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[eschaton]

In the current weekly comic thread, somebody cited a post Jeph made three years ago about the ages of the different characters.  I was surprised, because despite their being eight years of development at that point, all of the characters were still the same age as the start of the comic.  E.g. Marten is still 24 or 25 (never been said), Dora is still 26, etc.  This means in the entire are of the comic to that point that presumably only a year of in-comic time (or less) had gone past.  In a sense this isn't surprising.  AFAIK there was only one time that Jeph skipped time ahead - during Marten and Dora's relationship.  Which was probably a good choice, because given the pacing of the comic if it only skips forward a day or two at a time, they wouldn't have had anything resembling a long-term relationship.  It also puts the development of characters into perspective - people are going through incredibly huge changes in only a year's time!

The question remains though - what is actually happening regarding time in QC.  I note a couple of things:

1.  No one (IIRC) has had a birthday during the strip.  This would seem to say that people are actually pepetually at their current age, Simpsons like.  However, characters (most recently Tai) have graduated from college in strip, which would seem to suggest people are still achieving milestones.

2.  Early on in the thread, Marten is explicitly shown with a yearbook from HS with 1998 on it.  This would seem to imply that QC remains about a decade in the past compared to us.  However, people have Iphones and the like, which seems to suggest it's somehow become contemporary.  Unless having iphones and the like is just part of the weird futuretech that the QCverse has access to. 

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone else had more ideas regarding this.

[Half Empty Coffee Cup]

I find it fascinating how the strip seems to Dorian Gray it without it being noticeable. That said, I think a birthday arc might be interesting.

Also, there was one point at which the seasons switched sort of suddenly. Someone might have quietly had a birthday in that period.

[Is it cold in here?]

Hannelore had a birthday.

Some previous work on this topic:
http://questionablecontent.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline
http://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,17911.0.html
http://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,21689.0.html

[BenRG]

With sequential art, the passage of time is always inconsistent. A major event can turn a single night into months of strips whilst the action can then jump weeks or even months to take up the action with the next significant event.

There has been one winter in Northampton shown that I'm aware of; at the most, I suspect that the duration of the strip has been between six to twelve months from strip #0001, with me leaning towards the upper end of that scale.

[Half Empty Coffee Cup]

There's no reason that it can't be up to around 15-18 months. Early-mid spring in #0001 is a possibility, since the seasons weren't really given attention until winter rolled on in, and the strip is somewhere in mid- to late-summer. Could be fall, even. The wiki timeline put a "long jump" after it notes "mid summer"

[cesariojpn]

This would seem to say that people are actually perpetually at their current age, Simpsons like.

Actually, if you take into account that Marge is Age 34 in Season 1 (and Homer subsequently implying Marge is the same as his age, so around 36-40 in latter Seasons) , Bart theoretically should be in his 30's if age was let to progress "naturally."

[HiFranc]

From the seasons I calculated that Dora and Marten were together for about 15-18 months.  From memory:

First kiss happened at the end of winter/start spring (it was still cold)
Happies happned throughout summer
They went drunk sledging that winter (Will was on his quest then)
We see them through sping and the break up happened at the height of summer

Furthermore:

In the first 500 strips, there were strong hints (e.g. when Faye spent a day with Dora) that it was the previous summer.  Nobody seemed to mind the cold.

I haven't been keeping track of the seasons since the breakup.  I only looked at them because there were arguments here about how long they'd been dating.

[AprilArcus]

I've been doing a lot of work on the wiki's timeline article lately. It is currently the very end of summer, about fifteen weeks since Tai's end-of-semester party. This will (barely) fit into Smith College's real-life academic calendar (the last three weeks of May plus the 13 weeks of summer), provided that the students all start classes within like, the next hundred strips. Soon the the brilliant New England autumn will be upon us! Claire, Emily, Cosette and Raven (what happened to Raven?) will be nose-deep in their studies, and everyone will pull on their warm jackets.

Here's how it worked out in the spreadsheet:

[Method of Madness]

This would seem to say that people are actually perpetually at their current age, Simpsons like.

