"Girl Genius"
Mar. 2nd, 2006 11:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowNext on the list (and I repeat that the ordering is more or less random) is "Girl Genius", by Phil and Kaja Foglio. It is currently archived online on two separate tracks: Girl Genius 101, which begins at the very beginning, and Girl Genius: Advanced Course, which contains the current storyline. There is a gap of unknown-to-me length between the most recent GG 101 strip and the beginning of the Advanced Course, and I have next to no knowledge of the events between. That's fine with me (please refrain from enlightening me on this), as it means I get a double dose of GG on a regular basis.
Setting. "Girl Genius" is set in a steampunkish Mitteleuropa, where the tyrannical Baron Wulfenbach keeps the populace cowed by means of his armies of "clanks" - robots. (It is definitely Earth, but it is unclear whether it is an alternate timeline or a postapocalyptic future.) A small fraction of the populace are "Sparks", intuitive engineering geniuses; the Baron is one such, and one of his overriding goals is the location and co-opting (or else...) of Sparks as they emerge into their powers. The scenes I have thus far seen have taken place in quaint little Alpine-looking villages (well, quaint except for the occasional clank), aboard the Baron's great airship-castle, and in the mountains with a traveling carnival.
Characters. The cast list is large, and I won't attempt to be comprehensive. The title character is Agatha Clay, a powerful Spark, who (in GG 101) is in the process of learning what, and who, she is; in the Advanced Course, she is on the run, hiding from the Baron in the aforementioned carnival. (Well, that's not what she's doing just now, but I'd rather not spoil things.) There is the Baron, of course; at first he seemed to be a mere despot - a Victor Von Doom, at best - but it begins to appear that there is a serious danger that he is striving to prevent. There is a kind of honor here, I think, if a ruthless one. His son Gilgamesh, also a Spark, is apparently torn between a desperate desire to please his father, a severe crush on Agatha, and plain ornery Sparkishness. Then there is Krosp, the result of a not-quite-successful experiment; he is a bipedal talking cat, who (in the Advanced Course) is Agatha's closest confidante and co-fugitive.
Secondary characters include a variety of other Sparks, the Jägerkin - a race of clanks constructed by the fabled Heterodyne Boys, the greatest Sparks of the preceding generation - and assorted peasants, mercenaries, princelings and servants.
Art. Oh, the art. The glorious art.
There are cartoonists like Johnny Hart, whose backgrounds are spare and devoid of detail; then there are others who fill in the background with obsessive care, like Milt Caniff. I recall seeing the latter kind derisively called "riveters", on the pretense that you can "count the rivets". Such derision is misplaced; after all, Walt Kelly, one of the demigods of USAn cartooning, lavished great effort on his backgrounds.
Then there's Phil Foglio. Phil Foglio is a riveter on acid. It is easy enough to speed through the archives of "Girl Genius", seeking only the development of plot; but it is a mistake to do so. A Phil Foglio cartoon is to be savored, its details examined and enjoyed. (A young man, returning to a party, carries a number of bottles of booze. Read the labels - even the upside-down ones. Are there books in the background? Try to make out the titles. Watch what the people in the background are doing, and read all the signs. Trust me, it's worth it.)
Even in black and white, Foglio's cartoons are a delight; the colorists he has brought in add lushness to the eye-feast.
What I Like. If the characters were live actors, they would all be hams, brilliant scene-chewers; think of Jack Nicholson at his lunatic best, or Peter O'Toole in The Lion in Winter. (In one early scene, we see Agatha, fully in the grip of Sparkish inspiration, repairing an airship on the fly - or, rather, on the drop: the airship she is furiously fixing - and improving - is plummeting earthward at breakneck speed, a fact to which, in her Sparkish trance, she is utterly oblivious. Her passenger is less calm about things...)
The strip is infused with manic humor; the background details I mentioned are part of this, but - well, consider the following scene. Agatha has been taken prisoner by a local princeling, and some of her friends, Krosp among them, have slipped into town to rescue her. They emerge from a sewer. Krosp is catatonic with horror; one of the other rescuers holds him upright by his stiff and bottled tail, like a large and furry lollipop. The following dialogue ensues.
But there's more than humor. As mentioned above, the Baron's goals are deadly serious, and we are learning more about the Heterodynes, who were not, it seems, precisely the heroes that legend makes them out to be. The storyline can shift from slapstick horror to the genuine variety and back on a moment's seamless notice. The Foglios have created a richly imagined world, both in space and in time - there is a sense of history, slowly being revealed, and I find it utterly absorbing. (The archives - including the gap between the two tracks - are also available in printed form, although the several volumes apparently keep going out of print - the Foglios, or their publisher, seem to underestimate the size of their audience! I expect that my next Amazon raid will include an attempt to acquire one or more of those volumes.)
