9 Chickweed Lane: Difference between revisions

 

The comic strip ''9 Chickweed Lane'' was started by Brooke McEldowney in 1993. Originally a gag-a-day strip about three generations of women in the Burber family: biology professor Juliette Burber; her teenage daughter, Edda, and her mother, Edna O'Malley, whom everyone calls Gran. (Gran has been written out of the strip after the end of a year-long flashback.) It gradually turned into a platform for the creator to express his views on culture, politics, religion and gender relations. Since 20-year-old Edda seems to have been promoted to being the central character, it also allowed McEldowney to indulge in his love of odd camera angles and [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness|polysyllabic words]].

* [[All Women Are Lustful]]: It is impossible to name a female character in the McEldowney universe (pregnant nuns included) that isn't obsessed with having sex in some way or another; either they're getting it and happy or not getting any and bitter about it.

* [[Art Evolution]]: Edda was more menacing than pretty (you know that gleeful look on "peeing on [insert name here] [[Calvin and Hobbes|Calvin]]"-sticker has? That was Edda's default expression).

* [[Blond Guys Are Evil]]: Edda's dad; Edda's would-be seducer; Kiesl; Col. Yancey. Averted with Edda's [[Straight Gay]] [[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 [[Straight Gay|Seth]], although she appears to be foolish rather than evil.

{{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.}}

* [[Brutal Honesty]]: Roger and Seth didn't meet on the right foot, what with Seth thinking Roger's mother's "affair" was highly romantic and Roger {{spoiler|being in deep, deep denial about being gay, or at least really annoyed with Seth's insistence that he's in denial about being gay}}.

* [[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.

* [[December December Romance]]: Gran/Keisel. Gran/Thorax before that.

* [[Defrosting Ice Queen|Defrosting Ice King]]: Kiesel.

* [[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.

* [[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"}}.

* [[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]]:

* [[Gentle Giant]]: Thorax; Edda's dance partner. He's about a head taller than the rest of the cast, except when he isn't.

* [[Gentleman Snarker]]: Seth and Thorax, to some extant.

** {{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>

* [[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

* [[Happily Married]]: Juliette and her professor husband; Amos and Edda in the future.

* [[Hatedom]]: A lot on [[The Comics Curmudgeon]], including how the smug, arrogant Seth is always right, to the point of [[Marty Stu]]. The bit about {{spoiler|closeted uncle Roger being lectured by situationally-sexual Seth}} didn't win them any fans at Something Awful either.

* [[The Hecate Sisters]]: Edda: Maiden (!), Juliette: Mother, Gran: Crone.

* [[Heteronormative Crusader]]: ''Possibly'' {{spoiler|Roger}}, although it's not yet clear if he knows Seth is gay. *Update*: {{spoiler|Roger may not know about Seth, but Seth has figured something out about Roger.}}

** {{spoiler|Seth proposing to Fernanda after learning that he was not only her first love but had taken her virginity as well. He's very relived when Fernanda rejects the proposal.}}

** {{spoiler|Amos is very certain Edda will want the ring he's giving her.}}

** 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.}}

* [[Identical Grandchild]]: Edda to Gran.

* [[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.}}

* [[Informed Ability]] /OffStageVillainy: Fernanda Jons, a South American ballet dancer who is said to be more talented than Edda and was bigoted towards [[Straight Gay]] 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.}}

* [[Informed Attribute]]: Lots, but {{spoiler|Roger's closeted homosexuality}} really stands out. Basically it's true because Seth said so.

** Add to that list Edda's (apparently) long-standing love for pulling the old whoopee cushion gag.

* [[Mama Bear]]: Edda is "the love of [Juliette's] life" and God have mercy on anyone who harms her. {{spoiler|When Juliette finds out that Edda thinks she's pregnant, she wants to either hustle Amos to a church to get married with a shotgun at his back or bury his corpse and salt the earth.}}

* [[Manipulative Bastard]] : O'Malley's superior officer, Colonel Yancey. It was revealed that he decided a long time ago that O'Malley and Edna had to get married no matter what the cost to themselves or their children simply to make himself feel better about being the incompetent buffoon who set everyone up to fail in the first place.

* [[Meaningful Name]]: [[Romeo and Juliet|Juliette]], Edda (after grandma Edna).

* [[Messy Hair]]: Amos'. It is/was possibly sentient and [[Hairy Hammerspace|a black hole.]]

* [[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.

* [[New Neighbors As the Plot Demands|New Relatives As The Plot Demands]]: Looked that way with the mention that Juliette has a sibling (Bill's biological child) who's never been mentioned before. Turns out her brother Roger has been established as such (but never seen) [http://comics.com/9_chickweed_lane/2004-02-21/ as far back as 2004.] But as far as anyone can tell, he's been mentioned less than a dozen times, and not since 2005.

* [[The Nicknamer]]: Edda nicknamed her teacher/principal "Sister [[The Caligula|Caligula]]", her aunt "Penny-Auntie" and her roommate "App-Sethalby".

