Well that was a conversation killer, if ever there was one. So is she saying that her home was destroyed by the Chimera? That is what it sounds like to me.
Also remember Bud’s family: “They were vaporized. Instantly. By me.” So far we don’t know anything about Brandi before she wound up in that cart with Bud, but her home town probably wasn’t any better off.
The face of Tina in this comic is possibly the most spectacular example of -wham- that I have ever seen. How can one possibly recover, or say something past that? Her expression is both perfect- and priceless.
Honestly, aside from myself, I don’t know many other who can stop a conversation with a completely true statement that comes from WAY out in left field. I suspect that there will be many more moments like this in Jin’s future.
We already know she had some mental issues prior to the Calendar Machine as well as prior to becoming a clay golem. It is a wonder that she thought she could control two women bred in such a condition as to have nearly (and then ultimately leading to beyond “nearly”, as we see from the events) uncontrollable rage and hate and etc. Add to that her own pain, rage, etc. But she thought she could. At the least, she did throw something into the mix so as to try and keep the priests who thought they could control such power from having any chance of doing so. But then she became part of the beast that ended the world, no?
Especially since given sufficient energy input, there need not be any radiation involved. Dropping boulders from the height of the moon gives a pretty good approximation of a nuclear bomb, with no residual radiation–and since rocks come in all sizes….
Jin’s expression and tone of voice reminds me of a little child recounting a horrific personal experience while remaining completely detached and yet sounding like she’s excited to tell it, to share/participate, almost in a bragging way. She has that innocent manner here, of someone who is lacking in the rules of light social conversation.
“Yeah, back in the 80ties i was moving in with my scientist parents and got raised in a wooden shack that was used by them with other scientsts over in the Nuclear Test Grounds of the Nevada Desert. After 3 years, they were ready with the holedrill and else… and we had to leave, Point Zero was just right next to the door. Too bad…
80s? Atmospheric nuclear testing ended in 1963 – and is the kind that turned the sand into glass. Underground tests created big, shallow sinkholes, and sent up a big puff of dust as the ground collapsed.
Hm… yupp. For the USA. You are right… Uuhmm.. in this case: “French Testing Grounds Mururoa” (until 1974) or Lop Nor in China. Atmospheric Testing until 1980.
I think the most disturbing thing about this is Jin’s eyes in panel two…how round they are versus the slit/snake like eyes she normally has. It really gives off that crazy vibe
Yeah, I noticed that, too. It’s like with that momentary whiff of nostalgic tea, Jin has been replaced by Young Jin, who was not the slit-eyed prime mover we know. Smells can be very disarming like that.
Jin may refer to herself as ‘a clay doll’ all too often, but it’s nice to see her press her face against the eyeholes and get a good view of the world at large.
it is as was said earlier traumatic detachment. I’ll bet most the GGG have it in some measure over their conversion/apocalypse. The ones that remember at least.
’cause Jin doesn’t feel her negative emotions on a subject like that she can very well say that with such an innocent expression
Underground tests produced atmospheric fallout as well. No matter how they tried, it seems they could never prevent the blast from producing fissures that allowed radioactive steam to vent to the surface.
*WARNING!* Jin’s statement contains a different impact than the phrase, “You forget that I was present for a sudden unexplained mass migration of sea sponges.”
Maybe closer in context to, “It would have worked if you hadn’t stopped me.”
I’m not saying that this was intentional on Jin’s part, but Jin has some ability to change her looks. She can change her hair length, too, but apparently more than that if she was able to convince the Aztecs (IIRC) that she was a male god. I think her current appearance is a reflection of her mental state.
The committee must hear it. Several years ago, Tina told Monica in her gray voice “The hardest person to protect is the one who fears themselves the most.,” then in the black voice, “I read that somewhere.” (That’s not going to be an exact quote — I’m going by memory from looking at the archives earlier today.) It seems that the committee was reacting to what the one demon said.
BTW, Tina used her gray voice 2 pages ago but she also was using it well before we knew that she was a collection of demons.
Jin used her gray voice when talking about whether something fell under her job description. I wonder if that was her programming talking. I saw Shelly use it once when it might have been her little girl talking.
