trochee

On a somewhat lighter and less personal note than some of my recent entries, I want to pass on a recommendation I discovered via

scans_daily, the Digger comic. (I posted this on del.icio.us yesterday, so read on if you've seen it and don't care.)

I am totally charmed by this comic. It owes a lot to Jeff Smith's Bone, and shares much of its sensibility; in particular, its completely infectious blending of informative, silly, and beautiful. Digger, a wombat, gets lost in a "magic hole", and comes up under a statue of Ganesh, with whom he she [see ETA below] has a metaphysical conversation and then decides to move on.

He She spends the night in an abandoned cave, but when the cave's proper owner shows up (and tries to eat ~~him~~ her) he she winds up making friends in a somewhat unlikely way. Where I am right now, Digger is granting "It" a name. Best dialogue ever:

Digger: Err. Is there something I can call you then?
It: It.
Digger, arms folded: Look, I can't call you "It". It'd play havoc with the pronouns. Can I -- I dunno, give you a nickname or something?
It: A name? Digger-mousie can do this?
Digger: Sure, why not? Um, uh, I'm not good with names. My pet mole was "Mr. Mole" and my fish was "Mr. Fishy." Uh... How about "Ed?"

I might also add that the commentary on each page is also fun; each one is like a blog-entry about the lives of the story teller. From the page linked above:

Like Digger, I am terrible with names. .... (As a small child, I had a goldfish named "And Justice For All" and I think that expended all my naming energy in one fell swoop.)
If I do manage to come up with a scheme, however, I stick to it, which is why my cats are named after gods--Loki and Athena, who are, respectively, absolutely straightforward and affectionate, and dumber than dirt. I learned my lesson. I will name my next cat "Satan" or "Marduk" or something, thereby ensuring a kind, gentle beast who treats my upholstry like a shrine.

I really hope that she keeps up with this quality through the whole thing.

Another lovely linguistics nod to overeducated knowledge geeks in the dialogue:
Digger, to Librarian:Ya got any dwarf maps?
Librarian: Dwarvish maps? God, yes. Every traveller for six centuries brought one back as a cheap souvenir of the Mysterious West. They're all in Dwarvish, of course.
Digger: Er. Do you speak Dwarvish?
Librarian: After a fashion. I can't do the clicks, mind you.

ETA I just finished the first volume of it and I had a lovely Delaney-reading-Starship Troopers moment realizing that Digger is female -- and there's no reason she shouldn't be. Awesome.