It’s Iimi! Vicious Vicki!

Iimi is a few weeks into her first semester, and it’s mostly going smoothly. But the graduate assistant who is teaching her ethnic studies class has a reputation. The upperclassmen students call her… Vicious Vicki!

Post-Comic Notes:

Bad Inside Joke Explanation: When Professor Lương Minh Hạo mentions Zok Ze and Aa Faan Daat, it’s actually turning the Cantonese term “Zok3 Ze2 Aa3 Faan4 Daat6” (作者阿凡達) into two names. The term means “Author Avatar.”

The poem falsely attributed to Bertold Brecht goes:

“Suppose they gave a war and nobody came
Then the war will come to you.
He who stays at home when the fight begins
And lets others fight for his cause
Must take care: by not sharing the struggle
He will share the defeat.
Not even fight is avoided by trying to avoid it,
For he will fight for the enemy’s cause
Who has not fought for his own.”

It can be an either-or fallacy (“fight for our side, or you’re aiding the enemy”) if used to attack people who don’t accept your views. But it can also be interpreted as the importance of standing up when it is necessary. Vicki behaves in the first sense. Iimi responds in the second sense.

The origin of Krysta’s “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” code question can be found HERE. Krysta and good taste often go together like demolition derby and good penmanship.

Notes on Cantonese Transliteration:
There are two common ways to transliterate Cantonese with tones: Yale and Jyutping. Yale uses diacritics (such as ī, úh, jí) to show tones (Cantonese has 6) which are not available in a majority of comic fonts and therefore harder to portray consistently. Jyutping uses the numbers 1-6 after each syllable instead. Yale has the disadvantage of sometimes needing to change the spelling. Jyutping stays consistent in spelling.
Take the sentence 「呢句係粵語句子。」The meaning is “This is a Cantonese sentence.” In Yale, it’s rendered “nī geui haih yuht yúh geui jí.” The tone is reflected in diacritics and some syllable endings. In Jyutping, it’s rendered “ni1 geoi3 hai6 jyut6 jyu5 geoi3 zi2.” (The numbers show which tone to use.)
Yes, Yale looks “more exotic” stylistically in word balloons, but using Jyutping will make things easier to present.

Image Credits

Cover Art © Dean Spencer, used with permission. All rights reserved.
Act 1 Banner Art courtesy of PublicDomainPictures.net (artist not listed).
Act 2 Banner Art is “The Gulf Stream” by Winslow Homer (1899), and is in the Public Domain.
Act 3 Artwork © 2006 Bradley K McDevitt and is used with permission.
Act 4 Artwork is “The Destruction of Leviathan” by Gustave Doré (1865), and is in the Public Domain.
The Ogre Cannoneer image on Iimi’s T-shirt (page 2) is © 2015 Dean Spencer, used with permission. All rights reserved.
The Image on page 18 is from “Simon the Cyrenian Compelled to Carry the Cross with Jesus” (1886-1894) by James Tissot. Public Domain.

All Map images are © OpenStreetMap contributors.

AI Disclaimer

I used AI to generate covers and background scenery for Issues 184-277. I still use it to create logos, doodles, and symbols, simply because there are no non-AI logo-creation programs (suggestions are welcome). Some previously used images have been kept for consistency (iconic buildings and “historic photographs”) with the intent of replacing them when possible. Any other appearance of AI means the stock art seller I purchased from misrepresented their product.