11Nov/1117
Sail
by Jeff
Image text: It only works a few times before you have to capsize the boat in a soap lagoon again.
In this comic, over the first 3 frames, it seems like Cueball is piloting a normal sailboat. However, in frames 4-6, it becomes obvious, that Cueball is actually using bubble solution for his sail instead. When the sail gets enough wind, it creates its own bubble.
As the image text says, you have to submerge the boat in soap again to get enough soap on the sail to blow bubbles again.
November 11th, 2011
This is a great example of a comic that takes full advantage of its medium and its ‘limitations’ (minimalist black and white line drawings), I don’t think it’d work in another medium or style.
November 11th, 2011
Seems to be the same kind of joke on the comic medium itself as we saw in “Juggling”: http://xkcd.com/942/
November 11th, 2011
Since he’s scratching his head in Frame 6, my guess is that he’s baffled as to why this happened, and it is not intentional.
November 11th, 2011
I thought it looked more like he was wiping the sweat off his head after fighting the wind and pulling the rope to hold the sail while the bubble formed and released. Like he just sat down to relax now that the gust of wind had passed. But I kinda like your thought on it too. Did not see it that way
November 11th, 2011
He could also be nursing a goose egg after having the boom smack him in the head as he slipped and fell…or he smacked his head on the side of the boat or tiller or something. He’s definitely off-balance in frame 5.
Which does bring up an interesting question: how does the force exerted by the sail change as the bubble detaches and flies off? If the sail-bubble were to burst and disappear, the force would of course be rather abruptly gone; but since it reformed, and the film was never actually perforated, I wouldn’t expect too sudden of a change.
November 11th, 2011
I also thought he was wiping the sweat from his brow. But scratching his head does make since, especially considering Buggz’s comment above; Cueball clearly does not understand that he lives in a hand-drawn stick figure universe.
November 11th, 2011
*sense. We really need an edit button on these comments
November 11th, 2011
Note that any soap bubble would try to minimize the surface tension, so it should quickly assume a spherical shape, distorted only by any outside forces acting on it like a wind. Perhaps Cueball is baffled as to why the soap bubble has formed such a physically improbable shape as it floats up into the air
November 11th, 2011
It looks more spherical in the last frame than the one before it. It is quite big though, so the wind would probably bend it quite a lot while it drifts through the air.
November 11th, 2011
Obviously it’s windy, or the bubble wouldn’t have formed in the first place. Plus the bubble just released itself from the triangular sail frame.
Cueball should be baffled only if the bubble didn’t assume some non-spherical shape.
Every make a large bubble with one of those “monster bubble makers”? They’re never a sphere.
http://www.carinagardner.com/2011/04/page/2/
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3113/2735799451_8236746ffb_z.jpg?zz=1
November 11th, 2011
There are multiple elements involved besides minimizing surface tension. When a bubble “tube” collapses to form a bubble, the moving wall that collapsed has a certain amount of kinetic energy that makes the bubble shape wobble back and forth a bit before stabilizing. In addition, with large bubbles, wind eddy currents play a big factor in their shape.
November 14th, 2011
The soap wall has kinetic energy, … or the air that it contains?
November 14th, 2011
Good point. Both, I’d think. I suppose the soap wall helps provide the acceleration, but most of the momentum is in the moving air. I’m not a physicist.
November 11th, 2011
Actually, see the object form from the sail, I didn’t think of soap bubble, but instead thought the sail was demonstrating the “fission model” of the moon’s origin (http://www.es.ucl.ac.uk/research/planetary/undergraduate/bugiolacchi/moonf.htm scroll down)
November 11th, 2011
I also imagined the sail was reproducing like an amoeba until I read the image text.
November 12th, 2011
It looked to me the first time through as though Cueball had a sail that was too big and he formed the bubble deliberately to reduce the size of the sail.
There certainly seems to me to be a reduction in size. No-one else seems to have noticed.
However, reading the other comments and looking at the strip again, I’m now inclined to think that it wasn’t intentional and Cueball is surprised or bemused by the developments.
I do imagine that if the bubbles continued to form eventually the sail would reduce to no size and Cueball would be wise to ensure he’s near the soap bubble lagoon at that time.
November 14th, 2011
I dont think there is a reduction of size. The last frame is just zoomed out a bit. The booms lenth compared to the boat and the angle it makes with eehm the upper boom(?) looks more or less the same.