Monday, August 24, 2009

Doodle Penance: "8 scenes comics using pronouns"

This week's "Doodle Penance" is going to be unusual, because it's also sort of a trivia contest for you, our devoted (or casual) reader. The term that inspired this comes from someone who was searching for "8 scenes comics using pronouns."

Below you will find eight panels that feature ambiguous pronoun reference, or unclear antecedent.

I leave it to you, Dear Reader, to identify the things to which the pronouns in the following panels refer. (Mike and I have redrawn the panels, or else it wouldn't be a Doodle Penance, and at least one of the panels has been edited to remove the referent.)

For each item in this quiz, the correct answer will be "D: None of the above." Your task is to ferret out and state the actual, specific answer. You can put your answers in the comments section, or you can email your replies to isaac dot cates at aya dot yale dot edu, if you're worried about giving a good answer away.

The person with the most correct answers by the end of the week, or the first person to get all eight, will win a prize from the Satisfactory Comics back-issue archives.

UPDATE! A winner has been chosen! Stay tuned for an answer key!

Here are the questions:


1.


A. Spiro Agnew.
B. Alfred E. Newman.
C. The artist who put my eyebrows on the horizon line.
D. None of the above.


2.


A. Having my horns tickled.
B. Awesome old folklore.
C. Ron Perlman's singing voice.
D. None of the above.


3.


A. Passing my Classics final.
B. Setting all forty-eight VCRs.
C. Applying antiperspirant.
D. None of the above.


4.


A. My pet anole.
B. My new composition for panflute and timpani.
C. My hairstyle.
D. None of the above.


5.


A. A copy of Playboy from the '70s.
B. The Special Edition of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
C. A big bag of Cheetos.
D. None of the above.


6.

A. The collapse of Lehman Brothers.
B. The skyrocketing cost of ink.
C. The rise of furrydom.
D. None of the above.


7.

A. The hatching of a tyrannosaur egg.
B. The blooming of a hybrid tulip.
C. The reconciliation of Alan Moore and Paul Levitz.
D. None of the above.


8.

A. The publication of The Collected Pogo.
B. The creation of heart-friendly Krispy Kremes.
C. The musical adaptation of the film adaptation of the graphic-novel adaptation of a postmodern mystery novella.
D. None of the above.

4 comments:

John said...

1) Charlie Brown. First Peanuts strip

2) ?

3) The giant alien squid / world peace (?) at the end of Watchmen.

4) A piece of artwork (painting?). Art School Confidential

5) I want to say something from I Never Liked You but I'm not sure.

6) The little boy's friend who tried to grab a rope but missed and fell to his death. Hey, Wait. . .

7) ?

8) His book on a language. City of Glass

Isaac said...

There are some good answers there, John — and some evident gaps in your leisure reading. Let's see if someone can improve on your "answer sheet"!

Mike said...

So what's the big prize supposed to be, anyway? Maybe knowing that would induce a few more hazards of guesses...

Isaac said...

I want the prize to be flexible, so that someone who already has some of our comics can fill in the gaps in his or her collection. It'll be some treasures from the back-issue box, negotiable by the winner.

That would include even some of my New Haven postcards, or some of the new postcards I've been printing of Damien's plant pix.