Actually, if you take into account that Marge is Age 34 in Season 1 (and Homer subsequently implying Marge is the same as his age, so around 36-40 in latter Seasons) , Bart theoretically should be in his 30's if age was let to progress "naturally."

If you were Bart's age when the first season aired, you're close to if not exactly Homer and Marge's age now.

[HiFranc]

Thank you for calculating it all, April.

[MooskiNet]

Holy crap that's impressive.  So Marten and Claire have known each other about two months when they begin dating, and the next semester is about to start.

A little under a thousand strips.  Talk about an endless summer.  Whuf.

[Method of Madness]

Just read April's spreadsheet. Holy crap that is impressive.

[HiFranc]

MoM, I agree.

April, Thank you again, I've found your chart useful in finding relevant strips fast.

[Is it cold in here?]

Please add it to the wiki! questionablecontent.wikia.com.

[AprilArcus]

Thanks, everybody! IICIH - I'm working on it. I've already wiki'd the timeline article from 1800 to 2800 via anonymous IP edits (couldn't bother myself to register an account, eek) but it's not obvious what the best way would be to add the spreadsheet in a way that others can edit (a PNG image seems too monolithic). I'll have something soon.

[BenRG]

I've worked with Wikia before although I'm hardly an expert (you might have seen a few edits from me on the 'latest edits' page). I know that the Wikia system lets you create tables; that would probably be your best bet to create the spreadsheet in an editable fashion.

[AprilArcus]

Okay, it's wiki'ed! I split it up into groups of ~100 strips. It's a somewhat different effect than the big spreadsheet. What do you all think?

[davedig]

Whoa that little time? I'd like to think Marten and Claire knew each other a bit longer. I figured the summer interns popped in the middle of Spring or nearing the end of that term with a few weeks to go.

[McFace]

Whoa that little time? I'd like to think Marten and Claire knew each other a bit longer. I figured the summer interns popped in the middle of Spring or nearing the end of that term with a few weeks to go.

That's what I was thinking.

I can't argue with April's timeline because it seems correct, but it just feels like a LOT to happen in a short amount of time.

[AprilArcus]

Note: I am using a completely arbitrary 52 week calendar where January, April, July and October have five weeks, and every other month has four.

More thoughts: I placed Tai's party around Smith college's commencement (the second week of May), but it might make more sense to shift it a week earlier to align with finals week.

From the seasons I calculated that Dora and Marten were together for about 15-18 months.  From memory:

First kiss happened at the end of winter/start spring (it was still cold)
Happies happned throughout summer
They went drunk sledging that winter (Will was on his quest then)
We see them through sping and the break up happened at the height of summer

The break-up happened in 1799 and 1844 is explicitly said to be in late winter / early spring. Other than that, I agree with your read. Marten's hoodie disappears from 623-750. Do you think that this is the summer prior to the 2000-2800s?

I'm working on putting some firmer dates on the Spring semester run, from roughly 1300 to 1900, but there are fewer explicit references to weekends and it's harder to bin strips up into days when everyone is wearing the same outer layers for strip after strip. Here's what I have so far:

• 1200–1223 + 1225 It is still warm enough for Hanners to wear tiny shorts. Dora has been running Coffee of Doom for "a couple of years".
• Jump?
• 1227–1254 Lydia meets Sven off-panel the previous day. Wil asks Penelope out. They make a date for Friday. Tai gets a piercing.

• Dora goes from thinking about growing her hair out in 1302 to having two-inch roots in 1311, suggesting a very lengthy time skip
• Snowy weather from 1311-1395, probably corresponding to the second or third week of January, the coldest time of year in Northhampton
• In 1322, Cosette checks out two very long books and asks Marten out. This might mark the start of the Spring semester, the fifth week of January, or she might be getting a head start on her reading over the winter break. Against this, in 1550 Luna says Cosette obsessed over whether to ask Marten out for "weeks" before this.
• 1423 is the last time snow is visible in background scenes

