Shout Out / Gunnerkrigg Court

Kat and Paz doing couples cosplay.

• The comic takes a lot of inspiration by part of English folk musician Kate Rusby. Tom is a fan of her.
  • Sir Eglamore, ("Sir Eglamore") the Annan Waters ("Annan Waters") and Janet Llanwellyn, ("The Maid of Llanwellyn") all take their inspiration from several of her songs. Tom also Title Drops Awkward Annie in The Rant on one of his pages, which is the name of one of Rusby's songs/albums.
  • "Playing of Ball" was also quoted in the comic.
• There are also a few references to Anne Briggs.
  • Reynardine's name (and his initial encounter with Annie) are inspired by the traditional song "Reynardine", which Anne covered.
  • Winsbury is from the traditional song "Willie O' Winsbury" (interestingly, Kate Rusby also recorded a variant of this song, titled "John Barbury"). In the song, Willie is in a relationship with the king's daughter, Janet, much to the king's displeasure. Replace "king" with "headmaster" and ... yeah.
• Lindsey & Bud's names, and the fact that they're engineers in an underwater habitat, to The Abyss.
• Reynardine and Ysengrin are heavily influnenced by Reynard and Ysegrim from Reynard the Fox.
• Tom called Lily "Cookie Monster" when he named her in a tweet. She also shares his color scheme and seemingly has toned-down mannerisms and speech patters of Cookie Monster.
• There's an official artwork in Tom's DeviantArt page of Kat and Annie dressed as Ico and Yorda.
• Another piece of artwork has Kat and Annie dressed as Raz and Lili.
• From Chapter 1: The Shadow and the Robot:
  • The opening lines about the "strange events that took place" at Gunnerkrigg Court are the same as the opening lines of Uzumaki, and Tom has mentioned Kirie Goshima as an inspiration for Annie.
  • Shadow 2's appearance as a "horned boy" shadow is a reference to ICO.
• From Chapter 2: Schoolyard Myths:
  • Basil is talking about the whole affaire with Theseus. After he ends his tale, he sprouts "No sir, I didn't like it."
• From Chapter 4: Not Very Scary:
  • The bonus page has a quote from Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare.
  Janet "Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!"
• From Chapter 9: Questions And Answers:
  • Take note of the boxes Mort is laying on.
• From Chapter 10: Doctor Disaster Versus The Creepy Space Aliens From Outer Space:
  • The evil Enigmarons and their Moon base on the Moon .
  • In the bonus page, Antimony is shown reading a book titled Tannhäuser Gate, a Speculative Fiction meme that dates back to Blade Runner.
• From Chapter 13: A Week For Kat:
  • Logos from Tom's favorite video games appear on Alistair's clothing.
  • Alistair was making a model of 1428 Elm Street.
• From Chapter 15: Red Returns:
  • The Model-H war horse robot's story is taken from the sixth book of Paradise Lost.
• From Chapter 16: The Medium Beginning:
  • Annie makes a mention that they will be late for their Karmatron Dynamics class. Tom is an admitted fan of the series.
• From Chapter 18: S1:
  • Metal Gear Theater, a two-page tribute to Kat's favorite videogame.
• From Chapter 19: Power Station:
  • Here's a Lobster Johnson action figure on Kat's shelf.
  • Gamma's plushies in Zeta's Black Bug Room town here include Ray and Roast Beef, a marshmallow kitten and Mr.Jinx.
• From Chapter 24: Residential:
  • These comments from Tom:
  You are welcome, Vegeta.
  Eglamore subscribes to the Jotaro Kujo School of Posture◊.
• From Chapter 29: A Bad Start:
  • In the commentary of this page, Tom says the train is nicknamed "Blaine".
• From Chapter 30: The Coward Heart:
  • The crow and spiky-haired guy with triangular eye shadowing in the center of this page sure seems like a shout-out to Bro Strider and "Seppucrow".
• From Chapter 32: From The Forest She Came:
  • While Annie is attacking the "possessed" Robot, she suggests that Kat reverse the polarity.
  • After Kat and Annie make amends, Kat confesses her like of Annie's forest dresses.
  "Also, I love the Princess Mononoke look you've got going on!" (Annie, of course, does not know what that is so they watch the film later.)
• From Chapter 33: Give and Take:
  • As Kat prepares to switch off the robot she brought back to life, it says "Thank you, Little Miss."
• From Chapter 34: Faraway Morning (And Three Short Tales):
  • Janet And Winsbury finally reveal their Secret Relationship, only to engage in an Imagine Spot. One of these imaginations is a reference to a Lex Luthor meme, where he steals forty cakes (see And That's Terrible).
  • Strips 936 and 938 reference The Fast and the Furious.
  • Strip #937 combines references to The Princess Bride and this song.
• Strip 1011 has Donald (Kat's dad) reading what appears to be The Beano (specifically a Dennisthe Menace UK comic.)
• Chapter 50, "Totem":
  • Kat and Annie's new dorm room is modeled after the girls' apartment in Friends. Reynardine is now roommates with robotic versions of Joey and Chandler. The boys' dorms have robotic versions of Monica and Rachel.
• Chapter 56, "New Data": Robot's "description" of his new Organic Technology had a lot of commenters saying TETSUOOOOOOO!.
  • The random patch of skin and hair (Robot's arm seems to have neither) could be a reference to Star Trek: First Contact, wherein Data the android gets a "skin graft" that starts out as a square inch of skin and hair.
  • A "sketch" of Robot with a muscular arm is similar to a picture in Ghost in the Shell describing problems with Artificial Limbs: Robot's power source is too strong and causes the "organic" arm to explode while a robot arm on a human body is too heavy.
• The Rant for strip 1687 declares prune juice to be "a warrior's drink".
• Chapter 59, "Jeanne": Annie's plan to free Jeanne is basically to do an Inception: Ayilu is the "architect" creating an imaginary Court for Jeanne to live in and populating it with literally Faceless Masses while helping Parley, the "forger", play the part of Jeanne's dear friend. Annie and Smitty are both "extractors" — Annie, with Kat's help, is going after the mysterious green arrow that killed Jeanne's boyfriend and locked Jeanne's spirit in the gorge while Smitty's powers combined with Parley's ensures that everyone can *bip* in and out safely. Red is there for... moral support.
• Robot's new body shown at the start of Chapter 63 is kept in its tank in the same pose as Giygas.
• The end of Chapter 65, "Katurday!", has Kat entering her dorm to find that Paz had turned off the lights and lit a bunch of candles in the apartment.
• The break comics at the end of Volume 7 had a Q&A with the characters, which revealed that Kat and Paz cosplay as Dragon Ball characters, and that Annie's favourite song is "Stand and Deliver" by Adam Ant, although she doesn't know the title or his name.
• Chapter 77, "The Thousand Eyes": Upon meeting the Norns, Kat identifies Verdandi as Belldandy. Verdandi chuckles and says that that's her favourite comic.
• On the chapter 83 bonus page, Shell's dialogue in the last panel is a quote from It's a Wonderful Life, said by the character Violet.

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