HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY!!!
Man, I seriously cannot believe that Far Out There has been up and running for a WHOLE YEAR. And we’ve not missed ONE SINGLE UPDATE!!! Can you believe THAT?!?!?!?!?
Obviously, I would have to be insane to not thank everyone who’s been reading Far Out There all this time. Sure, it’s not exactly the most read comic on the webernet, but knowing that even ONE person is looking at my silly little cartoon and enjoying it is AMAZING. Thank you, guys! Let’s make year 2 even GREATER!!!
(Historical Notes: Ten years later, a HUNDRED years later, it doesn’t matter. This will ALWAYS be true for me.)
It’s not necessarily in space. This could easily be inside the atmosphere of a planet. It’s at night, the ship is seen against a starry background as it is landing on the planet, and the photo is taken at an angle that only shows the sky. Avatar is in free fall through the atmosphere, we can even see her robe being blown upwards. This is just how she normally arrives on planets. Without a ship. Because if I were completely invulnerable, and had invulnerable clothing, I would totally always leave the ship before landing on a planet and re-enter the planet’s atmosphere on my own, just to mess with anyone watching. Of course, you do have to be careful not to land on anything important.
Yes, I have to nitpick the nitpicking.
That is the true essence of being a nitpicker, right there 🙂
I must nitpick your nitpicking of the nitpicking! 😉 Your suggestion is a reasonable explanation of the image if and only if they — Avatar, the cake, the plate and the hat — are in the atmosphere of an very low-gravity world. Otherwise, I don’t see any of the parts having enough aerodynamic drag to slow down enough to allow the candle to burn. Also, none of them would have the same drag, so they wouldn’t stay together as they fell. They would separate long before reaching thick enough atmosphere for the candle to find enough oxygen.
There is another possibility: just like solid-fuel rocket boosters, the candle contains its own oxidizer. 😉 Jokes aside, I’m sure it’s possible to design a slow-burning candle which works in a vacuum and in microgravity.
I approve of and endorse this nitpicking 😀
All this nitpicking and NOTHING about the candle flame being wrong for low-gravity environments. For shame!
What I mean by that is fire’s distinctive shape comes from convection currents, with gravity being what pushes the less-dense heated air upwards, while denser cold air tries to enter the same space and has to do so by crowding the flame, elongating it and making it skinny. Without, or in low, gravity, fire ends up becoming spherical, being an alternative that produces the same effect.
Basically, the flame’s shape suggests that they are 100% in an atmosphere, and everything else suggests they are in freefall. Good thing Avatar’s indestructable, though I DO want to know what that candle’s wick is made from to prevent it from going out while in freefall.
I am going to reference a different comic, but fire in space is actually mentioned in the comic Freefall from pages 1869 to 1880:
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1900/fc01869.htm
It’s that special futuristic fire substitute specifically designed to hold the familiar shape of regular flames in non-standard environments.
…although in all seriousness, that’s exactly the kind of random tidbit that I should really fine a use for at some point.
I considered saying it could simply be a piece of plastic that looked like a candle flame, but held off figuring that would be too simple for this comic. Now that you mention a “fire substitute specifically designed to hold the familiar shape of regular flames”, that sounds a lot like my idea.
in keeping with the trend of this comic, it’s probably actually some sort of small transdimensional fire demon summoned by completely-scientific-and-not-at-all-mystical mad scientists for the sole purpose of lighting candles and microgravity and/or vacuum environments.
If that was the case, it should be fanboy/girl/othering over THE Avatar being within a few meters of it. Unless it is older than Avatar, but still.
I think it’s only the mad scientists themselves that fanperson over Avatar, their creations are probably either indifferent or even jealous of the attention their creators lavish on a creation that is not themselves. (And even if true, it would be spoilerish to depict it here, as the whole Mad Scientists fawning over the Absolute Void Anti-Total Apocalypse Receptatron thing has’t been revealed yet)