"I'm okay!" (DD4, Chapter Two, pages 15-18)

This week, Alexandra and her father address some sticky topics. 

NAMES!

Last week, a reader (hi, Emmanuelle) pointed out that Alexandra's dad was previously referred-to as "Andrew," but that Alexandra's uncle was also named "Andrew."

Here's Nikos calling dad "Andrew:"

Now, I knew there was something fishy going on with the names. Something about calling dad "Andrew" wasn't sitting right with me. While writing these pages, I swear—I swear!—I specifically remember opening up an early DD doc to find a little text file where I kept all the names, and that text file told me that DD's dad was named "Andrew."  I remember this because my laptop is old and slow, and that's where I would have looked for the name, and I would have wanted to avoid the trouble because my laptop is so old and slow.

But then, Emmanuelle is perfectly right, as well. Here's a page from DD2 where we learn that DD's uncle is named "Andrew:"

Here's the fun part: I wouldn't put it past myself to have two "names" documents, each containing conflicting information. So I went digging again, through the work files for DD2, DD3, and a few others. I would go back into the previous pages of DD4 to change dad's name, but I wanted to know what had happened. Meanwhile, I picked a new name off the top of my head for DD's dad. I swear this part is true too: I figured I'd call him "Edward."

Among my files, this was the only result I could find for name references (screenshotted from my Scrivener work file for DD2):

I could not find whatever mystery document I could swear I had consulted earlier for DD4, the one that told me dad's name was "Andrew." This exact same "DELILAH'S FAMILY" file appears in my Scrivener files for both DD2 and DD3.

Anyway, I've gone through and (I believe) changed all instances of "Andrew" to "Edward." I've also corrected some later text in Chapter Two. The updated page from Chapter One is below, but I have not yet corrected the files in any of the webcomic-places (and many of them will probably go un-corrected; instead, let's all chalk the name-flub up to too much wine on Nikos' part).

I don't know what the moral of this story is except maybe that the human mind is a gooey thing. Gooey and full of holes, like melted Swiss cheese. Or at least mine is.

And thank you, Emmanuelle, for pointing this out to me.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

I encountered an unusually high number of interesting little things on the internet this week, and they might similarly be of interest to you, for reasons that may or may not be obvious.

• Anne Helen Petersen shares this interview between Hannah Barbosa Cesnik and Matthew Bogdanos, the head of the New York Antiquities Theft Task Force. I was surprised to learn that Indiana-Jones-style antiquities theft is still an ongoing concern. It is also novel to hear this man share ancient wisdom, contemporary wisdom, and describe emotional moments of objects being reunited with their rightful owners, all inflected with (what I'm guessing is) a military flavour of voice that comes through in the writing.
• I looked for more writing by Cesnik and found this post, asking the question, "to what extent does a work of art belong to the people of the world?" I always like this topic; it may or may not surprise you to learn that the seed for all this work on DD began with a project revolving around the famous Parthenon marbles, taken from Greece by Lord Elgin in the early 1800s.
• In other historical news, this article about women's eyebrows in art through the ages (via Metafilter, the comments for which include this fun experiment). Young Alexandra's design includes slightly bushier-than-usual brows. They're useful. Apparently, in Ancient Greek and Roman cultures, "Women who had unibrows were prized for their beauty and intelligence. Women who didn’t have a unibrow would use paint to give an appearance of one." Hunh.
• On the 25th anniversary of the movie's release in Japan, this BBC article about PRINCESS MONONOKE and its difficulties being repackaged for Western audiences (also via Metafilter). I have to admit I never felt like I "got" this movie, but reading this article makes me wonder what it means to "get" a movie (maybe I did "get" it), but that's a whole other topic. Regardless, I love it; I've seen few other movies that contain such a wealth of powerful, memorable, moving imagery. I've only seen it a few times and will never, ever forget the worm-infested boar, or the forest spirit (in any of its forms), or the way that dude with the shoes leaps around.

- - - - -

My partner's schedule is weird this week and our toddler is being (I have been informed) Very Toddler-y, so I'm sneaking colouring time in where I can. Fortunately, some of it is the upcoming stargazing sequence which is both relaxing to work on and shouldn't be too difficult! I look forward to sharing it.

Don't do anything too dangerous,

TC