All the Fingle Ladies (Eric)

In episode seven, comic book creator and illustrator Georgina Chadderton, aka George Rex, joins us to discuss the ninth Discworld novel: Faust Eric! Published in 1990 - alongside four other novels, making it one of Pterry's most prolific years - it's a shorter novel, originally published in a large format with lavish illustrations by Discworld cover artist Josh Kirby. (Also, fair warning to the pun-averse: Elizabeth really goes to town in this one...) Eric Thurslow is surprised to find that he has summoned a demon who looks suspiciously like a wizard - but not as surprised as Rincewind the inept wizard is to have been summoned. Freed from the Dungeon Dimensions, he now finds himself compelled to grant wishes to an adolescent demonologist - and to his even greater surprise, it seems he's able to do so! Meanwhile, following along behind across space, time and dimensions, Rincewind's faithful Luggage is catching up to its master - and just as well, because the Prince of Hell isn't too pleased that his plans for Eric have gone awry...   Eric is the fourth book to feature Rincewind - last seen in Sourcery - and like his previous appearances it's a romp across the Discworld to places (and in this case times) previously unseen. Sometimes regarded as a bit of an addendum to the main Discworld series because of its short length, Eric wears its parody - and its classical allusions - proudly on its sleeve. Did you like Eric? Did you read an edition with the illustrations? We'd love to hear from you! Use the hashtag #Pratchat7 on social media to join the conversation. We skipped ahead to make sure we could chat with Georgina while she was in Melbourne, so we're going back a step for our June episode, where librarian Aimee Nichols will join us to talk about the very first City Watch book: Guards! Guards! We'll be recording it soon, so if you'd like us to respond to you on the podcast, get in quick! Ask your questions via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat7A. (What, you expected us to actually use the forbidden number?) Show Notes and Errata: You can find Georgina and her delightful autobiographical comics online at georgerexcomics.com, and also on Instagtram as @GirlRexDoor. She was in town on a residency with 100 Story Building, where Ben works facilitating creative writing workshops for young people. George's Etsy shop is full of cool comics, postcards, badges and prints. In case you've somehow been hiding under a pop culture rock, 2 Faust 2 Furious is a reference to the sequel to car/heist/action film The Fast and the Furious, which was titled 2 Fast 2 Furious. There are now eight films in this franchise which features Vin Diesel (in every film except 2 Fast 2 Furious), Michelle Rodriguez, Dwayne Johnson, Kurt Russell and Jason Statham. The only other one with a punny name is the eighth, titled The Fate of the Furious. George's 24-hour comics are produced as part of 24-Hour Comics Day, an annual event in which comic creators are challenged to create a 24-page comic in a single day. 24-Hour Comics Day has run in some form every year since 2004, when it was originally organised by publisher Nat Gertler, and one of its most famous proponents (and long-time participants) is Scott McCloud, the creator of Understanding Comics. "Time is a flat circle", now the subject of many memes, is derived from a scene in the first season of True Detective. It refers to the theory of "eternal return", which states that existence repeats itself over and over in very similar ways. Ben's favourite iteration of this from fiction is the Time Prophet, a character from the weird Canadian-German sci-fi series Lexx, who could see into past cycles of time ("not very clearly mind you") to predict the future of the current cycle. You can see George's image of Angua and Gaspode (inspired by our Men At Arms episode) on her Instagram, and her version of Tiffany Aching is on the Fan Art page of her web site.