I like the “snowflakes as metaphor for fragile beings” idea, too. And the third panel is REALLY creepy. Paul, I love what you’ve been doing lately in terms of both art and narrative arc!
I had no idea who that was so I looked them up and watched a couple of their “works.” They look like some middle class suburbinite teens who practice in one of their dad’s garage . They’re not wack jobs, they’re just stupid. One of them sounds like Donald Duck with a sore throat. The lyrics are silly, not “hard core” as they (and their fans) seem to think they are. I couldn’t help but chuckle at their lame attempt to be “out there.” They seem to be sort of what you would get if The New Kids on the Block went headbanger.
whoops! I had no idea that Chelsea Grinn had another meaning. I was referring to the fictional sadistic killer found in another webcomic, chimneyspeak.com.
That Chelsea would kill anyone anywhere for any reason, but more likely for no reason at all.
Thanks for your input. I chatted with a person on line and he checked every page of the comic out for me (apparently there aren’t that many). He said there was not one panel which showed anyone killing a female. ALL the deaths actually shown were males. He also said there were a couple of mass murder scenes in which females may have been involved, but it was hard to tell, and aftermath scenes only showed males bodies laying about. Though he did say there was one aftermath panel in which it looked like there may have been the silhouette of a female laying in the street. No big surprise to me. This is typical for this type of fetish comic. Kind of the Mickey Spillane school of writing.
yea Paul has pulled that one on us before, remember after Jin blew a hole in the wall and Monica had poited Kevin to her bed, only to poit him back with a naked Bud? I would link, but i have to go.
If it were me (and I could speak), I would say “I suppose you’re all wondering why I called you together for this meeting.” Then I’d laugh maniacally and start my day. And I’d do that EVERY morning.
When this comic generates those looks for me, I just point at the laptop and say “Funny webcomic.” and grin like the Joker.
They don’t usually bother me for a while after that.
Nope.. ‘s pretty unsettling to actually see the imaginary peeps that Jin sees.
It is a good -and utterly eerie- illustration of her going off the deep-end more and more
Aaannnnd … we shift plot points. Ah well, someday we’ll get back to Shelly and Bud.
Yes, we need fewer of the stupid snowflakes and more of the intelligent ones.
Interestingly, at least one of the phantoms is clearly dressed in modern clothes. This would indicate they are not just a collection of spirits from the ancient world. That is to say not simply the victims of the GGGs temper tantrum so very long ago.
I’ve often wondered why ghosts appear dressed. The clothes didn’t die.
I’ve always thought it had to do with self-image. If you thought of yourself as being dressed, you would appear as being dressed. Otherwise, how would ‘psychics’, who have never met you, see you as you?
If ghosts exist, if they appear clothed, I would imagine that its’ due to how ingrained clothing is on our psyche. We wake up every morning to put on clothes, and we take them off every night. When we spill something on our clothes, we have to change. When we’re too cold, we don extra clothes. When we’re too hot, we put on lighter clothes. I wouldn’t expect a ghost of a person to show up naked in the same way that I wouldn’t expect the ghost of my old dog Coco to show up without her fur.
But these aren’t ghosts, are they? As I understand it, they’re hallucinations, part of Jin’s relapsed psychosis.
You miss the point about ‘true science’.. It cannot be true, unless there is ‘visible, repeatable, proof’.. e.g, until recently, most said that there are no other ‘earth – like’ planets.. until they found proof of it, however vague..
Of course, most optimists do not see it as ‘black & white’ as that, more ‘probable’…
there is some evidence of some kind of ‘ghosts’, but the 1 or 2 in a thousand that *actually* see them, are discredited by the millions who just pretend for fame and money…
Right. I saw Silvia Brown on line recently. She just happened to be part of something else I was looking at. She literally phones it in these days. Claims she can see your aura over the phone. Uh huh. Then there’s this guy: http://tinyurl.com/4qkzg9n
Jin’s hallucinations don’t necessarily have to be figures from her ancient childhood. Its been established, if I recall correctly, that Jin’s lucidity has been a byproduct of the Calendar Machine’s ongoing malfunction, but that her psychosis began much earlier in her life. But she’s experienced 85 thousand years, 52 loops, each of which included its own “modern era,” and those accumulated memories are now “up for grabs” as fodder for her returned mental deficiency.
The hallucination of the man in the suit and tie might be linked to a memory from a previous loop, or even the current loop.
Wha? She has about ten really really freaky, scary looking people-ghost-thingies standing around and You only think the little girl as haunting Jin??????
Makes me reriously wonder what You are used to
By the by, I thought it was Bud, not Jin, that saw that little girl, eyes wide in fear when the plasma-wave devoured the world.
What I meant was, it was Bud that Monica found “zoning-out’ in her (rather extensive) wine-cellar.
As I understood it, Bud was the one drawing Monica into the re-living of her memories, possibly triggered by monica’s boyfriend accidentally damaging the “Bud-Skeleton”
brandy and Jin didn’t seem to have had this “re-living”. They only had nightmares.
