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"My name is Antimony Carver. I would like to share with you the strange events that took place while I attended school at..." Gunnerkrigg Court is a webcomic by Tom Siddell. That is, this fellow:  (on the right) It updates Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, like clockwork. Seriously, without fail. Siddell is a machine. He is also a member of these forums, and posts under the name Tea-san. Gunnerkrigg Court has won numerous Webcomic/Web Cartoonist awards, and has been praised by Neil Gaiman. It features ghosts, magic, folklore, politics, robots, fairies, scientists, alchemy and more mysteries than you could shake a stick at. It's moody, funny, beautiful and addictive...and really, that's all you need to know.  I Need to Know More Alright, fine. The comic is set in and around the titular court - an institute founded around mankind's technological achievements and incessant curiosity, where science and magic are melded together for...well, a purpose that as yet is not quite clear. As Coyote says (and why shouldn't we trust him?) "It is man's endeavor to become god". Beyond the Court is Gillitie Wood, inhabited by wild, magical and folkloric beings who don't take kindly to the students or their technology. While a truce currently exists between the Wood and the Court, most of the driving force of the plot comes from the tension between these two worlds. The rest comes from every single character being loving wonderful. If this still isn't enough for you, read the Wikipedia article. Or, better yet, the comic. Where do I begin? At the beginning, genius. The story is divided into chapters, all of which are self-contained and conveniently linked to from the main page. While you could probably dive in at the beginning of any chapter and follow it perfectly well, half of the joy of Gunnerkrigg Court comes from watching the chapters weave gradually into a larger series of narratives. You would also miss out on some of the wonderful repeat characters who bring the supporting cast to life. And apparently some people are too dumb to follow the plot even in context, so please just start from the start.  Endorsements Neil Motherfucking Gaiman posted:A really enjoyable webcomic...Lots of different flavours in there -- it's a semi-gothic funny-sweet school story with mysteries and robots and so forth -- but I kept finding myself reminded of the early days of reading Bone. Nice stuff. 1stGear posted:Just read the entire archive and added a new webcomic to my bookmarks. Hot drat that was good, and I can definitely see why Neil Gaiman likes it. Spiderdrake posted:This webcomic is a masterpiece and anyone who hasn't given it a shot is doing themselves a disservice. Lurdiak posted:If you don't like the current GC arc you are a poo poo dude from planet crap. Links The Gunnerkrigg Court Wiki Siddell's Formspring Page Printed Volumes One,  Want to support the comic? Sport a sexy avatar! - this comic really lends itself to excellent avatar material, so there are tons up for grabs.      Donate to Tom's tea and biscuit fund or hit up the Topatoco store for wonderful things:     Fan Art   by FunkyAl by GreatJob  by Kismet     by TheNork  by UnconventionalOven   by YellowYamsAnd Just For the Record 
Kismet fucked around with this message at 11:48 on May 2, 2012 |
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Sep 24, 2010 00:41
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I suppose we should. Common sense rules, I guess. Spoiler anything big, at least until we're a few pages in. I'd hope most people have the sense not to read more than a page or two through a discussion thread for something they've never read. Speaking of which, I think we left off in the webcomics thread speculating about Jeanne and whether the robot's version of events was accurate, or whether we're about to see her demise. 
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Sep 24, 2010 01:08
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^^ loving Boxbot, I said no!  I wonder if hunky green elf is shot down while crossing the river and she refuses to climb back up - or somebody Court side cuts off her lifeline - leaving her to waste away on the shore. Diego doesn't have the guts to cross the Court by rescuing her, so she dies down there, leaving him respectable but haunted by guilt. Or is that too dark by GC standards? There have definitely been signs from the beginning that the Court has resorted to cold behaviour to preserve itself in the past. The pigeon story everyone seemed to dislike so much could be fairly emblematic of the Court moving gradually, pragmatically forward.
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Sep 24, 2010 02:29
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Pram posted:I've been thinking that Jeanne could be what the court uses to kill people who want to defect to the forest side. When the fairies are down there they're waiting on someone to smash them so they can become human and go to the court (which ysengrin 'helps' them with) so I have to assume a similar thing exists for humans wanting to go the opposite way. Of course Aly didn't need to get smashed when he turned into a bird so I dunno. It would make sense though why Jeanne crossed the river since Annie is a human and the fairies aren't. This sounds pretty plausible, but I'd go one step further and guess that Jeanne isn't 'used' by the Court at all. I think she's out to get revenge on court-siders, which is why she went after Annie and not the fairies - and why Muut comments that she's 'still so angry'. Not sure how Diego and the birds fit into things, though. E: Alright, we're done with spoiler tags. Kismet fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Sep 24, 2010 |
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Sep 24, 2010 15:48
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^^ BOXBOT THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT This one: http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=655
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Sep 24, 2010 19:05
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Give it another 198 pages.
