Good morning everyone,
I have returned from summer vacation! My family and I flew to the United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland in June. First, we rented a car and drove around Great Britain from London, England, to Edinburgh, Scotland, then over to Cardiff, Wales. Lastly, we hopped on a cheap flight over to the emerald isle and traveled across Ireland and Northern Ireland. It was a fun if busy trip.
Along the way we experienced the nuances between distinct versions of the English language. This manifested in understandable but noticeable differences such as a preference for “booking” (when setting aside a table at a restaurant) in the UK when “reservation” is favored in the USA.
Overthinker that I am, I wondered which word to use. At first glance the choice should be obvious, when in the UK request a booking, not a reservation. But wait! The maître d’ could tell that I was American based on my accent. Additionally, they probably had at least some familiarity with North American terminology due to the prominence of the USA on the world stage and their job in a restaurant which serves American tourists. Therefore, would it be insulting if I naively assume that I should use the UK term when the maître d’ is already familiar with its American equivalent? Is it patronizing if I say booking when reservation would be understood? Would the implication be that I did not think the English restaurant worker was smart enough to understand American?
Most of the vocabulary differences were minor. Although, if “torch” means flashlight what do they call an actual torch, a stick that is lit on fire? Are those labeled “burning torches”? Additionally, I had never seen “goujon” before so my interest was piqued seeing “chicken goujon” and “fish goujon” on a dinner menu in Mallow, Ireland. For what it’s worth, translating into words used by a small-town Alaskan man, chicken goujon means chicken fingers.
Think I also perturbed an Irish waiter by raising my hand to get his attention. I was proud of myself for not saying「すみません」(Japanese for excuse me). Proving myself to be “no craic” (no fun) will be added to the ever-growing number of offenses which plague my conscience when I try to sleep at night. Put it on the list right along with that time during a previous vacation when an airport official asked me a question and I replied はい (Japanese for yes, sounds like English “Hi”). That felt like an appropriate response, to my addled mind at least, because even my English-speaking friends sprinkle in a few Japanese words into their everyday conversations. However, from the other person’s perspective it came across like asking someone “Are you an American citizen?” and they reply with “Hi.” Sigh. “Why yes, I do speak English. Why do you ask?“
On a more positive note we met a lot of friendly and helpful people. Many were curious about our background and wanted to hear our opinion about their home countries. (SIDE NOTE: Many of the towns and villages were lovely places where I wouldn’t mind setting up a retirement home, say off the Cliffs of Moher, if only someone would spot me $1 million Euros.)
Additionally, I picked up two issues of 2000 AD Featuring Judge Dredd, but sadly was unable to secure a physical copy of the helmeted lawman’s brief encounter with a 50-foot woman. For those who don’t know, Judge Dredd is a British creation. A comic book character who lives in a dystopian city called Mega-City One in America’s future. (SIDE NOTE: My understanding is that Dredd’s stories take place 122 years after publication date. Accordingly, his first adventure published in 1977 was set in 2099 so his 2024 stories should be set in 2146.)
To give a few recommendations, I first want to plug the Sandeman tours. Those are walking tours whose English and Spanish-speaking guides are paid by donations. I’ve done Sandeman in other cities, but this was my first in the UK. Our Edinburgh guide mentioned the Salt Horse craft beer restaurant and I quite enjoyed their PB&J burger and Our Good Friends IPA, from the Newbarns brewery. So check out Salt Horse and Sandeman if you’re lucky enough to visit the “Athens of the North.”
Regarding rental cars, cramped parking lots were the norm so if you plan to get a car then a small model may work best. It was stressful to navigate tight parking lanes framed by massive concrete pillars eagerly waiting to dent or scratch vehicles and consequently saddle victims with hefty repair bills.
Lastly, and this may fit under the heading of Boomer complaints, but it was sometimes difficult to pay for parking. Unsophisticated man that I am, I had hopes of simply walking up to an attendant or machine and handing them local currency to pay for parking.
Oh sweet summer child, what a naive country hick am I! You do not simply give pounds to a desk clerk to earn the privilege of temporarily leaving a vehicle on site. Instead, you must don a large fedora and overcoat then visit a certain city park at a preordained time. Once there you covertly slide a few bills under an oval-shaped rock near the central duck pond. Then you must coo twice like a dove and leave before the law enforcement authorities get wind of the transaction.
