Episode Forty Two, naturally, has to reflect Douglas Adams and H2G2.
SM becomes the voice of Prostectic Vogon Jeltz; these are the words he utters just before he vaporizes the Earth, disgusted with all the humans who are arguing they haven't been made aware of their impending demolition. I've always enjoyed the absurdity of the idea of Jeltz having a coherent discussion with billions of panicking people in that moment. That's Adams in that frame - his hands were a quick sketch that I intended to refine, but I ended up liking their blobbiness.
The Soap Strip frame is Arthur's famously deadpan words upon learning that Ford is originally from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, and not from Guilford after all. Here it is also deadpan, and I thought the immediacy of the moment, being held at gunpoint, would likely not warrant an existential crisis. Arthur's situation, possibly. This doesn't quite fit the model of the second panel, but it worked so well with the drawing as a joke that I left it.
Pharm Life: reducing life to quantifiable measurements. Here Arthur has lost the love of his life, in fact, she was never actually there to be lost, an unimaginably huge existential crisis, and it's explained away in a small-print caution. This seems particularly apt considering Adams' close relationship with computers, and his appreciation of bureaucracy. I can see him having lost an entire novel, and consulting tech support, and support just explaining that he was not supposed to do whatever he did to cause the novel to be lost. Indifferent, random universe.
In an interview, reprinted somewhere in the Salmon of Doubt (2002), Adams expressed dismay that Mostly Harmless (1992) had ended as cruelly, toward Dent, as it did. Adams apologized, explaining that he had simply had a rotten year, and that he hoped to make it up to Arthur and Fenchurch, but, as far as I am aware, he died before he had the opportunity to do so. Gather ye buds, etc.
Final panel, Art is expressing the sentiment from H2G2 that life's answers are not always comprehensible: the fundamental question does not have a reasonable answer. SP Guy is asking "can I keep looking" for his love, but, of course, it also relates more generally: will I ever find myself at home in a universe in which I am not fundamentally out-of-place. Art: At Milliways, Fenchurch is waiting. (Pun intended.)
Guy holds the H2G2, and the cover is good advice to everyone post election in the Trump era.
Episode Forty Two, naturally, has to reflect Douglas Adams and H2G2.
ReplyDeleteSM becomes the voice of Prostectic Vogon Jeltz; these are the words he utters just before he vaporizes the Earth, disgusted with all the humans who are arguing they haven't been made aware of their impending demolition. I've always enjoyed the absurdity of the idea of Jeltz having a coherent discussion with billions of panicking people in that moment. That's Adams in that frame - his hands were a quick sketch that I intended to refine, but I ended up liking their blobbiness.
The Soap Strip frame is Arthur's famously deadpan words upon learning that Ford is originally from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, and not from Guilford after all. Here it is also deadpan, and I thought the immediacy of the moment, being held at gunpoint, would likely not warrant an existential crisis. Arthur's situation, possibly. This doesn't quite fit the model of the second panel, but it worked so well with the drawing as a joke that I left it.
Pharm Life: reducing life to quantifiable measurements. Here Arthur has lost the love of his life, in fact, she was never actually there to be lost, an unimaginably huge existential crisis, and it's explained away in a small-print caution. This seems particularly apt considering Adams' close relationship with computers, and his appreciation of bureaucracy. I can see him having lost an entire novel, and consulting tech support, and support just explaining that he was not supposed to do whatever he did to cause the novel to be lost. Indifferent, random universe.
In an interview, reprinted somewhere in the Salmon of Doubt (2002), Adams expressed dismay that Mostly Harmless (1992) had ended as cruelly, toward Dent, as it did. Adams apologized, explaining that he had simply had a rotten year, and that he hoped to make it up to Arthur and Fenchurch, but, as far as I am aware, he died before he had the opportunity to do so. Gather ye buds, etc.
Final panel, Art is expressing the sentiment from H2G2 that life's answers are not always comprehensible: the fundamental question does not have a reasonable answer. SP Guy is asking "can I keep looking" for his love, but, of course, it also relates more generally: will I ever find myself at home in a universe in which I am not fundamentally out-of-place. Art: At Milliways, Fenchurch is waiting. (Pun intended.)
Guy holds the H2G2, and the cover is good advice to everyone post election in the Trump era.