April 02, 2009 -- In Storage
I stuck this page in at the last minute, because otherwise it'd be a bit jarring to jump forward eleven years between pages. The automaton was stuck in storage the entire time, while the von Kempelens got on with their collective lives. Here're a few more details about the conversations:
Panel 1: The Castle Theatre still stands today, and is currently the home of Budapest's National Dance Theatre. Also, by this time, von Kempelen had seen two of his own plays, The Magic Book (1767) and Perseus and Andromeda (1781) performed in Pressburg and Vienna, respectively.
Panel 2: Joseph II granted von Kempelen a privilege on his "steam and fire engines," which were used to drive mills and other machinery.
Panel 3: von Kempelen's book on the synthesis of human speech, published in both German and French, is considered his masterwork, and collects twenty-two years of his research into phonetics, speech formation, and the construction of his speaking machine -- more on that subject in a couple of weeks.
Panel 4: Hm. Anthon looks a bit sly in that last frame. I wonder what he's up to.
Lastly -- this page marks Clockwork Game's one-year anniversary. No foolin'! Thanks to everyone who's stuck around this long.
Comments
Leave a comment
Congratulations on the one-year anniversary! I've only been around for a month or so, but this is a wonderful serial. The story of the automaton's fascinated me pretty much all my life, and I always enjoy a well-informed historical comic.
Happy birthday!
This has been a great discovery: I look forward to checking this out every Thursday. There's so much detail in your pictures.
Happy Birthday, Clockworks!
Thank you for penning this epic. -J.C.
Congratulations! Hard to believe it's one year already. Thanks for all the hard work and for sharing this with us :)
Congrats on one year!
This strip really reminded me of that Family Circus comic where the house was reflecting the memories of the family who used to live in it. Kind of the opposite entirely; the family's still there and progressing but the poor Turk is unchanging in his boxes. But, as the comic does star him, I know he'll be out shortly ;)