Rainbow - A visit from the doctor and A bus ride

Let's just take a minute to appreciate the joy of syntax here. According to this title, there are several possibilities as to what is going on in this book -

1. The gang get a visit from the doctor, and a visit from a bus ride. How is this even possible?

2. It's the lyrics to that well known song "A visit" from the smash hit musical "The doctor and a bus ride"

3. It's one long saga about how the doctor visits someone, then someone else rides a bus, for a reason that could only be connected to the first story by Ingmar Bergman

4. It's two separate but equally fucked up stories

Sadly, #4 is the correct answer. How I wish the correct answer was #2.

One more note on the cover - what the hell is "Station 7"? That sounds far too much like something out of The Hunger Games.

In this post I shall be reading the first story - "A visit from the doctor" - and probably laughing heartily while I do it.

"George isn't feeling well." Not surprising really, since he appears to be composed entirely of dots. Apart from this, he is apparently entering the menopause.

"You look like shit" say Zippy and Bungle.

"I feel like shit" says George.

Bungle, whose head has shrunk, decides George better go to bed. 

Zippy, as usual, decides to develop a case of Munchausen Syndrome, citing the time he caught the plague. He also appears to have caught George's Pointillism disease.

Oh yes? Bungle takes the doctor upstairs? This could be getting interesting.

Oh bollocks, it's only so she can give George a rectal examination or something. Chin up G, it's only the menopause.

Incidentally, how big is George supposed to be? or is the doctor really small? I mean, compare that picture with one of George next to Geoffrey -

Anyway.

The doctor "takes out a thing that looks like a snake with a mirror on one end and two long tubes on the other."

My god, this reads like something from 50 shades of grey, which I am ashamed to admit I've read. And when I say 'read', I mean 'make myself look at while simultaneously trying not to gouge my own eyes out'. Never again.

George asks what a stethoscope does, and whether it will hurt. How old is George supposed to be, one? Why doesn't he know anything ever? More to the point, why is Bungle in charge? Bungle, who once started crying because Zippy wouldn't share his crayons?

Also - "Doctors don't hurt people - they make them better." Try telling that to Harold Shipman.

Zippy demands a go on the stethoscope. Apparently George's heart goes "bar-boom, bar-boom". I'm pretty sure my heart doesn't do that. Also, I can't say 'bar-boom' without sounding like Fred Elliot.

Then George has a go on the stethoscope. I'm dying for the doctor to just get pissed off with them and start shouting into the other end.

For fuck's sake, George doesn't know what a temperature is. Bungle does though, with his large forehead. Why is Bungle in charge? Is it because the artist can't draw Geoffrey? I wouldn't be surprised.

The doctor takes George's temperature, sadly only orally. This scene has massive potential -

Sadly, this potential is never realised. Not that I actually wanted it to be. Eew.

The doctor declares that George has got a bit of a cold, and should stay in bed all day. Listen lady, having 'a bit of a cold' does not justify staying in bed for the day. That privilege comes with a hangover.

George whinges about being bored in bed. I hesitate to suggest what he could do to pass the time.

Luckily for George, Zippy and Bungle keep him company upstairs. Zippy amuses himself by giving Bungle the finger. I love Zippy.

Fin.