A former Genie Lord, Kazom is a 3000+ year old Genie who exists in the form of a witch familiar while still serving as a genie to a teenage boy in California.
In the Melvin Chronicles, Kazom “retired” from active duty after an incident where he was helping Melvin’s father with some major magical thing several years before the present.
Anyway, Kazom is more “wise mentor” than Guano’s “stubborn manager”.
I agree with you, but the problem with Andy and Cid (well, mostly Cid) is that they’re still under the belief that any wish that Andy would make with her will backfire one way or another, whetever she meant it or not. Not that they’re not entirely wrong about it, given past examples. Maybe if Rouyaa and Andy just work out a sound understanding of whatever Andy wishes for, before granting any to minimize possible negative effects. It never hurts to get some consulting done beforehand.
One of the problems is, that genies can cause things to happen without actually having any understanding, or even knowledge, of HOW. (This was made clear when Jean made the General Lee disappear, without having any idea of where it was, what was going on, or even that it was a car rather than a person.)
So clearly their magic works, kind of, “on its own”, without any need for close supervision or understanding of the process. They think of something, and, boom, it happens. But of course, that means that the exact details of how a wish gets implemented may be a mystery even to the genie, or at the very least, a surprise.
It could well be that even a simple wish could produce some highly unexpected side effects, unless the genie was extraordinarily careful about specifying how it was to be carried out.
So Sid is probably right to be ultra-cautious. Smart guy.
This is smart on Rouya’s part, as well. She’s investing a bit of time living with the boys while she finds out how their society works, and what sorts of things Andy would actually want to achieve.
By doing no more than working through mundane chores, like doing the dishes and fixing the plumbing, she is serving her master far better than a genie impatient to just get moving.
(Of course, I’m a bit nervous about what the apartment super will find has been done to keep his steam system from making too much noise. I doubt Rouya knows all that much about 1940s steam systems worked.
(And I also wonder what the neighbor’s think about Andy’s live-in girlfriend. Kind of a big deal at the time.)
@50srefugee: Sid and Andy are creative; they probably made up a cover story about how Rouyaa is a sister or a cousin or some such. No instant ID-checking available back then, so it’d be hard to prove otherwise.
Ah, yes, Kazom and before the legendary battle between Guano and Kazom, that transformed Kazom into a cat figure. Which means that sooner or later, we will probably see Melvin’s father, but, it will probably be twenty to thirty year’s from now on the time line.
I am guessing what ever transformed Kazom into a cat figure also wiped out the current Genie of the lamp who is Rouyaa,
Guano was there too, when what ever happened happened to Kazom. Guano either double cross Kazom or left Kazom high and dry at a critical point of what ever was happening there. Basically, Guano cut and run and left Kazom absorb the hit. That when Kazom got turned into cat form Genie and Melvin Dad died leaving Kazom to look after Melvin and Melvin getting his dad’s book wizard tries and spells.
Anyway, this is the basic story of what happened if you read through the entire story or remember what happened in those previous arc stories and The Melvin Chronicles.
I’ve read through both comics several times since their respective inceptions, but I don’t remember, and cannot find, a strip which places Guano with Kazom and Mel’s Dad while working that big spell. (I might have missed it if it was simply mentioned in passing rather than being portrayed, but I’ve made a pretty good search.)
Say… Is it just me or does Rouyaa look like a younger Ms. Eden? Or am I just hoping for an insane plot twist! Or for her to take a bigger role in all this!
She was, in another universe. As in the “TV” universe. And true she could have changed it with a poof too. Maybe when she sees how blonde hair become so popular in this country around that time.
And Ms. Eden can’t be around for no reason at all, can she?
Yeah, not like a certain red-turbaned dunghead that loves to shout orders, invade others’ personal space and can’t gain any favour with anyone to save his smoky ass.
According to wikipedia, the 4-F Classification is as follows:
Registrant not acceptable for military service. To be eligible for Class 4-F, a registrant must have been found not qualified for service in the Armed Forces by a Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) under the established physical, mental, or moral standards.
