PIp makes a comeback

Image © Michael Chevy Castranova

 
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With chapter 360 of “Slipped” I intend to bring Pip back into the main story. He’s been somewhat sidelined as new characters have been introduced.

And maybe, too, we can resolve whether he really can talk or if only Tyler imagines he talks. Of course, as he’s the one narrating the story from the future — or maybe the past, I’d have to look that up in earlier chapters — and comes to be known as a semi-famous singer of the American Songbook, I guess he does. Or maybe that comes later. We’ll just have to see.

The notion of dogs as companions in adventure fiction is not new. With little effort, we can name RinTin Tin, Lassie, Sandy in “Little Orphan Annie,” Toto in “The Wizard of Oz,” Asta in “The Thin Man” series, Snowy in all the Tintin stories, Bear in “Person of Interest” and Gromit in “Wallace and Gromit.” Each one helped instigate action — Sandy often saved the day as did Gromit, Toto is the reason Dorothy ran away from home and Asta actually found the missing Thin Man in the first movie, not Nick Charles.

I don’t think we should count Snoopy, though. Not much of an adventurer and, frankly, pretty off in his own head.

Safe territory in “Slipped”?

 

Image © Michael Chevy Castranova 2015

I don’t like guns. I don’t like drawing guns in cartoons. But sometimes in an adventure comic strip set in the 1920s, between two significant wars, people have guns.

But you’ll notice, no one has died in “Slipped” from being shot by a gun. In fact, not one character seems actually to have died at all.

The guy in the first chapters — unnamed in the strip but I think he went by Etienne — was killed, but then when the Scarlet Sparrow retraced her timeline, she and her sister, Mendacity, saved him.

And while Dickie Talbot was left to be buried alive, along with the Golem, it’s in the cards for the Scarlet Sparrow to get back to them, too.

Oh, wait, I just recalled those two “Vampires” who accidentally died while attempting to do damage to part of le Metro to stop les Rongeur. Hmmm ….

It’s hard to keep track of almost eight years of continuous weekly comic strips.

In any case, next week sees the Scarlet Sparrow, Cartier Tour and Pip catapulted into their new adventure. Please stand by.

Treachery

Image © Michael Chevy Castranova 2015

 

Tyler Wilson and friends thought they were out for a good meal with admirers. But, of course, things never work out as expected in the life of the Scarlet Sparrow.

Take a look at the latest chapter of “Slipped.”

Reishi, by the way, is a mushroom possessing supposedly amazing health benefits. It is not native to Finland. But more about that later in our story ….

Snow and fashion

Image © Michael Chevy Castranova 2015

 

I’ve never been to Finland, so I can’t explain, really, how these latest chapters of “Slipped” have come to be set there.

It’s an opportunity to introduce some new characters (such as Johan Aatu, above). Also, I did think it would be a nice change to have the Scarlet Sparrow wearing a bit more clothing than she has of late. The frumpy sweater she has on now, I imagine, won’t last as it’s not very, well, adventurous. But she probably won’t be as minimally dressed as today’s JessicaJones — it’s the 1920s, after all.

And I’ve lived in snow belts most of my life, so I understand snow as a significant factor in a community’s life.

But it just seems to be where we are — somewhere different.

That’s one of things I wanted in this strip — that sense that it goes all over, geographically, but still is one continuous story. As it was with “Terry andthe Pirates” and “Little Orphan Annie,” two of the best newspaper adventure strips. Like most of the run of “Doctor Who,” from the beginning.

Terry gets on a boat or in a plane, Annie gets kidnapped (again), the Doctor steps out of the TARDIS and next thing you know, bam, you’re somewhere new and who knows what comes next  ….

Tyler in Finland

 

Image and text © Michael Chevy Castranova 2015

I admit I’m still undecided about the Scarlet Sparrow’s hair style. I like the idea of it — the reference in this week’s chapter to Louise Brooks, star of “Pandora’s Box” and author of “Lulu in Hollywood.”

But it is tough to draw. It always, as first, looks as if Tyler is wearing some kind of helmet. So I add more. Then I erase and redraw. Then I erase some more.

But I think she likes it. Hard to tell.

In the early chapters of “Slipped” I integrated real people — Picasso was a love interest for Tyler during the 1910 Paris flood (a real event), for example. And I’d intended to incorporate Brooks going forward, but it turned out she wouldn’t have been in Paris in 1926. At least, I don’t think so.

Meanwhile, Tyler, Cartier Tour and Pip are about to meet a few new characters and make some frighteningly rapid progress on their mission in Finland.

Please keep reading.

Opening night jitters

Image © Michael Chevy Castranova 2015

I’ve tried to keep “Slipped” more or less accurate when dealing with real-life people or events. But in this week’s chapter — as well as in last week’s and next week’s — I got tangled up in a few historical timelines.

In chapter 354, for example, the sign outside the performance hall proclaims one of the dances that evening will be “Rites of Spring.” I’m OK in terms of when things happened — though actually it was called “The Rite of Spring,” singular, or “la Sacre du Printemps” — because that dance first was performed in 1913 in Paris. (You can see a recreation here on YouTube.) But as Nijinsky’s choreography — and the costumes and the music — caused such a scandal, it is unlikely it would have been staged again so soon after, and certainly not in as remote a locale as northern Finland. But I could be wrong about that.

And then there is the matter of Tyler’s new, risqué hairstyle. I’d initially intended to have some dialog in which our protagonist explains she wanted that cut after seeing Louise Brooks in “Pandora’s Box.”

But a quick check showed me my memory was off — that movie didn’t come out until 1929, three years after the events in chapter 355. So in next week’s installment you’ll see I’ve concocted a different explanation.

Either way, it is nice to see Tyler smile. It’s been a long time.

Oh, and balletomanes surely will have noted the headpiece Tyler is wearing would be for “Swan Lake” — which was not on the program.

What can I say? It’s a cartoon.

Melancholoy in the comics

© Michael Chevy Castranova 2015

 
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I’ve always been struck by how sad — intentionally, I’ve assumed — the comics of Chris Ware, Bill Griffith and Art Spiegelman are. Or maybe it’s just me.

I remember not being able to finish Ware’s “Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth” because the main character was so grieved and depressed. There’s a segment in which Jimmy makes a model horse that the instructor praises but, later, the other boys mock for its true, crude appearance. Corrigan, angry and feeling betrayed, flings the horse away — into a pile snow, if I recall correctly.

But then, in anguished remorse, he jumps into the snow to retrieve the tiny model, crying, “I’m sorry.”

It’s just heart-breaking.

Griffith’s new memoir, “Invisible Ink,” about his parents, also has an underlying tone of melancholy. And Spiegelman’s masterpiece, “Maus,” isn’t exactly a barrel of monkeys, either.

And yet … and yet I’ve seen Spiegelman speak three or four times now, and on each occasion he has appeared chipper and, frankly, pretty darned happy. There’s probably some deep meaning here.

•••

Meanwhile, speaking of snow, chapter 354 of “Slipped” finds some of our resourceful protagonists in the far north, deep into a new adventure. Their goal is to make contact with an as-yet-unidentified group that supposedly will aid them in defeating les Rongeur.

That’s assuming, of course, Delacroix told them the truth.

Take a look at this link.