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WOULD YOU PLEASE TURN DOWN THE INTROSPECTION I AM TRYING TO GET SOME SLEEP!

16 (23.9%)

Found a place over in Amherst

0 (0%)

It's all the way over the river!

0 (0%)

IT'S 20 MINUTES AWAY.

3 (4.5%)

F'ed up sense of scale.

3 (4.5%)

Absolutely wonderful sunlight!

0 (0%)

You're not a witch or anything?

0 (0%)

We have a "No Sorcery" policy

3 (4.5%)

Let me show you the kitchen.

3 (4.5%)

Sad Hanners!

1 (1.5%)

Marten's not coming here, Dora's moving to Amherst, and everything CHANGING...

0 (0%)

Sometimes change is for the better.

0 (0%)

Colored underwear (she was a mess for WEEKS)

3 (4.5%)

Oops, you died again (Dungeon Crawl)

0 (0%)

Dale Gendo Glasses!

12 (17.9%)

Shut up, Shinji!

8 (11.9%)

Cute like a li'l baby - cause tilesets are for BABIES.

4 (6%)

Good luck, li'l baby berserker.

1 (1.5%)

I think he's flirting with you!

7 (10.4%)

I hate him almost as much as I hate Orc wizards!

3 (4.5%)

Total Members Voted: 56

[Method of Madness]

So...there's nothing to get, and that itself is the joke.  Gotcha.

[Akima]

This is heavy-handed exposition posing as a monologue that no one on earth would ever actually make.

Yeah... At least it should have been in think-bubbles rather than speech in terms of realism. But then the punch-line wouldn't have worked. But for me the punch-line worked mostly as fourth-wall-painting meta-humour drawing attention to the implausibility of Marten's monologue.

Or am I over-analysing?  I giggled anyway...

[Near Lurker]

...twenty minutes?  Someone doesn't know the back roads.

Although I do remember on my first car trip to Maine alone, and how shocked I was at one point on the way when I realized just where in Massachusetts I was.

[jwhouk]

Heh. 20 minutes. That's my daily commute to work (one-way). Heck, if I get a job elsewhere, my daily commute could be over an hour one way.

[DSL]

I know people who think like that ... including a family that moved from one side of a tiny town to the other to be a mile or so closer to some relatives.

[bicostp]

Penelope must be a transplanted Rhode Islander because I've never heard anyone in MA say 20 minutes is too far to travel. (She's even got a car for frig's sakes.)

A trip from Northampton to Amherst is less than 10 miles up route 9. Seriously I live 30 miles from work (45 minutes) and half the people there come from New Hampshire. 9 miles is nothing. :\

[jwhouk]

That mindset was frequent by some of my friends back in my hometown, after I moved. To them, I live in the part of the state known as "drive-by" country.

To most who live along the Lake Michigan shoreline (Milwaukee, mostly), any cities or locales between Milwaukee and Madison, or Milwaukee and Green Bay, are considered places you "drive by" on I-94 or I-43 or US 41 - and usually at 65+ MPH.

Two cities can look to be relatively close on a map, but can be worlds apart in the mindset of those who live there.

[Tergon]

Considering that Penelope is the only current CoD employee to have been seen driving a car (Dora supposedly has one but never drives it), I can only assume that the "twenty minutes" describer is either on foot or using public transport.  That's... nothing.

I grew up going to a school that was 45 minutes away by bus, and about half an hour by car.  And that's on the open road, not puttering around at city speed limits.  You want perspective about distances, come to Australia.  Down here if a journey takes less than two hours it's considered to be a short trip.

[bicostp]

According to Google Maps, a trip between the two town centers is 8.7 miles (14 kilometers), about 20 minutes by car, and mostly on a divided multi-lane state highway.

[Near Lurker]

*snrk*

Divided multi-lane state highway.  Right.

Someone's never been to New England, or at least not outside the Boston area.

[Penquin47]

...How the frak does an 8.7 mile journey take 20 minutes???

I live 20 miles from Lubbock, Texas.  I consider it a 15-25 minute trip, depending on where exactly in Lubbock I'm going.  Going to Amarillo (1.5 hours exactly if I hit traffic lights just right)  is something I'd do for a concert if it was someone I really wanted to see.

(I know, us giant state people have no sense of scale either.)

[TRVA123]

That mindset was frequent by some of my friends back in my hometown, after I moved. To them, I live in the part of the state known as "drive-by" country.

