B.C. Wyth Sperefeld

I'm back!

I'm back late. I apologise for that. This last week, I have mostly been sleeping and whimpering into my pillow. I marked myself into a state where I could no longer see out of my eyes. The result was that I went to visit an eye doctor today.* He told me that everything was too fuzzy because my prescription was too strong. It seems my eyes have deteriorated so much that I can see better than I could before. No, I don't understand it either.

Because of those damned drops that open up your damned pupils so that when you go out into the sunlight, it feels as if someone is sticking red-hot pokers into your eye sockets and twisting them, I am currently hiding in a darkened office, shrinking away from the terrible, terrible light. It seems like a good time to get back to the Middle Ages and massacre me a few comics. Perhaps the exercise will help me to forget the two petty, vindictive students who are attempting to ruin my life.

In today's B.C., we see a fantastic example of medieval-style intertextuality. Writers and artists in this day and age tend to be afraid of "borrowing" material from other writers and artists, presumably because writers and artists in this day and age are not afraid of hiring lawyers and suing the pants off thieves. The Hart Descendants, however, care not for copyright protection. They metaphorically spit in the metaphorical face of twenty-first-century law. They need to use Garfield in their comic? They'll swiving bloody well use Garfield in their comic. If Garfield Minus Garfield can get away with stealing a whole comic strip (minus its protagonist), why shouldn't B.C. be able to appropriate an unwanted character and have him kick a tortoise and a bird off a...a...a prehistoric counter? What would Chaucer do? Chaucer would insert Garfield right the hell into his comic strip!

Y'know...I think there needs to be a "What would Chaucer do?" T-shirt. I would suggest it to the King of Chaucer T-shirts, the Chaucer Blogger, but he seems to be M.I.A., and--wait a minute! Wait a minute! The Chaucer Blogger is back! He's back! I just went to check his site, and he has posted things on it! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, stop wasting your time here and go read Chaucer's blog, for crying out loud!**

However, I still may make the shirt myself someday.



*I actually discussed Chaucer with him. He was doing the usual doctor thing of asking me what my job was, though I think he was kind of not wanting me to explain that I taught medieval English literature. He had to read the Canterbury Tales in grade eleven, and the experience scarred him for life, though it probably scarred his teacher, a nun, more.
***"I hereof appeale myn erstwhile freende and companioun Johanness Gowere that he ys a wanker." I mean, come on, people...is this not medieval comedy gold? Oh, Chaucer, how we have missed you.