Multivariate random variables
Have you ever experienced hypnagogia? I have, but frankly not often enough. By day I can’t really picture anything in my mind’s eye (imagine how helpful this is for a WORKING ARTIST friends) so it’s a great pleasure when my mind, betwixt waking and sleep, serves up a glorious fantasia.
My personal favourite is “a rapid-fire parade of dozens of very clear, unknown to me, faces.” I did, once, observe a crystal kingdom laid out before me, as if from an aeroplane. But these treats come about once a year.
Something I love about John’s comics – where else can you read the phrases “giant sky face” and “butt boil” on the same page?
I agree! The Bobbinsverse is the perfect amalgam of the earthy and the sublime.
Wait… a lecture hall, and a crystal kingdom? First the Batman crossover, and now… INDIANA JONES
I have experienced Hypnagogia. Generally it is the feeling of not quite being asleep where my brain both wants to sleep and dream wonderful dreams. But also remind me there is an itch over there.
Then there was the one time I had sleep paralysis, that was very NOT FUN.
You knew what you were getting into when you signed on, Claire.
With friends like Lottie…
You’re seldom bored.
… everyone in earshot thinks you have butt boils?
Claire seems about to explore. Can’t wait to see what it’s the truth.
Is there a 3 panel rule?
If a character is in 3 panels, especially in a row do they become an actor in the comic? Cuz that green coat guy is following Lotte and Little Claire.
Dunno, but Claire’s classmates seem to have *very* high heels. As does Lottie. (Did notice a crimson sole the other day, John. Seems like the same shoes figured prominently in the merfolk plot, IIRC…)
Meanwhile, Claire sports flats.
It looks like that student is checking Lottie out in panel 5. But them maybe passing by them in panel 6.
I think he might be a lecture gremlin, a creature related to the sesh gremlin
Butt boils can *always* be lanced.
BTW, why does nobody get boils anymore? They are very character-forming.
Especially in the movie How to Get Ahead in Advertising.
Highly underrated comment.
They do. They take them to the doctor to have them lanced. You’re thinking of goiter. Extremely character forming.
How are butt boils like windmills?
They can always be lanced!
English not being my native language, it took me this comic to finally understand the terrible pun that’s in the name of the character Lance Boyle. (From Megarace, an ooooold arcade racing game in pre-rendered graphics.)
Now do Dick Trickle and Woody Johnson.
Yes, those are real people.
There’s a New Hampshire politician who, apparently of his own free will, goes by “Dick Swett”.
Green jacket guy appears to be mega-stoned
Probably a side effect of tat very boring class.
He likes stats – what’s wrong with that?!
Perhaps he hasn’t yet emerged from the hypnagogic state?
Countdown to full Claire eruption in 10, 9, 8…
Have had hypnogogic auditory hallucinations before, and found them very entertaining on the whole.
So much this. Actually happens whenever I shut my eyes on the Tube, if I’m sufficiently tired. BRB schizophrenia.
Is that a wendigo on-screen in panel 1?
A juvenile one?
Good eye!
On the laptop? Looks more like a cat in the PDF. Fluffy tail. But could be. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
When I was a young roister-doister, in the state between awake and asleep I saw through my bedroom ceiling an infinite chess board stretched out under unending, swirling galaxies. I could also zoom in and see myself – at full zoom – as a microscopic, barely perceptible speck. It freaked my nut out big time, man.
Many years later, Douglas Adams described the experience perfectly when he wrote about the Total Perspective Vortex in The Hitchiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.
It’s probably meant to be the lecturer, but I’m choosing to read the crystal face in the sky as John’s own, and that Lottie is accessing a vision of her Creator. It could plausibly pass as one of his self-caricatures.
Also, that Claire face in the last panel is wonderful. We can all relate.
aphantasiacs represent
Thus spake…
Hear, hear!
I just can’t see that happening.
I’m so glad that you’re able to work as an artist despite what you describe as very limited visualisation ability! I’m the same and I’ve always wondered if I’d ever be able to. Your work is gorgeous so that brings me a lot of hope!
I also wondered if it would make the working process very slow, since in order to know what anything would look like you’d have to get things down and then see what they were like. Do you rely a lot on rules of panel design and things?
This is a very complex question to answer in a comment under a comic. I can’t picture anything visually, but I have 25 years of practice drawing panels, muscle memory, my own “shape language” ,an internal sense of physicality and acting, photo reference, memorised understanding of the relative dimensions of characters, and many other techniques that make up for the lack of visualisation. I’ve spoken to artists working on the most high profile projects imaginable who have the same problem.
Thank you John, you’ve given me hope.
Same – this is so reassuring! So basically you’re thinking-around-it, pretty much. I work in disability support and it’s honestly so cool how many highly successful people do the same thing, in all kinds of fields.
I see that my question looked a bit damning, with the “despite” in it, and I hope it’s clear that it came from the heart – I gave up drawing despite being quite happy with my work, because I thought it would always be harder for me than for other people. This has honestly hung over my head for years, and always would have if I had picked up drawing again. Now it won’t. Thanks so much, John!
If you ever feel like talking any more about it, writing a blog post (do you have a blog?) or anything, I would read it avidly, and I can see a few people here who also would!
There’s nothing worse than a boil between the cheeks.
Okay, there may be hundreds of things worse than a boil between the cheeks, but it certainly is on the list of worse things.
The problem solving part of my brain kicks into a higher gear in that half awake state. In college I started keeping a notebook next to my bed because of the number of times the solution to a particularly difficult homework problem popped into my brain between alarms after hitting the snooze button. The professor for one of my engineering classes scheduled a final for three hours, but told us he figured it would only take two to complete. I got stuck on the last problem, put my head down to think, fell asleep and woke up with both the answer and 15 minutes to spare.
I don’t remember my dreams, but assume they’re terribly boring rehashes of whatever I haven’t finished at work.
I’ve debugged so many programs in my sleep…
I just noticed the redhead in front is was watching a cat video on the laptop, but even more realistic is the ever present chat/message window. You attend any class or lecture nowadays and I swear that everyone is running at least a couple of conversations in those.
That’s no cat! It’s a wendigo. I think.
Sorry, but it looks much more like a cat than a wendigo in the PDF. Also, it appears to be her desktop picture rather than a video. There are icons atop it in the upper right in addition to the small window in the lower left.
I appreciate this fan-service callout to my professional life. Way above the call of duty.
You’re a professional lancer of butt boils?
Only once a year? Quality sativa must be difficult to obtain in Old Blighty. You have my deepest sympathies.
It’s cute that you think I have time for consciousness expansion. I don’t even have time to paint the bathroom ceiling.
I get sleep paralysis! Yay!