To most who live along the Lake Michigan shoreline (Milwaukee, mostly), any cities or locales between Milwaukee and Madison, or Milwaukee and Green Bay, are considered places you "drive by" on I-94 or I-43 or US 41 - and usually at 65+ MPH.

huh, I grew up in Kenosha, and I never heard that phrase... maybe its because the people who would use it were always "driving by" us!

[IlGreven]

...How the frak does an 8.7 mile journey take 20 minutes???

They're called "traffic jams".  I'm sure they exist, but I've never seen them.

[musicalsoul]

Heh. 20 minutes. That's my daily commute to work (one-way). Heck, if I get a job elsewhere, my daily commute could be over an hour one way.

Oh man, when I went to school in Atlanta (I live about 30 miles north of there), it took me at least 30 minutes to get down there. That's if there wasn't any traffic. Factor in rush hour and you've got me leaving my house at 7:45AM for a 9:30AM class. It was a nightmare!

Hell, it still takes me 20 minutes to get to work and the majority of my friends houses, even the ones who live pretty close... I think it's the high volume of traffic. I just can't picture someone being like "Oh yea, I'm moving to Atlanta" or "Yea, I found a place I like out in Canton" and me thinking "I'll never get to see you again!"

I agree with Faye in this comic. :-]

[Sorflakne]

I grew up going to a school that was 45 minutes away by bus, and about half an hour by car.  And that's on the open road, not puttering around at city speed limits.  You want perspective about distances, come to Australia.  Down here if a journey takes less than two hours it's considered to be a short trip.

Sounds like where I grew up in northwestern Minnesota...and 30-45 minutes is only if the roads aren't drifted over with snow or sheeted in ice (I remember being berated for not coming in to play practice one day because the roads were covered in "only" a foot of snow.  we're kind of hardcore with winter).  And about half the trip is on gravel road.

[musicalsoul]

...How the frak does an 8.7 mile journey take 20 minutes???

I live 20 miles from Lubbock, Texas.  I consider it a 15-25 minute trip, depending on where exactly in Lubbock I'm going.  Going to Amarillo (1.5 hours exactly if I hit traffic lights just right)  is something I'd do for a concert if it was someone I really wanted to see.

(I know, us giant state people have no sense of scale either.)

I live in Acworth, GA and I work in Woodstock, GA. I literally live about 10 miles from my job. It never takes me less than 15-20 minutes to get there. I think a lot of it depends on the way the roads and traffic lights are situated. I also live in an area with a really high volume of traffic. If I go into work around 4:30-5:00 on a Friday... it can take me twice as long to get there.

I don't know a lot about the area the characters in the comic live, but from what other people have said, I get the impression that it's a high volume of traffic area as well. I know from experience Boston is, I think the traffic I had to sit through there may have been worse than the traffic in Atlanta, and that's saying something.

[bicostp]

*snrk*

Well excuuuuuuse me princess. It's not every day I drive three hours to go hang around in Small Town USA. I didn't think that entire stretch would be as backwoods and desolate as Heath. (Actually come to think of it a lot of it looks like 123 through Norton, or 1A around the prison.) Some parts actually are multi-lane, and have steel barrier between the lanes of travel.

Next time I'll remember to check Google Maps first to make sure remote parts of a main road I regularly drive on match the parts I'm familiar with.

...How the frak does an 8.7 mile journey take 20 minutes???

The mostly tiny two lane non-divided state highway probably has a 40 MPH speed limit and lots of intersections.

[Coffee_Kaioken]

I commute regularly over the course of 45 minutes to work in the morning, and 45 minutes back. Of course, I am a cheapo who doesn't like paying $40 for a tank full of gas on a weekly basis either.

However, I am curious to know what it'd be like to live in the close-knit community that Penelope and Hannelore have been so clearly spoiled in.

[Tobimaro]

Heh. 20 minutes. That's my daily commute to work (one-way). Heck, if I get a job elsewhere, my daily commute could be over an hour one way.

I used to have a daily commute of 40 minutes (one way) going by county highway and interstate back when I lived with my parents.  My current commute is about 10 minutes, with the worst part being a dumb traffic light that rarely turns green when I approach that intersection.

I really think that Dora will also be getting a car.  Public transportation is handy, but there are times that having access to a car is a must.  I'm thinking of odd hours when the buses may be running on a altered schedule, or maybe she lives in an area where that one favorite store of hers is not around.  It can happen.  (My town has bus service, but I cannot use it to get to my job unless I want to work second shift, when the bus service would then quit before I go home.)

[iduguphergrave]

Dora has a car. She just doesn't use it much.