• 1430–1436 Marten gives Cosette a photo of Steve. Wil returns from his walkabout. Marten retires his hoodie.
• working...
• 1506–1514 takes place on a Wednesday, since Marten's dad has made plans to visit "on Friday" and Dora complains that his family never schedules anything "more than a couple days in advance". In 1509, Faye hasn't seen Raven "in forever". Presumably she started her physics training in the Five Colleges area at the beginning of the current (spring) semester.
• 1515–1521 Friday. Henry and Maurice's visit. Dora has died her hair black again.
• 1521–1536 Saturday, the Smif Nerd con.
• jump?
• 1537–1554 Cosette has just gotten out of the hospital after falling down a flight of stairs, which happened while oggling the photo of Steve she received in 1430. She runs into Steve, they get dinner and hook up, and she ends up back in the hospital.

• 1558–1578 Dora and Marten talk about moving in together
• 1579–1586 The next day. Dora decides to move in with Marten and Faye.
• jump?
• 1587–1591 Moving day
• 1592–1596 The next day. Tai describes her lifestyle as "recreational drug use, casual sex, and occasional studying", but by 2787 she graduated "a year ago". What is she studying at this point?

• 1597-1600 Angus and Marigold dance

• 1602–1610 Tai passes out at Marten and Faye's. Hanners takes her home.
  
• 1611–1632 The next day. Faye returns Marigold's wallet. Marigold makes a pass at Angus.
• 1633–1649 The next day. Hanners consoles Marigold. First appearances: Dale, Espressosaurus I. A gallery owner commissions Espressosaurus II and follows up in 1978. Continuity notes: Dora guesses it will take six weeks to make, and it is more or less done by 1948. The gallery owner comes back to check on Faye's progress in 1978 (saturday of May, week 1), making the latest possible date and current best guess for this day Saturday of March, week 4.
• one-day jump (1651: Marigold hasn't eaten anything but Pocky for the last two days, and nothing at all on that day)
• 1650–1662 Marigold steals Sven's book my accident. Milestone: Hanners can handle being poked by Marten and Dora. Continuity note: Will has had time to grow a handlebar mustache since his last appearance in 1529.

• 1663–1669 Angus asks Faye out. Dale delivers a pizza to Marigold.

• 1670–1691 Dora dyes her hair. Party at Marten and Faye's. Does the title of 1670 imply about a three month passage since she dyed it black in 1515?
• 1692–1706 The next day. Tai, Marten, Steve and Cosette go shopping. Continuity note: Cosette is still in crutches, as she was in 1543-1554, but is out of her neck brace and her black eye has fully healed. Her cast is coming off "tomorrow" (1698). Dora is working 60 hour weeks with a staff of 3 (Faye, Raven, and Penelope). She expands her staff to 5 with Cosette and Hannelore in these strips, but by 2523 she is up to 80 hour weeks.
• 1706–1718 The next day. Dora hires Hannelore and Cosette. Milestone: Hanners hugs Marten. Cosette gets out of her cast, dies her hair brown.
• 1719–1739 The next day (1709: "I go in for training tomorrow!"). Dora trains Hanners and Cosette. Angus kisses Faye. Marten and Angus have a slap-battle. Faye and Angus go on a date. AFRICA. Dora hates Toto. Continuity note: Angus quotes Beyoncé's "Single Ladies" (1732), a 2008 song.
• 1740–1770 The next day. Early morning: (1744: 1:06 AM) Marten comforts Faye after a panic attack. Dora goes nuclear. Faye escalates. Sven doesn't want to hook up anymore. Marten and Dora make up. Morning: Hanners and Cosettes first day on the job. Evening: Hanners and Sven have a mock-date. Continuity note: Reference to "Helvetica" (1760), a 2007 film.
• 1771–1772 Probably the next day. Dale flirts at Marigold. Hanners and Marigold dish about the mock date.
• 1773–1793 Probably the next day. Angus stops by CoD. Faye hasn't seen him in "a few days" (1773) and Hanners mock date was "the other night" (1782). The singularity happened yesterday. Tai and Marten talk about Dora. Sven stops by. Marigold and Tai hang out.
• Possible jump, but probably not. It makes narrative sense for the break-up to happen very shortly after the last fight, and extra padding here slows the development of Faye and Angus's intimate relationship too much.
• 1794–1800 The break-up.
• 1801–1818 The next day. Faye finds a therapist for Dora. Veronica books a ticket to Northampton. Marten makes a drunken pass at Faye.
• 1819–1837 The next day. Veronica visits with Marten, Tai, Hanners, Faye, Sven, and Dora.
• 1838–1855 Veronica leaves. Hanners and Marten look for a new coffee shop and find the Secret Bakery. Steve and Cosette visit Marten. Faye visits Angus and spends the night with him. Marigold visits Hanners. Dora dyes her hair black. Continuity note: 1844 is in late winter/early spring.

