EDIT: So apparently I completely missed the commentary thing there at the bottom saying "if you take the I-90 to Boston anyway", so please enjoy the review thingy in the context of me blatantly missing a key part of the comic.
This thing is totally not a legitimate criticism, it's entirely a nitpick and nothing else, but I think it's fun. EDIT: FUN TO NOT HAVE A SINGLE PERSON PROOFREAD MY POSTS
Questionable Content canonically takes place in Northampton, Massachusetts. By using FreeMapTools.com's "Radius Around Point" tool, we can see that 106 miles from Northampton is well past the coastline. The radius line actually extends through most of Long Island Sound and part of Long Island proper to the Atlantic Ocean. Even if we say that Long Island Sound isn't really the ocean (I wouldn't), 106 miles still puts us 20 miles deep into the Massachusetts Bay. EDIT: UNLESS, LIKE JEPH JACQUES, YOU FACTOR IN ROADS AND SHIT.
There are a few different explanations for this, and I'll go from least to most interesting. EDIT: ALL OF WHICH MAKE FAIL TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE EXPLANATION THE COMIC STRAIGHT UP GIVES US.
(Option zero is that Hannelore was just misinformed or Jeph Jacques just picked a right-sounding number or something etc. Boring!)
Option one is that Hannelore, normally fastidious and precise as we saw a few comics ago, is thrown off her game by Tilly. This is possibly the first sign of the long-foreshadowed breakdown. EDIT: OR A SIGN OF MY HAVING ZERO READING ABILITY
If we assume Hannelore is correct, we can put this together with the fact that Questionable Content takes place in a fictionalized version of our world (yknow, with the robots and all). So option two is that the Earth's continents are differently shaped on QC!Earth. This could mean slightly different cultures, which would have resulted from the differently placed hunter-gatherer societies that tended to cluster near water during early societal development. We can perhaps assume that this is what has led to the other changes in Questionable Content, such as the further scientific advancement and the general embracing of progressivism and all that good stuff. EDIT: OR THE EARTH IS THE SAME AND JEPH HAS A GENERAL EMBRACING OF KNOWING HOW TO USE MAPS.
Option three (and here's where it gets fun) is that in the universe of Questionable Content, science is so advanced that humans have been able to reverse the effects of global warming, resulting in the ocean levels actually going down as the water goes back into the ice caps. This would expand the continents. How hard can it be when we have functional brain-scanning, AI, holograms, and high level space stations? (also anyone who's planning on correcting me on how global warming works: physics are also different in QC its just not explicitly stated so there) EDIT: IN OUR CURRENT WORLD WE HAVE GOOGLE MAPS, AN AMAZING TECHNOLOGY I FORGOT EXISTED.
Option four: Hannelore's dad is a mad scientist who does the evil laugh thing and goes off his medication. He has a space station, with lasers in it. Her mom is an evil controlling businesswoman lady person. If we put these two things together, is it unreasonable to assume that a giant space laser vaporized part of the ocean, or a giant machine terraformed the land? Is that not what would automatically happen as a result of evil business combining with mad science? EDIT: IF YOU COMBINE PRETENSION WITH NO READING SKILLS, YOU GET THIS REVIEW.
Option five: Consider, for a moment, politics. The average American, in my experience, does not talk about international conflicts* a lot. (And I live in Rhode Island! That's the world capital of angry, ineffective politics!) We have in-comic confirmation that wars are being fought in QC land, but not a lot about discussion about who's fighting who. Could a war be being fought on American soil that just happens to not be talked about since everyone's used to it? If we consider this, with the implication that some kind of bomb has been dropped near or off the coast of New York, (causing the new coastline) Questionable Content suddenly gets good! The boring slice of life 'happy relationship and nothing else' stuff is people desperately seeking meaning and intimacy in perilous times. The forced wacky humor is forced wacky humor because there is no real humor because of WAR. In every Questionable Content from now on, put a big ol' 'threat of war' filter over the entire thing. EDIT: IN EVERY REVIEW I WRITE FROM NOW ON, PUT A BIG OL' 'CAN'T FUCKIN READ' OVER THE ENTIRE THING.
Also, I know Jeph wouldn't read past the title of this blog (and really, can you blame him?) but wouldn't it be hilarious if in a week there was an offhand dialogue like "It's neat how we all moved to another city named Northampton (which is exactly 106 miles away from the shore) all at once and just didn't talk about it"? just to spite me? EDIT: YKNOW WHAT WOULD BE EVEN FUNNIER? IF HE OFFHANDEDLY EXPLAINED MY CONFUSION IN THE COMIC I WAS TALKING ABOUT.
Also also, it's been a whole week since the phrase "Now what am I going to do with you?" was used by a taller character talking directly to a shorter character. From what I can tell, not one person has used this as the basis for rule34 of any sort. It's criminal, I tell you, criminal! EDIT: MUCH LIKE FAILING TO READ THE FUCKING COMIC WHEN REVIEWING IT.
*(numbers at time of writing for America are 7 direct interventions with ~800 bases in other countries, just if you were wondering) EDIT: NUMBERS FOR THIS BLOG AT TIME OF WRITING ARE ZERO GOOD REVIEWS WITH AT MOST SEVEN UNIMPRESSED FANS THANKS AND GOD BLESS.
