Panel by Panel: Something Got Your Goat?

The Irredeemable Shagg crosses the border to be a guest on FW Presents Panel by Panel, the show that dissects a single comic book panel from the last 85 years of comics history every episode. Siskoid, Bass and Shotgun meet him in St. Andrew-By-The-Sea for food, spooky hotel tours, whale-watching, and just a little bit of podcasting. Oh and there's animal sacrifice involved. It's not just the featured panel from Grant Morrison's The Invisibles. Listen to find out how.

All relevant images in the Panel by Panel Supplemental.

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Leave us a comment, we'll read it between the panels!

19 responses to “Panel by Panel: Something Got Your Goat?

  1. Well…this was disturbing. Not the panel, but Shag in Canada. I apologize for all of the U.S.A.

    Seriously, the panel is disturbing. And that curved blade is usually called a scythe, or a sickle.

    I want a new podcast/radio drama called “Siskoid’s Paranormal Investigations”. They are each about 2 minutes long, and consist of an intro, and Siskoid walking into a house and saying “This place isn’t haunted”. Cut to end credits.

    Nice stinger at the end!

    Chris

  2. Fun episode as ever! That goat panel is so sad, no kidding. The link with the last episode is that it wound up in a Caribbean curry in Ben Grimm’s fridge.

    Hey, I was in Canada but met no one. I’m in Canada again next September, I demand a repeat!

  3. I’m sorry to be “that guy”, but I object to the notion that if animal sacrifice is involved, then it’s evil. Animal sacrifice is part of all Heathen High Holy Days, but the vast majority are votive, or representational. All of the ones that I have attended have had a cake, baked in the shape of a pig, sacrificed. There are a couple of reasons for this:

    1. Whatever sacrifice that is to be used has to be raised in luxury, doted on and never wanting for anything.

    2. The sacrifice must be killed quickly and without undo suffering, so the person doing it has to be skilled.

    All of this is because the sacrifice is to take the messages from the assembled worshipers to the gods, and you don’t want a bitter messenger. The meat from said sacrifice would then be cooked and eaten by the worshipers, with any leftovers being burned as an offering to the gods.

    Since I was never involved with any farmers, I’ve never attended a ritual where an actual animal was sacrificed, but I still see it as community building and, overall, good. There are evil and torturous sacrifices to be sure, but please don’t make the assumption that ALL animal sacrifice is evil.

    Now can someone help me down off of this high horse? 😉

    1. PANEL BY PANEL IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY.

      I very much doubt our 19-year-old selves were doing anything but “playing” and “talking through their asses”. Likewise, there’s no way that feather caused any problem in anyone’s life afterwards. We all did it to ourselves.

      1. That isn’t what I was reacting to. Pretty much everyone on the panel said something along the lines of, “They’re sacrificing a goat, so they must be evil.” I’m not offended or anything, it’s just the whole “Animal Sacrifice = Evil” thing can get under my skin a bit.

        1. It’s The Invisibles. Without looking, it seems to me they’re calling SOMEthing, but it wasn’t a book about Good and Evil, more like between Order and Chaos, or between Old Cycle and New Cycle.

  4. Another entertaining episode! Just wanted to ask a quick question about what may or may not constitute a single panel…what happens if the randomizer pulls up a page and panel where a word balloon or caption overlaps two panels? Do you count both frames as a single panel, or do you cut off the captions in mid-word and let the guests try to figure out what the rest of it says? Or will you leave the caption/balloon intact and just block out the image of the extra panel?

  5. I see the red-orange-brown rocky texture, and somebody’s (or someTHING’s) meat as links, but what sticks out to me is the off-panel speaker. In the Thing panel they are off almost accidentally. We can’t put any of the names to a face, but it’s not a mystery. The Invisibles panel we don’t know if Edith, the other “she,” or the speaker are -or were- present at this event I expect we’ll need the words and pictures of several panels to piece together the context.

  6. This reminds me of the infamous Senate (U.S.) Investigation of comic books. William Gaines, publisher of E.C. Comics, was asked if a particular cover was in “good taste.” (The cover of “Crime Suspense Stories”, shows a person, from the chest down, holding a stained ax in the right hand, and the left hand, the head of a blonde woman by the hair. Beneath the ax, in the background the legs of a person lying on the floor are visible.)
    Gaines did not acquit himself well with his rambling answer. I’ve long imagined a better answer. “Senator, do you imagine that the head being held belongs to the body on the floor? There is nothing in that drawing that indicates that. Why would you think that the head is not still attached to its body? Is that how you think? The ax is covered is something black and drippy. What makes you think that it is blood? You are drawing these ideas through inference.”
    This panel is similar. A black crescent is not positively a blade. An expanding flow of reddish orange cannot be blood. the origin of the flow may, or may not, be the throat of the goat. The drawing doesn’t definitively show it. It’s up to the reader to infer the meaning. I can sense of the caption. “Edith being dead…” As there is no comma after Edith, then Edith is not being addressed. Edith is the subject. “Being dead” is a contradiction. If one is dead, one is NOT being. Does “Edith being dead” bring new life? Is “Edith being dead” like springtime?
    Based on this one panel, my conclusion is coherence and clarity and among “The Invisibles.”

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