I had assumed it was a whispered comment, but I was wrong in the assumption. Though, I guess if the volume of the voice leaving her collective mouth were dependent on how many demons were to speak the same thing at the same time, then the gray being a single demon vs. the collective, it could be whispered. But that’s just getting into irrelevant details since we can’t hear the comic. But Paul’s explanation makes alot more sense when we get to the end of this coming April that the gray text, which has been integral in plot development at times, is to be contributed to a specific demon of Tina’s Collective.
This is going to be another “The Question We Asked Here Will Be Answered In A Year Or Two” strip. I have a feeling, especially after looking back in the new book (In The Shadow Of Doubt), that she’s somehow “connected” to that little girl who Bud has the nightmares about.
Hmmm… Tina has the “empty shell”, Jin has the spirit, Bud has the memories, Shelly has the “conscience”… and Monica and/or Brandi have to put Humpty Dumpty all back together again?
That would make for a very interesting story arc. I think I would have to disagree, though, because we know that Brandi has nightmares and memories, along with Bud, even if that one girl is more prominent in Bud’s mind. Jin, one could probably assume she has nightmares, among other things going through her mind at times. Though it has not been verified yet where the “soul” goes, just that a shell IS left behind, and, IF the person has a close tie with their demons, they may take over the shell. So, could Tina’s spirit be around and be re-inserted into her shell? who knows. Also, I think it was implied the little girl Bud remembers is from when she was a full chimera and was glassing over everything…
As a personal response to all the eye comments: It would be interesting if she unconsciously could change her eyes, or even consciously do so, along with other features besides her hair. But I must agree: the round eyes, that seeming of a human, seem to imply they are reflective of that odd “hollowness” that Tina has noted in Jin, that may have originated from partly from her personal sacrifice making her different from the rest of the clay golum gals and/or her mental instability that she had as a human before her transformation into a golum gal. When she is showing her state of mind as lucid, she has the snake slit eyes like her patron animal, the snake, Bud’s eyes haven’t ever changed, IIRC, as neither has Brandi’s. So I would say her pupils are to show her current mental lucidity with an inverse relationship. And yeah, the tone I read her comment in was that similar to this hypothetical conversation: *stares at someone running down the sidewalk* “Ah to be able to do that again.” “Did you lose your leg in the war?” “Oh, no. That came later. I was hopping up and down on the debris stuffed in a wood chipper when it finally get loose. But I used to be a star track athlete back in high school.” A very.. matter of fact thing. Not really any emotion, in such a detached manner, except for the bit of mania at the end where it just further would unnerve the listener.
As a quick side note after looking at a past page or two in the archive, what does JIN’S gray text indicate in “Cheers Babe” http://wapsisquare.com/comic/cheersbabe/ … it can’t be a single “demon of the many” speaking up, like with Tina, right?
Well that was a conversation killer, if ever there was one. So is she saying that her home was destroyed by the Chimera? That is what it sounds like to me.
Also remember Bud’s family: “They were vaporized. Instantly. By me.” So far we don’t know anything about Brandi before she wound up in that cart with Bud, but her home town probably wasn’t any better off.
The face of Tina in this comic is possibly the most spectacular example of -wham- that I have ever seen. How can one possibly recover, or say something past that? Her expression is both perfect- and priceless.
Honestly, aside from myself, I don’t know many other who can stop a conversation with a completely true statement that comes from WAY out in left field. I suspect that there will be many more moments like this in Jin’s future.
I can think of one person who does that: Tina. The irony is deafening!
She doesn’t even have to say anything. She just has to stare at them with the swirling eyes
Most excellent. Gotta try that Lapsang Souchong. Just don’t put it in the microwave.
Meanwhile, in other news…
Glazed with a layer of glass? Unfamiliar with artisan terms. It was turned into glass? Like melted sand?
Glass as in “glass parking lot”. As in whatever happened to it (presumably at Bud’s hands), it was more or less nuked.
Pretty much. =(
Cool, Was she hiding in the refrigerator at the time?
She was helping do the glazing… as part of the chimera.
Well, actually, she was inside the chimera, trying unsuccessfully to control and stop it, so in that sense, she wasn’t helping.
