Juho Pohjalainen's Blog: Pankarp - Posts Tagged "jeff-smith"

Once upon a time there was a city of moderate size and prosperity. It often came under attack by barbarians, rival nations, conquering overlords, and wild beasts. Its people, forced to spend much their time and effort in city defense, were grim and hardy.

Then a wise king decided to build a wall. It was a hard job, took years, and the barbarians paid for it and cost a fair bit out of the city coffers, but they all figured it was worth it. And it was: after a few futile efforts, all raids and invasions stopped. Peace prevailed.

So the people got to relax for a while. They put down their spears and bows and cheered up. They got to focus on arts and entertainment, create something beautiful rather than ugly, and enjoy themselves. The later kings and queens put up libraries and schools and galleries. The old barbaric foes could just walk through the gates to buy stuff and get washed up. Trade prospered. Good times for everyone, everything is great, and nothing hurts.

I'm not sure where to go from here, though. So far it's nothing new to anyone - build walls to defend yourself, whoop whoop-



-but where does it go from here? Is the wall going to be brought down at last, forcing everyone to realize their own complacency and watching as a great and beautiful city burns? Or maybe the barbarians decide they don't want to pillage it after all because they're all friends now and it really is quite pretty? Or maybe it's never threatened at all and the whole thing stands as more of a metaphor? Like you've got these people inside its walls who suffer with their own personal issues, until they build metaphorical walls inside themselves to be strong and then be happy?

I don't know. It was just one of those thoughts I had when I read Bone, about something that's sort of just brushed away off-handedly in there, but that could make a whole story of its own. I'll probably never write it.

Bone really is a great comic, though.