Pibgorn by Brooke McEldowney

Tags: Hell defined...despair, hopelessness., Still Super-Dru!, Nice Charlies!, Death and Taxes, assuming you have no choice IS a choice, There is ALWAYS a choice Ladies, as, is, Not, choosing, How, hell, Operates. Add Tags

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fear-ciuil said, 9 months ago

If you would like to

‘favorite’ the strip,

(and maybe the sketch, too), simply log in and click on the ‘Favorite’ star directly above the strip. Mr. McEldowney very kindly asked for us what purpose is served by favoriting, and this was the answer:
I asked my editor at Gocomics about the purpose of “favoriting” a strip. Her answer was this: “‘Favoriting’ allows people following you to see what comics you like. ‘Favorited’ comics also show up under your profile, and allow us to see what comics people are enjoying.”
Basically, I think it provides a method for spreading the word.
Brooke

ccdesan has been kind enough to provide several resources:
Pibgorn in-depth background info, strip history, synopsis of story arcs, etc.
• http://home.comcast.net/~ccdesan/Pibgorn/Pibgorn.html

9 Chickweed Lane in-depth background info, strip history, synopsis of story arcs, etc.
• http://home.comcast.net/~ccdesan/Chickweed/Chickweed.html

GoComics comments posting guide to special formatting: italic, bold, indents, large fonts, etc.
• http://home.comcast.net/~ccdesan/Pibgorn/StyleGuide.html

fairportfan has samples and a guide for converting 2D comics to 3D and for “flicker” comparisons:
3D conversions of a couple of Pibgorn panels, go to:
• http://electronictiger.net/stereo/dru.htm
How to Commit 3D - quick-and-dirty guide for stereo images:
• http://electronictiger.net/stereo/demo.htm
Index of “flicker” images:
• http://electronictiger.net/avail/flick/
Flicker Picture Tutorial:
• http://electronictiger.net/avail/how2

Joe_Minotaur has a number of fan fictions based upon Pibgorn and TV police dramas:
• http://home.earthlink.net/~joeminotaur (start reading at the bottom of the page!)

Free registration to participate in a forum dedicated to Brooke McEldowny’s work:
• http://www.talkaboutcomics.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=568 [link to forum]
• http://marmoe.livejournal.com/34590.html [for registration assistance]

Brooke McEldowney info at:
• http://officialpibgorn.livejournal.com/ [Brooke’s Pibgorn blog]
• http://chickweedcafe.blogspot.com/ [Brooke’s Chickweed blog]
• http://www.wuky.org/tonicarchivesvisual [WUKY NPR interview (audio)]
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooke_McEldowney

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.)

Today’s 9 Chickweed Lane can be found at:
http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComic.mpl?date=2009%2F2%2F3&name=9_Chickweed_Lane
An index of old 9 Chickweed Lane strips, 2001-present, can be found at:
http://www.comicstriparchive.com/9_Chickweed_Lane/
Margueritem said, 9 months ago

I think that Hell *IS* assuming that you don’t have a choice.
jimbo1949 said, 9 months ago

There’s always Hobson’s Choice: take it or leave it.
WoodGracie said, 9 months ago

Hmmm, is that a political statement? Odd timing…

edit posted 2nd.
fatuncle said, 9 months ago

OK, that answers a lot of questions …
WoodGracie said, 9 months ago

good nite, Again!

edit: posted last…darn sas!
WoodGracie said, 9 months ago

Yay! Pib is free!!

edit:posted 1st.
Bill Case said, 9 months ago

9CWL. Magic flute indeed!
jimbo1949 said, 9 months ago

There’s always “server’s choice”: I’ll post ‘em in any order I want.
Sisyphos said, 9 months ago

It’s the old rat-a-tat-tat exchange (or stichomythia if you insist), with a barb for our times thrown in. And is that a lava vent Dru is coursing, or one of the rivers of Hades’ realm?
emjrn said, 9 months ago

Roger NTOTOO,
Oboe huh. I played French Horn for about 10 years….haven’t picked one up in a long while.

I was teasing about being able to blow out ALL the candles. I will be 55 on my birthday this year…dangit!
fear-ciuil said, 9 months ago

Bonne nuit to all.
jimbo1949 said, 9 months ago

It seems McE had no choice but to add Pib’s comment in the 1st panel.
(change from sketch)
baslim_the_begger said, 9 months ago

fascinating: The idea that one has choices in Hell is a central concept in Niven & Pournelle’s Inferno (circa 1975 but with a sequel due out soon). Much of the book is spent traveling through a somewhat up-to-date hell, trying to convince people that they could walk away from their punishsments.
The Old Wolf said, 9 months ago

Good:Free Agency:Compassionate Service
Evil:Compulsion:Taxes

Yas, yas, it’s more complicated than that, but I can see a parallel here.

