THE STUFF

[brigid]

1-3-2023

And we're still flogging the "children talking endlessly about conceiving a child and being pregnant" horse.

There's talk of being pregnant with a baby and giving birth to a baby but no talk of caring for the baby or the child it will grow in to. I want to note that. I want to note that endlessly. It's extremely rare that Edda and Amos are shown parenting their children. There have been more flashbacks featuring Edda and Amos as child discussing pregnancy than there have been strips where they interact with their children, I'm sure of it. I haven't counted, but come on. There's just so many.

This is a project for next time I'm manic.

Even the strips about parenting the children, about being parents, have been abstract things about the IDEA of being a parent. The vibes of it. Edda's premature infants are in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) and we get ONE strip of her in a leotard doing an arabesque while visiting them. Then we get a series of strips of her wearing a big sweater, talking about making deviled eggs, telling Amos to cancel his vasectomy, and then seducing him via the big sweater. At one point Edda is dancing and thinking to herself "hold in the tummy muscles" and then collapses to the ground with hearts overhead because she's thinking about her premature infants who are in the NICU. She's not visiting them, she's thinking about them.

(She had a c-section which is major abdominal surgery that involves slicing through your abdominal muscles and moving organs then putting them back in place and stitching the uterus, muscles, and layers of skin back up. After a c-section you're limited as to how much weight you can lift. Sometimes you're told to avoid doing anything as taxing as driving a car. You're not "holding in your tummy muscles," you're recovering from surgery that, again, is major abdominal surgery resulting in a scar that's 4-8inches long. Go get a ruler and look at how long that is. I had a c-section and my scalp is crawling thinking about these details, it's not a fun time.)

I guess in this strip a hunched-over Amos who is somewhere between the ages of, I don't know, 6 and 14 and who grows 18 inches or so between panel one and panel two, is asking about sex. "'N' stuff" to be precise. He doesn't know what "stuff" is although he knows from listening to Juliette that part of "stuff" involves feeling really good - rapture to use her exact word. Because if there's one thing you don't want to talk about with small children (sex, orgasms) it's best to use the word "rapture" to describe it. Talk it up. Sell it. Make it REALLY enticing. Then refuse to elaborate. THAT's how you get them to shut up.

So Amos doesn't know what "stuff" is but he's going to "put [Juliette] in the picture."

What does that mean?

He's going to give her further information?

He's the one who WANTS information. Or he's just going to say he knows what "stuff" is and then she'll know he knows and then he'll ask her questions? Why not say that? Why not say "when I figure out what "stuff" is I'll talk to you again" or something?

Anyway, the position of the speech bubbles is awkward and looks like "deal" should come before Amos' speech bubble. This layout would work better if McEldowney hadn't changed the camera angle for whatever reason.

Her to the left: you're talking about stuff
Amos to the right: IDK what stuff is, I'll ask you later
Her to the left, her bubble under his: deal

Is this the pregnancy talk that she gave to Diane? The one that was so great? Is this why Diane has so many kids?