[westrim]

Seriously, small states are messed up. I consider about a 40 mile radius around where I live to be my zone of familiarity- my college is 15 miles away. I remember visiting DC and then driving with cousins to their home by Atlanta, and we drove through three states on the way (not counting Georgia). It took about10  hours. I could go north for 10 hours and still be 100 miles away from the Oregon border. I don't drive, but I also wouldn't want to live in a smaller area.

[Skewbrow]

I guess my commute: 8 miles on a bike (or a car if you don't mind driving thru what passes for an urban area in these parts) or 12 miles by car (via major roads - my preference), is typical for SW Finland. One of the reasons I quit my second job at Nokia was that their local site was relocated to join their major site 35 miles further East (20-25 minutes on a fast train from the old site). Too long a commute for me. Several coworkers felt the same way and opted for the severance package instead (some of them have since reconsidered )

It's all about your own expectations and the structure of the society around you. At our previous place (a 2-mile-commute) I hardly ever needed a car. Parts of US East coast with old cities may be the same. The cities in the Midwest, and the Pacific coast in particular, are designed and built on the premise that you have a car. Consequently a longer commute becomes acceptable, and is the norm in LA (judging from what I've heard).

[Loki]

I regularly spend one hour going to my girlfriend via public transport because I don't have a car. When I tell people, I get reactions ranging from "oh, that's nice" up to "I would get a girlfriend which lives closer". (Major WTF at the latter).

[Carl-E]

I used to bike the 4.5 miles to my work. 

Don't have that job anymore, though. 

Now it's 54 miles (one way) from my curb to the parking lot at work.  Takes 1 1/4 hours (75 min). 

In good  weather. 

The trip crosses two mountain ridges.  The longest it took so far was just under 6 hours during a blizzard.  They closed the road in front of and  behind us for two of those hours. 

And yes, I have  spent the night in my office a couple of times when I knew the bad weather was coming! 

[slydon]

...How the frak does an 8.7 mile journey take 20 minutes???

The distance from my parents' house to my friend's apt in a relatively suburban part of NYC was 5.3 mi, and it was usually a 20 to 30 minute trip. The google maps estimate must've been based on 3am traffic.

[knucklesandgyros]

Penelope must be a transplanted Rhode Islander because I've never heard anyone in MA say 20 minutes is too far to travel. (She's even got a car for frig's sakes.)

I said exactly the same thing. As a Rhode Islander myself, you cannot believe how true this is. Even I'm guilty of it. If I was up at school in Providence and I had like 5 hours to spare between classes, most normal folks would think that "Hey, I only live about 30 min away, nothing wrong with driving home for lunch and chilling out" but nope, my inner Rhode Islander thinks "Oh geez, five hours to spare? What the hell am I going to do?! I can't go home because that's like 2 hours in itself!" For the record, I'm working on this...

I don't know how true it is with MA folk or other small staters, but Rhode Islanders are easily the most notorious. I know a few non-native RIers who live here and they commute to Boston or New York for work. That is like damn near impossible to me!

[Deadlywonky]

My last job was 1.5 hrs away in the center of London, 55 mins on the train getting into the city, 25 mins on the Underground and 10 mins of walking in between, when everything worked OK. In the height of summer, being stuck on one of the hottest lines in the system, with a power failure, no wind, no light and no room to move for 2 hrs (literally, rammed into the carriages) obviously no A/C because that would be so much hard work, luckily I'm 6'1 and didn't have to spend my time breathing peoples armpits. After that I moved away and my new job is a 10 mile 10 minute drive.

BTW, comic, has anyone else noticed Angus's colour predilection? pink sheets, pink pillows, purple bedsheets and puce condoms ...

[edit] please ignore the above, it's early morning and the caffeine has yet to kick in. thank you akronnick for pointing out the howler   [/edit]

[edit 2] actually on the topic of the poll, I put after waking up but it's more when walking the dog in the morning, I can guarantee solitude at that point [/edit 2]

[Ravenswing]

...How the frak does an 8.7 mile journey take 20 minutes???

Because Route 9, pretty much the only feasible way to get from Amherst to Northampton (a small matter of crossing the Connecticut River), has as much in the way of traffic backups as exists in that part of Massachusetts.  A divided, limited-access highway it is not.

Seriously, it isn't just Rhode Islanders.  New Englanders generally have this incredible and insane hatred of traveling much of any distance at all.  I've lived in the Boston area most of my life, and in Springfield and Easthampton for a dozen years, and driving out as far as Worcester - halfway to the Valley - is considered a daunting trip by many Bostonians.  The number of times I drove out to Amherst to visit when I was in my 20s, only to have the locals treat me (after my not-quite-2-hour drive) as if I'd fought through two hundred miles of jungle with a machete and a leaking waterskin.  (shakes his head)

[cesariojpn]

Did Dora pack the entire Pancake makeup pot and tube of Lipstick on herself today? She's....shinier than usual.