We already know she had some mental issues prior to the Calendar Machine as well as prior to becoming a clay golem. It is a wonder that she thought she could control two women bred in such a condition as to have nearly (and then ultimately leading to beyond “nearly”, as we see from the events) uncontrollable rage and hate and etc. Add to that her own pain, rage, etc. But she thought she could. At the least, she did throw something into the mix so as to try and keep the priests who thought they could control such power from having any chance of doing so. But then she became part of the beast that ended the world, no?
Especially since given sufficient energy input, there need not be any radiation involved. Dropping boulders from the height of the moon gives a pretty good approximation of a nuclear bomb, with no residual radiation–and since rocks come in all sizes….
Jin’s expression and tone of voice reminds me of a little child recounting a horrific personal experience while remaining completely detached and yet sounding like she’s excited to tell it, to share/participate, almost in a bragging way. She has that innocent manner here, of someone who is lacking in the rules of light social conversation.
Yeah, that would make Lapsang Souchong an appropriate choice, I’m afraid…
Looks like Jin still has a bit of the crazies left over from.
Definitely a touch of mania.
“a bit”?
The only thing to come out of such a slip is:
“Yeah, back in the 80ties i was moving in with my scientist parents and got raised in a wooden shack that was used by them with other scientsts over in the Nuclear Test Grounds of the Nevada Desert. After 3 years, they were ready with the holedrill and else… and we had to leave, Point Zero was just right next to the door. Too bad…
80s? Atmospheric nuclear testing ended in 1963 – and is the kind that turned the sand into glass. Underground tests created big, shallow sinkholes, and sent up a big puff of dust as the ground collapsed.
Hm… yupp. For the USA. You are right… Uuhmm.. in this case: “French Testing Grounds Mururoa” (until 1974) or Lop Nor in China. Atmospheric Testing until 1980.
Tina knows something about the calendar machine, the resets and the golem girls.
How much she knows is a different matter.
Actually, I don’t think she does entirely. That’s why she was so surprised when she found her clock key was a shiv.
I think the most disturbing thing about this is Jin’s eyes in panel two…how round they are versus the slit/snake like eyes she normally has. It really gives off that crazy vibe
Yeah, I noticed that, too. It’s like with that momentary whiff of nostalgic tea, Jin has been replaced by Young Jin, who was not the slit-eyed prime mover we know. Smells can be very disarming like that.
Jin may refer to herself as ‘a clay doll’ all too often, but it’s nice to see her press her face against the eyeholes and get a good view of the world at large.
I echo Tina’s expression. Those are some CRAZY eyes Jin’s sporting atm.
That’s funny.
it is as was said earlier traumatic detachment. I’ll bet most the GGG have it in some measure over their conversion/apocalypse. The ones that remember at least.
’cause Jin doesn’t feel her negative emotions on a subject like that she can very well say that with such an innocent expression
PTSD. Survivor guilt.
Underground tests produced atmospheric fallout as well. No matter how they tried, it seems they could never prevent the blast from producing fissures that allowed radioactive steam to vent to the surface.
Awwwkward .
*WARNING!* Jin’s statement contains a different impact than the phrase, “You forget that I was present for a sudden unexplained mass migration of sea sponges.”
Maybe closer in context to, “It would have worked if you hadn’t stopped me.”
Hmm. Jin’s eyes have round pupils…
I’m not saying that this was intentional on Jin’s part, but Jin has some ability to change her looks. She can change her hair length, too, but apparently more than that if she was able to convince the Aztecs (IIRC) that she was a male god. I think her current appearance is a reflection of her mental state.
I believe that the shock on Tina’s face is due to the fact that Jin responded to her UNSPOKEN question.
But … does the light tone lettering indicate unspoken thought, or sotto voce comment? I’ve always thought the latter.
Paul? Some enlightenment here?
Any time that Tina’s speech is gray, that is when of the demons is speaking before going through the filter of the committee.
So, does the Tina committee realize it when that happens, or did Jin’s statement seem like it came completely out of the blue to her?
The committee must hear it. Several years ago, Tina told Monica in her gray voice “The hardest person to protect is the one who fears themselves the most.,” then in the black voice, “I read that somewhere.” (That’s not going to be an exact quote — I’m going by memory from looking at the archives earlier today.) It seems that the committee was reacting to what the one demon said.
BTW, Tina used her gray voice 2 pages ago but she also was using it well before we knew that she was a collection of demons.