** They also look alike: Juliet's husband is ''Pibgorn''s Geoff with grey hair; Young Gran is a dead-ringer for Edda; there's three identical brunettes (Drucilla the succubus, Isabel the pianist, and Fernanda the ballerina) and at one point Edda is talking to Isabel (Portuguese/older/worldly/short curly hair) and Edda like Fernanda's (South American/younger/"innocent"-ish/long wavy hair) saucy protege.

** The first daily color strip is presumably Amos complementing Edda, but they're shown from [[She's Got Legs|the waist down]] so for all we know it could be Edda's mother and stepfather.

* [[One Head Taller]]: Seth is a head taller and a body-size wider than all the characters except Thorax. This does not stop Fernanda from occasionally being the same height as they dance (or "dance").

** Apparently Brooke in real life, [http://i.imgur.com/3YSWu.jpg seen here]. For reference, the woman on the right is around 5'11".

* [[Sadist Teacher]]: Juliette. Not only does she compare her students to cattle, she flies off into a blind rage the second one of them refers to her as anything other than Doctor Burber.

** "Sister Caligula", scary head-nun of Edda's school.

* [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]]: Every character in the strip.

* [[Sexy Discretion Shot]]: "Handjive."

{{quote| '''Deceit''': Noun. Example: A dog rolls on the carcass of a dead possum in order to deceive other animals regarding his identity as a dog (whereas) a man lolls in the scents of church in order to deceive himself regarding his identity as a thief, an adulterer, and a liar (the difference is that the dog does not first have to endure being bored by the possum).}}

 

 

{{quote| '''Allegiance''': Noun. An undefined word school children are taught to pledge daily toward a flag that is otherwise ignored. [[Lovable Traitor|The purpose of this pledge is to teach the young that "allegiance" has a limited shelf life of 24 hours.]]}}

{{quote| '''"Nothing is Perfect"''': A phrase demoting that [[Mary Sue|the speaker is familiar enough with perfection]] to state, categorically, that it does not exist. Compare this with [[Holier Than Thou|the preacher who is unfamiliar enough with hell to state that it does.]]}}

 

 

 

{{quote| '''Hate''': Noun. At an international level, [[Atomic Hate|the conventional response]] to any act of generosity, [[Ungrateful Bastard|after first accepting the generosity.]]}}

{{quote| '''Holy''': Cosmetic Adjective. On earth, any hostile activity, such as a war or pogrom, with [[God Is Evil|celebrity endorsement from God.]]}}

* [[Shut Up Kiss]]

* [[Single Issue Psychosis]]: If we're to take the entire Kiesl arc at face value, Gran's crabby bitterness and general anger at the world can be traced directly to giving up her true love in order to keep a promise to another. Once said love returns to her five decades later, that bitterness near-instantly vanishes.

* [[Slice of Life]]: The comic's mode before Amos and Edda went to Julliard (a year early, 'cause they're so talented).

* [[Spicy Latina]]: Fernanda (South America; actually quite mild) and Isabel (Portugal, [[The Vamp]]). Gran once posed as a hot Portuguese woman online.

* [[Straight Gay]]: Seth, Edda's dance partner/roommate. His art-dealer(?) boyfriend is slightly more [[Camp Gay|emotional and dramatic]].

** {{spoiler|Roger}}

{{quote| A: I can't help what you don't know.}}

 

* {{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.

* [[Trickster God]] / [[Trolling Creator]]: God/"God", an incredibly smug, wormy-looking little man in a suit who previously decided to replace humans with cockroaches because he couldn't stand that such petty things resembled him, starting with a pregnant ex-nun's fetus {{spoiler|she gave birth to a perfectly normal baby human girl}}. He's currently talking about quitting his job and letting "the suits" take over and claiming that he prefers the "small talk" of said ex-nun's prayers to "Sister Caligula's" strict performance reviews.

* [[Twist Ending]]: Bill, [[Memetic Mutation|you're not the father!]] But is it really a twist [[Anticlimax|if everyone saw it coming?]] The only surprising thing about the ending was its abruptness after months of Edna and Kiesl's romance.

** While Juliette's second husband isn't ugly, he looks far too tame to handle his [[All Women Are Lustful|very passionate]] wife.

* [[The Vamp]]: Juliette and Isabel.

* [[White Void Room|White Void World]]: With the occasional gradient; where much of the action takes place. Brooke was kind enough to put in some effort when Juliette and Edda visit Kiesel's grave in Vienna. Has become a very dark grayscale world in newsprint since Brooke started using color, starting with a strip ''that takes place at night and shows two characters from the waist down''. Lately, pretty much all you can see is the characters' faces and limbs (although that may just be the LA Times).

* [[Whole Episode Flashback]]: The WII flashback starring a MUCH younger Gran.

* [[Write What You Know]]: Brooke really did attend Julliard, though as an oboe player , not a cellist.

* [[Younger Than They Look]]: Edda and Amos are twenty years old at most, but their [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness|mature style of speaking]] can cause some confusion. Seth is probably not much older, but at least one viewer thought he and Edda's uncle Roger were both in their twenties despite Roger having a receding hairline.