[akronnick]

BTW, comic, has anyone else noticed Angus's colour predilection? pink sheets, pink pillows, purple bedsheets and puce condoms ...

I believe that was Faye's room.

Either that or Marten is hooking up  with Marigold now.

[bicostp]

45 minutes of driving is where I generally draw the line for things that take less than a couple hours. That might not sound like much, but distances are scaled down around here so in that time frame you can count on passing two dozen supermarkets, five Wal-Marts, a few Targets, a couple Lowes, and about 7,000 Dunkin' Donuts.

I said exactly the same thing. As a Rhode Islander myself, you cannot believe how true this is. Even I'm guilty of it.

It probably has something to do with the small town mentality that everyone outside Providence exhibits. Apparently everyone knows everyone else, and has memorized the lay of the land for the entire state. You get some interesting driving directions out of it, though. "You want to get to the mall? Okay bang a right up there where the Almacs used to be, then take the second left past where the old mill burned down, then follow 7 past the weird tree and it's on the left. If you go past my cousin Vinny's house, you've gone too far. "

[pwhodges]

<Bemused> I used to cycle to work (5 minutes), but now I walk (15 minutes) because it gives me more exercise.  I have had commutes of up to 1 1/2 hours, though; but when you are spending three hours a day in a car like that, you have so much less time to have a life.

Jeph seems out of practice with Dora's face ( especially in the last panel).  He has said in the past (more than once, I think) that he's always found her the hardest to get right for some reason.

[Mr. Doctor]

After living in Santiago, Chile's capital more than half my lifetime... I completely agree with Faye. Seriously, 20 minutes is nothing. I really hope Dora was saying 20 minutes driving. Because if it was walk distance... I don't know what else to say.  

[lunakitten]

Oof. Guys, I'm a native Los Angelino- everything is 20 minutes away, and that's just in the city. If you're coming from the suburbs where I am now-  well, my hub went to a gig in Orange county this morning, and allotted about an hour and half to go 40 miles. Since he was planning on taking the 91 (our local parking lot)- I-91 for all of you folks from East of here- that was a pretty reasonable amount of time, since it was a bit after rush hour.

And we can just forget about public transportation. I need to leave the house 2 hours early if I'm going to take the 3 buses to get to work- a 15 minute drive (a 4 mile distance).

Edited to make myself a bit clearer

[Odal]

My first thought seeing this one was that Jeph is trying to remove Dora from the comic.  Though she's already been kind of... away from the center stage for a while.  Now it looks like it could be more official.

I'm kind of suprised there's not more talk about this.

[no one special]

Born and raised in Cali - half my life in LA, half my life in the Bay Area.  We definitely have a different perspective out here.  As my friends who live on the other side of the country routinely tell me:

It's hard for east-coasters to understand how you could drive for 13 straight hours and still  be in the same state. 

[WaffleIron]

Jeph seems out of practice with Dora's face ( especially in the last panel).  He has said in the past (more than once, I think) that he's always found her the hardest to get right for some reason.

To me the mouth looks too big, and the red lipstick draws attention to it. The directly facing forward view has never been Jephs strong point.

My first thought seeing this one was that Jeph is trying to remove Dora from the comic.  Though she's already been kind of... away from the center stage for a while.  Now it looks like it could be more official.

I'm kind of suprised there's not more talk about this.

I wouldn't mind seeing her in some more comics that aren't directly focused on her problems/moving on

[Deadlywonky]

I agree that staight on is a little odd, but i really like the texture that he's added to Dora's top, sometimes it can look like everyone is wearing clothes made from exactly the same fabric

[Akima]

You want perspective about distances, come to Australia.  Down here if a journey takes less than two hours it's considered to be a short trip.

Out beyond the Black Stump maybe, but in the city, not so much. My current commute is 6.5km (just over 4 miles) and takes me an average of around 20 minutes on my bicycle. My longest cycle commute was 20km which took me just over one hour, and that was more than enough, especially in wet or hot weather. And yes, I know my averages are not that fast. Sydney has lots of hills; that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Dora does look a little odd in the last panel, but frankly all the girls have mouths like subway tunnels in that one...

[Border Reiver]

It's about 10km direct by car or bike to work - it being a Canadian winter, I bus it so the 10 minute (if everything works your way) drive or 30 minute cycle takes about 30 minutes.

[JackFaerie]

I thought Jeph did Dora really well in the last comic, except, admittedly, in the last panel.

