I read several webcomics every day and one of them is xkcd by Randall Munroe. I like its engineering/math/geek bent, imagine that. Last Friday, it intersected neatly with classic animation space, another favorite place of mine, and asserted that an engineer with all the supplies at the old Coyote’s disposal could have caught that Road Runner! (Courtesy xkcd.com.)
My friend Gary over at Fleen retorted:
Chuck is not a vengeful god; the Coyote could have stopped his punishments any time he wanted to if he would only leave the Roadrunner alone. It is heresy to think you could do any better, Randall Munroe! What do you think modern birds (especially the ground-running types) evolved from? RAPTORS. They laugh at your collection of ACME goods.
I’m on board with Chuck being a benevolent animator. But I think he was on a higher literary plane. As we can see in the cartoons, nothing else was alive in that desert. Given the Coyote’s innate drive for self-preservation, he had to pursue the Road Runner, even though he was going to go hungry either way. The Coyote was in his own private hell. Sartre himself could not have written better.