Other research suggests that it’s a classification primarily given by the draft board to those deemed unfit for combat due to failing their physical exams. This was considered rather embarrassing for young men at the time.
I wonder if that will come into play in this storyline?
Well… you could be considered unfit for a great many reasons, not all of which were necessarily embarrassing. Having flat feet, being over- or under-weight, having a bad back, poor eyesight or hearing, or a number of other physical limitations. But a lot of those who were 4-F did other necessary stateside jobs that didn’t involve fighting, such as producing armaments.
Yes, and Rouyaa says here that he works in a factory, presumably producing something necessary to the war effort.
During a draft, the qualification standards are relaxed somewhat in comparison to peacetime, especially on things such as being overweight or needing eyeglasses (things that will keep him form being combat-ready but still let him do desk jobs such as technician or clerical positions).
My dad would have been 4F (amazingly bad eyes – almost as bad as mine are these days).
But he went by his local draft board (during the war there were local draft boards that covered each ward/precinct in the big cities – Chicago in this case) and volunteered to be drafted, which you could do if you wanted to serve but didn’t have any preferences which service.
The doctors at the local boards were local doctors working a rotation as volunteers. The doctor that day was my dad’s family doctor. He took one look at my dad and said “Clarence, you know you’re 4f.”
Dad said “Doc, I got tossed out of junior college today and I don’t wanna tell Mom; i need and excuse to not go back to school.”
My grandmother was a little first-generation native-born Bohemian lady; about five-foot nothing, and my dad was terrified of her reaction to the news. She had a wooden spoon about two feet long that he was rather more familiar with than he would have liked to be…
The doc went “oh” and gundecked dad’s papers.
He went home, walked in and announced “Hey, ma! I got my draft notice, so…”
Cool! Thanks for the neat family story, Fairportfan!
In response, here’s how my grandpa avoided The Battle of the Bulge AND the invasion of Japan (which didn’t happen due to The Bomb) all because he was given toilet duty.
My grandpa was a bit of a cocky guy, always very self-confident. That did him very well in his career as a doctor, but it didn’t exactly endear him to his superior officers during Basic Training. So he ends up mouthing off to a drill sergeant, which gets him a ticket down to hot, muggy, super-uncomfortable Florida for PT Training (how to work the pumps for latrine and stuff). This sounds rather awful, until you realize that while he was down in Florida, his unit got called up early to ship out to The Battle of the Bulge. So by the time he gets back from Florida, he realizes that his entire unit is gone, and his paperwork’s been misplaced, so the Army has no record of the 4 months of combat training he’s already done.
So he gets sent right back to the start of Basic, having to do all of it over again. Thankfully, that takes so long that the Germans get defeated in the meantime, and the only enemies left are the Japanese. So once he’s finally done with training, he gets shipped off to the Pacific Theater, on a boat heading for somewhere called “Lorea”. None of the guys know what the heck Lorea is, but they figure their transport ship’s captain knows what he’s doing.
As luck would have it, the Americans drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki barely a week before my Grandpa’s ship landed in what was actually South Korea, a staging area for what would have been the invasion of Japan, had they not surrounded after the Bombs. My Grandpa spends the rest of his time in the service on a boring duty shift in an abandoned factory, and never sees a single bullet fired in anger, thank goodness.
My Grandfather on my Dad’s side was a SeaBee in WWII, I’m pretty sure he was drafted, considering his ‘noteriety’ in Brownsville, TX made for interesting family stories. 🙂
On a comics history-related note, Clark Kent was actually classified 4-F because he accidentally used his X-ray vision to read the eye chart in the wrong examining room. Everyone knew Clark had bad eyesight. Poor Clark had to settle for being a war correspondent.
Of course, that meant Superman was a free actor not limited by the military chain of command and tended to show up in whatever theater of war Clark Kent happened to be covering — Nothing suspicious about THAT.
I suspect that Andy has or will progress beyond “I’m afraid of what might happen if I make all three wishes” to “I’m afraid I’ll lose Ryouyaa if I make all three wishes.” It would not surprise me if Ryouyaa was Melvin’s great-grandmother. It would certainly explain his magical inheritance. Something certainly happened that left her bottle empty.
