Andi’s last appearance was another short check-in a bit over a year ago in real-time. She’s been sitting on the backburner over the last year, sadly.
If anyone asks Andi whether the irreparable damage to those pumps as a result of being wrenched into drywall is representative of some aspect of the work as a whole, I hope to god she has a good answer for that because I do not. And yet, I would totally ask that question. XD
Erm, how is she going to explain the art project to Mrs. Haversham-Zhang? She’s gonna be checking out the living space before she turns over the keys to Amanda.
It looks like this is happening in a gallery–not her house.
Yep, it is at a gallery. She’s setting up an on-site installation piece.
Also, as a note (just for posterity’s sake, I am sure Dotcom already knows this), All-Purpose Guru posted at a time when I had posted up the flat line-art but before I had implemented the color, including the paintings. With no color and without the paintings filled in, the empty canvases could have just as easily been windows for all anyone knew.
What, you don’t have fine art all over *your* house? 🙂 🙂
I was thinking that Andi was decorating with the rest of ex-roomies’ shoe collection, and yes, I was fooled by the lineart. Thanks, Dave, both for the great comic and for coming to the defense of my ignorance.
Oh, wait, I guess I’m really tired, now I’m confusing characters. Imma crawl in bed now 🙁
I’d been wondering what’s been going on with her.
By the way, this strip is a testimate to how far your art’s come, because I see this and I remember how she used to be drawn.
You’ve really come a long way in challenging yourself as an artist, and getting expressions and proportions across.
okay so I spelled testament wrong because I was crazy tired but you get what I mean
And there I was thinking that “testimate” was an estimate confirmed by testing…
It is now…
Thank you! 😀 I do occasionally like to shake things up in small ways, I’m glad it’s working.
I would tell them the important thing is what the art says to you, not what the art says to the audience. Then I’d ask them if they ever saw that one episode of Quantum Leap where the pump turned out to be the murder weapon.
d’oh. *artist, not audience. Apparently I’m tired, too.
I did! I did! Weee!
All I can say is, WOW. Andi is going to be so awesome at helping Amanda deal with her anger issues. I am not saying awesomely good or even awesomely bad. Just that the result of putting those two together is sure to be…awesome.
Among other things, I can totally see an adult Amanda hurling high heels with enough force to do lethal or structural damage.
If I had to make up a meaning or analyze that art, I’d guess the pumps embedded in the wall represent the rejection of the objectification of women and the unrealistic body ideal they are supposed to attain. The wall represents western culture and the status quo. The shoes are representative of feminists using that culture’s own weapons against it. Damage to the shoes reminds us that we can do no violence to others, even in the pursuit of a just cause, without doing some damage to ourselves.
I read it as she just liked shoes imbedded in walls and blood trails.
I’m with Nick here – I don’t think Andi can think deeper than “sharp heels, wall bleeds, heeheehee”.
Well, I was mostly just answering Dave’s hypothetical question in the Transcript section. 🙂
I’m not so sure. Todd did see something in her once, after all. He doesn’t strike me as the sort of guy to fall for the shallow type.
It’s also been mentioned that as a tattoo artist, she prefers tats with meaning behind them. Shouldn’t the same apply to art?
I’ve never quite bought the artist explanation of insert overly complicated pretentious meaning here. Mainly because the guys that do that often just put a pile of junk on a pedestal and then come up with some goony justification. But I’m an unsophisticated ole boy.
I’m sure there are artists that intend a big fancy meaning. But when any of them come up with a list I just see oh, you mean you just like a big pile of crap in a room.
There’s definitely a “lost in translation” problem between art-makers and art-viewers in many cases. 😀
Having gone through art school and being an artist myself, I believe an artist does intend the meanings they profess to be in their work, but not all art (or artists) explains themselves very well. A lot of it is intuitive to the artist’s individual thought process, or something that makes sense to them but not necessarily other people.
I once rattled off a huge backstory behind an abstract painting (it was squiggly shapes on a field as I recall) that was based off a sci-fi/fantasy narrative which has bounced through my head since high school, only to have the entire class look at me like I was crazy and say they saw none of that backstory in the painting. It didn’t communicate my objectives well, even though I had intent behind them.
I love good art Dave, and I very much enjoy your work. I just think I’m not sophisticated enough to see what artists are going for.
Then again, that one guy that set lights to flicker on and off I think is too sophisticated for anyone to see what he’s going for. That or he’s lazy.
