Watch the Footage archive

There's this second-to-last comic book shard with the Cheshire Cat and some guy. It's sort of special, because it has a text panel. There have been suggestions that it is a cipher, and so I've tried to treat it like a substitution one. This theory is backed by recurring symbols - there's even one sequence that is repeated 3 times.
I didn't really get any results. The main problem is that it's hard to tell where each letter ends and the next one begins. In more extreme cases, I think there are more symbols than there are in english alphabet.

In short, this is what I got. If anyone wants to try, suit yourselves.

Did anyone scan and upload the shard? Or can do it?

I, for one, did not get a shard, so I can't even try to help right now.

I'll take a look at it.

@PixelImage: This is what you seek, I presume.

Thanks. That's perfect.

On a first look it seems like either handwriting or manually blurring on photoshop with a brush instead of running a filter over the normal font.

I'll give it a try... The gaps really bug me, though.
Don't know if I'll be able to crack the code, but I have nothing better to do anyway.

I get the feeling that the text is more "damaged" than "encrypted," so I doubt we'll be able to find anything unless we get more information.

But it looks like maybe in the second line starts with an "A" and ends with a period, or possibly an ellipsis. The mark that looks like an "A" to me is the one that's tentatively labeled an "R" in that speculative key. I don't put any more confidence in my assessment than I do in anyone else's.

For me it seems to be dots and spaces, like in the 'written' language for the blind (don't know the name in english). But only if it's a cipher, if it's normal text forget it.

It's called braille. And it's not that, that's just dots not dashes as far as I know.

NeverSlender wrote:It's called braille. And it's not that, that's just dots not dashes as far as I know.

Oh, so it's the same word, I thought it was like the 'deaf languages' that varies (including the name) from country to country, but there is an international one. Also, I didn't say "dots and dashes" I said "dots". The writing is made by dots who are made with relief printing (I hope this is the name).

Braile is based on dot maps for each character. This has dashs, so no braile.
And surely it's not Morse notation: Vertical dashes do not fit.

If this is plain Arial 12 English and damaged to this point, then it's hopeless to try without some sort of context. In that case it might even be irrelevant.

And as a cypher, it's not really clear where one simbol ends and the other begins... So there's trial and error there, extracting two simbols as if it's just one makes the work all but impossible.

Pixelmage wrote:Braile is based on dot maps for each character. This has dashs, so no braile.
And surely it's not Morse notation: Vertical dashes do not fit.

If this is plain Arial 12 English and damaged to this point, then it's hopeless to try without some sort of context. In that case it might even be irrelevant.

And as a cypher, it's not really clear where one simbol ends and the other begins... So there's trial and error there, extracting two simbols as if it's just one makes the work all but impossible.

Wow. You just typed up a near perfect re-creation of my analysis from when I first saw that picture, with the points in the same order and everything. Glad someone who is better at this stuff than I am agrees with me. Makes me feel a bit more confident.

Examination in Photoshop leads me to believe it's damaged text. I don't think you'll get anything out of a cipher. Perhaps if new shards appear eventually you'll be able to recreate the speech box. I will say one thing though, it looks like a narration box, since it's not attached to any character visible. I believe the repeating phrase of symbols may be someones name or a place. Perhaps wherever that scene in the comic is.

Just clarifying a few points:
1. I don't really think it was worth the effort - just had nothing to do.
2. I named the symbols in order of appearance - it was more of renaming the symbols than cracking the code. If we write it in clear text, decoding won't be a problem.
3. I believe the repeated pattern is more likely to be a grammatical construct. My thought was "are" and "aren't", as one of the repeated words is slightly different from the others. But well, I've abandoned hope to reconstruct it.
4. If it's a distorted text, it's unlikely it was damaged by hand - just some Photoshop filter. That explains the recurring patterns. In that case, there is some chance of reconstruction... A slim one.

I wanted to discuss more about the comic, do I do it in this thread, I create another only for discussing the comic or we ask the adms to create a section for it, so we could discuss each page individually or wathever?

This thread has mostly run dry. I don't think creating another thread just for the comic would hurt.

I think we should ask for a comic section and have this thread moved there.

EDIT: And have a thread for each page.

NeverSlender wrote:I think we should ask for a comic section and have this thread moved there.

EDIT: And have a thread for each page.

Exactly what I was thinking. But some pages may correlate. You know. This is a comic.

Victin wrote:

NeverSlender wrote:I think we should ask for a comic section and have this thread moved there.

EDIT: And have a thread for each page.

Exactly what I was thinking. But some pages may correlate. You know. This is a comic.

A thread for each page and an "overall comic" or a "connections" thread. To be fair we can make topics as and when we feel it's necessary.

NeverSlender wrote:

Victin wrote:

NeverSlender wrote:I think we should ask for a comic section and have this thread moved there.

EDIT: And have a thread for each page.

Exactly what I was thinking. But some pages may correlate. You know. This is a comic.

A thread for each page and an "overall comic" or a "connections" thread. To be fair we can make topics as and when we feel it's necessary.

Agreed. I will make a page, set up a conversation, the go, because my planet needs me. But I wil be back.