Pibgorn by Brooke McEldowney

Tags: You bet your life!, Demonic Ent, She wants impalement today!, Charles Nelson Reilly on stilts. Add Tags

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fear-ciuil said, 10 months ago

Don’t forget to ‘favorite’ the strip!

Simply log in and click on the ‘Favorite’ star directly above the strip. We believe this may give Mr. McEldowney and Pibgorn a head-start when it comes time for GoComics to decide which comics to keep, and which to lose.

“For extensive and in-depth background information, strip history, synopsis of story arcs, cast of characters and a short biography of the author of Pibgorn, see The Pibgorn Tribute Site:”
http://home.comcast.net/~ccdesan/Pibgorn/Pibgorn.html

“For info and a guide to special formatting on this forum (italic, bold, indents, large fonts, etc.), see The Pibgorn Style Guide:”
http://home.comcast.net/~ccdesan/Pibgorn/StyleGuide.html

“For extensive and in-depth background information, strip history, synopsis of story arcs, cast of characters, etc. for 9 Chickweed Lane, see The 9 Chickweed Lane Tribute Site:”
http://home.comcast.net/~ccdesan/Chickweed/Chickweed.html

These are unofficial sites created by one of our very own: CCDesan.

“For 3D converted versions of a couple of ‘Pibgorn’ panels, go to:”
http://electronictiger.net/stereo/dru.htm

“For ‘How to Commit 3D,’ a page of quick-and-dirty description of how stereo images work and the rudiments of converting comics to 3D, visit:”
http://electronictiger.net/stereo/demo.htm

The 3D pages are created by another of our own, fairportfan.

“For the collected adventures of Joe Minotaur, based on the Pibgorn comic and a television police drama, visit:”
http://home.earthlink.net/~joeminotaur
“Be sure to read the posts starting at the bottom of the page.”

Joe Minotaur is the creation of another of our own, Joe_Minotaur.

“For threaded discussion of all things Pibgorn and 9 Chickweed Lane, visit:”
http://www.talkaboutcomics.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=568
“Yes, you have to register, and yes, it’s free.”

Come one and come all, de-lurk and join in!
Add your own voice to our great, joyous din!
Just one bit of wisdom ere joining our game:
Read the comments! All of them! Or you’ll miss something! (Shame!)
(No trolls need apply.)

9CWL:
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComic.mpl?date=2009%2F1%2F5&name=9_Chickweed_Lane
Adrienne Gormley said, 10 months ago

Excerpts from Wikipedia on St. Sebastian:

“Saint Sebastian (traditionally died January 20,[1] 287) was a Christian saint and martyr, who is said to have been killed while the Roman emperor Diocletian engaged in the persecution of Christians in the 3rd century. He is commonly depicted in art and literature tied to a post and shot with arrows.”

and

“Diocletian reproached Sebastian for his supposed betrayal, and “he commanded him to be led to the field and there to be bounden to a stake for to be shot at. And the archers shot at him till he was as full of arrows as an pincushion,”[5] leaving him there for dead. ”
Margueritem said, 10 months ago

Tush firmly planted on the confusion couch tonight. It looks like Pib is the one that’s going to be impaled. And what ever happened to Luciano?
The Old Wolf said, 10 months ago

Reposted from “yesterday”

9CWL: I love the way Juliette handled the board of trustees. I wonder if they’re that dense, chauvinistic and elitist in real life? (I never got that close during my two degree journeys)

Whoa… Pib is ensnared… I hope it doesn’t turn into another one of those Pick-esque thorn tortures…

‘Nite everyone… gotta go to bed to take my mom for a CAT scan tomorrow. It’s just dementia, but the doc wants to make sure there’s nothing else going on, like microstroke damage.
Sisyphos said, 10 months ago

Best wishes, ccdesan, with your mom!

It does look like Pib is in for a repeat impalement-by-living-tree! Maybe this will stir Dru to action? Or bring Pib’s erstwhile lover, Luciano, back?
emjrn said, 10 months ago

CC,
Hope all is well with your mom. Made my dad get a cat scan on the 1st and discovered he had had a stroke. Walks and talks fairly well, but has lost enough of his vision that he will not be allowed to drive anymore. 83 and still working full time. He is not happy, but he understands, even though he has a new truck with less than 2000 miles on it!

I wondered when Pib would be pulled back into the situation with Dru. Is Geoff and Luciano far behind?
wildflowerose said, 10 months ago

survey results are last post on yesterday’s strip. goodnight!
txmystic said, 10 months ago

WTF??

