Well…at least Laura is there to help them. She’s going to help them….right?
Linktacular!
Back Office
In a Call-Center…no one can hear you scream…
Well…at least Laura is there to help them. She’s going to help them….right?
So they quite possibly were on a ship when we tried to interpret “Have we reached Iceland already?” a while ago! Or, not, since Sam should probably recognize the ship and be a bit more definitive in her statement about it if that was the case. Also, didn’t they flee that place by means of time-travelling car, on a road? My memory is… fuzzy.
You’re right, they did leave the City by car. Laura’s palace was in the City and not on a boat 🙂
Thanks 🙂
Just to confuse things further, I make a point of never saying what city Back Office is actually set in. All we know for sure is that it’s not in Iceland.
I do this on purpose to allow as many people as possible to relate to the characters without declaring outright that the comic is set in Europe or North America, or anywhere else.
Well, they didn’t sleep on the cruise ship, so the city is less than one day on a cruise ship from this somewhat tropical island, that constrains it quite a lot. And you may have established on which side of the road they drive their cars. I’m not sure if you’ve accidentally referred to whether the sun is in the south or in the north yet. The country does not have a ban on nudity in advertising, at least not a strict one. There may also be evidence that they are indeed speaking English, that we’re not watching a translated version here… of course, all this may only be apparent to a reader actively trying to figure it out 😀
I don’t relate to or identify with either fictional characters or real people based on where they live. I do that based on whether their experiences and/or situations are closely related to mine somehow – or if how they react to and deal with what they’re faced with is somehow closely related to how I do it. This makes it so that I can understand them, share their pain and joy, and learn from their mistakes. Maybe give them some advice. Cultural differences do make such similarities fewer and farther between, but in this now very connected world there is more and more that we share, less and less that makes us different.
Could someone end up naked on a billboard against their will where I live? Not really, but semi-naked I guess, if advertising lingerie or something to do with baths. Visibly drunk, on a billboard? Nope, not going to happen, maaaaybe if advertising a hangover cure. And a company that purposefully gets their employees drunk in order to make them do things like that would likely be breaking some laws. This makes a difference in whether we can relate to the story.
On the other hand, that story can be read as being about Karen letting the same bad thing happen to her a second time, with even worse results than the first. I can relate to that, deeply, easily.
Where the story is placed specifically does not matter. What happens in the story matters a little. What the characters do, how they act, how they learn and grow – that matters a LOT. There are stories set in space that are greatly relatable.
@O8h7w: Oooo, you’ve been paying attention to the location cues…very nice 😛
I know that in this day and age if I had specifically set Back Office in the America or somewhere in Europe it wouldn’t matter too much. Case in point I think people still relate to the girls over in Bata Neart, even if they’ve never been to Ireland or know much about life there. I suppose the main reason Back Office is set in a generic city is to give me the freedom to mess about with the setting at will.
With regards nudity in advertising. I’m also up here in Scandinavia, and you might actually get this degree of nudity in an advert. It doesn’t happen a lot, but you do get it sometimes. I know I’ve seen some on adverts in Germany.