I was Navy and not during wartime, so grain of salt here. It’s not my jargon, after all. I did, however, “have to” watch a lot of war movies since they were what aired a lot on AFN/FEN and that’s the only station the galleys (chow halls) were allowed to have on.
“The front” or “front lines” (plural, yes) are what I recall hearing. I /think/ “front lines” was/would be more for the ground forces that would be in the lines themselves as air assets would naturally deploy from behind the front.
As for why plural than singular — a front line is the forwardmost (toward the enemy) position in the front where combat is ongoing or imminent. Because wars tend to involve multiple units moving in opposition to each other, there are multiple fronts, and thus multiple front lines.
Even disregarding multiple theaters of operation (northern vs southern Europe, Africa, the Pacific) and their consequent multiple front lines, if there’s combat going on in location X where Allied forces are resisting an Axis advance and twenty-to-thirty miles yonder at location Y the Allies’ advance is being contested by the Axis, that’s two separate front lines.
That’s EXACTLY what people were warned not to do during the War.
Someone wrote his mother that he’d be shipping out.
Mom gossiped in her sewing circle.
The local paper printed a small notice.
A Nazi submarine torpedoed the troopship.
What you both say is true. But there’s a few thing you should be aware.
1) Sid’s only telling them that he’s going. There’s no details on when/where/how or why. General information of “I’m going to Europe to fight in the war” was never really considered secret information.
2) Sid’s going from the USA to England (ally to ally). To civies in the states (like Andy) anywhere in Europe would be ‘the front’ to Brits and those IN the war, the front was more in occupied countries.
3) Censors generally checked and filtered letter to and from the war. Not mail state to state (as far as I know).
4) This is fiction. I have no knowledge of actual support deployments to Europe from the states, and I doubt there’s World War 2 Nazi’s time traveling to read my comic for war intel.
5) In order to progress the storyline, I kind of needed to let Andy know this piece of information, and this was the only reasonable way I could figure to do it, since Sid is in California and Andy is in Chicago.
6) HEY! LOOK AT THE FLYING ELEPHANT! *Runs away*
That is a good explanation about Sid’s letter. It’s all general information with no exact places or times. It doesn’t even mention what kind of aircraft he will be flying or how many are in his unit. All in all, this is just a “I am going soon, please don’t worry too much” kind of notice.
That’s the general idea. Originally I was going to have Andy read the letter word for word… But 2 things stopped me.. I want to keep it vague, AND it took up too much room in the panel.
According to Wikipedia, his real life counterpart’s unit was disbanded before it saw action. Are Genie related hijinks around an Army Air Corps unit about to be afoot?
I can only imagine how awkward that whole situation must be, with this lady grabbing on your arm, calling you master, and you doing as much as you can to never request anything of her.
The only reason the conversation can even remotely flow as normal is because it’s been going on like this for years at this point.
Well in 375 they said they were in the middle of the depression. So say 35′ or 36′ with the war on the earliest it could be would be 42′. So 5 years more or less.
If you look at the clues, you can narrow down the dates much more.
For the current time period, you have to go back to comic 376. Where there’s a radio broadcast. If you check the WW2 radio listing in the playlist under the comic, you’ll find out the exact date when that broadcast is from .
The depression timeframe is a little harder to figure out… But it’s a safe bet, that if you are in the middle of a depression, you don’t know when it’s going to end.. (Unless your a time traveler). If you figure out whom Sid’s character is based off then you can check Wikipedia for real person’s age and figure out the time frame from that plus the fact Andy and Sid are getting ready to go to Northwestern College … Should give you a good ball park of WHEN the bottle was found.
You can also us Rouyaa’s former master (before Andy) whom she mentions in 373 and add the amount of time she’s been trapped in the bottle for.
Hmm, You don’t suppose his commanding officer is Colonel Robert Hogan.
Who iz dis man?
I think panel 4 might have a error, ‘be’ should be before ‘shipping’.
Also, it really should be “front lines” (plural). Although I think that typically is more said of ground troops than pilots.
Ugh… the original error that I fixed on the “front line” line distracted me from noticing the “be” error in his earlier bubble.
Also, I’ve personally never heard “front lines” before. And a cursory google search seems to indicate that “front line” is the correct term.
I was Navy and not during wartime, so grain of salt here. It’s not my jargon, after all. I did, however, “have to” watch a lot of war movies since they were what aired a lot on AFN/FEN and that’s the only station the galleys (chow halls) were allowed to have on.
