Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad

Publication Date: October 2, 2010

Chapter: Random Literature

In case you couldn't tell, the gentlemen in this comic are incredibly English.

I'm not entirely sure, in many cases, what to make of the stories I'm asked to draw comics about. Do readers love them? Do readers hate them? Is it okay for me to not like them? It's hard to say. But I'll never forget the Day of Pern, in which I got berated for not giving "Dragonflight" a fair shake. In any event, I can't say I cared for today's story very much either, though I don't hate it so much as I'm incredibly apathetic towards it.

Essentially, a professor finds an ancient whistle, blows it, and then scary wind attacks his room. Then the professor plays golf. A lot. The night after the scary wind appeared, the professor discovers that he isn't alone in his room - apparently, the scary wind has possessed the sheets of an extra bed. The climax of the book finds the professor running in fear from floating linen, until a military colonel bursts into the room and scares the sheet away. I'm seriously not making any of this up. None of it is terribly exciting, though it is pretty funny if you're like me and start mocking everything you read.

Something occured to me, though, while reading this story: what's the deal with England in the early 1900s and golf? I've done nine of these bonus strips so far, and two of them have taken place on an English golf course. Honestly, what're the odds of that? Were the British just particularly taken with the links around the turn of the century? Did golf courses just strike writers as mysterious and frightening places? Whatever the case may be, horror always seems to lurk on the fairway.

Now then, I'd somehow forgotten that I still have premium strips to draw, which is kind of embarrassing since I have a lot of them queued up from friends, not just readers. Attempts will be made to rectify this backlog, starting with a rather epic string of them that'll begin on Friday. I'll talk more about that in the coming week.

Author: M. R. James • Year: 1904 • Info: Wikipedia

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About The Comic

Lit Brick is a comic started by Jodie Troutman in an effort to read the entire Norton Anthology of English Literature. Having eventually succeeded in that goal, it now features comics about all manner of random literature. For more of Jodie's work, visit longtalljodie.com!