I was thinking of something along those lines. But, what I was thinking about was how a certain unfilled genie bottle was in the possession of a guy who somehow had the propensity to be changed into a genie. And that bottle sure looks a lot like this bottle doesn’t it?
It was rationed, but not to the point it was difficult to obtain. Both coffee and tea could be brought in from South America which was never in danger of being blockaded from the USA. Rationing in the USA was nuisance, not the problem it was in England.
My mother was about 20 years at the time. Although coffee is kind of addictive, she was still new to coffee drinking, that it didn’t make difference if she drank it or didn’t drink it. So she gave her coffee to her parents which were avid coffee drinker, which helped them out a lot.
What I am getting at is, you could still get it, but, not in balk supplies of it. So offering coffee, would be verily limited. You are right about that.
Another thing that was rationed was bananas, not because Central America was occupied but because a lot of banana boats were requisitioned to serve as tank landing ships for the invasion of North Africa. This had effects that have lasted unto the present day: Twinkies had banana cream fillings before the war.
I always took it as being that he [Guano] was so dense that he didn’t realize what his name meant in English. Kazom seems quite a bit smarter.
I once knew a Russian guy whose last name was Yakov (pronounced, “Jack Off”). Apparently it took him quite a while to figure out why people always smiled so strangely when he introduced himself. I guess they don’t teach American slang in Russian schools.
I think it’s less Guano being dense than him being a snob–as in “I don’t care what it means in your barbaric language–in MY native language it is beautiful!”
I’m surprised that in a comic with TG elements (Jeanie) one of those wish options isn’t to be to the opposite sex. There’s also no other option for the things I would have wished for but oh well.
Kazom is a much better overseer than Guano from the looks of it, I wonder how things would have gone if he’d been the one in charge of Jeanie. For one thing constant interaction may have resulted in him realizing he had to get her over the twin humps of being turned into a girl and being turned into a genie with all those two changes bring along with them BEFORE he could get her started on proper training and wish granting.
Actually, I think he let her go as soon as he found out that Guano was her supervisor, simply because he wanted to annoy Lord Poop-head, and leaving her untrained was the best way to do that.
Replying to Kattgirl’s suggestion that Rouyaa would have to pose as a sister or cousin:
You’re right, living with a man you weren’t related to was a bigger issue in those days, but how big depends on where you were. It wouldn’t be so uncommon in big cities like LA, New York, or Chicago–and since Northwestern is just outside Chicago which had a lot of war industry in WWII, I think it’s a good candidate for where Rouyaa and her master are living now. Probably on the South Side; the North Side (where the richer people live) wouldn’t be bothered much by old and failing radiators.
There’s a lot unanswered here. What about the rest of her master’s family? How would he explain Rouyaa to any girlfriends? Or boyfriends? Did they actually get married, or pretend to be married? Are they White Sox or Cubs fans? Have they met any of the grandparents or great-grandparents of the cast of El Goonish Shive (Remember that Grace made a Cameo in Jeanie #102, in I Dream of a Nerd)
Kazom is not tired?
😮
This is taking place almost 70 years ago. I’m guessing he ended up using most of his magic some time between this scene and the present.
In the Melvin Chronicles, Kazom “retired” from active duty after an incident where he was helping Melvin’s father with some major magical thing several years before the present.
Anyway, Kazom is more “wise mentor” than Guano’s “stubborn manager”.
Simple wishes makes sense actually.
I agree with you, but the problem with Andy and Cid (well, mostly Cid) is that they’re still under the belief that any wish that Andy would make with her will backfire one way or another, whetever she meant it or not. Not that they’re not entirely wrong about it, given past examples. Maybe if Rouyaa and Andy just work out a sound understanding of whatever Andy wishes for, before granting any to minimize possible negative effects. It never hurts to get some consulting done beforehand.
I think you’re largely correct.
