Skip to content
Currently On Hiatus: Please Enjoy A New Reader Question Every Weekday!

86 Comments

Nice to see the gang all human looking.

Any yes Jim, why did you chose Missouri?

I think this got explained in one of the Questions from the Readers maybe, but Missouri looks deceptively central to a lot of cool stuff if you’re used to maps on an English scale. You can get from London to France’s border in two hours. You can cross ALL of the UK from the bottom of England to the top of Scotland in 14ish hours. That’s how long it takes you to get from the bottom of Florida to the North Carolina / Virginia border. So it’s confusing for people who don’t take into account the real size of the thing. Much like we don’t really cogitate that Africa is actually HUGENORMOUS and could fit the whole of the US in the little nubby top part that scoots out to the left.

Don’t you know it: I had family from Norway come and visit those of us who live in Florida and had to convince them why they couldn’t take a bus to California to see San Diego, San Fransisco, Hollywood etc and then back again in a four day period (one to travel, two to tour, one to come back. They didn’t understand that it’s a 41 hour drive IF there are absolutely no stops whatsoever.). I had to explain to them that each state was the size of a country onto itself.

A great site to show people who don’t understand just how big (or small) one place is in relation to another is http://overlapmaps.com/index.php . Overlay Norway or other countries on top of America and make them see just how big the USA is.

Then place America atop Russia, to keep yourself humble.

Then for true humility, look at all the countries that can fit inside Africa…

http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/images/Courier79/courier79graphics/Africa_map.jpg

That map is a false comparison.
You tried to compare the entire African continent to individual nations.
None of the nations in Africa are larger in area than the USA.
The largest naton by area in Africa is Algeria. It could fit in the USA almost 4 times.

That’s not the point. The point is that the Mercator Projection vastly exaggerates the size of areas nearer the Poles, making the US and China seem larger than Africa. Many people think they actually are, not understanding the distortion of the Mercator Projection. This is meant a way to correct that false assumption

Lil’ human Tobias and Paul peaking in the background.

Hey now…I was about to take offence, but there just ain’t much going on around MO that you can’t find elsewhere. And this is coming from someone who was born and raised in Columbia.

Basically, Greg is echoing almost every teenager, especially the geeky ones, who have grown up in a rural part of flyover country.

Yeah, and in some cases, not even flyover country.
I grew up in rural California, and it was mighty boring for a teen like me.

San Francisco was a two hour drive south and a bit west, so we weren’t exactly all that far from the big city scene.
But Shasta county in the late 70s had little to offer anyone under drinking age when you had time on your hands.
-Badger-

Sometimes I forget how big California is. I grew up about an hour’s drive southwest of New Orleans. As distance from a big city goes it isn’t bad, but when you have to drive that hour for any and every cultural event that isn’t really mainstream or specifically Cajun, it wears on you sometimes.

You don’t have to live in a rural area to grow up in a place that is basically a cultural vacuum. I grew up in the middle class burbs of the CBD of Australia’s tourist capital.
Culture there didn’t exist.
You wanted anything cultural, you either headed north on the highway for an hour, to Brisbane, or headed south on the highway for 18 hours, to Sydney.

Jenifur Charne

Okay, why are we “back” at the avalon, doesn’t Jim’s family live *in* the avalon? And the previous scene occured at their house? help

‘Missouri’ is the same as ‘Misery’, just more emphasis. Interpret this as you will.

That’s what my mom said about the place in fall and winter, at least. She went to Stephens College back in the 1960s or early 1970s, and she said that they barely saw the sun for months at a time because of the consistently cloudy weather at those times of year. That’s kind of a big deal for a girl from the Texas panhandle.

Oh my dear GODS, Colin is freaking cute! Urge… to rumple hair… rising….. Also, the gryphons as a whole tend to give enormous, face-stretching smiles, don’t they? I’d guess it comes from transitioning from a shape where your face literally *opens up* to one with a flatter profile. Whatever the reason, I love them; and it’s very nice to see Mrs. Finn in hominid form (I particularly like her hair.)

I think I missed something.. isn’t she stuck in her other form?

I thought so too, what… just happened?

Who’s stuck in what form now?

I always think it’s odd that so many supernaturals wear their medallions on top of their clothes, you’d think the only thing keeping them in human shape would warrant more protection. I notice than Jim , Colin, Django and Merial are hiding theirs though.

Hahahaha, Greg’s face in the last panel. XD

Having lived in Arkansas for seven years, I have to say there’s more to it than most people might think. I *definitely* prefer CA, but I absolutely love all those Ozark mountain towns. If I ever move back, I’m gonna live in Eureka Springs.

Huh… How old is Colin again? I seem to remember 10, but looks a bit puny for a 10 year old. Truthfully, he acts younger than one, too. I’m thinking more like a 6 or 7 year old.

He’s definitely 10. I just read through the archive again and on this page it mentions that he’s nine: https://www.skindeepcomic.com/archive/handshakes-31-we-been-gripped/
And earlier in this chapter it’s stated that he waited for Jim to come home to get his medallion, so he’s been 10 for a bit.

As far as how old he seems…well, different kids mature at different rates. I don’t imagine he’s spent a lot of time around others his age since it would be hard for him to go out in public in gryphon form.

Ha, I thought Colin was wearing a headband in panel two. Did recognize they were his eyebrows until a second read through.

“Keep telling yourself we had a good time in that circus.”

???

Were Finn and Henja kept freaks of some sort? I imagined they were performers. I had supposed Jim’s father lost his wings in some kind of trapeze incident.

Perhaps this was just because the Finn’s cultivated speculation about ‘incidents’ involving the circus.

Will Colin and Cy get to be friends? They’re the same age, right? I’ve been anxious to see who our American visitors will meet inside. Maybe Ike’s family?

I have this premonition that Colin’s thumb obsession is driven by a desire to button mash a Gameboy console.

There’s only bits and pieces we’ve heard, so far.
Django worked as a performer.
James worked as a roustabout behind the scenes.

Cy, we think, is about 5.
He doesn’t, yet, have a character page in the SD Wiki.
Lee is far closer to Colin’s age.

I’m with the Nixie on this one, that was really incencititive. Especially since they have probably been told about, if not encountered at least one of, the Hell-mouths.

Merial didn’t grow up in the Ozarks. Her childhood was in San Francisco.
Greg did. With how he was treated by his relatives, his disdainful attitude towards the region where he grew up, because of the closed-minded attitudes of that region, is quite understandable.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Content Footer