There’s some crazy stuff out there in the high-concept art-philosophy world, and even among fellow artists it doesn’t always give the same message. It can be difficult to decipher intended messages from audience interpretations that the artist chose to just smile and nod at.
Yea, I just take these things at face value, a shoe is just a shoe. Not a fan of modern art, if you have to explain a piece then something vent wrong in my opinion. :p
Same here, pretty much. I’ve always been a fan of art that looks like something (object, person, landscape, etc.), than abstract art. But if it’s abstract art, I don’t want to hear the artist’s description, I want to make up my own.
Why am I reminded of John Cleese as an art critic gushing over the placement of a British Police Box in a French art gallery?
She looks like a fucking troll doll with that hair.
Obscenities in your post aside you’re right in that fact. She does indeed sorta look like a troll doll with that hairdo.
Oh I don’t deny for a moment that her hair is ridiculous. 😀
I still can’t see any, any, any good combination of Andi getting Amanda back. Assuming she even can…she did give up all parental rights, and I don’t know that she could pass the adoption standard that Todd did. Not to mention her own rather selfish behavior is also a bad combination to deal with Amanda’s issues. (Being polite here, that character really is too similar to too many of my own bullies for me to give a lot of leeway to).
Plus then she has to tell Todd she LIED to him and told him his daughter was dead.
Now we get to add to Amanda’s trauma that her “real daddy” had a chance to choose her and didn’t…in favor of the “fishface” that Amanda dislikes so much.
It’s a brewing cluster…ahem, of fancy chocolates.
I don´t know US law, but less the law of this fictional version of the US… but wouldn´t Andi being a minor at the time of Amanda´s birth mean that it was legally speaking her mother who agreed to give Amanda up for adoption? Couldn´t she argue that this decision was neither her well-considered wish (her mother didn´t leave her any time to think about it) nor in her own best interest?
Another interesting question would be: Would Todd, who never actually gave up his parental right, be entitled to getting Amanda “back”? And if he could… would Selkie be able to give herself up for adoption so she would no longer be Amanda´s sister?
I’ve thought of that also. While Andi gave up all rights to Amanda when she signed the papers, if Todd can prove she’s his, he should be able to get her also, with little or no problems. “Your Honor, I want custody of MY daughter”. And BOOM, Selkie has a sister.
I wonder if he would do it, if he knew?
Not sure. I’ve noticed men get crappy treatment in courts in regards to kids and custody.
In this case it’s an orphanage, and just about any family situation is preferable to an orphanage. But I’d like to point out that when adoption has happened, I take a very negative view of people trying to “get their kid back,” largely because it’s not in the child’s best interest to be ripped away from the family he or she has been living with and given over to a stranger, even if the stranger has a genetic link.
Now, if the kid is old enough to remember their original parents, and wants to go back, and there’s no particularly pressing reason to keep them away from the original parents, then yeah, reunite them. And if the original parents are willing to let the kid stay with the new family and just ask for visitation rights, or maybe work with the new family with the aim of having the kid understand where they came from and possibly someday changing hands, then yeah, let them work together. But just grab-and-go, with a kid who never knew you in the first place? No way.
I have seen too many heartbreaking stories of selfish fathers tearing their kids out of loving families just because “Hey, this kid is mine!” Makes me sick. All the more because sometimes it’s a dad who didn’t have any relationship with the mother beyond a bit of sex, and thinks that somehow that entitles him to ownership of what came of his genetic material, even when claiming that ownership means causing emotional trauma to the person it holds.
Argh!
I think the mother could heavily influence Andi, but I don’t think she could sign the papers. Andi was still the mother, minor or not.
Not that the influence couldn’t have been insanely strong. That’s certainly a real life situation.
My understanding of current real-world laws (which applies in-comic too) is that the minor thing is correct. Because Andi was a minor at the time she has a right to seek parental rights on the basis that she never meaningfully consented to release of the child; her mother made that decision for her under duress. This applies to Todd too, but the lies make his side of the situation extra sludgey.
As for Selkie giving herself back up for adoption to avoid being Amanda’s sister, I doubt she’d do that but even if she wanted to do so, that would be the action of a legal adult. Except in the case of court-approved emancipated minor status, a minor can’t just absolve themselves from their parents at will. Legally, of course; running away from home is a thing that happens.
(not implying any future storylines here, just answering the question. :D)