Comments on: Doin’ That Crazy Hand Jive

By: David L.

David L. — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 01:24:48 +0000

Well, I’m late to the party, but perhaps someone will see this note on Edda’s age. There is a panel dated April 7, 2008 in which Edda says that it’s her 20th birthday. So, if we assume that Juliette was born in 1955, she would have been 33 at the time of Edda’s birth. That’s a bit late for a mother of the late boomer generation, but not improbably so. Mr. McEldowney recently mentioned on his blog, Chickweed Cafe, that having set the beginning of the current story arc in 1944-1945, he felt obliged to drop the characters into 1:1 time rather than continue the previous practice of having about one year of strip time pass for every two years of real time. That would make Juliette a well cared-for woman of 54-55.

For the rest of it, I can only echo Elyrest’s comment that the current story arc has become like extended foreplay that makes one crazy; not in a good way. The Great Big Secret has been reasonably obvious for months: almost certainly, Kiesl is Juliette’s biological father; Bill’s injuries have probably left him incapable of fathering a child. In truth, I have become so irritated with the pacing of the current story arc that I have stopped reading the strip as of 6/17, except for the Sunday panel. I’ll pick it up again in 2-3 weeks, by which time, I hope, the arc will be over and Mr. McEldowney will have moved on.

By: fromm

fromm — Thu, 27 May 2010 00:35:08 +0000

They’re in Argentina, just like the old joke.

By: Elyrest

Elyrest — Tue, 25 May 2010 17:06:47 +0000

Kamino Neko - My assumptions on age were made because none of my friends or relatives of around my age had any children as old as Edda was portrayed when the comic started (average ages for first child not pertinant). Juliette seemed older than me. Edna was much older than my mother. Now Juliette is younger than me. That just surprises me because in my head she was always older.

By: Kamino Neko

Kamino Neko — Tue, 25 May 2010 17:05:54 +0000

I don’t think that lines up even for Edda, Dysfunctional - that would mean she’d spent at least 5 years in high school (I stopped getting the paper I read 9CL in in 2003, and she was still in high school, then), before graduating early.

By: Kamino Neko

Kamino Neko — Tue, 25 May 2010 16:52:14 +0000

OK, I think I’m getting that you instinctively expect the characters to have aged 17 years, along with the real world (although they haven’t, as Edda’s graduating more than a decade after the strip started tells us).

Am I reading you correctly, in that?

Even if so, I’m not sure how this arc establishes her as younger than would be expected - 1955-1956 makes her about the same age as my mother. If they aged in real time, Edda would be about the same age as me. Which puts their relative ages at about average for first children, in my experience.

By: Dyfsunctional

Dyfsunctional — Tue, 25 May 2010 16:33:54 +0000

I’m pretty sure I remember reading somewhere that time progresses in 9CL at about half the tempo it does in our own universe. (That means they celebrate Christmas in July, but whatever.) The math works out for Edda (bratty teen in the 90s, self-aware urban adult in the present), but I’m not sure if the formula works elsewhere.

By: Elyrest

Elyrest — Tue, 25 May 2010 16:02:52 +0000

Kamino Neko (8) Someone has already brought it to your attention that it was a ten year jump in time o that puts it at 1955 and Juliette isn’t born yet. My opinion on Juliette’s age was sort of set when the series started in the early 1990’s and Edda was a teenager. I though Juliette was much older than me then. Obviously what we are dealing with here is comic strip time that has no correlation with reality (not that this strip has any touch with reality).

By: amo

amo — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:01:04 +0000

@ George P thanks for the link

By: Cidu Bill

Cidu Bill — Tue, 25 May 2010 14:18:29 +0000

True, George. And considering my father was Austrian — but came to this country with a German passport thanks to Anschluss — I certainly should have remembered that.

By: Kamino Neko

Kamino Neko — Tue, 25 May 2010 13:38:58 +0000

And, yeah, Edda’s definitely a late kid, either way - which allowed the gag in the last 9CL strip posted.