9CWL: The tension builds…

Just came back from watching “Ghost Town” with my son and his wife. That was a delightful film.
ejcapulet said, 9 months ago

Demons don’t follow rules, so what actually stopped Pid from springing herself? Why didn’t any of us think of that, either?
Chuck Clay said, 9 months ago

Suffering flashback to Roger Rabbit: “You could have gotten out at any time?” “No, only when it’s funny”
The Old Wolf said, 9 months ago

@baslim_the_begger: Then of course there’s Jack, where people have all sorts of choices in Hell, but very few of them make the good ones.
Margueritem said, 9 months ago

Sisyphos says:

I like the way tiny Pib perches atop Drusilla’s pate, like an F/A-18 on a carrier flightdeck.

I liked Pib atop Dru raven locks, too.
Sisyphos said, 9 months ago

I like the way tiny Pib perches atop Drusilla’s pate, like an F/A-18 on a carrier flightdeck. Ahh, the fresh, foul air of sulphurous Gehenna streaming across one’s snoz!
Gweedo Murray said, 9 months ago

One good flower deserves another, WoodGracie. That one you have seems like it’s backwords though, like its owner ? ¦-⁞]
Gweedo Murray said, 9 months ago

I sense an editorial break in the third panel.
Gweedo Murray said, 9 months ago

This probably should have come a tad earlier but only thought of it just now. Lots of good pics.

http://tinyurl.com/ac7mnq
baslim_the_begger said, 9 months ago

ccdesan: Thanks for the pointer to Jack. Interesting… Reminds me a little (but only a little) of Piers Anthony’s book “On a Pale Horse”. Jack is far darker and more violent than that work.
AliKzam said, 9 months ago

Um… is that the end of the story?
Perhaps not, since it’s only Tuesday. But Dru and Pib are sort of going off into the (volcano-induced) sunset. It sort of feels the-endish to me.
Who else’s storyline needs wrapping up?
The Old Wolf said, 9 months ago

Oh, merciful mother of Mogg, no. We still need to tie up Roger, Lena and Satori, as well as the ultimate disposition of Suzerain. Inky may have unplugged the power, but the program still exists… and Roger has a copy.

At least, that’s what I’m hoping for.

@Baslim: Correct. However, if you go through the Jack archives with a wide Weltanschauung, the underlying message is one of hope and redemption. I *do* wish there were a bit less gratuitous S & V, but the whole scenario is interesting enough to keep me coming back to see what’s next.
stuntman200 said, 9 months ago

ejcapulet says:

Demons don’t follow rules, so what actually stopped Pid from springing herself? Why didn’t any of us think of that, either?

The question should be “Do flower fairy’s follow rules”. I don’t think a fairy would be too impressed being described as a deamon!

Still given Pibs past we should have guessed, she has never been one for rules realy!
Fairportfan said, 9 months ago

Sisyphos says:

“I like the way tiny Pib perches atop Drusilla’s pate, like an F/A-18 on a carrier flightdeck.”

OTOH: http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/pib/2005/pib050808.gif

Except in this case, the carrier has the long-distance punch…

“Ahh, the fresh, foul air of sulphurous Gehenna streaming across one’s snoz!”

I love the smell of brimstone in the morning!
Hugh B. Hayve said, 9 months ago

The distinction being with federal gov’t, you don’t have much choice.
9CWL; I swear Edda’s dress keeps getting shorter and shorter with every new strip.
DeathDealer said, 9 months ago

Sysiphos: And is that a lava vent Dru is coursing, or one of the rivers of Hades’ realm?

No, it’s the Washington Mall.
Gehenna is in the large 5-sided place just across the Styx, also known as the Potomac,
Fairportfan said, 9 months ago

New flicker pic!

http://electronictiger.net/avail/flick/
Fairportfan said, 9 months ago

Hugh B. Hayve says:

“9CWL; I swear Edda’s dress keeps getting shorter and shorter with every new strip.”

We really haven’t seen the full “length” of Edda’s dress before today.

encore GRRrrrrrooowwwlll!

Isn’t it rather similar to the one Juliette had conniptions over when Edda tried it on.?

