03.29.07
Discussing the arts
www.bustedwonder.com/exterminus
Torsten: Cool comic. Any suggestions for how the imagery should be interpreted?
Jonas: No, I was hoping you could come up with something. I’m relatively blank.
Torsten: Well, I do have something, but it’s a little loose.
Jonas: What’s your suggestion?
Torsten: If we imagine the train as a kind of communication sphere for the two, and the many tentacles etc. as their feelings and especially their interest in each other, it makes pretty good sense in that they start to appear when they see each other, and retract when he’s about to leave the train. At the same time, we see that he starts to dissolve by stepping out of the train, but regains his body when he crawls back into the “conversation bubble”. The conversation adopts another tone when he returns, and all the feelings come back, but now they’re different because they reflect the change. But I have no idea how well that holds up.
Jonas: Yeah that fits well with the thoughts it created in me (although I wasn’t sure how to verbalize it). I was wondering if the somewhat macabre emotion-metaphor could be grounded in an idea that feelings sort of eat up the outer facades when they emerge to the surface.
Torsten: That’s quite possible. Or perhaps that emotions and thoughts leave marks in people. He still has a big hole in the chest when he gets up to leave.
Jonas: Yeah that’s a good point too. But anyway, cool comic
Torsten: Agreed agreed. Old bean. *Gets out a briar pipe.*
Jonas: And I think your/our interpretation holds up, old chap. *Adjusts the monocle.*
Torsten: Quite, quite.