Jin used her gray voice when talking about whether something fell under her job description. I wonder if that was her programming talking. I saw Shelly use it once when it might have been her little girl talking.
Ah, one of Tina’s “Black Gang” speaking solo. (The reference is to Lois McMaster Bujold’s Mark Vorkosigan, for those who want to research that.)
Thank you, Paul.
Wow! That never occurred to me. I have seen the gray text before (I can’t remember which characters) but never knew what it meant.
It did seem like an odd and rather impulsive question for Tina to ask.
Ohhhhhhhhhhh! Now THAT makes sense.
Thank you for the clarification Paul!
I had assumed it was a whispered comment, but I was wrong in the assumption. Though, I guess if the volume of the voice leaving her collective mouth were dependent on how many demons were to speak the same thing at the same time, then the gray being a single demon vs. the collective, it could be whispered. But that’s just getting into irrelevant details since we can’t hear the comic. But Paul’s explanation makes alot more sense when we get to the end of this coming April that the gray text, which has been integral in plot development at times, is to be contributed to a specific demon of Tina’s Collective.
did anyone else notice that Jin didn’t have cat eyes in this page?
I just did.
I did. I wonder if it’s because she’s thinking of a time pre-Chimera. When she wasn’t needfully savvy and savage.
I think she has round pupils most of the time. Usually any character’s pupils are too small to see well, though. Example: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/partofyoudid/
When she’s was trying to be cunning, she got the slits, but I was surprised by how often she didn’t seem to have them.
… but she had slit eyes yesterday. NVM! :-/
Nine comments up.
Oh, no, Jin is losing it again. She seemed to be holding up so well until now…
I think Jin always gets glassy eyed with that “I’m not here anymore” look when she seriously thinks about the past like here: partofyoudid
Opps, that should have been “drinkofwater” not “partofyoudid” What I get for copying and pasting the framework.
This is going to be another “The Question We Asked Here Will Be Answered In A Year Or Two” strip. I have a feeling, especially after looking back in the new book (In The Shadow Of Doubt), that she’s somehow “connected” to that little girl who Bud has the nightmares about.
Hmmm… Tina has the “empty shell”, Jin has the spirit, Bud has the memories, Shelly has the “conscience”… and Monica and/or Brandi have to put Humpty Dumpty all back together again?
That would make for a very interesting story arc. I think I would have to disagree, though, because we know that Brandi has nightmares and memories, along with Bud, even if that one girl is more prominent in Bud’s mind. Jin, one could probably assume she has nightmares, among other things going through her mind at times. Though it has not been verified yet where the “soul” goes, just that a shell IS left behind, and, IF the person has a close tie with their demons, they may take over the shell. So, could Tina’s spirit be around and be re-inserted into her shell? who knows. Also, I think it was implied the little girl Bud remembers is from when she was a full chimera and was glassing over everything…
As a personal response to all the eye comments: It would be interesting if she unconsciously could change her eyes, or even consciously do so, along with other features besides her hair. But I must agree: the round eyes, that seeming of a human, seem to imply they are reflective of that odd “hollowness” that Tina has noted in Jin, that may have originated from partly from her personal sacrifice making her different from the rest of the clay golum gals and/or her mental instability that she had as a human before her transformation into a golum gal. When she is showing her state of mind as lucid, she has the snake slit eyes like her patron animal, the snake, Bud’s eyes haven’t ever changed, IIRC, as neither has Brandi’s. So I would say her pupils are to show her current mental lucidity with an inverse relationship. And yeah, the tone I read her comment in was that similar to this hypothetical conversation: *stares at someone running down the sidewalk* “Ah to be able to do that again.” “Did you lose your leg in the war?” “Oh, no. That came later. I was hopping up and down on the debris stuffed in a wood chipper when it finally get loose. But I used to be a star track athlete back in high school.” A very.. matter of fact thing. Not really any emotion, in such a detached manner, except for the bit of mania at the end where it just further would unnerve the listener.
As a quick side note after looking at a past page or two in the archive, what does JIN’S gray text indicate in “Cheers Babe” http://wapsisquare.com/comic/cheersbabe/ … it can’t be a single “demon of the many” speaking up, like with Tina, right?
Jin sounds like she was at the heart of the Nagasaki A-bomb explosion?