Only more potentially revealing (in a slight breeze) as to Edda’s choices in intimate apparel?
Fairportfan said, 9 months ago

A further 9CL thought:

Cross: (adj) desiring a really good drink of water.
prasrinivara said, 9 months ago

Federal divides up into countries (each one has its own) where hell doesn’t.
paciii said, 9 months ago

You’d think that some of those instructions (“Just get small.”) would’ve trickled down the link from Dru to Pib, but maybe there’s some logic/communications damping effect “down there”. Maybe all that magma (or the wildly flowered wallpaper) interferes with the signals or something.

9CwL: I don’t have access to the archives here at work, but I thought we had seen that this dress was floorlength. I was surprised by the shortness. Unless she did some quick alterations for Amos’ benefit…
Moe A. said, 9 months ago

No….wait….
Do you mean to say that Pibby got to WITNESS the entire re-enactment of nuclear fusion between Dru and TT?
She may never be the same.
If you look carefully, one can see Mick Jagger and Keith Richards floating in that underworld river…. a classic case of Styx and Stones.
(That would have been funnier had I said it in person).
Have a great day, all!
MOE
Orgelspieler said, 9 months ago

emjrn - let’s find a bassoonist, a flutist and a clarinetist in this crowd and form the Pibfan Woodwind Quintet. Maybe we could get AARP as a corporate sponsor.
Orgelspieler said, 9 months ago

You can always count on Dru to see the relationship between one organization ruled by evil entities, and another organization ruled by evil entities.
macFicheallaigh said, 9 months ago

This explains a lot – how it was the TT could capture and hold Dru, powerless. It took a threat to her best friend to snap her out of it.
macFicheallaigh said, 9 months ago

9CWL – Shades of Ian Anderson/Jehtro Tull!

Is that a magic flute in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me? :-)
Mel(ody) said, 9 months ago

Is the fingering more complicated for a magic flute?
bigchiroal said, 9 months ago

All make note of The Master’s (McE) command of events yet to come, as there was a 3.0 earthquake recorded in New Jersey, Monday night! That’s close enough to Hell to count…
Simon_Jester said, 9 months ago

“I assumed I had no choice.”

Yeah, yeah….that’s what Orpheus said.
Anyol'tomcat said, 9 months ago

I have not noticed an overabundance of respect for Authority of any stripe or political party in Brooke’s Mythology.

Hmmmm. The Magic Flute may have plot significance for A&E.

http://tinyurl.com/2f5zpa
It premiered in late Sept. 1791 with Mozart directing the orchestra, apparently while seated at a keyboard. He was already ill with his fatal malady. Anna Gottlieb was in the cast.

Lots of Freemasonry in the plot and it is naturally a love story with plenty of trials for the young man to prove himself worthy. Magic & music and wonderful instruments.

Also a chance for Brooke to play with innuendo; even as was archie the cockroach, Brooke & Shakespeare are frequently coarse.
maeverin said, 9 months ago

well, you know what assuming does…….

9CWL: “cross?” is that a euphemism?
Anyol'tomcat said, 9 months ago

Need to refer folks as wot don’t know the story arc to Mozart and the Demon Lover at ccdesan’s Pib tribute site [top of the comments page]. Anna Gottlieb and Mozart exchanged places with Geoff and Pib at just this period in M.’s life. The synopsis explains what transpired thereafter.

Mozart is persuading Anna to take the part of Pamina in this very opera:
http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/pib/2005/pib050608.gif
otpu said, 9 months ago

I don’t think Pib and Dru’s dialog in the third and fourth panel denotes anything overtly political.

I think their comments are more along the lines of the old post election lament, “No matter who you vote for, somehow it’s the government that always gets elected.”

otpu
CRConrad said, 9 months ago

Simon J: “ESS board”, doesn’t ring a bell. IWT board do it for you? :-)

Naah, if you’d been the same guy you’d have recognized me.

Never mind – good to know there are more fans of that rough lady, Miss Luna, out there! :-)

[Edit: Would you believe that they “bleeep”-ed out the word you get when you put domin and atrix together? Shee– I mean, bleeep!]
papa smurf said, 9 months ago

Didn’t the Divine Comedy establish hell as a huge bureaucracy? Ergo, Bureaucracy = Hell.
aerwalt said, 9 months ago

50:otpu I thought this appropriate: “I haven’t left my house in days. I watch the news channels incessantly. All the news stories are about the election; all the commercials are for Viagra and Cialis. Election, erection, election, erection – either way we’re getting screwed!” – Bette Midler.