If Rutentuten had splashed out on one of those automatic, infrared- controlled garage openers, there wouldn’t be a strip today. Fortunately, he wasted all his money on murals and inscriptions.
I know it’s ridiculous, but that’s about the way b-movie script writers imagine the locks on Ancient tombs to work – I have combined the top three:
– artifacts, arranged in a certain pattern: potentially a real pain in the a***, but in most cases the door provides little cavities of the correct form in the correct pattern, making this one a no-brainer to even the most unseasoned adventurer. Usually, it’s the girl that notes the obvious, though.
– light falling in a certain way, or at a certain date or hour: Sure, the Ancient Egyptians had light sensitive switches. Used them on their escalators and sliding doors all the time.
– oddly shaped keys: usually to be found on the other side of the world, or in the possesion of the villain. B-movie heroes spend a lot of time chasing these down. I wouldn’t be sure it’s worth the effort, given the fact that the first locks not easily opened with a lockpick appeared in the 19th century A.D., but what do I know?
I guess Egyptian keylatch kids developed pretty massive neck musculature from lugging all that stuff around. But when they went swimming, they were never seen again.
The people doing the manual labour on film sets are referred to as grips, with every set having a headman, who is called a key-grip. This has two reasons: firstly, he has all the keys to the doors on the set, and secondly, calling him a head-grip would sound to much like a martial arts term.
Please note that the fourth wall is the right border of the panel. This means that readers are actually behind the sixth (front) wall, so all this fourth wall- breaking shouldn’t irritate anybody.
The old Egyptians grouped the stars into different constellations than those widely known today, the ‘Great Sphinx’ was one of the most important.
A new voting incentive is up today and on top of that, every time one of you votes for me, a fairy gets its wings. (Disclaimer: second half of sentence not true.) In Thursday’s strip, careful readers might be able to spot a slight problem with day/night continuity again.