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No. 854: Out of Sync

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Out of Sync

First | Previous | 2019-08-26 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/owls/?comic=854

Strip by: Wibi

{Lightning Made of Owls title card}
{Ambrose and Holly are standing next to a time machine}
Ambrose: Oh dear - five minutes ago, we put the mayor of Lighton in the time machine, and set it to carry him five minutes into the future. He still hasn't arrived! I suspect he's five whole minutes out of sync!
Holly: Um, Doctor...
{Close-up on Holly}
Holly: Even if he were going into the future an extra second per second, he would have had to stop here first. So we would've seen the time machine briefly light up with activity. It's more probable you punched the amount of minutes in wrong. Perhaps you set it to 50 minutes?
Ambrose: {peeved} Oh dear - despite my lecturing her ten minutes ago about backsassing the professor, Holly continues to rebut my sound hypotheses! I suspect her hearing is ten whole minutes out of sync!
{Holly trudges away, annoyed}

The author writes:

Try as I might, I cannot comprehend how objects or people in fiction can be "out of sync" with the current time without just being dropped off later or earlier in time, like time machines regularly do, or being transplanted into another timeline entirely. This comic was born from a lot of musing upon how that could possibly work. I don't think it could.

The title card here uses the fonts "CODON", "Colophon", and "Real Bttsoief" by Tom Murphy VII, the license for which can be found here. Other fonts were pre-included with Windows.