In honor of all retail workers on this, the blackest day of the year
While I have, what I like to call, a “real” job. I have spent many a holiday variously toiling in a retail or theatre environ. In fact, I still ply my customer service skillz once a week at the ol’ bookmines and will do so again tomorrow morning in the AM. So even though I am currently sitting in a coffee house drinking an iced latte and haven’t even set foot in a single store today, I do feel all your pain.
This strip is our first attempt at a “storyline.” If memory serves, this is part 1 of a 4 part series, and I think you’ll enjoy where the story takes you (or, at least I enjoy it).
The art might be the best that Gilgrim’s produced so far for Normality Restored. Astute viewers will notice that in the last few, he’s been experimenting with “camera” angles, and even though this a bit of a static strip (like the last one), the final panel is a great example of what I’m talking. Also, the background made me feel all fluttery in my special places. It’s just that awesome!
And while the following strip is a dramatization, the events in the last panel may or may not have occurred, I can assure you that the phone conversation is an almost exact reproduction of one that I had about a year ago. One other point before you get the strippy goodness, it would make me feel a lot better if you imagined a really old woman’s voice on the other side of the phone…
(as always, click image to make it larger)
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November 23rd, 2007 at 9:51 pm
I worked in a Barnes and Noble for two years that encompassed three Christmases, three Potter books, and 9/11, for which I got time and a half. Oh the stories I could tell.
One woman came in looking for fishing poles. Not toy ones, not anything that came with a book… fishing poles. One grandmother let her grandson entertain himself by knocking ALL the alphabetized board books off their shelves and onto the floor, where he then started to walk on them. And don’t get me started on the woman who could tell us NOTHING but ‘the cover is red’. And of course, it was nothing of the sort.
I always thought it unwise to leave box openers at the desks for things such as the last panel, which I imagine every person in retail, goverment, or restaurant work has pictured in detail.
Oh. Question I’ve been meaning to ask for awhile. Why is your hair red at the top and black on the sides and chin?
November 24th, 2007 at 10:35 am
In real life, we’re both burnettes, although, I think Kilian’s hair is lighter than mine (I certainly have more grey), and even though I try and keep my ‘comic me’ closer to my real likeness (because I tend to cameo myself in everything I do, and I like consistency) including when I cut my hair, Kilian’s has a lot more freedom to be dynamic. I don’t remember exactly why, but the decision was made in the initial design to give Kilian two-tone hair. Why it’s red, I think that has to do with bad gaelic stereotyping over the name from me. Oddly enough, I’ve been thinking of giving Kilian a hair cut pretty soon, it bothered me recently when someone saw one of the strips and asked me why i was drawing Ronald McDonald in it?
Bastards… but then again, in America, thinking of Ronald McDonald makes us think of, oh, I would say, this:
…where as it may not be quite so bad in other countries, like Japan, where this red-head has been re-imagined like this:
this and this:
So, following this example, I think it is very clear that not only is Kilian due for a new haircut, but perhaps he should also change gender and be split into twins! Yes, I think I’m on to something now… *wrings hands*
November 24th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
OK, I can see twins, but only if they’re alien twins who superpowers that can only be activated by touching two rings together. Plus, the twins should have a space monkey…
November 25th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Hm. You mean Kilian doesn’t look like that? Aw. I’ve seen pics of you, Gilgrim, and you’re pretty good at capturing someone’s look in a few strokes. I wanna see your new mohawk though.
And the twins thing is… odd. Twisting the Ronald look to something vaguely sexy is… I’m not sure if it’s wrong or just a concept whose time has come.
And I never liked the monkey. They should have a goofy dog who’s secretly smarter than them both.
November 25th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Well, I guess I’d be OK with a dog…as long as it’s a space dog…
November 26th, 2007 at 1:25 am
Of course it’s a space dog.