• Minimum ten-day jump. By 1861 Marten has been single for "weeks", and in 1865 Padma recognizes him as "mister coffee-and-a-danish"

• 1856–1873 Marten, Steve, Elliot and Padma and Renee hang out at the Revelation.
• 1874-1891 The next day (Cosette is upset at Padma for flirting with Steve). Dora's first therapy appointment. Tai drops by the say hello to Dora, the first they've spoken since the breakup. Espressosaurus II has some bugs. Angus and Faye have sex for the first time (1887). Continuity note: with no jump between 1793 and 1794, and the minimum ten-day jump between 1855 and 1856, it has been 19 days since AFRICA. It makes sense for Faye to take it slow (and Angus' dialogue suggests she has been), but any slower than this strains credibility.

• 1892 Dora (gray camisole) reads a listing for an apartment in Amherst

• 1893 Dora (gray crew-neck) checks out the Amherst apartment
• 1894-1895 (same day?)
• 1896 (same day?) Dora (gray crew-neck) takes the Amherst apartment. It will be ready "by the end of next week"

• 1897 Marten gets a call from UMass
• 1898-1904 Next day. First appearance: Clinton
• 1905 (same day?) Hanners calls her dad

• 1906-1920 Marten visits Coffee of Doom for the first time since the break up. "It's been weeks" (1907). Dora moves in. Faye and Sven are not openly hostile. Tai tries to start a topless party. Cosette planning to move in with Steve for the summer.

• 1921 AnthroPC hangouts

• 1922-1931 The Coffee of Doom / Secret Bakery beans-for-pastries deal. First appearance: Jim. 1928: "Elliot will have your stuff for you on Monday

• 1932 Pizza Girl / Penelope. Faye: Pink blouse
• 1933 (Jump? Same day?) (Saturday or Sunday) Tai invites Marten (TEH) to her end-of-semester party on Friday

• 1934-1942 Monday. Elliott and Jim make a muffin delivery. Padma remembers Marten's name. Faye: Bear. Marten: castor.
• one-day jump?
• 1951-1943 Angus and Faye are official. Jim asks Dora out. Tai invites Dora to the party on Friday (1945), so it's either Tuesday or Wednesday.

[marsman57]

I definitely like the work that has gone into this. I often wonder how much thought Jeph puts into timelines. He has to know that the average reader has completely forgotten that Marten and Claire have only known each other for a couple of months if that is his artistic intention. It's almost like someone needs to remind him. The only problem is that everyone is too happy for him to do that.

[AprilArcus]

I revised the May and June parts of the timeline to place Tai's party at the end of finals week (May, week 1). This gives some breathing room that makes Angus's dialogue in 2038 more naturalistic (since it would be weird for him to invite Faye to New York and then leave the very next day), makes Faye's "it's been like a week!" in 2098 more appropriate (referring to a six day span vs. a four day span), and gives Marten more time between the end of his relationship with Padma and his flirtation with Lt. Potter on the station. Everything from the second half of June onward is unaffected.

He has to know that the average reader has completely forgotten that Marten and Claire have only known each other for a couple of months if that is his artistic intention.

