I’m not trying to horn in on his schtick, honest
9 Chickweed Lane, 3/16/06
So after a year and a half of entreaties on the part of my readership, I’ve finally started following 9 Chickweed Lane on a regular basis. I’ve been reading long enough to have a feel for who these two characters are, though not long enough to actually explain them. It’s a very slow-moving strip, but unlike the soaps, which feel like they’re just padding things out endlessly, 9CL has a definite rhythm that really works for it. This strip made me laugh out loud, largely because it had been properly teed up by the long lead-in.
Also, this will be the last time I tread upon the territory of Matt over at TSPPW, but: a silent penultimate panel and a silent antepenultimate panel? Bliss. Maybe Matt didn’t mention it because it’s not SPP abuse: it really helps with the timing of the strip. (Update: A commentor correctly pointed out that Matt actually did feature this strip. Whoops! Sorry.)
Also, while the antics of the freakish enormous talking animals in Mark Trail generally kinda bore me, I am a little bit in love with this potentially heartbroken turkey. For some reason this particular bit of dialogue sprouting from his back is poignant and moving to me.
There, there, big fella, don’t fret: all your troubles will pass away come Thanksgiving, I promise.
Irina
March 17th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Josh, the turkey isn’t heartbroken, he’s got a PhD in psychology, and has his own counseling practice.
Unfortunately, that won’t stop Daddy Warbucks from having him slaughtered next thanksgiving, anyway.
Sassy_Rocks
March 17th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
If Lost Forest is supposedly in Wyoming, why is the Eastern Turkey talking, rather than the way different looking Miriam Turkey which inhabits that range? Maybe the Mriam hasn’t mastered human speech yet.
April and Randy Parker are really going to hit it off with their matching his ‘n hers cat whisker moustaches. She apparently goes to the same Chez Devo Hairstylist that Abbey Spencer and Gloria Sanchez frequent. It looks like some rodent species calls the top of her head home.
Curtis Rocks
March 17th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
Silent Pentultimate Panel did mention the double silent comic, look at the bottom of the March 16th entry.
lilybdcsa
March 17th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
I’ve been reading 9CL for several years and still don’t understand what’s going on.
Len
March 17th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
Poor April! But apparently it’s just a bad hair day. See Brewster Rockit’s strip, below.
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/brewsterrockit;_ylt=AgpbHByQkSR1oO3RaEvFAswDwLAF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
Fred P.
March 18th, 2006 at 2:09 am
I believe the only previous time I have encountered the word “antepenultimate” (aside from those idyllic hours with a cunning linguist who had a disconcerting tendency to blurt out improbable words, and would often do so out of context) was in an essay by H.L. Mencken.
I am given to understand that Mencken was generally considered a curmudgeon.
One wonders if, in a four panel strip, the first panel could be considered preantepenultimate?
Brent
March 18th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
One doesn’t try to understand Thorax, one just accepts him for what he claims to be – it’s better that way (he is the only one of the 9 Chickweed Lane characters who regularly crosses over to Brooke McEldowney’s online strip Pibgorn). As for the priest, like the now ex-nun, he was only really a presence during the period when Edda was in high school.
fuzzmaster
March 18th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
C’mon, somebody has to say it:
9CL! Yeah! Thank you, Josh.
And now we can hardly wait for your reaction to the next string of days featuring nearly nekkid Edda stretching.
Hank Kimble
March 18th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
I’ve tried to follow 9CL, but the only thing I get out of it is the hot chick with cool hair. Haven’t seen her in awhile. So, I’ll go back to watching Blondie. God knows Rex isn’t going to take June to the beach anytime soon.
Chet McCord, Wildlife Defender
March 19th, 2006 at 11:03 am
I took a course in aquatic biology in which “antepenultimate” was used frequently to describe the second to last stage (instar) of dragonfly nymphs. Until then, and since then, I’ve never heard anyone else use it. Too bad, it is an excellent word.
jeanne
March 19th, 2006 at 11:28 am
The word antepenultimate was used in an old book called ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’ to describe how angry the mother was. I believe the quote was something like ‘that’s it That’s the ultimate straw. I don’t mean the penultimate, or the antepenultimate, but the ultimate.’
I first read the book as a child, and that line has always stuck with me, because I had never heard it before.
Mibbitmaker
March 20th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
Great, more words that President Bush can’t pronounce!
Carl Toon
December 27th, 2006 at 6:02 pm
Josh I find it difficult to imagine you liking 9CWL. Obviously you haven’t read the thing on a long enough basis. The guy tries as hard as he can to NOT write and NOT draw! Why doesn’t he just print a blank panel and be done with it. Then at last I can say I like what he’s doing.
mike weber
August 12th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
“Antepenultimate” – the forst time i ever heard it used was in the son “Madeira, M’Dear?” from Flander & Swann’s “At the Drop of a Hat” (incidentally, the “Hats” were George Martin’s last major assignment as a producer before he hooked up with the Beatles). It’s a parody of all the “young girl gone astray” songs like “A Bird in a Gilded Cage”…
“Then there flashed through her mind what her mother had said, with her antepenultimate breath…”