Again, margueritem, we find ourselves joined at the hip on the confusion couch…

But given the helpful info supplied by Adrienne (THANKS!), I’m afraid we are indeed in line for another Pick-type torture sequence (sorry, CC), although I believe there are still fatal flaws to uncover back at the ranch in Gehenna, so we may not assume Dru is in for it automatically…

Why Pib would be involved is anyone’s guess…we have not seen her since she flew Geoff out of the lab, so where is he? And wither Luciano??

Pass the 7-layer dip, chips, and Chimay;
I’m holing up for quite a stay…
AliKzam said, 10 months ago

Okay, so when Dru landed on Inky in the field, they went down into Hell. Or did they shrink smaller than the size of a seed, and the gameshow is currently taking place in on this tree?
I’ve simply been working too much. Please move over on the couch.
RockHouse said, 10 months ago

There’s never an erl king around when you need him.
txmystic said, 10 months ago

wildflowerose, thank you so much for the survey compilation, it was most entertaining and educational!

but how did I not get an “honorable mention”? (sniff)…RECOUNT!!

Just kidding

no im not…
ejcapulet said, 10 months ago

Ok, now what? I’m on the couch today, too. I’ll bring dumplings.
emjrn said, 10 months ago

Wildflowerose…..WOW!!

Great survey results!
Gigantor said, 10 months ago

As much as I enjoy the strip, sometimes I wonder if it shouldn’t be named “Drusilla” instead of “Pibgorn.” The title character seems to disappear for weeks at a time.
Sisyphos said, 10 months ago

Gigantor, isn’t the “naughty” almost always more likely to be the focus of a story rather than the “innocent/good”? Dru gets more of the action, in more ways than one!
txmystic said, 10 months ago

Awesome screen name, Gigantor!
Sisyphos said, 10 months ago

I really can’t do an Artie Johnson accent in print, wildflowerose, but those survey results are “very interesting”!
Fairportfan said, 10 months ago

Well, i’mnot sure what kind of tree that is, but since it’s a dicotyledon, i suspect oak.
Gweedo Murray said, 10 months ago

Adrienne Gormley thank you for the background on St. Sebastian.
.
*CC* good luck with Moms.
.
Poppythanks for the Roy Crane link. I read Buzz Sawyer in the ’60s and enjoyed it along with Rip Kirby and his second; Desmond. I was unaware of Roy’s long existence in the trade and am especially pleased with his work in pioneering the grayscales.
Fairportfan said, 10 months ago

Okay i suspect that Brooke changed “impale” to “incenerate” between the sketch and the final Friday because he was already planning to use “impale” today, and didn’t want to get repetitious.
Margueritem said, 10 months ago

Wildflowerrose, thank you.
Shalamett said, 10 months ago

wildflowerose

Awesome job on the surveys. Definitely interesting! Thanks for all your work on them. :-)
LLeRay said, 10 months ago

Isn’t there a missing chapter in this series? Wasn’t Dru used as a test subject an flamed as an example?
Margueritem said, 10 months ago

CC, I hope that all is well with your Mom.
Margueritem said, 10 months ago

txmystic says:

wildflowerose, thank you so much for the survey compilation, it was most entertaining and educational!

but how did I not get an “honorable mention”? (sniff)…RECOUNT!!

I said I liked everyone, which includes you TX, my couch buddy.
SirMirom said, 10 months ago

Gigantor, I’ve been saying the same thing to myself for weeks. It’s been all Veronica, no Betty for a while now.
paciii said, 10 months ago

wildflowerose says:
survey results are last post on yesterday’s strip. goodnight!

YEAH, RESULTS!!
YEAH, RESULTS!!

Thanks, WildflowerRose!!

Fly, Pib, Fly!!!(but I think it’s too late for that…)
The Old Wolf said, 10 months ago

@Wildflowerose: Thank you so much for this compilation! That was a lot of work, and terribly interesting! Phat props to you!

Thanks for the well-wishes. I shall return and report.
SirMirom said, 10 months ago

Wildflowerose, you rock! That was highly entertaining, thank you!
inshadowz said, 10 months ago

wildflowerose: Excellent job on the survey results! :)

Ack! Now I know what that nagging little feeling at the back of my head was, the one thing I knew that I had forgotten but couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was: The Pibgorn Couch Denizens Survey! Alas, it got drowned out during Christmas preparations, and failed to resurface until mentioned just now. And I was ever so eager to participate.

Seeing the amount of work that such a survey represents, I don’t suppose there’s much point in me filling it out and sending it in now, is there? Don’t worry, I’m quite capable of accepting “no” for an answer ;)
inshadowz said, 10 months ago

ccdesan: Good luck with Mom!