It might be longer. I've deliberately compressed the July/August half of this timeline as much as possible, on the hopeful presumption that the Fall semester hasn't started off-panel. We haven't had a student-age main character before (Raven's graduate studies have been glossed over, Ellen and Cosette are minor characters, Tai is immersed in the Smif social scene but appears to have graduated before we met her), but now that we have Claire - a driven grad student - in the main cast, I hope we'll see some aspect of her studies as a foregrounded plot thread.

[Platypodes]

I definitely like the work that has gone into this. I often wonder how much thought Jeph puts into timelines. He has to know that the average reader has completely forgotten that Marten and Claire have only known each other for a couple of months if that is his artistic intention. It's almost like someone needs to remind him. The only problem is that everyone is too happy for him to do that.

I'm not surprised by the time frame.  All they've done is kiss and say they like each other, a very reasonable thing to do after two months.

Actually, I wonder if some of the readers who've protested that the Marten/Claire attraction "came out of nowhere" need to be reminded that it's only been a couple of months.  If they'd known each other for a year and then all of a sudden discovered that they were attracted to each other, that would be out of left field.

[FunkyTuba]

I've wanted to do something like this for so long... it's wonderful to see all the work you've done, April!

[marsman57]

I've started attacking this from the other end and have fleshed out some of the existing stuff in the first ~230 strips which appear to all have taken place in a time frame that runs from November-December of the first year.

[marsman57]

I'm at a bit of an impasse about what to do around the time of 164-269.

The implication from Faye's sister's arrival is that the semester has recently ended and she went home with her girlfriend for the break before fleeing to MA once caught. She then returns home instead of back to school. That said, Ellen has class 3 days later.

I know new semesters don't always start at the same time. Maybe this implies an early January time frame for these strips instead of the mid-December that I initially thought. Anyone else want to chime in?

The justification in my mind is that initially Amanda was only going to be staying a few days, so maybe the semester was about to restart and she is only returning home briefly.

[AprilArcus]

I've started attacking this from the other end and have fleshed out some of the existing stuff in the first ~230 strips which appear to all have taken place in a time frame that runs from November-December of the first year.

I think it has to be earlier than that - we need a big jump in November/December for Dora's hair to have grow out in time for the snow storm in 1311, and September/October would also be a better match for all the tee-shirts and hoodies in the early strips than November/December.

I would start by pinning #48 to the first week of September, which is the very earliest any reasonable person would inquire about thanksgiving plans. Then cram the first 1300 strips into as compact a space as possible, so that 1302 lands in late October and 1311 opens in mid January after a 2+ month time skip.

I'm at a bit of an impasse about what to do around the time of 164-269.

Let's just say it was a fall midterm break. Many schools have one in October in parallel to the Easter holiday in the spring semester.

[marsman57]

I think I'll have to get through all of the strips to have a better feel for the time period. Maybe an entire year passes in the first 1300 strips. It just doesn't seem to me like Amanda would be telling her mom about failing all her classes "last semester" if she had spent an entire Summer break and half of a semester beforehand.

Alternate theory is that Jeph really was just making a timely joke about Thanksgiving without any thought to the implications that could have on a timeline 12 years later and that though being canon should not be regarded in a high fashion.

For the time being, I am going to dispatch with trying to exactly pin the start date until I have determined what the jumps are between days in the strips leading up to 1300.

[AprilArcus]

It just doesn't seem to me like Amanda would be telling her mom about failing all her classes "last semester" if she had spent an entire Summer break and half of a semester beforehand.

It's an awkward fit, but there's nothing impossible about it. Maybe Amanda failed a summer term? And in the alternative scenario, is there really enough room in the narrative to stretch 0-1300 over an entire spring, summer and fall? It feels too tightly plotted for that.

Alternate theory is that Jeph really was just making a timely joke about Thanksgiving without any thought to the implications that could have on a timeline 12 years later and that though being canon should not be regarded in a high fashion.

Yeah, clearly there is a reason Jeph's answer to how much comic time has elapsed is "a year or two". We could try constructing a long timeline and a short one and then see which seems less unreasonable. Or we could just throw up our hands and declare that 0-1300 take place in a temperate neverwhen that starts in November, ends in Setember, lasts for 60 days, and is immediately preceded by winter break.