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Sep 24, 2010 22:31
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You remember that she is a professional soldier, yes? Not to rag on anyone, but I can't help wondering whether there'd be this much debate if the character wasn't a willowy blonde woman. She's a soldier, she's been shown to have an explosive temper, and she at least appeared to attack Annie. I could be completely wrong, but on the surface - and bearing in mind how little we've actually seen of her - there is quite a bit of evidence that she has the capacity for violence.
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Sep 25, 2010 19:37
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 The court intended for Jeanne to angrily haunt the shore. God drat, I am so slow.
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Sep 27, 2010 16:29
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A robotic retrieving device which would provide the remains with transit to the river bank?
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Sep 29, 2010 14:21
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I honestly think you're reading way too much into that scene. Reynardine is a trickster, a wild animal, and a bit of a dick. Given the choice between languishing in chains with an old body and a gimped leg for god only knows how long, or leaping into the young teenage daughter of a lady he once had the hots for, he went for Annie. She wouldn't have died so long as he hung out in her body, and I doubt he was thinking that far ahead when an opportunity to escape presented itself.
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Sep 30, 2010 17:26
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Yeah, can we not post entire pages of Gunnerkrigg here in the thread? We're supposed to be hooking people in and sending them to the site, not rehosting Siddell's comic for him. In fact, imagine I just made the same post as the one above me. All of that.
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Oct 1, 2010 18:05
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Hahaha. So, you know those fans that Siddell has to explain everything to in short, simple sentences...?
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Oct 13, 2010 22:15
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DocFrance posted:Or she's just set on solving this mystery, and mysteries take priority over makeouts when you're 11 or however old she is. If she's in her second year of high school in the UK, she'll be 12-13.
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Oct 19, 2010 03:25
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What if they're all characters in a huge performance, and the whole thing is just an artistic representation of events in some predetermined story. The court/woods divide and all of the character interactions are symbolic of elements in some larger external reality, and the girl with the white hair mediates between the two worlds on behalf of an unseen creator. 
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Oct 23, 2010 01:24
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She could become a super heavy badass with the ability to punch through walls? Orphan power, activate!
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Nov 24, 2010 13:36
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If Surma was a Phoenix given human form by the court and had a kid with another human (or human formed something or other), wouldn't that make Annie a mostly-human being, like Kat's bird boy in reverse? It would explain why her spirit self might have elements of phoenixy firepower, while she wouldn't necessarily inherit her mother's 'illness' or mythical beast qualities. Edit: Maybe not by the court, but you know what I mean. They obviously have some kind of exchange program going on.
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Jan 1, 2011 19:47
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The 19th Person posted:I wonder how/if humans being represented by an eye symbol and Jones's title "Wandering Eye" are connected. There is also this. Looking at that image, there appears to be a parallel between the symbolic eyes under the humans and the one which I can only assume represents their creator.
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Jan 5, 2011 19:43
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Mr. Fowl posted:Nice, thanks. Think I might go with "You cannot trust the people of this place." Unless someone can come up with something better. Personally I'd go with "Tell me which of these stories you like." ...or "Spankies!"
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Jan 7, 2011 02:42
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FredMSloniker posted:I'm not saying it wouldn't take some tact. For that matter, I can understand why people hide things like that in real life. It's just that, well, if they'd told her when she was younger, she'd be kind of bitter now... but she wouldn't be jumping into Coyote's arms as the only one she can trust. Jeanne being killed by the court was a deep dark secret that was revealed without any great negative consequence. Kat's boyfriend turning into a bird was at least a deep secret, which everyone then responded well to. Conversely, Annie freaked out at Mort because she assumed a deeper motivation where it turned out there wasn't one. I think it's just one of those tropes that people notice more in presence than in absence, since it's often used as a dramatic focus, while secrets that don't result in mass trauma generally don't end up changing the course of a plot so profoundly.
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Jan 7, 2011 22:58
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Pardot posted:Did he ever actually say "I am so smart"? I think he did, and if so does someone have a link to that strip? It was on this infuriatingly excellent page: http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=504
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Jan 15, 2011 07:30
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Mahlertov Cocktail posted:I would have gone for one of the Coyote ones, but I just got my avatar/custom title a couple months ago. Your avatar is one of my current favourites on the forum. Gets a grin out of me every time. 
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Jan 27, 2011 09:48
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This will be a good week for us all to work on some fanart, then!