“The front” or “front lines” (plural, yes) are what I recall hearing. I /think/ “front lines” was/would be more for the ground forces that would be in the lines themselves as air assets would naturally deploy from behind the front.
As for why plural than singular — a front line is the forwardmost (toward the enemy) position in the front where combat is ongoing or imminent. Because wars tend to involve multiple units moving in opposition to each other, there are multiple fronts, and thus multiple front lines.
Even disregarding multiple theaters of operation (northern vs southern Europe, Africa, the Pacific) and their consequent multiple front lines, if there’s combat going on in location X where Allied forces are resisting an Axis advance and twenty-to-thirty miles yonder at location Y the Allies’ advance is being contested by the Axis, that’s two separate front lines.
That’s EXACTLY what people were warned not to do during the War.
Someone wrote his mother that he’d be shipping out.
Mom gossiped in her sewing circle.
The local paper printed a small notice.
A Nazi submarine torpedoed the troopship.
It’s called OPSEC (Operational Security) Little bits of information that when put together can blow the whole thing.
What you both say is true. But there’s a few thing you should be aware.
1) Sid’s only telling them that he’s going. There’s no details on when/where/how or why. General information of “I’m going to Europe to fight in the war” was never really considered secret information.
2) Sid’s going from the USA to England (ally to ally). To civies in the states (like Andy) anywhere in Europe would be ‘the front’ to Brits and those IN the war, the front was more in occupied countries.
3) Censors generally checked and filtered letter to and from the war. Not mail state to state (as far as I know).
4) This is fiction. I have no knowledge of actual support deployments to Europe from the states, and I doubt there’s World War 2 Nazi’s time traveling to read my comic for war intel.
5) In order to progress the storyline, I kind of needed to let Andy know this piece of information, and this was the only reasonable way I could figure to do it, since Sid is in California and Andy is in Chicago.
6) HEY! LOOK AT THE FLYING ELEPHANT! *Runs away*
#4) Re: this — a new spin-off needs to happen. Put Agent Anderson in charge of going after them.
You want to create a spin off… go for it. BTW, I heard threw the grapevines that The Melvin Chronicles will be updating soon.
Working as a pilot, or working on a pilot?
Heh, clever wordplay. 🙂
I like how she’s cuddled up on him. More proof to me that she’s a good one
Too bad she fixed the radiator. Then she’d have a good reason too.
That is a good explanation about Sid’s letter. It’s all general information with no exact places or times. It doesn’t even mention what kind of aircraft he will be flying or how many are in his unit. All in all, this is just a “I am going soon, please don’t worry too much” kind of notice.
That’s the general idea. Originally I was going to have Andy read the letter word for word… But 2 things stopped me.. I want to keep it vague, AND it took up too much room in the panel.
Rougaa seems distracted. Thinking of her half sister I guess.
I was thinking she was showing worry/concern for Sid. She seems rather glum on hearing about him shipping out to the front. Just my interpretation.
According to Wikipedia, his real life counterpart’s unit was disbanded before it saw action. Are Genie related hijinks around an Army Air Corps unit about to be afoot?
I can only imagine how awkward that whole situation must be, with this lady grabbing on your arm, calling you master, and you doing as much as you can to never request anything of her.
The only reason the conversation can even remotely flow as normal is because it’s been going on like this for years at this point.
Well in 375 they said they were in the middle of the depression. So say 35′ or 36′ with the war on the earliest it could be would be 42′. So 5 years more or less.
If you look at the clues, you can narrow down the dates much more.
For the current time period, you have to go back to comic 376. Where there’s a radio broadcast. If you check the WW2 radio listing in the playlist under the comic, you’ll find out the exact date when that broadcast is from .
The depression timeframe is a little harder to figure out… But it’s a safe bet, that if you are in the middle of a depression, you don’t know when it’s going to end.. (Unless your a time traveler). If you figure out whom Sid’s character is based off then you can check Wikipedia for real person’s age and figure out the time frame from that plus the fact Andy and Sid are getting ready to go to Northwestern College … Should give you a good ball park of WHEN the bottle was found.
You can also us Rouyaa’s former master (before Andy) whom she mentions in 373 and add the amount of time she’s been trapped in the bottle for.
“I wish Sid’d be safe.” Poof.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Sid, how’d I get here?”
“You wished Sid would be safe master, girls don’t serve on the front line.”
Hahaha! This would absolutely be effective.