Had a trip through a CAT scan myself a couple of years ago. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or annoyed when they said that they found ”nothing at all” in there.
Fairportfan said, 10 months ago

While organising 9CL strips (just finished the third “book” - Jnauary to June 2002), i remembered this review of Hallmarks of Felinity on Amazon, which i first read when there were only two reviews posted. (The other, BTW, was by SF author Alan Dean Foster, and it’s a rave.)

Barbie-O-Rama, December 9, 2004 By R. Garcia (Brockport, NY)
(*** of *****)

Too bad there are no books ever published on “9 Chickweed Lane” other that that little one about a vain Siamese kitty doing silly kitty tricks without even emitting a single balloon.

Just shove him aside with the foot and I will talk about the strip itself. It seems to be all about female vanity. All it features is flaunting how perfect and limber that blondie teen’s body is as well as how young and sexy her mother still is. I think the girl is a slut-wannabe rubbing up against her nerd boyfriend and trying to make his hormones shoot off like fireworks. At least the grouchy old granny is there to break up the dreamy, wide-eyed fantasy world of prancing and galloping bimbos and their equally limber kitties.

(All of the author’s Amazon reviews are at http://tinyurl.com/7qc97j, BTW, and they mostly seem to be exercises in trying to be witty while denigrating popular culture, without quite accomplishing either.)

Oh - and there are two used copies available a new copy offered at $98.65 and a used one at $105.56.

But if you think that’s expensive - try this one: http://tinyurl.com/7rx89t - two copies of the CD, and the used one’s at $166.

(I, of course, have a copy…)

Or this CD (which was recently reissued at $15 by the original frontwoman for the band, but was going for $50 or more at the time i wrote the review: http://tinyurl.com/6txstk
Fairportfan said, 10 months ago

inshadowz says:

“Had a trip through a CAT scan myself a couple of years ago. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or annoyed when they said that they found ”nothing at all” in there.”

I s’pose that would depend on exactly what they were scanning for.

I had to have an MRI on my knee in early 2005, which confirmed that i had a torn meniscus cartilage, necessitating arhtroscopic surgery.
Sisyphos said, 10 months ago

That demon-tree has more tentacles than an octopus or great Cthulhu, and is growing faster a speeding fairy!
inshadowz said, 10 months ago

fairportfan says: I s’pose that would depend on exactly what they were scanning for. I had to have an MRI on my knee in early 2005, which confirmed that i had a torn meniscus cartilage, necessitating arhtroscopic surgery.

I should perhaps have pointed out that they were scanning the interior of my head ;)

Some of the more sarcastically gifted of my friends commented that, knowing me, “nothing” was exactly as much as they would have expected anyone to find in there :-þ
Fairportfan said, 10 months ago

**inshadowz”” says:

“‘fairportfan says: I s’pose that would depend on exactly what they were scanning for.’

“I should perhaps have pointed out that they were scanning the interior of my head ;)

“Some of the more sarcastically gifted of my friends commented that, knowing me, “nothing” was exactly as much as they would have expected anyone to find in there :-þ”

What i figured.

I like the thorn there.
Story Teller said, 10 months ago

Sisyphos says: “Pib: Oh, no! The St. Sebastian Round!”

NO ONE expects the St. Sebastian round! =)
Bender_Sastre said, 10 months ago

Well, at least 9CWL is a funny rerun. What the heck does St. Sebastian got to do with a tree and Pib?
Fairportfan said, 10 months ago

Bender_Sastre says:

“Well, at least 9CWL is a funny rerun. What the heck does St. Sebastian got to do with a tree and Pib?”

Check Adrienne’s post immediately after the boilerplate at the top of the comments.
Hugh B. Hayve said, 10 months ago

So, umm…what’s up with the repeat in 9CWL? That story’s over or what? No epilogue? No tying up of loose ends? No victory parade for Amos? What’s up with that anyway?
Skye879 said, 10 months ago

Per Brooke’s post on Saturday:

Brooke McEldowney says:
I will be posting this comment on my blogs as well as here and comics.com:
IMPORTANT CHICKWEED BULLETIN: Next week, January 5th through 10th, 9 Chickweed Lane will appear for those six days in reruns. On January 12th, the present story will resume.
First I must apologize to all of you who come to 9 Chickweed Lane every day. Second, I must explain: I was a half hour late in getting my week’s worth of Chickweed completed, and, by so doing, transgressed the sanctity of the deadline. Wheedling and pleas were useless. The syndicate people were intransigent, and imposed reruns, mumbling something, in passing, about God, mercy and my soul.
This devastated me, because the story of the competition in Brussels is not over. I did not intend a pause. However, I found myself laboring over some little nuances that might help convey the romance and suspense of the story, and the deadline overtook me, baying and snapping.
This is where you must understand something about syndicate people: They look upon cartoonists who violate the deadline the way state troopers regard a motorist who has been changing into a wedding tux while steering the car with his knees (not that I would personally have experience with such a thing). They - the troopers and the syndicate people - are implacable, narrow-eyed, unsmiling. You cannot beg. You cannot bribe. You cannot charm.
And, when all is said and done, you cannot snivel, at least excessively, when it is all your own fault.
And that brings me to the third point: I must apologize again, and ask your indulgence. The cartoon was finished a half hour after the deadline rumbled past; and it has been sitting in the can, ready to be seen ever since. It will return to comics.com on the 12th.
Meanwhile, Amos and Edda are not done yet. Consider next week but a hiccup (not one of Amos’s, unfortunately, or it would be remedied so much more agreeably).
All best wishes for the new year.
Brooke
JosephR4570 said, 10 months ago

