There was a war
Have you seen Ljubjana before? If you have read everything – and I mean everything – I’ve ever published, she appears in one strip, and be warned, not a very good one, from 1998. There were two virtually unused character designs from Bobbins – Ljubjana, and Amy’s boyfriend Larry. I’d like to tell you that I’d worked out rich internal lives for them, but really I just drew them once then printed them out on my bubble jet, very small, as if to apologise.
I’m going to guess that Ljubjana’s from Slovenia originally?
I don’t think so. Slovenian war of independence lasted only 10 days. It’s more probable she’s from Bosnia.
Thanks, my history of the Yugoslav Wars is a bit rusty. If I remember correctly Slovenia was relatively fortunate.
Your memory is good. Slovenia was mostly spared the damages of those Wars, unlike pretty much all the other Former Yugoslav countries.
Her homeland is likely to be as geographically grounded in reality as Tackleford isn’t it?
Maybe Robotania?
(Or at least the area that became Robotania.)
Or somewhere in the Balkans?
when you let a laibach joke marinate for 21 years
I had to look them up, Laibach, to (re)discover the sardonic joy of their performance. I’m not sorry I did. https://youtu.be/EavTye99eZA (e.g.)
Tim’s cousin?
http://www.scarygoround.com/bobbins/index-archive.php?date=19981007
Very well done. There was a prize for this – an air pie with no crust! It’s yours!
Whoa!! Holy super-obscure early characters, Batman!! 😯
I dimly recall that Grey Ljubljana was a synonym for the old Express building on Fleet Street. The Internet will not help me with this, particularly as there is now an advertising agency called Grey with a branch in Ljubljana. I wonder if it was Keith Waterhouse who used to call it that.
That was Lubianka, not Ljubljana. The original Lubianka was KGB/NKVD headquarters in Moscow.
Lubyanka, more like. A notorious KGB prison.
I was right about the nickname though https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/oct/14/pressandpublishing.business
Could it have been ‘Lubyanka’, after the infamous Soviet-era prison?
Ljubjana’s appearance is pretty scary. “There was a war in my country. Many people died”. And she was one of them, but didn’t stay dead. Wampyr!
That even ties into ‘night’ school.
A few days after she appeared, we saw Shelley’s father. It’s hard to tell if that model was kept.
Haha, I think he appeared in one panel, in profile. I could tell you I kept the model but… that wasn’t really “on model.”
While I didn’t exactly read much of the strips of that time I do remember that one of the users of the forum had her as an avatar.