Honestly, his problem with her is pretty simple. I don't know why, but he can't seem to figure out how to locate her features in her face, and also that she has a narrow face, not a round or square one. He seems to do better with broad-faced female characters (like Faye and Marigold). Dora's face, especially when drawn full-on, needs to TAPER from just below her eyes to her chin. A girl will look swollen and unattractive if her lower face is rounder than her upper face, which is kinda what keeps happening with Dora. Also, people with longer, narrower faces don't look good with a mouth too close to the chin. Dora looks good in all the other panels because her face is tapered properly and her mouth is slightly higher up. Jeph also for some reason makes Dora's nose really bulbous in profile when in fact it's sharp and pointy.

To sum up: when drawing her face-on, she needs a narrower face, a narrower nose, and her features better balanced in said face. See?



It doesn't look quite right still because I feel the mouth remains somehow off, but it's better. (Whoever said her mouth is drawn too big is right, I feel--again, it would work on a character with a wider face, but not with Dora.)  I've done this on another picture of Dora before.



(here I just narrowed down the face and did nothing else.)

[Carl-E]

Back in black (hair), bloody red lipstick. 

There's something going on in there, under the hair - I wonder what...

[mike837go]

I think we're missing the point on the '20 minutes away' issue.

The friends are worried about their social interaction. Right now everybody are an easy walk from each other (some in the same building).

Dora will be an effort to visit outside of work. Then the DUI problems....

[jwhouk]

A little bit of speculation:

In doing some Google Maps searches, I've come to the conclusion that CoD - if it existed in "The Real World" - would probably be located on or around 30 Pleasant Street in NoHo. (There is a bakery at the intersection of Pleasant and Armory, which wouldn't be too much of a stretch.) The main reason for this is where Panda House was located back in the earlier days of the strip. (Panda House closed its NoHo location a while back.)

So - assume she takes an apartment in Amherst, somewhere downtown (Main Street). Probably about a 17-19 minute drive.

EDIT: Oh. I think I see a problem with this - she'd have to drive right through the Amherst College campus every day. Tack on an extra two minutes for that. And the Amtrak line is right down the street. Eeeech.

[WaffleIron]

On second looks, her whole head is too big for her body in the last panel AND all her facial features are too big for her head.

Kind of ironic on a comic about a fucked up sense of scale.

[TheEvilDog]

I think we're missing the point on the '20 minutes away' issue.
The friends are worried about their social interaction. Right now everybody are an easy walk from each other (some in the same building).

No. Penny and Hanners are just lazy. Thats the joke.
Seriously, twenty minutes is nothing. When I was in college, I lived close to 40 miles away, which is about an hour by bus, one way. I've lost count the number of times people didn't come into class because they didn't want to walk the 5 minutes to college. (And being hungover didn't count.)

[jwhouk]

I believe there's some anthropological theories that cities in ancient days were rarely larger in diameter than a person could walk in an hour or half-hour's time. So for many, half an hour is the limit of most people's "okay to go there" time frame.

[Near Lurker]

A little bit of speculation:

In doing some Google Maps searches, I've come to the conclusion that CoD - if it existed in "The Real World" - would probably be located on or around 30 Pleasant Street in NoHo. (There is a bakery at the intersection of Pleasant and Armory, which wouldn't be too much of a stretch.) The main reason for this is where Panda House was located back in the earlier days of the strip. (Panda House closed its NoHo location a while back.)

So - assume she takes an apartment in Amherst, somewhere downtown (Main Street). Probably about a 17-19 minute drive.

EDIT: Oh. I think I see a problem with this - she'd have to drive right through the Amherst College campus every day. Tack on an extra two minutes for that. And the Amtrak line is right down the street. Eeeech.

Those "problems" wouldn't be that big a deal; the train line is practically deserted for commuter purposes, and although there are a couple trains a day, there's a bridge over the main road, and she'd be skirting the north edge of the Amherst campus.  UMass traffic would be the bigger problem.

Of course, she's probably not looking at anything anywhere near that region, and probably wouldn't be parking right in the street for eight or ten hours - the garage behind Thorne's would probably be her best bet.

And I'd have to go check, but I'm pretty sure the "SCORN" scene puts COD on a street right in the middle of a real-world city block.  So, there's that.

[jwhouk]

Jeph does play fast and loose with some of the background shots of NoHo. 

[philharmonic]

I was thinking is this took place here in BC. The shop might be in New Westminster and they would be complaining that she found a place in Surrey. Surrey here also goes by "Slurry" "Sorry" and "Slurvy".