Alright, bit of an exaggeration there, in truth what I had to do was log onto a web site. The hotel clerks were unable to accept money for the parking lot used for hotel customers. Nor was there a (working) machine in the lobby to accept cash or credit card. Instead, the parking lot was run by a service called “Your Parking Space.” Theoretically, all one had to do was access the Internet (while in a country where our phones did not work and could not connect to the Internet) then log on to Your Parking Space and pay for parking. But no! Far be it for the modern gig economy (read that as “hellscape”) to make life easy. Instead, Your Parking Space required a mobile number which okay, no problem. We did indeed have mobile phones, two Japanese ones in fact. However, the web site refused foreign telephone numbers. Apparently, customers from distant lands are not welcome in their parking lots. I foolishly assumed that hotels were a place where foreigners could go, but apparently not. What an ignoramus was Solo! Hotels are only made for people who live in the same country and have a local cell phone. Eventually, after connecting to a free Wi-Fi network, we entered a mobile number used by the hotel and carried on, but it was a time-consuming annoyance. Next time we may rent a temporary SIM card to secure a British phone number and Internet access, but it’s still disappointing that we could not simply hand over cash to park in the hotel’s only lot.
Later, we paid online for a gated parking lot at a Cardiff hotel only to return one night and find every single space was already occupied. Plus a number of other cars double-parked covering all areas where a driver could conceivably leave a motorized vehicle without completely blocking movement. That should not have been possible since space had already been reserved for us. Luckily, we spoke with a hotel employee who was leaving work and got her spot. However, it was frustrating to pay for a service and then have to fight for it. Ergo, if a person paid for a parking spot then they should get a parking spot.
Moving on from the “What did you do over summer vacation?” report, let’s turn our attention to today’s review! This will examine the latest installment in Angel’s post-apocalyptic adventure, “Giantlands” Volume 1 Chapter 2 “Beasts.” Angel drew and wrote this 69-page black and white comic (plus color front and back covers) and released it on May 20, 2024. It sells for $18 at Angel’s Gumroad store. I highly recommend readers check out my review of chapter 1 to learn the background. (Click here for the review of “Giantlands” Volume 1 Chapter 1.)
CONTENT WARNING: Giantlands includes acts of deadly violence such as crushing and stomping in addition to multiple non-consensual sex acts. The depictions of killing and rape were not gratuitous in my opinion. Instead, they felt appropriate for a dystopian setting. Nonetheless, squeamish readers may want to avoid this material.
This is an easy article to write. Giantlands II was a great comic, well-worth the price. That’s it, review written in only one sentence! Guess this reviewer schtick ain’t so hard after all? Now if only my Mom thought this was a real job…
To go into a bit more detail, the adventure takes place in a barren world where life is cheap. Making their way through the scorched wasteland are an enormous giant, who we learn is called Derek, and his regular-sized female companion called Kayla. Lovers of giant women will not find any here, but then again it’s not like illustrated stories about giant women are a non-entity online. Those fans who tremble at the mere thought of homosexual, male-on-male sex, or a giant penis without a comparatively upscaled vagina would do well to avoid this like the plague. Best for those folks to check out Botcomics or Interweb Comics instead.
I could simply say that Giantlands is an awesome comic and recommended it to all comic book fans, macrophiles or not, but it is sexually explicit and violent. Thus, Giantlands is for mature audiences only.
One of the best aspects of the story was that despite the glaring differences in power and strength, Kayla stood up to her 500-foot tall giant. She demonstrated that she would fight for her own interests and was his equal, if not physically.
Regarding things to improve, that’s a bit harder to write about. Except… wait a minute, I did find an unambiguous error! The last panel says “Continued” (meaning that the next part had already been released) when it very clearly should have read “To be continued.”
On a more serious note, probably the biggest pitfall would be if this series winds up abandoned, like Giga Girls. Additionally, the gap of time between chapters was significant. The first came out in December 2022 while the second released in May 2024. Roughly 1 year 5 months is a long time to wait for a narrative to resume. Given that story progression has been relatively slow so far, it appears that many more chapters will be required before the plot reaches a satisfying conclusion. Presuming the release schedule stays the same that means it will take several years for the current narrative to run its course, which is a long time to wait.
Although, it should also be noted that comics take time to make and presumably Angel has a full-time job to pay the bills which requires a substantial amount of her time. Furthermore, no size-fetish comic company (Botcomics, Interweb Comics, ZZZ, etc.) releases successive monthly issues of a single series.
Bottom line, Giantlands II was an outstanding work and I hope Angel releases the next installment soon!
That’s it for today. Your favorite size fetish reviewer is still suffering from jet lag and can’t get any rest worth a damn. I was never a routine world traveler per se, but when I wore a uniform in my younger years did occasionally trek from one far off place to another, such as the Middle East back to Alaska (a.k.a. God’s country). Memory may be faulty, but seems like jet lag was not normally this burdensome. Is this what getting old feels like? Is a 90-day recovery period required after every long-distance trip? Assuming this damnable sleep deprivation passes, There She Grows will return later this month to review a manga about a shrunken girl and her normal-size friend.
Until then, keep growing!
This review was written by SolomonG and is protected under Fair Use copyright law.
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There She Grows 