Whose mind is it anyway?

DecafSilicon · Post by **DecafSilicon** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 4:53 pm

Whoa. Speech bubble from nowhere. Either Scott's getting sloppy or he's implying something, and I'd bet on the latter.

Rip Tanion · Post by **Rip Tanion** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 6:08 pm

Maybe the "off camera" bubble is the person in the sack in the cart. Maybe it's Donut Girl. Maybe it's Frodo or Samwise. Or maybe it's Bush. Ooops, forgot; this is an apolitical Improv.

zerofoks · Post by **zerofoks** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 7:51 pm

Maybe it's implying that he finally detaches himself from his more vicious personality...

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe.

William G · Post by **William G** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 7:55 pm

GlenSS wrote:I strongly suggest reading Cerebus from the beginning. There are a lot of backward references you aren't going to get if you don't start at the beginning.

Don't forget to wear your "Women is only good fir breedin" tee-shirt while you read them.

Not that I want to start another "Art or the Artist" debate.

Post by **Greg Stephens** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 8:08 pm

GlenSS wrote:I strongly suggest reading Cerebus from the beginning. There are a lot of backward references you aren't going to get if you don't start at the beginning.

But if you want to try it to see if you like it before you decide to read the whole thing? The first volume isn't very representative of what follows (but what is, with Cerebus?). Actually, Cerebus issue #0, if you can find it, is probably the best thing for that. Three stories that show a range of what Cerebus is and can be read (mostly) on their own.

William Beckerson wrote:Don't forget to wear your "Women is only good fir breedin" tee-shirt while you read them.

Not that I want to start another "Art or the Artist" debate.

Yeah, I think if anybody wants to discuss this, they should probably start a new topic, as it could quickly overwhelm this thread.

kaos_de_moria · Post by **kaos_de_moria** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 11:21 am

thanks for all the replies. i'll have a look as soon as i am in a country where you can conveniatly order books without getting problems with censoring (i.e. pages being ripped out for nudity or displaing a god like figure)

kaos

jturner · Post by **jturner** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 1:51 pm

kaos_de_moria wrote: just did a quick web search. i have seen the characters af Cerebus before, but i never had the chance of actually read a volume of the comic itself. can you recommend it? which age group does it address?

kaos

As soon as I saw this, I started screaming "NO! DON'T START DISCUSSING CEREBUS!!!", as you know exactly how the conversation will go. Head over to the Comic Journal message boards and you can find all kinds of people yelling at each other over it. For the short version:

"I think Cerebus is a monumental work. Dave Sim has some extremely questionable views"
"DAVE SIM HATES WOMEN AND I HATE HIM!!!"

DecafSilicon · Post by **DecafSilicon** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 2:23 pm

Oh, sure, and the second person will be a Robert Crumb fan, so screw them.

By the way, Scott, sorry to make you change a panel.

Eric F Myers · Post by **Eric F Myers** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 2:32 pm

I just had a thought. What if the man and woman are the same person. Kinda like split-personas with split-personalities.

DecafSilicon · Post by **DecafSilicon** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 3:42 pm

Nope.

Eric F Myers · Post by **Eric F Myers** » Fri Mar 05, 2004 5:59 pm

Josiah Rowe · Post by **Josiah Rowe** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 4:12 pm

We're deep in Gollum territory now. (Jackson's Gollum, specifically.)

Do you think the next panel will be "Leave now and never come back"?

Rip Tanion · Post by **Rip Tanion** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 4:35 pm

I wonder if Mr. Shoppingcart will try to bite off Donut Girl's finger.

zerofoks · Post by **zerofoks** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 1:16 am

I wonder when Mr. McCloud will start page 5... Pages 1-3 consisted of 6-7 rows of panels, page 4 now consists of 23... I'd imagine that to be quite a pain the rectum for those without a considerably large cache and dial-up connections.

kaos_de_moria · Post by **kaos_de_moria** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 8:20 am

Josiah Rowe wrote:We're deep in Gollum territory now. (Jackson's Gollum, specifically.)