One of the problems is, that genies can cause things to happen without actually having any understanding, or even knowledge, of HOW. (This was made clear when Jean made the General Lee disappear, without having any idea of where it was, what was going on, or even that it was a car rather than a person.)
So clearly their magic works, kind of, “on its own”, without any need for close supervision or understanding of the process. They think of something, and, boom, it happens. But of course, that means that the exact details of how a wish gets implemented may be a mystery even to the genie, or at the very least, a surprise.
It could well be that even a simple wish could produce some highly unexpected side effects, unless the genie was extraordinarily careful about specifying how it was to be carried out.
So Sid is probably right to be ultra-cautious. Smart guy.
@Kattgirl: Good points, all.
This is smart on Rouya’s part, as well. She’s investing a bit of time living with the boys while she finds out how their society works, and what sorts of things Andy would actually want to achieve.
By doing no more than working through mundane chores, like doing the dishes and fixing the plumbing, she is serving her master far better than a genie impatient to just get moving.
(Of course, I’m a bit nervous about what the apartment super will find has been done to keep his steam system from making too much noise. I doubt Rouya knows all that much about 1940s steam systems worked.
(And I also wonder what the neighbor’s think about Andy’s live-in girlfriend. Kind of a big deal at the time.)
@50srefugee: Sid and Andy are creative; they probably made up a cover story about how Rouyaa is a sister or a cousin or some such. No instant ID-checking available back then, so it’d be hard to prove otherwise.
Ah, yes, Kazom and before the legendary battle between Guano and Kazom, that transformed Kazom into a cat figure. Which means that sooner or later, we will probably see Melvin’s father, but, it will probably be twenty to thirty year’s from now on the time line.
I am guessing what ever transformed Kazom into a cat figure also wiped out the current Genie of the lamp who is Rouyaa,
I know the battle that Kazom and Mel’s Dad fought together in, but I can’t remember it being confirmed to have been with Guano.
Guano was there too, when what ever happened happened to Kazom. Guano either double cross Kazom or left Kazom high and dry at a critical point of what ever was happening there. Basically, Guano cut and run and left Kazom absorb the hit. That when Kazom got turned into cat form Genie and Melvin Dad died leaving Kazom to look after Melvin and Melvin getting his dad’s book wizard tries and spells.
Anyway, this is the basic story of what happened if you read through the entire story or remember what happened in those previous arc stories and The Melvin Chronicles.
I’ve read through both comics several times since their respective inceptions, but I don’t remember, and cannot find, a strip which places Guano with Kazom and Mel’s Dad while working that big spell. (I might have missed it if it was simply mentioned in passing rather than being portrayed, but I’ve made a pretty good search.)
Seems like Kazom is a more reasonable genie lord.
Say… Is it just me or does Rouyaa look like a younger Ms. Eden? Or am I just hoping for an insane plot twist! Or for her to take a bigger role in all this!
Ms. Eden is blonde, isn’t she? Well, was blonde.
Well, a single ‘poof’ can take care of that.
She was, in another universe. As in the “TV” universe. And true she could have changed it with a poof too. Maybe when she sees how blonde hair become so popular in this country around that time.
And Ms. Eden can’t be around for no reason at all, can she?
Yeah, not like a certain red-turbaned dunghead that loves to shout orders, invade others’ personal space and can’t gain any favour with anyone to save his smoky ass.
Yeah…and he’s got better hair, too. 😉
Could anyone maybe explain what Rouyaa means by her master being a “4F”?
According to wikipedia, the 4-F Classification is as follows:
Registrant not acceptable for military service. To be eligible for Class 4-F, a registrant must have been found not qualified for service in the Armed Forces by a Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) under the established physical, mental, or moral standards.
Other research suggests that it’s a classification primarily given by the draft board to those deemed unfit for combat due to failing their physical exams. This was considered rather embarrassing for young men at the time.
I wonder if that will come into play in this storyline?
Well… you could be considered unfit for a great many reasons, not all of which were necessarily embarrassing. Having flat feet, being over- or under-weight, having a bad back, poor eyesight or hearing, or a number of other physical limitations. But a lot of those who were 4-F did other necessary stateside jobs that didn’t involve fighting, such as producing armaments.
