Once there was a father, mother, and a baby. But a few seconds later, the world was ending, so for the baby’s safety they put him in a volcano. The volcano exploded, sending the baby to Earth 2, where whales took him in. He got older and became Super Kid.
In the post, Bill highlighted the panel that says “where whales took him in,” which shows the baby and two whales. Using the whales to get a sense of scale, we can see that’s one really big baby.
Today, October 11, I was going through some books at my school and found a tall tale about Alfred Bulltop Stormalong, who is a sort of nautical Paul Bunyan. On the first page, a giant baby from parts unknown washes up on a beach in New England (the New World, cf. Earth Two) and is adopted by a normal-sized family. Then on page two we get this:
There he is with two whales. The whales aren’t the ones who took him in, and he isn’t a baby in the picture, but the text on the page calls him “the baby” and references his being taken in by a family. I thought it was a pretty impressive parallel.
Did Stormalong’s story begin with his real parents putting him in a volcano “for his safety”? I guess that would make as much sense as anything else.
1 comment:
That's funny. And hey, maybe Alfred's original tale was that he was in fact taken in and raised by whales/ wales, but early storytellers couldn't believe such a fantastical tale, and so they changed it to humans as raising him, and the whales relegated to pets (which is much more believable, obviously).
That name is pretty interesting, you have to admit. For example, beyond Alfred having to do with Elves and counsel related to them, we have Bulltop as a potential reference to a Stone. "Bull", besides referring to a bovine, can refer to both a highest document or edict issued by the Pope (Papal Bull), as well as any "sealed document". In addition, the same Latin word that gives us Bull (Bulla) means "Ball, Round Thing" (the French Boule), which originally referred to the actual seal applied to the document. It is where the word "Bullet" comes from, for example - literally, "Small Ball".
So, with Bull you have a sealed document and a ball. Top can mean highest or exalted, which works well, but you also have "Head, Crown of the Head", and this makes Balltop a really interesting name to see here with Alfred.
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