NaArMaMo Day 15 - Cally by Vila

[vilakins]

Today's entry for the naarmamo National Art Making Month challenge is another in the Blake's 7 / Molesworth series, completing the season 1 crew.

Cally by Vila

CALLY, gorilla of Soron Major, hav a thort not her own. She take being open-minded a littel far, I sa, but i supose that is the risk of being a TELLYPATH. Cally is as slender as a rede and butifull as a flour (blush) and also tuogh like jenna but kind. She giv me adrenalin and soma and even sumtimes a smile so i hav the curage to flurt and make sum suttel remarks hem hem, but she never seme to notice chiz.

Drawing and text in the style of Ronald Searle and Geoffrey Willans' Molesworth books.
Part of a series; if you don't know the books, you probably have no idea what this is all about. And I have no idea what 'chiz' means myself, so don't ask.

My NaArMaMo Gallery is here.

Comments

[altariel.livejournal.com]

"a thort not her own"

Love it.

No, I don't know wot chiz meen eyther, but I still say it a lot.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

You sa it? I never daired.

BTW I got some spam today from someone called Una Ariel. You could of course always blame Jefferson who is probably trying to bring down the human economy with a surfeit of spiced ham.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Mr A. sa it orl the time to.

Naughty spamming Jefferson!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Mr A. sa it orl the time to.

Mr A is wunderful and can tuogh up fotherington-tomas eny time!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

LOL! you are too good at this!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

[blush blush] I mean to sa.

[jomacmouse.livejournal.com]

I thought her a bit samurai at first, until I realised that was one of the curling wands.

And I've completely failed to mention so far that I like the texts you've been writing for each drawing as much as the drawings. Very remiss of me...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I hope you know the originals. :-) I've never figured out why a boy of 11 or 12 would spell things so bizarrely, but I've tried to reproduce his style. Poor Vila that I malign him so.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

That's proper third-century-Federation spelling, that is! :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Very likely. :-) Someone probably had the bright idea of removing all verb conjugations and unnecessary letters and enforcing it in writing, though it never took in speech.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

That makes appalling sense, y'know :)

[hafren.livejournal.com]

I suspect "chiz" is a corruption, or just a Molesworth misspelling, of "cheese". I seem to recall Jennings and Darbishire using "mouldy chiz" to indicate annoyance.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking about Jennings and feeling the desire to read him again. I adored those books as a teenager. And that makes sense!

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

There is an expression of mild annoyance from my youth that we would spell as sheesh, which with a great stretch of my imagination I could see being spelt as chiz. Molesworth is from those long lost days or even slightly before isn't it?

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

I think of sheesh as being more for exasperation, verging on a heavy sigh. Chiz has more cross disappointment to it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

I've never read the books, but, based on the numerous fannish imitations I've seen, I've always assumed "chiz" was a corruption of "geez." It seems like an entirely plausible pronunciation shift, at least to my American ears, and it's pretty clearly being used exactly as one would use "geez."

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It doesn't sound right to me, and as reapermum points out, Molesworth himself says "a chiz is a swiz or swindle as any fule kno." hafren supports this with the theory that it's short for 'chisel' as in con. To me that fits really well as when it's used, Molesworth feels short-changed.

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

Back to the bookshelf, and quoting his footnote on page 8 of my copy.

"a chiz is a swiz or swindle as any fule kno."

But that doesn't seem to fit it's use as an exclamation.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Ah. It could be that the preceding is a sort of swindle. IOW, Molesworth (or Vila in this case) feels himself short-changed.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

If it means a swindle, it'll be related to "chiseller" - a con-man of some sort.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It could! :-D

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

IOW, Molesworth (or Vila in this case) feels himself short-changed

Yes, that would work, the context of the footnote was The front door is nailed up, how would we get out from a fire? Jump out of the windows and land in a blanket, but they'd probably take the blanket away when I jumped, chiz.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I think we've solved it!

[shimere277.livejournal.com]

She looks a lot better in that outfit when you draw it!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, that wouldn't be hard. She got some awful ones ranging from 50s SF like this one to wimpy slips with a bit of embroidery down the front. Cally's best outfit was the grey one with flames she wore in Dawn of the Gods, and her first one wasn't bad either. Oh yes, and she wore a quite elegant long tunic and trouser in Killer but was hardly in it. Chiz.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, and she wore a quite elegant long tunic and trouser in Killer but was hardly in it.

Oo-er missus! I need a new copy of Killer...

Yeah, Dawn's flamey outfit was awesome, and so was the red guerrilla uniform. And the green leather from Star One. I also really liked 75% of the City on the Edge of Something or Other costume... the shirt was a bad color and the tunic hem was dumb, but over-all, it worked pretty well. Simple and slightly western-butch. She had a couple of other good ones in episodes she was barely in, too.

That said, Jenna didn't fare much better on costumes...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

She didn't! Her best one was the maroon and grey leather. My pipe-cleaner Cally wears the Killer costume because I love it so, but she and Jenna are so badly short-changed (truly a chiz) in that ep.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Yay! :)

[kerr-avon.livejournal.com]

Quite, quite good. I shall add this to the others posted in the Rest Room.

[vila-restal.livejournal.com]

Why, thank you avon old thing! [wonders wen he wil be hit by the insult]

[kerr-avon.livejournal.com]

After all, the darts board in there is worn out.

(ooc-Lj wouldn't let me post this for forever. Yay. Made it.)

[vila-restal.livejournal.com]

Use Cally as a target and I think you'll find you are!

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I suspect that "chiz" is a further step from "jeez" which is a euphemism for "Jesus"--I've seen "cheese and crackers got all muddy" reported as a euphemism for "Jesus Christ God almighty."

vilakins, I'm BEYOND impressed--I mean, I'm impressed that you can draw anyway, but to be able to draw like Vila channelling Searle--'mazin'!

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Oh, geez, beat me to it. That's what I get for not reading all the comments before jumping in.

In my own defense, I haven't finished my morning coffee yet.

*slurps more, attempts to get neurons firing* :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I think reapermum and hafren have sussed it, as Molesworth seems to use it when he feels badly done by, and he does describe it as a 'swindle or swiz'. Also, we use 'jeez' here, but in a different way, mostly disgust or annoyance.

And thank you! [huge grin] I have to say that Searle is a lot harder to imitate than Groening.

[jomacmouse.livejournal.com]

You're doing very well at it, though. Enough to make me want to rescue my all-of-the-books-in-one-volume copy of Molesworth out of wherever it is and read it again...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Mine are in four little books and they're coming apart a bit. :-(