Yes, and Rouyaa says here that he works in a factory, presumably producing something necessary to the war effort.
During a draft, the qualification standards are relaxed somewhat in comparison to peacetime, especially on things such as being overweight or needing eyeglasses (things that will keep him form being combat-ready but still let him do desk jobs such as technician or clerical positions).
My dad would have been 4F (amazingly bad eyes – almost as bad as mine are these days).
But he went by his local draft board (during the war there were local draft boards that covered each ward/precinct in the big cities – Chicago in this case) and volunteered to be drafted, which you could do if you wanted to serve but didn’t have any preferences which service.
The doctors at the local boards were local doctors working a rotation as volunteers. The doctor that day was my dad’s family doctor. He took one look at my dad and said “Clarence, you know you’re 4f.”
Dad said “Doc, I got tossed out of junior college today and I don’t wanna tell Mom; i need and excuse to not go back to school.”
My grandmother was a little first-generation native-born Bohemian lady; about five-foot nothing, and my dad was terrified of her reaction to the news. She had a wooden spoon about two feet long that he was rather more familiar with than he would have liked to be…
The doc went “oh” and gundecked dad’s papers.
He went home, walked in and announced “Hey, ma! I got my draft notice, so…”
And my grandmother said “Yeah. The Dean called.”
OK, now THAT’s a good story! 😉
Cool! Thanks for the neat family story, Fairportfan!
In response, here’s how my grandpa avoided The Battle of the Bulge AND the invasion of Japan (which didn’t happen due to The Bomb) all because he was given toilet duty.
My grandpa was a bit of a cocky guy, always very self-confident. That did him very well in his career as a doctor, but it didn’t exactly endear him to his superior officers during Basic Training. So he ends up mouthing off to a drill sergeant, which gets him a ticket down to hot, muggy, super-uncomfortable Florida for PT Training (how to work the pumps for latrine and stuff). This sounds rather awful, until you realize that while he was down in Florida, his unit got called up early to ship out to The Battle of the Bulge. So by the time he gets back from Florida, he realizes that his entire unit is gone, and his paperwork’s been misplaced, so the Army has no record of the 4 months of combat training he’s already done.
So he gets sent right back to the start of Basic, having to do all of it over again. Thankfully, that takes so long that the Germans get defeated in the meantime, and the only enemies left are the Japanese. So once he’s finally done with training, he gets shipped off to the Pacific Theater, on a boat heading for somewhere called “Lorea”. None of the guys know what the heck Lorea is, but they figure their transport ship’s captain knows what he’s doing.
As luck would have it, the Americans drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki barely a week before my Grandpa’s ship landed in what was actually South Korea, a staging area for what would have been the invasion of Japan, had they not surrounded after the Bombs. My Grandpa spends the rest of his time in the service on a boring duty shift in an abandoned factory, and never sees a single bullet fired in anger, thank goodness.
My Grandfather on my Dad’s side was a SeaBee in WWII, I’m pretty sure he was drafted, considering his ‘noteriety’ in Brownsville, TX made for interesting family stories. 🙂
On a comics history-related note, Clark Kent was actually classified 4-F because he accidentally used his X-ray vision to read the eye chart in the wrong examining room. Everyone knew Clark had bad eyesight. Poor Clark had to settle for being a war correspondent.
Of course, that meant Superman was a free actor not limited by the military chain of command and tended to show up in whatever theater of war Clark Kent happened to be covering — Nothing suspicious about THAT.
I suspect that Andy has or will progress beyond “I’m afraid of what might happen if I make all three wishes” to “I’m afraid I’ll lose Ryouyaa if I make all three wishes.” It would not surprise me if Ryouyaa was Melvin’s great-grandmother. It would certainly explain his magical inheritance. Something certainly happened that left her bottle empty.
Don’t forget Kazom’s obsession with Susan, Melvin’s mother.