Hugh, I guess you weren’t paying attention when Mr. McE posted the reason for the 9CWL repeats here, on Comics.com and on his blog - http://chickweedcafe.blogspot.com/
SCOUNDREL said, 10 months ago

For all it’s worth, I’m in a holding pattern w/ my Wife, who had both an Aneurysm burst, which triggered a Stroke…she’s in NeuroICU in Dallas…90 Days to find out just how much of my wife is going to be capable of coming home (if there Is anything of her to come home, once the full assessment of her injuries are determined)
Garrulous said, 10 months ago

In Middletown Connecticut there is a beautiful church named for Saint Sebastian. The church was built by the people of Middletown in the 1930’s basing it on the Basilica Church and Mother Church of Saint Sebastian in Melilli (Sicily, Italy) where most of the people in Middletown had come from.
Sebastian, it turns out, was actually killed by being clubbed to death. Renaissance artists (including Mantegna, Sodoma, and de la Tour) seemed to prefer painting his prior punishment of being shot with arrows and left to die. Sebastian was a Captain of the Praetorian Guard (high ranking soldier) in the third century who converted to Christianity. When he was found helping imprisoned Christians, the Roman emperor Diocletian condemned him to death.
His lifeless, arrow-infested body was discovered by the pius widow Irene, who tended his wounds. The healed Sebastian confronted Diocletian and berated him for his cruelty. Here’s where the clubbing to death comes in, and a nasty insult - his body was thrown into the Cloaca Maxima … Rome’s main sewer.
Sebastian is sometimes shown dressed as a soldier, but more likely not. His attributes are arrows and the palm of martyrdom. Sometimes he’s shown with five arrows, to bring to mind the five wounds of Jesus’ crucifixion (sometimes called Stigmata). Sebastian is the patron saint of athletes, archers, tapestry makers, and traffic cops. His feast day is January 20th, and he’s the patron saint of Caserta, Sicily.
And if you need protection from the plague, St. Sebastian’s your man! (Ancient Greeks and Romans believed that disease was sent via Apollo’s arrows.)
Orgelspieler said, 10 months ago

It’s about time Pibby got back into the picture. She’s had more than enough break time. I hope she’s been photosynthesizing or something else more or less useful and intelligent with her time off.
Arcaton said, 10 months ago

Thoughts and prayers with you and your wife, SCOUNDREL…..
atajayhawk said, 10 months ago

Thanks for the longer version, Garrulous. Poor Sebastian was something of a slow learner, but one can admire his determination. Glad you wrote the supplement; I’d been thinking that it was Ursula who rescued him the first time, and probably wouldn’t have run down two levels to check out our hagiography section. I’m assuming that the arrows count as impaling, rather than going for Vlad’s style. Whatever, it’s going to be interesting.
Bucky Katt said, 10 months ago

Scoundrel - my sympathies to you and your wife. Though I don’t know what the doctors have told you about the extent of her injuries, I have known people who suffered a cerebral aneurysm and stroke and recovered fairly well - so much depends on the location and extent of the bleeding. I hope that the days to come will give you cause for optimism and that things will turn out to be not as bad as you fear. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
paciii said, 10 months ago

Hmmm… Since Pib & Dru have their link, does this mean (if the tree grows thorns and Pib gets “stuck”) that this will fulfil Dru’s request for impaling without impeding the rest of what she’s got happening (the hanging and the trapdoor and such…)? [I’m gonna crawl back into the corner and go back through the portal to work… Chips and baby carrots left behind…]
Brooke McEldowney said, 10 months ago

9 CHICKWEED LANE ANNOUNCEMENT: During this week, Chickweed, as you have noticed, is featuring reruns. The entire explanation can be seen at either of my blogs, chickweedcafe.blogspot.com or officialpibgorn.livejournal.com. If you have further questions, send me a note at 9chickweedlane@verizon.net.

Thanks.

Brooke