9 Chickweed Lane: Difference between revisions

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* [[Biting the Hand Humor]]: Edda was basically hand-picked to model for a clothing line that gave her such a large advance salary that she bought Amos an antique cello, despite never modeling before or even considering it. Her response to this generosity is to compare the execs to demon-worshipers and models to air-headed sex toys; her mother sarcastically describes the clothes as "menswear" as no woman would ever wear such uncomfortable and revealing things on her own (except for the "leopard-spot undies, those are [hers]").
** Edda later tells a magazine that being a ballet dancer is great if you enjoy long hours, stress, and eating disorders.
* [[Blond Guys Are Evil]]: Edda's dad; Edda's would-be seducer; Kiesl; Col. Yancey. Averted with Edda's [[StraightInvisible Gayto Gaydar]] [[Mama Bear]] dance partner Seth.
** Brunette Women Are Evil: Any brunette women (aside from Juliette outside the classroom) tend to be evil (Isabel, Amos's Portuguese pianist) or rivals (Edda's schoolmate Mary, whom Amos had a crush on). Fernanda Jons, a South American ballet dancer, once made homophobic remarks at [[StraightInvisible Gayto Gaydar|Seth]], although she appears to be foolish rather than evil.
* [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick]]:
{{quote|'''Seth's note''': Stepped out to buy some Brussels sprouts, fresh morels, aged Gouda and Cabernet Sauvignon. {{spoiler|Stopping by your Uncle Roger's to tell him he's gay}}. Back by seven.}}
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* [[Cannot Spit It Out]]: Played straight when Edda can't tell Amos how his adoration of [http://www.hilaryhahn.com/ Hillary Hahn] makes her jealous.
* [[Catholic School Girls Rule]] / [[Magic Skirt]]: Subverted in that Edda's skirt went past her knees, although that didn't stop her from taking flying leaps.
* [[Cats Are Mean]]: Sort of. Solange isn't evil, but she seems to get a kick out of teasing Edda.
* [[Chuck Cunningham Syndrome]]: After turning down Seth's hasty proposal, Fernanda completely vanishes from the strip.
* [[Clingy Jealous Girl]]: Edda, very much so.
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* [[Cool Old Lady]]: Gran can be pretty impressive: she's definitely intimidating, and somehow manages to tolerate a relationship with Thorax.
* [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]s: The blood-quaffing, demon-worshiping fashion corp that [[Biting the Hand Humor|hires Edda to be their spokes-booty.]]
* [[Cosmic Plaything]]: Implied to be why Gran is a [[Perpetual Frowner|pessimistic bundle of negativity]]; not only was she [[Straw Man Has a Point|branded a double agent]] by the [[Evil Brit]] [[Designated Antagonist]], her future husband spent ten years in a psych ward due to having his brains scrambled on Omaha beach. He wouldn't have been there if he hadn't put the British guy in hospital for a week. Worse still, when he recovered, he'd gotten her to settle down in Omaha to live in the suburbs. Since she's a Creature of Pure Art, you can see how living in the presence of mundanes is a horror beyond comprehension.
* [[Crossover]]: Thorax appears in ''[[Pibgorn]]'' on several occasions.
** The cast of ''Pibgorn'' were guests at the wedding of Edda's former English teacher, Diane Aramus, and the former Father Francis Durley.
* [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|D-Day Guided Amnesia]]: Why Bill was missing for ten years. While he's completely healthy physically, he's being annoyingly coy about his mental state.
* [[A Date with Rosie Palms|A Date With Randy Palms]]: Edda imagining [[StraightInvisible Gayto Gaydar|Seth's]] [[Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?|serial dating phase]]. Seth is less-than-amused that his past anguish is his roommate's (and now her mother's) [[Fetish]] fuel.
* [[December-December Romance]]: Gran/Keisel. Gran/Thorax before that.
* [[Defrosting Ice Queen|Defrosting Ice King]]: Kiesel.
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* [[Dragon Lady]]
* [[Dutch Angle]]: One of the more confusing elements of the strip is McEldowney's insistence on drawing his characters at neck-straining camera angles to cram in more words and or legs.
* [[Eagle Land|Eaglelander]]: Brooke McEldowney, very much flavor two. The [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop]] of his [[World War Two]] story lines was that the [[Evil Brit]] [[Designated Antagonist]] had to do whatever the Americans told him, no questions asked, since they were defending a country that didn't actually need defending at that point.
* [[Eternal Sexual Freedom]]: Some of the PDAs Edna (Young Gram) and Lt. Kiesl got up to would get you tossed out of most places today. (Or at the very least a pointed "[[Get a Room]]!"). In 1950s New York City, you'd get the cops called on you. They did get the attention of a cop when Kiesl's ice cream cone melted and Edna cleaned his fingers with her tongue.
