WAKE UP GALL
Jun08
on June 8, 2025
at 9:41 pm
I’d like to thank my Roget’s Thesaurus, Merriam Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary (1924), and my Dictionary of Foreign Terms for the following:
thurlpolle– a whirlpool
galinipper– a large, biting insect
m’as-tu vu? (lit: “have you seen me?”) – A person inordinately self-centered
mauvaise quart d’heure (lit: bad quarter of an hour) – an irritating person
worry-carl– a snarling, ill-natured person I know I didn’t use this, but it was a fun word anyway.
Looks like Anya might have a darker side. Well, Miffy brings out the worst in everyone.
Charlie, your panel layout is well suited to the situation portrayed: chaotic! It’s a whirlwind of people talking over one another, just as it should be — and I live in Saint Louis, so I know a thing or two about whirlwinds.
I didn’t know the compound ‘worry-carl’ but I did know the word ‘carl’ — cognate with ‘churl’ — for a boorish lout. There’s a 15th century Arthurian romance called ‘Sir Gawain and the Carl of Carlisle’.
Typo: ‘Carle’ not ‘Carl’ in the romance title.
Now, I didn’t know about “carl,” and “Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle.” Thank you for that, Pops!
As for the interrupting and talking over one another, that’s something I started doing back in my “The Adventures of Lyssa and the Pirates” days. For two reasons:
1) As you know, that’s how people talk, and:
2) It saves space in a panel. If you know how someone’s going to end a sentence, you don’t need to write it. Just have someone interrupt them.
Panel 3 “I put her to w dust” gives us all the information we need, without taking up the space for a whole word balloon. Plus, it’s funnier and more in character for Anya to ride right over his line.