Thanks for reading.

6/16/09

If you looked at the new character analog timeline table added a few days ago to the AKOTAS-2 FAQ, found it legible, and are a Doctor Who fan, you'll've noticed that Nimue is not analog to the two most recent Doctor Who companions, though she is to almost all the others past and future. (This table shows that she's even analog to Leela in AKOTAS-2, which she was not in KAITAS. That's only because I got lazy when I was making the table, trying to fit all the lettering in. I'll decide for certain for the first gag that forces me, and if necessary update the table, somehow.) I mentioned parenthetically the other day that often I draw inspiration for a gag simply by noting the biggest gap in the AKOTAS-2 timeline between existing gags. For today, according to my spreadsheet, the centerpoint of the biggest gap fell analog to the Doctor's time with Donna, one of those two companions Nimue isn't analog to. Having failed, in the time since I realized Nimue couldn't be analog to Martha or Donna if she were analog to Rose, to come up with a character from mythology, folklore and legends with red hair, yesterday I went to the Wikipedia page on red hair. There I discovered that, among others, Mary Magdalene is traditionally portrayed with red hair. Mary Magdalene also, despite common or even base origins, spent a short time as a companion to a charismatic, world-saving man of superhuman ability, after which she descended into obscurity (doing so for the sake of survival, Dan Brown and others tell us), yet for her time as a companion has had songs sung about her through history (and is revered as a goddess herself, Dan Brown and others tell us). I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it as hard as I thought about it when I was considering who ought to be the Superman analog in KAITAS, Hercules or Jesus. I made my decision then on the basis that Dejanira makes a better Lois Lane than Mary Magdalene does. But (a) that was back in the days before the Holy Blood, Holy Grail premise was made into novels, movies and History Channel programs, and (2) (b) not all the reasons Mary Magdalene lost out in the running for Lois Lane necessarily apply to the selection for Donna Noble. (Though I haven't any intention of showing or implying, as the paragaph above this one may suggest, that, in the AKOTAS-2 universe, Merlin turns out to have been Jesus in a predestination paradox. Jesus would be analog to ... I dunno. Wilf. Not that he wouldn't still be, you know, Jesus. He'd just also be Merlin's best friend in Mary Magdalene's neighborhood.) Meanwhile today's cartoon takes another subject entirely. Or it will have once I've written it. Later Crossposted to my LiveJournal.

Webcomics I read mornings: Kevin & Kell, For Better Or For Worse, Tux & Bunny, Sluggy Freelance, Irregular Comic

Webcomics I read M-W-F mornings: General Protection Fault, Nukees, Newshounds, Girl Genius, Ctrl+Alt+Del

Webcomics I read Tu-Th-Sa mornings: El Goonish Shive, AppleGeeks, Achewood, Striptease, Punch an' Pie, Digger

Webcomics I read middays: Calvin & Hobbes, Least I Could Do, User Friendly, LuAnn, Pearls Before Swine, American Elf, Devil's Panties, Narbonic, Schlock Mercenary

Webcomics I read weekday evenings: Questionable Content, Starslip Crisis, Count Your Sheep, Dandy & Company, Dinosaur Comics, Girls With Slingshots, Shortpacked, Wapsi Square, Help Desk, Real Life, PvP

Webcomics I read M-W-F evenings: Fans, Two Lumps, Goats, Order of the Stick, College Roommates from Hell!!!, Penny Arcade

Webcomics I read Tu-Th-Sa evenings: The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, Get Out of My Head, Darths & Droids, Megatokyo, Buck Godot Zap Gun For Hire

Webcomics I read bedtimes: B.C., Something Positive, Station V3, Sinfest, Little Dee, Skin Horse, Sheldon, Peanuts

Webcomics I read Sundays: Breakfast of the Gods, Something Happens, Three Panel Soul, No Room for Magic, Li'l Mell, Zortic, The Non-Adventures of Wonderella, xkcd

Webcomics I hope will start updating again: Boxjam's Doodle, The Angriest Rice Cooker In The World, My Name is Might Have Been, Butternut Squash, Sketchies, 13 Seconds, Anywhere But Here, Crap I Drew On My Lunch Break, Kismetropolis, The Magnificent Adventures of Hieronymus Bosch, esquire, The Green Avenger, I Draw Comics, Reasoned Cognition, Perry Bible Fellowship, The Whovian Observer, Gossamer Commons

See also The Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge, Talk About Comics, The Living Comic, Online Comics Day, The Belfry Comics Index, The Webcomic List, Mister Bloo, Nth Degree, 100% Originality Theatre, Brian Roney's Webcomic Reviews, Girls Read Comics (And They're Pissed), Fleen, Mr. Myth, Comixtalk and Websnark.

Arthuriana sources I use or recommend:
Arthurian Legend
Arthuriana - the Journal of Arthurian Studies; the website of the quarterly journal of the North American Branch of the International Arthurian Society.
The Camelot Project at the University of Rochester.
Camelot In Four Colors: A Survey of the Arthurian Legend in Comics
Mystical-WWW - The Arthurian A2Z knowledge Bank which has encyclopedically-arranged entries on the characters of the Arthurian legends.
Early British Kingdoms - Arthurian Bios.
Historia Ecclesiastica.
Le Morte Darthur: Sir Thomas Malory's Book of King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table, Volume 1 and Volume 2.