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Feb 1, 2011 03:58
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22 Eargesplitten posted:So, chapter page designed to make as many people wildly speculate as possible. The vines on Annie's arms are the Forest's attempts to bring her over to their side, and Annie's hair wrapped around Kat's arm is symbolic of the ties they have, that would lead to Kat going after Annie. They are holding gifts that the forest and court are offering to each other, which means the Court created the spiders in Zimmy's Birmingham. Aside from that, I've got nothing. I'm not sure they're holding gifts. Kat's pigeons could represent her desire for change and humane/ethical behaviour in the court, after this chapter. I'm not sure what Annie's spider would be in that case, possibly something we haven't encountered yet.
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Feb 2, 2011 11:46
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Well poo poo I'm dumb.
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Feb 2, 2011 12:32
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Looks like Tom's taken down the Formspring page. Was this recent, or is it for the duration of the chapter break, or did I just miss when it happened?
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Feb 4, 2011 01:32
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Alright, cool. I'm actually really glad and think it was a good move on his part.
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Feb 4, 2011 01:38
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Wait, so does Tom play with his comments section, or does Gunnerkrigg just have the best fans on the face of the planet? Also, why have I never bothered reading the comments before? This is a day of many discoveries.
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Feb 7, 2011 14:46
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This one. It was in the OP, but apparently the waffle link is dead. I'll fix that. I think the mispellings of Reynard's name are probably a reference to the constant dumb-fan confusion over the fact that he's been referred to as Reynard, Renard and Reynardine at various points.
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Feb 7, 2011 21:11
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^^^ I think it may be a little of both. Tom's always been very courteous to fans, so I think it's a friendly kind of poking fun, but at the same time I can imagine it would get tedious having people constantly willfully misunderstand the simplest elements of your work. I thought we could be bad in this thread, until I actually looked at the old formspring page. Jesus christ. It was the way that even when people got an outright 'No' they would keep asking ever-more specific versions of the same question, slightly rephrased to give a different emphasis.
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Feb 8, 2011 00:05
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I've always imagined City Face talking like these guys.
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Feb 8, 2011 00:24
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That would be an acumenical matter.
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Feb 9, 2011 13:27
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Tom is super busy doing important human cartoonist business, so I made this for all of you.  
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Feb 16, 2011 04:59
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At first glance I thought robots, but now I'm guessing these are the new dorm rooms for the year. You can kind of see a bookcase, lockers, and the edge of a bunk behind Reynard. E: Incidentally, the Ustream is going on right now - colouring the Book 3 cover. Kismet fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Feb 23, 2011 |
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Feb 23, 2011 14:16
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Since her hand is still there, I'd guess we can assume so.
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Feb 25, 2011 14:27
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They're ghosts re-enacting a play within a play about a play, dreamed up by Dr Disaster and performed by robots. And Reynardine is actually Coyote pretending to be the Reynardine-ghost-robot for kicks. And Coyote-ghostbot-Reynardine is Annie's dad: Eglamore. It's all quite simple.
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Feb 25, 2011 14:48
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Revolver Bunker posted:I really love the aging process Tom uses for the characters. You really see them age both physically and mentally. Annie seems more mature through and through. Still loves her make up though. I wonder what happened to her school uniform. Looking at the colours of her new outfit, it looks like it may have been made at least partly from her uniform, which is a cool detail if that's the case.
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Feb 25, 2011 17:26
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Nonbaka posted:So let me get this straight; people are okay with images of teenage cartoon girls being mounted by erect wolves in this thread? I am very much not okay with this, and would like to politely ask that people leave it out, joking or otherwise. Apart from anything else, I think it's pretty disrespectful to Siddell to throw around those kind of images of his characters when he's explicitly expressed distaste for them in the past.
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Feb 28, 2011 20:13
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No, now we're moving on.
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Feb 28, 2011 23:14
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Man, really? I cannot see Kat being angry with Annie. First, she must have been given at least some indication of why Annie bailed on their plans - even if that indication was just 'Uh, she's upset about something.' - she and her parents are close enough with Eglamore that I'm certain he'd have mentioned the almost being set on fire by a hormonal teenager incident. Second, even if she was angry at the time, she's had an entire summer to calm down and wonder about Annie's motivations. Third, Kat just doesn't have an angry grudge-holding personality, especially when it comes to Annie. The girls are close, they've been through a few rough times together, and they trust each other. So they didn't get their holiday together, big woop. I still can't picture Kat being seriously angry. E: Even if Kat was only told 'she changed her plans at the last minute', points two and three still apply. I'd imagine she knows Annie well enough to guess she wouldn't just pull a 180 on their plans for no reason at all.
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Mar 2, 2011 18:34
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That's just a mockup, he posted the real cover on his twitter:
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Mar 4, 2011 00:35
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