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Things that went over your head...

Started by ming, 09 January, 2012, 11:00:01 AM

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Magnetica

I'm almost embrassed to say: this week's tagline "portal enemies".

Frank


JayzusB.Christ

For a very, very unsubtle strip, that went completely over my head too.  I liked Big Dave - and really miss the days when racist, misogynistic, sociopathic boors being lauded as national heroes was only an ironic piece of satire in a comic.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

sheridan

Was IPC owned by Robert Maxwell by the time Maxwell Tower was named?  Looks like Mirror Group had been split off from IPC main by that point (which explains why that 2000AD Quiz Book was printed by Mirror Group, coz they were both sub-divisions of the same company at the time).

A.Cow

Quote from: sheridan on 27 August, 2018, 08:53:03 PM
Was IPC owned by Robert Maxwell by the time Maxwell Tower was named?

I believe the IPC takeover was a couple of years after The Thirteenth Floor began.

It's possible the name was just a play on "Maxwell House" (as in coffee).

M.I.K.

It's also possible that at least one of the writers of The Thirteenth Floor was familiar with this building in Falkirk.

sheridan

Quote from: M.I.K. on 27 August, 2018, 10:48:06 PM
It's also possible that at least one of the writers of The Thirteenth Floor was familiar with this building in Falkirk.

You might be on to something there (had a look at satellite view though, no glass roof).

Frank


War Marshal Kazan: a military strategist of such genius he was cloned, so his intellect could outlast his limited time on Earth. Loved a chicken metaphor.





I originally assumed this was just a quirky bit of characterisation by TB Grover, and it probably is, but then I read that a great deal of twisted Nazi theory on race and genetics was shaped by Heinrich Himmler's past as an unsuccessful chicken farmer.

Aha! There's the reference; there's the parallel (if any) being drawn, you say. But then I read that one of Mussolini's catchphrases, describing fascism's slow erosion of civil liberties and democratic institutions, was if you pluck the chicken one feather at a time, nobody notices*

Well, there you go, you think, it's late and I really need to get going - BUT WAIT! Here's actual Russian** dictator, Stalin, describing how he sees all humanity as broilers:

Stalin clenched a chicken in one hand and began plucking feathers in handfuls. The bird squawked in agony, but he continued until the chicken was completely unfeathered.

He put the bird down then held out a handful of grain. The chicken staggered weakly back towards him and started to peck the grain right out of the hand that moments ago had inflicted unbearable pain on it.

Stalin said, "People are like this chicken. It doesn't matter how much pain you inflict on them. The moment you offer them what they need, they will still follow you and turn to you for their survival" ***


So there we have it. A reference (that's probably not a reference at all, and just a coincidence) explained in a way that connects all of humanity's worst excesses to chickens.

Pulling up a chair in Pseud's Corner, I speculate that, in past times, the first thing most humans would have killed (some as children) was a chicken, and offer the tenuous suggestion that this first act of sadism - or at least indifference to the suffering of another living being - may have left a lasting impression on the way political violence's greatest and most cynical exponents conceptualised the world and expressed themselves.



* https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/madeleine-albright-warns-of-a-new-fascism-and-trump

** Okay, Ukranian

*** The story's obviously apocryphal, but it was told about Stalin

Steve Green

The apocalypso bit being based on Cy Grant's regular slot on 'Tonight' - a few years before my time.

https://youtu.be/1ezY-f383Ik?t=44

Dash Decent

Quote from: Frank on 08 November, 2018, 06:03:11 PM
Loved a chicken metaphor.

[...snip...]

Pulling up a chair in Pseud's Corner, I speculate that, in past times, the first thing most humans would have killed (some as children) was a chicken, and offer the tenuous suggestion that this first act of sadism - or at least indifference to the suffering of another living being - may have left a lasting impression on the way political violence's greatest and most cynical exponents conceptualised the world and expressed themselves.

You can add to the list whatever it was Hitler said about defeating the British being like wringing the neck of a chicken.  I don't know the exact quote, just Churchill's response: "Some chicken.  Some neck."
- By Appointment -
Hero to Michael Carroll

"... rank amateurism and bad jokes." - JohnW.

JOE SOAP

#1075
I believe John Wagner owns/owned some chickens.

TordelBack

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 09 November, 2018, 04:35:41 AM
I believe John Wagner owns/owned some chickens.

From this observation we can draw a direct line to the inspiration behind the Alpacalips War.

Frank

Quote from: TordelBack on 09 November, 2018, 06:57:19 AM
Quote from: JOE SOAP on 09 November, 2018, 04:35:41 AM
I believe John Wagner owns/owned some chickens.

From this observation we can draw a direct line to the inspiration behind the Alpacalips War.

Get out.

We're not really lama farmers. We've got a couple, but they're pretty useless. You can't eat them; I suppose you can, but we'd be in trouble if we did. It costs more to get them sheared than the fleece is worth. My partner, Jenny, is now carding, washing, spinning it and making it into a jumper, which I may soon be wearing.

I used to keep 25 hens. I thought I could make a little industry out of this, but I ended up subsidising all the neighbours with the eggs, so I gave that up. The fox helped me - he took away 15 in the space of a few weeks.

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/2000adthrillcast/episodes/2016-02-09T21_00_00-08_00




Steve Green


Tjm86

Re-reading Ellis and Hitch's Authority at the moment.  The scene where Jenny et al visit RAF Rendlesham features a couple of signs that I missed on first reading, particularly the one that reads "squirrel fondlers please report to Lt Dez Skinn."   :o