* [[Even the Girls Want Her|Even The Gays Want Her]]: Seth "falls in love" with Fernanda - specifically her tango skills. Apparently he can't judge the talent of ''his ballet partner'' while "working". {{spoiler|And then he sleeps with her, or rather her "skills"}}.
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* [[Mother of a Thousand Young|Father Of A Thousand Young]]: Roger, father of eleven "[[The Stepford Wives|Stepford]] [[Village of the Damned|Children]]". Seriously, they come in batches of identical blonde twins and triplets and when Seth goes to Roger's place they appear ''en masse'' out of nowhere and just ''stare''.
* [[Foregone Conclusion]]: We already know Gran chooses Bill in the end, it's stated right at the beginning of the arc!
* [[From a Certain Point of View]]:
{{quote|'''Gran:''' I didn't say that was how I met and fell in love with your dad. I said that was how I met and fell in love with [[Luke, I Am Your Father|your father]].}}
* [[Gentle Giant]]: Thorax; Edda's dance partner. He's about a head taller than the rest of the cast, except when he isn't.
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** {{spoiler|Panel 1: Fernanda reenters Seth's room after taking a shower, her bathrobe tightly closed. Panel 2: Back view of Fernanda hugging Seth, her bathrobe now open. (Seth's wearing pajamas and Edda, who's been in the room the whole time, is now standing behind him).}}
** When [http://i.imgur.com/5byYz.jpg this Sunday strip] got pulled for implied sexual content <ref>In January of 1996, I drew this innocent (to my mind) little cartoon. It went past my syndicate editors at the time, who, I admit, possessed the combined I.Q. of drain hair, however, they - as I - saw nothing wrong with it. It passed the scrutiny of features editors both in North America and abroad, also without hiccup. Then it appeared in print, and Sunday schools country wide were curtailed so their teachers might retire to restroom stalls and object in hyperventilating privacy. Chickweed was canceled forthwith, most noticeably at the Houston Chronicle. A letter sent to my syndicate, and speaking for many like-minded people, blurted, "THAT IS THE LAST STRAW!" Previously, I gathered, I had been providing enough straw to supply a good sized dairy farm and have enough left over for a tableau vivant nativity crèche; but the very last straw was this one. For those of you who cannot see the cause of the objection, you are fine, unsullied people, most likely dull company, but fine nonetheless. For those of you who see an act of oral sex, shame on you. Your Sunday school class is waiting.</ref>
* [[The Ghost]] / {{spoiler|1=[[Long-Lost Uncle Aesop]]: Juliette's brother, Roger. Unseen and mentioned so rarely that many thought McEldowney [[Ass Pull|made him up on the spot]] at the end of Edna's flashback arc. As of November 2010, he's appeared at Edda and Seth's place to rain on "Gamma's" lovechild happy ending parade and probably come out of the closet.}}
* [[Girl Next Door]]: What the Nicolette Cignet execs have found in Edda ("She's sexy yet innocent and even patriotic!"). For some reason this is bad but they keep using her anyway and even hire Seth "for the ladies".
* [[Glamorous Wartime Singer]]: Edna
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** {{spoiler|Amos is very certain Edda will want the ring he's giving her.}}
* [[Rant-Inducing Slight|Horror-Inducing Slight]]: Seth upon spotting {{spoiler|Roger}}'s ''mismatched socks''.
** Edda doesn't take her mother comparing one's children to spinach stuck in one's teeth very well {{spoiler|She meant all of Roger's children after the second set of twins and how he's stuck in the role of straight dad forever}}.
