Annie asked to guide him, even though the same Ankou was really frustrated earlier in the chapter when the ROTD "employed" the young Mort. It makes sense, given that all 'pomps are in an effort to enslave Annie. But I didn't notice before.

The other thing is that Jeanne was a Shadow Man. Their "logo" is embroided on her fencing vest (as seen on Coward Heart, Chapter 30, [770] and Jeanne, Chapter 59, page 3, [1698]). I don't know if it's been discussed before, I could not find anything about it. And I think this will be relevant soon.

Also, I tried to bring that up in the thread for [770], but nobody seemed to care (people around here appear to dislike necroposts), so I brought it to this discussion to see if it gets any traction.

[mturtle7]

Jan 4, 2024 7:26:32 GMT Hatredman said:

Other two things I realized rereading the comics.

First is that Ankou easily gave up Mort's soul the moment Annie asked to guide him, even though the same Ankou was really frustrated earlier in the chapter when the ROTD "employed" the young Mort. It makes sense, given that all 'pomps are in an effort to enslave Annie. But I didn't notice before.

The other thing is that Jeanne was a Shadow Man. Their "logo" is embroided on her fencing vest (as seen on Coward Heart, Chapter 30, [770] and Jeanne, Chapter 59, page 3, [1698]). I don't know if it's been discussed before, I could not find anything about it. And I think this will be relevant soon.

Also, I tried to bring that up in the thread for [770], but nobody seemed to care (people around here appear to dislike necroposts), so I brought it to this discussion to see if it gets any traction.

Belated welcome to the forum, Hatredman (and happy New Year)!

Good catch on the Ankou thing, I hadn't noticed that either.

A quick search on Jeanne in this thread shows that yeah, at least a couple people have commented on it in the past! Including one discussion that happened before we even knew about the Shadow Men, strictly speaking.

gunnerkrigg.proboards.com/post/135144/thread

gunnerkrigg.proboards.com/post/158823/thread

Personally, I've long thought that Jeanne wasn't just *a* Shadow Man, but the founder of the Shadow Men, in keeping with the other Founders' monumental roles and enduring legacies (e.g. Sir Young and the Court Protectors, Diego and his Robots).

In my experience, necroposting is usually accepted as long as it's for a discussion of a topic or collection of general types of posts, and not a specific page. The threads for individual pages are usually reserved for quick discussion on the most recent pages, and age out of use very quickly. Not that that's, like, a hard and fast rule or anything - just a light social norm that's developed naturally over time! If you want to talk about Jeanne's connection to the Shadow Men, I'd advise you do so by creating a separate thread, named "Jeanne and the Shadow Men" or something like that. Or we can just keep talking about it here, honestly! Either way works.

[Hatredman]

I'm only stressing on this topic (Jeanne being a Shadow Man) because I think it will be relevant soon. Let's see!

I was showing the treatises to my wife (she likes these astrological/alchemical references) and in one of them [1452] I noticed some things I missed before:

1. <Snuffle> is hiding in the bush

2. There is a cross in the background, maybe symbolizing robot martyrdom. If Kat is a God, there must be a Savior Martyr, right?

3. Coyote is in the sun (or he is the sun) and is looking directly to Annie. It's so obvious, but I never noticed.

4. Annies badge is also Coyote's eye.

5. In this treatise (and many other places), Kat is shown with the Shadow Men logo. She is not with the Shadow Men today, but Tom is so consistent in showing this all the time that it must be important somehow.

I still think Kat and Jeanne and the Shadow Men are all entangled and this will be an important plot point in a very near future.

Link to treatise:
www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1452

[Runningflame]

Jan 8, 2024 10:45:08 GMT Hatredman said:

2. There is a cross in the background, maybe symbolizing robot martyrdom. If Kat is a God, there must be a Savior Martyr, right?

Even more strikingly, the cross appears to be a silhouette of a person standing with their arms outstretched. I believe there has been speculation that it might be Robot. He would certainly be glad to take up the role of martyr.

[Runningflame]

Mort tries to scare Janet by turning into a spider, a snake, an alien, and some kind of monster. What he doesn't try is the one thing Annie just told him always works: clowns.

[Hatredman]

May 2, 2021 8:28:58 GMT V said:

I'm not sure if this is what Tom had in mind, but given that he has a degree in computer science

Awww man, I was unaware of this!

Your post is from 2021, but thank you for that!

[imaginaryfriend]

Noticed this a while ago, high time I posted: Ears in this comic often look like they have an inverted "G" and "C" in them.  Notable exception here.

Also, welcome to the forum, Hatredman !

[silicondream]

Jan 8, 2024 10:45:08 GMT Hatredman said:

2. There is a cross in the background, maybe symbolizing robot martyrdom. If Kat is a God, there must be a Savior Martyr, right?