Setting. "Girl Genius" is set in a steampunkish Mitteleuropa, where the tyrannical Baron Wulfenbach keeps the populace cowed by means of his armies of "clanks" - robots. (It is definitely Earth, but it is unclear whether it is an alternate timeline or a postapocalyptic future.) A small fraction of the populace are "Sparks", intuitive engineering geniuses; the Baron is one such, and one of his overriding goals is the location and co-opting (or else...) of Sparks as they emerge into their powers. The scenes I have thus far seen have taken place in quaint little Alpine-looking villages (well, quaint except for the occasional clank), aboard the Baron's great airship-castle, and in the mountains with a traveling carnival.
Characters. The cast list is large, and I won't attempt to be comprehensive. The title character is Agatha Clay, a powerful Spark, who (in GG 101) is in the process of learning what, and who, she is; in the Advanced Course, she is on the run, hiding from the Baron in the aforementioned carnival. (Well, that's not what she's doing just now, but I'd rather not spoil things.) There is the Baron, of course; at first he seemed to be a mere despot - a Victor Von Doom, at best - but it begins to appear that there is a serious danger that he is striving to prevent. There is a kind of honor here, I think, if a ruthless one. His son Gilgamesh, also a Spark, is apparently torn between a desperate desire to please his father, a severe crush on Agatha, and plain ornery Sparkishness. Then there is Krosp, the result of a not-quite-successful experiment; he is a bipedal talking cat, who (in the Advanced Course) is Agatha's closest confidante and co-fugitive.
Secondary characters include a variety of other Sparks, the Jägerkin - a race of clanks constructed by the fabled Heterodyne Boys, the greatest Sparks of the preceding generation - and assorted peasants, mercenaries, princelings and servants.
Art. Oh, the art. The glorious art.
There are cartoonists like Johnny Hart, whose backgrounds are spare and devoid of detail; then there are others who fill in the background with obsessive care, like Milt Caniff. I recall seeing the latter kind derisively called "riveters", on the pretense that you can "count the rivets". Such derision is misplaced; after all, Walt Kelly, one of the demigods of USAn cartooning, lavished great effort on his backgrounds.
Then there's Phil Foglio. Phil Foglio is a riveter on acid. It is easy enough to speed through the archives of "Girl Genius", seeking only the development of plot; but it is a mistake to do so. A Phil Foglio cartoon is to be savored, its details examined and enjoyed. (A young man, returning to a party, carries a number of bottles of booze. Read the labels - even the upside-down ones. Are there books in the background? Try to make out the titles. Watch what the people in the background are doing, and read all the signs. Trust me, it's worth it.)
Even in black and white, Foglio's cartoons are a delight; the colorists he has brought in add lushness to the eye-feast.
What I Like. If the characters were live actors, they would all be hams, brilliant scene-chewers; think of Jack Nicholson at his lunatic best, or Peter O'Toole in The Lion in Winter. (In one early scene, we see Agatha, fully in the grip of Sparkish inspiration, repairing an airship on the fly - or, rather, on the drop: the airship she is furiously fixing - and improving - is plummeting earthward at breakneck speed, a fact to which, in her Sparkish trance, she is utterly oblivious. Her passenger is less calm about things...)
The strip is infused with manic humor; the background details I mentioned are part of this, but - well, consider the following scene. Agatha has been taken prisoner by a local princeling, and some of her friends, Krosp among them, have slipped into town to rescue her. They emerge from a sewer. Krosp is catatonic with horror; one of the other rescuers holds him upright by his stiff and bottled tail, like a large and furry lollipop. The following dialogue ensues.
"I dun unnerstand vy he iz like dis. He hef no problem gun into de sewer."At this point Krosp finally moves, shrieking, "KILL ME!"
"I don't think he knew what a sewer was."
"Ho ho! Vell I guess he knows now! 'Specially ven he fall in!"
"Yes, he seemed fine until then."
"No, he vos fine 'til hyu say he vould need a bath."
"No, it vos ven hyu say he could giff himself a bath."
"Oh, yah! Dot vos it! 'Cause he iz a kitty!"
But there's more than humor. As mentioned above, the Baron's goals are deadly serious, and we are learning more about the Heterodynes, who were not, it seems, precisely the heroes that legend makes them out to be. The storyline can shift from slapstick horror to the genuine variety and back on a moment's seamless notice. The Foglios have created a richly imagined world, both in space and in time - there is a sense of history, slowly being revealed, and I find it utterly absorbing. (The archives - including the gap between the two tracks - are also available in printed form, although the several volumes apparently keep going out of print - the Foglios, or their publisher, seem to underestimate the size of their audience! I expect that my next Amazon raid will include an attempt to acquire one or more of those volumes.)