[cesium133]

Yeah, clearly there is a reason Jeph's answer to how much comic time has elapsed is "a year or two". We could try constructing a long timeline and a short one and then see which seems less unreasonable. Or we could just throw up our hands and declare that 0-1300 take place in a temperate neverwhen that starts in November, ends in Setember, lasts for 60 days, and is immediately preceded by winter break.

Time travel is involved. It's Pintsize's fault.

[aliensporebomb]

I've been doing a lot of work on the wiki's timeline article lately. It is currently the very end of summer, about fifteen weeks since Tai's end-of-semester party. This will (barely) fit into Smith College's real-life academic calendar (the last three weeks of May plus the 13 weeks of summer), provided that the students all start classes within like, the next hundred strips. Soon the the brilliant New England autumn will be upon us! Claire, Emily, Cosette and Raven (what happened to Raven?) will be nose-deep in their studies, and everyone will pull on their warm jackets.

Here's how it worked out in the spreadsheet:

This is highly impressive - is there any direct link for updates available?

[FunkyTuba]

holy crap. Veronica and Jim's date was less than a week ago! Why aren't we still squeeing about that?

[AprilArcus]

This is highly impressive - is there any direct link for updates available?

I put it on the wiki in 100 strip chunks. Is there another format you'd like to see it in?

[Is it cold in here?]

Yeah, clearly there is a reason Jeph's answer to how much comic time has elapsed is "a year or two". We could try constructing a long timeline and a short one and then see which seems less unreasonable. Or we could just throw up our hands and declare that 0-1300 take place in a temperate neverwhen that starts in November, ends in Setember, lasts for 60 days, and is immediately preceded by winter break.

Time travel is involved. It's Pintsize's fault.

It's a ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff.

[cesariojpn]

I put it on the wiki in 100 strip chunks. Is there another format you'd like to see it in?

Parchment.

[marsman57]

I updated the wiki a bit to soften my initial assumptions about a long timeline until we can work it out. I'll focus my work on determining which comic sets we can definitely know that only one day passed versus which we have no clue.

[AprilArcus]

I put it on the wiki in 100 strip chunks. Is there another format you'd like to see it in?

Parchment.

[Masterpiece]

April, that is seriously impressive. And a sort of eye-opener.

[MooskiNet]

Masterpiece, your icon straight up gave me the willies. 

Good job.

[HiFranc]

I shouldn't look at that too much -- it makes me want to go on archive trawls.

[Carl-E]

Neko has one like that for ages - took me nearly a year to realize it. 

[Pilchard123]

The blinky one?

[Carl-E]

Yeah.  Hers had an even longer, less noticeable cycle to it.  I would buzz by posts and never see it blink for the longest time.  Total freakout when it finall was in my range of sight! 

[T]

Holy crap that's impressive.  So Marten and Claire have known each other about two months when they begin dating, and the next semester is about to start.

A little under a thousand strips.  Talk about an endless summer.  Whuf.

It could be worse. It could be a summer that last for over one thousand years.

[Method of Madness]

It won't last forever. Winter is coming

[Bologna]

If you're looking for more continuity notes, Sam is singing a version of Daft Punk's "Doin' It Right" in 2472.  That album was released in 2013.

I'm not exactly sure how that shakes things up.

[Carl-E]

In a nearly parallel comic universe, not very much.  I mean, have you seen how cell phones have evolved in the comic?  Someone posted about that a little while ago. 

[AprilArcus]

Among other things, whether comic time is currently in 2005 or 2014 has a strong bearing on Claire's "started hormones six years ago" back story. Recognition of trans issues and availability of hormone therapy have advanced hugely in the last ten years. There were plenty of eighteen year olds taking their first estrogen pill in 2008; not so many in 1999.

[Zebediah]

The problem with trying to use RL events as a guide is that Jeph has said before (don't have a link to where he said it, but I remember it) that QC takes place in "comic book time" - the characters keep pace with RL events even though not enough time has passed in-comic to justify it.

[AprilArcus]

I get it - like how the 60s are always 10 years ago in the marvel universe.