Arguably, Robot's been that martyr all along. He endured persecution, imprisonment, and temporary deactivation by the Seraphs and robot society as a whole. He mortified his flesh by volunteering to be Kat's guinea pig, and becoming the first conscious synthetic to experience biological weakness, pain and injury. And now that the New Person design has been perfected with his help, he will be the last to assume his glorified body because he has to guide all the other robot minds into their Oceans first.

Of course, Robot also led the other Seraphs to martyr themselves in "The Torn Sea." They've been cast out by the Angel and perhaps permanently barred from transitioning, but "it was worth it" because they made sure she would finish the work.

5. In this treatise (and many other places), Kat is shown with the Shadow Men logo. She is not with the Shadow Men today, but Tom is so consistent in showing this all the time that it must be important somehow.

I still think Kat and Jeanne and the Shadow Men are all entangled and this will be an important plot point in a very near future.

Well, in some ways Kat is already doing the Shadow Men's job. No one else is capable of countering Loup's infiltration, after all. Note also that Kat's research team is made up of two Shadow Men (Juliette & Arthur), someone who is at minimum extremely influential with the Shadow Men (Tony), and someone working for the robot equivalent of the Shadow Men (Robot).

I imagine that, before Jeanne got ghostified, the Shadow Men performed general Court security and defense. Once Jeanne's sacrifice protected the Court from most external threats, and the robots took over everyday security functions, the Shadow Men narrowed their focus to 1) the subtler aspects of internal security and 2) countering exceptional Court opponents like Coyote. Jeanne's sacrifice also helped normalize secrecy and disregard for individual rights among the Court leadership. Put that all together and you have the nerdy secret police we know and love today.

If Kat's destined to lead the Court in a better direction, that will probably involve reforming the Shadow Men into an ethically managed military/police force. This should be a lot easier with all its human supremacist members emigrating to Planet X.  Anyone who stays behind will probably be idealistic, courageous, sneaky and open-minded, much like Kat herself.

[Hatredman]

Wow, silicondream , I think you got it. Seems plausible and the logical path for the things to come.

For everyone, thanks for the warm welcome.

I promise I'll introduce myself properly once I find where to do it.

In short, I came across Gunnerkrigg Court in 2009 (if I'm not mistaken), coming from a link on Questionable Content. By far GC is today my favorite webcomic. Some other online comics I do love:
- XKCD (of course...)
- Vattu (this is beautiful!)
- Kill 6 Billion Demons (intense!)
- Wormworld Saga (oh, the sceneries...)


questionablecontent.net
rice-boy.com/vattu/
killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/kill-six-billion-demons-chapter-1/
wormworldsaga.com/index.php


EDIT: forgot to say I knew about QC through XKCD, so the path is XKCD -> QC -> GC. Also, there's another favorite I recommend, Oglaf (not safe for work): oglaf.com

[gpvos]

If that was this 2008 page, we may have started reading GC at the same moment.

[Hatredman]

Jan 9, 2024 15:27:48 GMT gpvos said:

If that was this 2008 page, we may have started reading GC at the same moment.

I think it was!

I remember wondering if Tom drew inspiration from Myiazaki (think Spirited Away, the distant shore scene):

[silicondream]

Jan 9, 2024 14:26:35 GMT Hatredman said:

EDIT: forgot to say I knew about QC through XKCD, so the path is XKCD -> QC -> GC. Also, there's another favorite I recommend, Oglaf (not safe for work): oglaf.com

I still miss Platinum Grit.

[Hatredman]

Jan 10, 2024 11:47:42 GMT silicondream said:

I still miss Platinum Grit.

Awww myyyy Gawd!

Another one to binge read...

[Runningflame]

Jan 10, 2024 2:45:04 GMT Hatredman said:

Jan 9, 2024 15:27:48 GMT gpvos said:

If that was this 2008 page, we may have started reading GC at the same moment.

I think it was!

I remember wondering if Tom drew inspiration from Miyazaki (think Spirited Away, the distant shore scene)

I'm sure he does--seen most clearly when Kat name-drops Princess Mononoke and then the gang watches it together. I watched Princess Mononoke for the first time last year and immediately noticed the GKC parallels (a nature-technology duality represented by two groups in conflict, a pair of young characters who symbolize the opposing sides but work together to find some sort of harmony).

[Hatredman]

Jan 11, 2024 2:20:01 GMT Runningflame said:

I'm sure he does--seen most clearly when Kat name-drops Princess Mononoke

Oooooh, I loved that look too!

www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=846

[hp]

Jan 9, 2024 14:26:35 GMT Hatredman said:

 Some other online comics I do love:
- XKCD (of course...)
- Vattu (this is beautiful!)
- Kill 6 Billion Demons (intense!)
- Wormworld Saga (oh, the sceneries...)

You should check out Dresden Codak, I started reading arounf the same time I found GC. Senna Diaz keeps updating it to this day, and her art levels in the current arc are reaching epic levels. She updates way less regularly than GC tho.

If you've never read it, it's worth checking at least from the point Diaz started crafting story arcs, like "Hob" and the ongoing "Dark Science".