I was thinking of something along those lines. But, what I was thinking about was how a certain unfilled genie bottle was in the possession of a guy who somehow had the propensity to be changed into a genie. And that bottle sure looks a lot like this bottle doesn’t it?
Inheritance? Genetic traits? Cosmic Fate?!
Being a cat or in cat form can get you closer to the ladies.
What are they drinking? If I recall right—and not from direct memory ’cause I’m not that old—coffee was rationed and I think tea was, too. Water?
It was rationed, but not to the point it was difficult to obtain. Both coffee and tea could be brought in from South America which was never in danger of being blockaded from the USA. Rationing in the USA was nuisance, not the problem it was in England.
You’d think rationing would really prevent a GENIE from serving tea or coffee?
I’m pretty sure they don’t need to go to the store to buy tea.
My mother was about 20 years at the time. Although coffee is kind of addictive, she was still new to coffee drinking, that it didn’t make difference if she drank it or didn’t drink it. So she gave her coffee to her parents which were avid coffee drinker, which helped them out a lot.
What I am getting at is, you could still get it, but, not in balk supplies of it. So offering coffee, would be verily limited. You are right about that.
Another thing that was rationed was bananas, not because Central America was occupied but because a lot of banana boats were requisitioned to serve as tank landing ships for the invasion of North Africa. This had effects that have lasted unto the present day: Twinkies had banana cream fillings before the war.
I wasn’t aware that Twinkies pre-dated WWII.
Twinkies were created in 1930. So they were around well before WWII. And Tom’s right about the switch to vanilla filling, too.
Woah… Kazom had pecs 😐
I guess, if you have the ability to look like anything you want, you might as well look good.
So explain bat poop please.
Guano has no fashion sense.
I always took it as being that he [Guano] was so dense that he didn’t realize what his name meant in English. Kazom seems quite a bit smarter.
I once knew a Russian guy whose last name was Yakov (pronounced, “Jack Off”). Apparently it took him quite a while to figure out why people always smiled so strangely when he introduced himself. I guess they don’t teach American slang in Russian schools.
I think it’s less Guano being dense than him being a snob–as in “I don’t care what it means in your barbaric language–in MY native language it is beautiful!”
I’m surprised that in a comic with TG elements (Jeanie) one of those wish options isn’t to be to the opposite sex. There’s also no other option for the things I would have wished for but oh well.
Kazom is a much better overseer than Guano from the looks of it, I wonder how things would have gone if he’d been the one in charge of Jeanie. For one thing constant interaction may have resulted in him realizing he had to get her over the twin humps of being turned into a girl and being turned into a genie with all those two changes bring along with them BEFORE he could get her started on proper training and wish granting.
I took “superpower” for that reason: ability to change shape/form/whatever at will.
Remember that Kazom got put in charge of Jeannie’s training, He blew it off, and let her pass just to be done with it.
Actually, I think he let her go as soon as he found out that Guano was her supervisor, simply because he wanted to annoy Lord Poop-head, and leaving her untrained was the best way to do that.
Kazom is sharp. And subtle.
um, where’s the next page?
Replying to Kattgirl’s suggestion that Rouyaa would have to pose as a sister or cousin:
You’re right, living with a man you weren’t related to was a bigger issue in those days, but how big depends on where you were. It wouldn’t be so uncommon in big cities like LA, New York, or Chicago–and since Northwestern is just outside Chicago which had a lot of war industry in WWII, I think it’s a good candidate for where Rouyaa and her master are living now. Probably on the South Side; the North Side (where the richer people live) wouldn’t be bothered much by old and failing radiators.
There’s a lot unanswered here. What about the rest of her master’s family? How would he explain Rouyaa to any girlfriends? Or boyfriends? Did they actually get married, or pretend to be married? Are they White Sox or Cubs fans? Have they met any of the grandparents or great-grandparents of the cast of El Goonish Shive (Remember that Grace made a Cameo in Jeanie #102, in I Dream of a Nerd)
Doubt they were Cubs fans. The Cubbies seem the be on the wrong side of supernatural powers that be. 🙂
Or maybe the Yankees had a genie…