woah woah woah, wait, I think I missed this?

While reading I definitely considered the space of the room to be the main character, not the reader. There's an argument for the latter (it's left up to the reader to decide what's happening between the margins of space and time, especially post-2015) but this narrative still belongs to and characterizes the space. Sidenote: I think it's important to emphasize "the space of the room" instead of just "the room" because, as he says, the room itself is just any arbitrary construct that only exists for a small fraction of time.

Back at the recursive pattern again, except Mitchell describes each iteration as filling the gutter of other iterations, creating a linear timeline that the reader pieces together themselves.

Thinking about the bedroom culture thing, Rose is much more comfortable claiming agency in private spaces than Windy is. Windy is much less self-conscious and more willing to express herself in public spaces, while Rose seems to restrict her internalized misogyny to private spaces, where she assumes Windy won't confront her (and is shocked when she is accidentally confronted by the mothers, and later by Windy in public). Her conflict with feminism might make her seek out the private space that "bedroom culture" denounces, as she sees it as a more appropriate space for women.

I'd agree that this is possible. If we assume that Windy is potentially developing a queer identity, then the novel's timeline forced her to do so in a very heteronormative environment. I think Rose also forces a heteronormative perspective on Windy's apparent disgust towards heterosexuality, which she seems to perceive as immaturity, but could just be her sexuality.

ba dum tss

"childish innocence" isn't what I'd use to describe the face he's making? Or any face he makes, but I agree that he's much less intimidating without his mask, like viewing the tiger illustration that The Tyger describes

This sounds incredibly edgy, but also must be incredibly frustrating, especially given the subject matter of his comics.

So the identities of celebrities are most defined by their identity's commodification than by anything else? Or their identity changes with its commodification, and keeps changing as a result of more capitalist influence?

Might like to talk about this concept in class a bit (I also haven't gotten past the 6th paragraph yet, so maybe it's better explained later). My understanding is that this is about the distance between creating and experiencing one's own identity, or how their identity is interpreted by others.

Ah, a good explanation of the value of repetition in Jon's story. Instead of just letting us look through time like we've talked about in class, it also makes us experience them all at once. It makes them more simultaneous than sequential.

Yes awesome, exactly what I was thinking earlier. He does literally embody chronological collapse.

This analysis is so, so good. Jon can't even realistically get help for the trauma he experiences because he's one of a kind.

Ah, this is so cool!! I immediately thought of Dr. Manhattan, who I had never viewed as a character who experienced much trauma because he felt so distant from the events after his accident, but his view of time is almost a literal interpretation of this explanation.

This sounds like times when I've remembered dreams or even distant past events and the "characters" have felt like they had skewed positioning, but the memory still feels "real" to me, or in the case of dreams like this, as if it could be a real scenario. In the symbolic world of comics, non-euclidean positioning works.

okay Ault you lost me again

I really like this establishing of character forms/poses as linguistic elements in the comic, and it made me think about how an artist's skill or style can influence this. When I re-read Vacation Time I need to pay more attention to the non-euclidean structures (which I noticed pretty sparingly)

This is definitely one of the funnier panels in the comic because, unlike a lot of the other panels, the text isn't explaining the image. Instead, the image is used as the punchline for the text.

The archaic language in this comic also just makes it way funnier.

The love interest's passiveness is really indicative of the gender expectations forced on her by the author, but maybe I need more background on this. Here she's so indifferent to leaving her kidnapper that instead of physically holding her captive, he only has to hold the wheelbarrow as a security measure.

for the fourth time

WH I'M SORRY YOUR DOG IS DYING?? someone give that little guy a break

date ideas

I love webcomics and I'm really excited about creating one with a team. I also hope that producing a graphic novel will give me a better understanding of how to tell a story through images instead of text.

This was important for me in distinguishing browsing vs searching, or why he thinks that search engines inherently can't be used for browsing.

I like these described as communities of "screwing around". Sites like Reddit aren't as successful with browsing as I would like them to be, but they come incredibly close: users who find small, almost unrelated information on a subject could end up contributing some incredibly valuable content and lead readers elsewhere. However, moderation and participation in these communities influences the success of each subreddit in doing so, and the opinions of users greatly influences the "best" or "most relevant" content.

I fail to see how this is any different or better than a search engine PageRank algorithm. What would this kind of algorithm give us that we don't already have?

I agree with this in the context of Google, Google Books, and other search engines: the search is too good and too specific, and doesn't allow enough freedom for learning via browsing. I believe that Wikipedia's intricate hypertext is the closest that we get to "browsing" in a digital context, but the information on those pages is constantly being evolved or debated.

Never really thought of Google's PageRank algorithm as something that dictated the important works of the web, but a website/article can't really become an essential part of that search query's digital canon if Google can't find it (or at least put it on the first search results page).

Loved this paragraph -- this anxiety is never-ending because works are constantly being created, re-evaluated, and debated. Describing the present as "the end of history" (assuming that's what they mean here) is weirdly sobering.