Setting
Although the city the strip is set in is never named, a number of clues to the location are given. The celebrated holidays, and Laurie's love of football indicate they are in the United States. A new years strip reveals they are six timezones from Amsterdam, along with frequent winter snow suggests they are in the north east. Because Katie has never been to the beach, coastal cities or those bordering the great lakes are also unlikely. There is no indication as to how big the city they live in is, only that it has bus service. It would seem that they live somewhere in New England, indicated when Laurie was seen wearing jerseys that were clearly intended to replicate those of the New England Patriots (more specifically, those of Tom Brady) before and after the Colts vs. Patriots game during the 2007 NFL Playoffs.
If we are willing to accept the phone system in the strip works as it does in reality, the phone number Katie has written on her stomach gives further clues. The 617 area code is for Boston, which is an unlikely home to someone who has never been to the beach and has no 532 prefix. Eliminating cell phones, the 617-5xxx numbers in each area code apply to the following New England cities: Rochester, NY, Rome, NY, Perkasie, PA, and Philadelphia, PA. It also exists in the following Midwestern cities within the proper time zone: Trinity, OH, Independence, OH, Girard, OH, Zanesville, OH, Ridgeway, OH, Sebewaing, MI, and Grand Rapids, MI.
Most of the strips set in the present take place inside Laurie's house. Other common settings are Katie's school, the local playground, and riding the city bus. Most of the Back in Time strips are in or near Laurie's parents' house.
Read more about this topic: Count Your Sheep
Famous quotes containing the word setting:
“When I consider the clouds stretched in stupendous masses across the sky, frowning with darkness or glowing with downy light, or gilded with the rays of the setting sun, like the battlements of a city in the heavens, their grandeur appears thrown away on the meanness of my employment; the drapery is altogether too rich for such poor acting. I am hardly worthy to be a suburban dweller outside those walls.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In my dealing with my child, my Latin and Greek, my accomplishments and my money stead me nothing; but as much soul as I have avails. If I am wilful, he sets his will against mine, one for one, and leaves me, if I please, the degradation of beating him by my superiority of strength. But if I renounce my will, and act for the soul, setting that up as umpire between us two, out of his young eyes looks the same soul; he reveres and loves with me.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The new sound-sphere is global. It ripples at great speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers and races.... The economics of this musical esperanto is staggering. Rock and pop breed concentric worlds of fashion, setting and life-style. Popular music has brought with it sociologies of private and public manner, of group solidarity. The politics of Eden come loud.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)