Rocket Bomber - article - comics - snark - Wait... what?

15 May 2009, ~11am: edited; see comments

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

So far as I know, this is the first and only use of the word ‘gyre’ in this bastard mongrel tongue we all share and all share in mangling. Granted, English is fluid, and adaptable, and so flexible it makes ex-gymnasts on Romanian porn sites look stiff and staight-laced. We can verb nouns and take gerunds way past their indicated uses and expiration dates, and coin neologisms about as fast as we can type. In the internet age, even misspellings and typos have become words: we’re pwning teh language faster than a million chimpanzee OED scholars on a million netbooks can keep pace.

(Or perhaps they’re capuchin monkeys. The capuchins are certainly better suited to the smaller keyboards; I don’t know, I’m not up on current OED practices.)

For my latest trick, I’m going to introduce an intentional mispronunciation of a foreign language term as the New Proper English word Ja-pon-is-me. 4 syllables, and not the actual French word (which in use ignores the final e: Ja-pon-ism.)

Because Japonisme is prettier. And now it’s my word, and not Burty’s. And now it’s an adjective, because that’s the way I want to use it.

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All that is incidental and beside the point. Word on the street is The One True Smith is writing Batman (again), and let me differentiate myself from other fanboys to look past ‘Smith!’ ‘Batman!’ to ask the question that should be obvious:

Kev. Dude. What’s up with that title?

Since it’s a Jabberwocky, and hence Carroll reference I’m guessing we’re looking at a Mad Hatter comic (and my good lord Odin knows we need a good Mad Hatter comic as the best take on the character is still Timm/Dini’s BtAS Jervis Tetch, and at that it was merely a gloss on the 60’s TV Bats theme-villain-of-the-week.)

…but with the Jabberwocky reference we may be looking at something new brought to the bativerse and with Kev Smith’s usual take on comics (reverential to the point of, well, fandom but with the humor and cinematic sensibilities that we know he is capable of from such excellent films as [snicker] Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back — yes, I kid, but the dude can write)

The Widening Gyre. A 12-issue Batman miniseries by Kevin Smith.

from wikipedia (the Jabberwocky article linked above):
Gyre – To go round and round like a gyroscope. (However, Carroll also wrote in Mischmasch that it meant to scratch like a dog.) The g is pronounced like the /g/ in gold, not like gem.

No word yet on how the slithy [combination of slimy and lithe] toves [a combination of a badger, a lizard, and a corkscrew] will factor in the new comic, or of the relative importance of sundials.

as noted in the comments, the Widening Gyre is a pull from Yeats, not Carroll