Do you think the next panel will be "Leave now and never come back"?

in this picture even the picture itself reminds of gollum as he is sometimes sitting around in LOTR

<IMG SRC="http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/mi-25/zz-q2.jpg">

Rip Tanion · Post by **Rip Tanion** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 4:55 pm

When do we get to see him catch a fish with his bare hands and eat it raw?

zerofolks wrote:Pages 1-3 consisted of 6-7 rows of panels, page 4 now consists of 23... I'd imagine that to be quite a pain the rectum

I guess Scott listened to you; when I went there just now, I got sent to page six(6).

Rectum? Nearly killed him! [rimshot]
(sorry I couldn't resist that old, stale joke.)

DecafSilicon wrote:Oh, sure, and the second person will be a Robert Crumb fan, so screw them.

What do you got against "The King of Underground Comix"? Or am I misinterpretting what you're saying here? I worship the guy, even though he's a lefty malcontent.

zerofoks · Post by **zerofoks** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 9:36 pm

I love this one, I really do.

gareis · Post by **gareis** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 11:17 pm

As for the "multiple personalities, multiple personae" idea...perhaps, if the default personalities (those they use with each other) are the shared ones. But I doubt that; they do seem a bit different. All the other pairings make no sense.

Haze · Post by **Haze** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 11:40 am

has anyone made any Fight Club jokes yet?

"You can go talk with her. But first I want you to hit me as hard as you can"

also, WHO'S BETTER, DAVE SIM OR NOBUHIRO WATSUKI?

Rip Tanion · Post by **Rip Tanion** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 5:34 pm

That next to last panel could spawn some Ahnold jokes.

Dave Sim...but only because his name is easier to spell, and pronounce.

GlenSS · Post by **GlenSS** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 12:48 pm

I've decided that this has the potential to become my second favorite Improv - second only to "The Meadow of the Damned'

OUQTURABUT · Post by **OUQTURABUT** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 3:38 pm

WE LONG AGO REACHED THE POINT IN THIS STORY WHERE NO PUNCHLINE WOULD SATISFY. SCOTT HAS IMPROVISED HIS WAY INTO A POTENTIALLY NOVEL LENGTH WORK, WITH MOST OF THE INTEREST GENERATED BY CHARACTER. I WONDER WHETHER THE DAILY "WHATEVER COMES INTO MY HEAD" METHOD OF WORKING CAN GENERATE A SATISFYING ARC AND CONCLUSION TO A PEICE LIKE THIS. IN MY OWN WORK AS A WRITER I OFTEN CREATE MANY CHUNKS LIKE THIS AND THEN WELD THEM TOGETHER, DISCARDING SOME AND RE-ARRANGING THEM FREQUENTLY UNTIL THE WHOLE STORY TAKES SHAPE. UNLESS SCOTT HAS PLOTTED THIS ONE OUT BEHIND THE SCENES, IT SEEMS DOUBTFUL THAT HE WILL LUCK INTO A WORK THAT FEELS COMPLETE.
WHEN WE SELECTED THIS TITLE FOR HIM SCOTT SAID HE HAD "AN IDEA" FOR IT. I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM HIM (AFTER THE STORY ENDS) WHAT THE EXTENT OF THAT "IDEA" WAS AND HOW IT CHANGED AS HE WORKED. WE MAY BE READING THIS IMPROV FOR SOME TIME IF HE IS STRONGLY COMMITED TO THESE CHARACTERS, AND I FOR ONE HOPE HE IS. GREAT JOB.

gareis · Post by **gareis** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 4:15 pm

Somebody misplaced his caps lock key.

Is this the end? Will they walk off into the sunset hand in hand, leaving their spare personalities to wither and die, or will their alternate selves reassert control and engage in violent acts?

Help, I'm channeling Rhetorical Question Man!

Post by **Scott McCloud** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 6:46 pm

Good point about story arcs, OUQTURABUT.

I do think that story structure (like drawing style) can evolve to the point where some of the initial elements no longer work. The longer the story, the more unlikely that the arc will be a smooth, internally consistent one.

As for pre-meditation, the idea that occurred to me ahead of time was two people with split personalities on a "double-date." Everything else has been a process of discovery.

And yeah... Gollum... Hadn't intended it, but I'm sure that LotR was somewhere in the back of my head when I wrote that.

BTW, we're close to the end. Not super-close, but close.

Zwol.org

Whose mind is it anyway?

Re: Cerebus

Re: Cerebus

re: cerebus

Re: re: Cerebus

gollum

THE ARC AND THE IMPROV