* [[I Have No Son]]: {{spoiler|Or sister, rather. One of the first things Roger does when he's introduced is to point out that Juliette is just his ''half''-sister, even though he only learned the true story about their parents about the same time as she did. It's possible that Juliette rubbed the fact that she was a true ''love''-child in his face a one too many times in between.}}
* [[I Want Grandkids]]: {{spoiler|Well, "nieces or nephews" for Seth (Juliette, the ''actual'' potential grandma, has confidence in Edda's decision, whatever that may be): he's so obsessed with Edda being pregnant that he's got her wedding dress all ready, forbids her from even ''thinking'' about an abortion, and threatens to transform the guest bedroom into the most over-the-top nursery even if she does. In Seth's defense it'd be hard for him to adopt a kid and be a professional ballet dancer (there's no proof he and his boyfriend have actually reunited), plus it's possible gay adoption/marriage isn't legal in New York yet due to comic-book-time.}}
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* [[Idiot Plot]] / [[Idiot Ball]]: {{spoiler|Edda wakes up feeling unusually nauseous and thinks she's pregnant. She goes from her home in New York City to her mom and stepdad in Connecticut, flies to her grandma and half/step/biological grandpa in ''Austria'', flies back to NYC, tells her boyfriend Amos and her roommate Seth that she might be pregnant, and ''then'' has the courage to have a pregnancy test done only after Seth berates her for being an idiot and a coward for "not wanting to know the answer" in the first place.}}
* [[If It's You It's Okay]]: The most generous interpretation of {{spoiler|the proudly gay Seth sleeping with Fernanda.}}
* [[Informed Ability]] /OffStageVillainy: Fernanda Jons, a South American ballet dancer who is said to be more talented than Edda and was bigoted towards [[StraightInvisible Gayto Gaydar]] Seth a couple years ago. As far as we're shown, she's actually just a normal (well, as normal as a talented ballet dancer can be) girl who said something stupid once {{spoiler|because she was trying to cover up a crush on him.}}
** The Nicolette Cignet clothing corp is described by Edda as a cabal of blood-drinking demon-worshipers [[Show, Don't Tell|but we never see them actually demon-worshiping]] and [[Unreliable Narrator|Edda has a long-established hatred of authority]] (they are at least revealed to be pretty huge jerk asses and aware of it: "Gentlemen (if that's what we actually are)...").
* [[Informed Attribute]]: Lots, but {{spoiler|Roger's closeted homosexuality}} really stands out. Basically it's true because Seth said so.
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* [[Messy Hair]]: Amos'. It is/was possibly sentient and [[Hairy Hammerspace|a black hole.]]
** Edda's dance partner's boyfriend (as well as [[All the Good Men Are Gay|the girl who was crushing on him]] -- unfortunately they looked like twins).
* [[Mood Whiplash]]: Edda and Juliette have a pleasant meeting with their newly-discovered bio-grand/father Kiesel, then they admonish him for wasting his life pining for their grand/mother Edna, then {{spoiler|he travels to Pennsylvania to pay a surprise visit to Edna, then she's shocked and doesn't want to meet his gaze, then they kiss, then Thorax shows up and silently leaves, and finally Edna moves to Vienna with Kiesel where she's promptly mistaken for Kiesel's wife.}}
* [[More Teeth Than the Osmond Family]]: A frequent knock on McEldowney's art: grinning characters appear to have triple the normal number of teeth. Also, women charcters frequently bare their teeth and/or snarl when they're in a sexy mood, so whenever the characters get frisky, the women always look like they're about to tear out the men's throats.
* [[Name's the Same|Name's]]... [[They Just Didn't Care|Similar Enough]]: {{spoiler|Kiesl is mistakenly given an obituary after a man named K'''ei'''sel dies. This wouldn't be quite so [[Egregious]] if their respective names weren't Peter and ''Johannes''.}}
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* [[Spin-Off]]: ''[[Pibgorn]]''
* [[Star-Crossed Lovers]]: Edna and Kiesl.
* [[StraightInvisible Gayto Gaydar]]: Seth, Edda's dance partner/roommate. His art-dealer(?) boyfriend is slightly more [[Camp Gay|emotional and dramatic]].
** {{spoiler|Roger}}
* [[Straw Feminist]]: A random woman who's either a colleague of Juliette's (and thus a doctor) or a mere jewelry retailer, who thinks that all unplanned pregnancies ''must'' be aborted, not knowing that Juliette was unplanned and the old woman she's talking to is Juliette's mother. Brooke later clarified:
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* [[Tall, Dark and Snarky]]: Juliette, Gran, Edda, Seth, Sister "Caligula", and Roger.
* {{spoiler|[[Surprise Pregnancy]]: Probably. Edda felt sick one morning, traveled from NYC to her mother and stepfather in Connecticut, flew to Austria and back, told the news to Amos and Seth, and ''she still hadn't taken a pregnancy test''. She finally went to a doctor after Seth pointed out how stupid she was for not "anointing the stick"; the doctor revealed that whatever state she's in is "the most happy result". [[Convenient Miscarriage]] seems to be out so far since even Edda would've noticed that. Turns out it was just a scare, although an abnormal period means she might have something that could make her ''barren''.}}
* [[Tap on the Head]]: Averted ''hard''; the doctor handling Bill O'Malley's case told Yancey flat out that his former subordinate was a shell of the man he used to be.
* [[Too Much Information]]: Remember, the WWII flashback is being told by an elderly mother to her daughter, plus her granddaughter and ''an entire ballet company'' eavesdropping on the phone. {{spoiler|And later by elderly biological father to just-discovered daughter and granddaughter.}} Lampshaded, far too late, here:
{{quote|'''Juliette:''' [[Unusual Euphemism|Gloriosky]], mother.