Who's That Girl? Plus a Talk About Time.

So who's that girl in the last panel of Wednesday's comic? Her look has changed a bit, plus the comic's picked up a lot of readers lately so many of you might not know why her showing up is significant. Here's the story where she was introduced...

http://thezoo.comicgenesis.com/d/20051207.html

Here's a later storyline with her.

http://thezoo.comicgenesis.com/d/20070615.html

She's pretty much a harbinger of bad times for Baker...well, at least annoying times. You may have also noticed that she's matured a bit since her first appearance, which begs the question...does time pass in Zoology?

I've been thinking about time as it relates to Zoology for a little while. Most comic strips are stuck in a sort of time paradox whereby seasonal and annual events are recognized each year...when it's winter it's winter in the comic, when Christmas comes around they do Christmas comics and so on...but with the exception of a couple strips (For Better or For Worse, Gasoline Alley) few progress in real time.

A lot of strips take the Simpsons approach whereby seasonal/annual events are recognized, but the characters themselves are forever in a state of suspended animation. Occasionally past adventures will be referenced, but for the most part they don't really change and each adventure is started fresh. Others jump forward in spurts...they'll stay in the same place for 10 years then suddenly, Marvin's a toddler or everyone's 10 years older!

I don't really like either approach. Neither seem like satisfying options for people who actually follow the characters...it's either no growth at all, or growth that just comes out of nowhere which you don't actually get to see develop. At the same time I don't think moving ahead in real time FBoFW style would be feasible either.

The approach I'd prefer to take is to have time always progressing in the comic, but at reduced speed. So in other words even though Zoology has been going for around 3 years, 3 years haven't passed in the Zoology universe.

I would say at this point around 1 year has passed in Zoology time since the strip began.

Of course this has had different effects on different characters. The girl character who returned in this strip would be around 14 now, so obviously she's matured over the past year. The young Guinea pig also has grown up significantly. Guinea pigs don't live too long, so they'll age at a rate faster than the other characters...thus the kid guinea pig has gone from being the equivalent of a 6 or 7 year old to more of a 10 or 11 year old. It's had less effect on other characters...Baker and Shandy would both be in their early 20s if they were human, so a year doesn't make a huge difference at that age. Angsty on the other hand would be in his late teens (18, 19) if he were human, so there has been some noticeable maturation on his part (although not as significant as what you see in the guinea pig).

I don't expect anybody reading to actually follow this, I guess I'm just making it known that this comic isn't quite a random as it might appear and that I actually do think of these things. Or at least I do when I decide to write a blog post about them...