As I understand it, they were all fused into a single creature at that time so they all should have seen her at the same time. Only Bud, however, seems to suffer from the nightmares.
But multiple observers of the same incident will bring away different things that they remember. Even seeing the same event with the same eyes, when they were separated, they would remember what they thought was important.
Maybe the girl sticks out in Bud’s memory – when it occured, the were the fully combine Chimera, so they may all have individual memories. Or not – don’t know how combined creatures memories are managed.
“…why is it that you felt little Tiffany deserved to die?”
“I’m thinkin’, 8-year-old white girl, middle of the ghetto, full of creepy monsters, this time of night–with Quantum Physics books?! Those books are way too advanced for her. I’m thinkin’ she about to start some s**t.”
Hmm I was thinking that the others are just hallucinations?
Tina said Jin had something in her and it was Bud who said she might be haunted
Made sence to me that a real ghost would disguise itself and hide in amongst the imaginary stuff.
Specially if the ghost is in a bad mood
Jin is just not a winter person. It IS a bit creepy, though, how she accepts and ignores the hallucinations around her bed to shout invective at her real enemies, the snowflakes.
The phantasms in panel 3 remind me a bit of Zimmy’s Nobodies from Gunnerkrigg Court. Except that her mental figments can sometimes become real…
I think the giant face in panel 4 is interior decorating and not another illusion. Haven’t we seen it there before?
In Thailand, you find paintings similar to that one in all of the art shops. I always assumed that’s what it was. And now, when I go to Thailand, Jin is who I think of when I see them.
Given Jin’s poiting ability, it may be an actual Budda head with the rest of the statue embedded in another dimension. Or just the head with the rest simply embedded in the wall and an adjoining room. Heck, The Budda himself may have posed for it as a favor to Jin.
If I hear ANYONE in my office bitch about the hazy, hot, and humid R.I. summer this year, I’d like to sic Jin’s hallucinations on ‘em. Oh, how I hate snow, ice, cold………can’t leave until I retire………crud.
Holy crap! I NEVER want to see a snowfall in Minnesota…
Yeah. Apparently it’s so bad it even drives the ghosts inside.
Jin just isn’t a winter person, is she?
Hah!
So THAT’S where our 14 senators went…
LOL Democratic hdqrtrs: Jin’s bedroom?
I was just like that a few days ago….. wouldn’t stop snowing and it pissed me off because it canceled my dance classes for half a week…
I was pissed because they cancelled my daughter’s classes and not mine, so I had to “skip”… even though I couldn’t even get to my car. Stupid snow.
I had to turn my AC on yesterday. :3
(Pelts Akamar with a round of snowballs)
To Bud, we’re soap bubbles. To Jin, snowflakes.
Actually, I think Jin was ignoring the “shadows” standing around her and yelling at the snow in the window outside.
I like that thought better than thinking jin was calling the imaginary horde ‘snowflakes’
I like to think of myself as a snow-bubble.
Better than a snot-bubble I suppose.
I like the “snowflakes as metaphor for fragile beings” idea, too. And the third panel is REALLY creepy. Paul, I love what you’ve been doing lately in terms of both art and narrative arc!
It is good that we haven’t forgotten about Jin. Let’s hope she doesn’t become like Chelsea Grinn.
Trust me, Chelsea is a total whack-job.
I had no idea who that was so I looked them up and watched a couple of their “works.” They look like some middle class suburbinite teens who practice in one of their dad’s garage . They’re not wack jobs, they’re just stupid. One of them sounds like Donald Duck with a sore throat. The lyrics are silly, not “hard core” as they (and their fans) seem to think they are. I couldn’t help but chuckle at their lame attempt to be “out there.” They seem to be sort of what you would get if The New Kids on the Block went headbanger.
Ehrmm..what is the significance of a glasgow smile in this?
Apart from The Joker, I mean?
What Glasgow smile?
From context, i’d say it’s slashing the cheeks (like the Joker in “Dark Knight”). And i suppose it’s mentioned as a play on words…
Here, have a cookie….
Right, I know what a Glasgow smile is, but I’m still lost as to it’s applicability here.
Yeah..about that.. Jin+Glasgow smile…. ehh..huh *scratching head* ?????
(Glasgow smile=Chelsea Grin, same nasty procedure, different name)
In short: major confusion ensues
Oh.
Wait… are you referring to having the edges of the mouth cut in general or the character from Chimneyspeak?
whoops! I had no idea that Chelsea Grinn had another meaning. I was referring to the fictional sadistic killer found in another webcomic, chimneyspeak.com.
That Chelsea would kill anyone anywhere for any reason, but more likely for no reason at all.
And she hears “voices”.
I warn you, the webcomic is FOR ADULTS ONLY.
Ah, I see. Pretty much the entire first page of Google is filled with hits on the band. Going further I see there is a Chelsea J. Grinn even.
So, before I take a look at it, tell me please … does this character, like 99% of comic mass killers, slaughter 95+% male victims?
She’s a fairly equal opportunity mass murderer.
Thanks for your input. I chatted with a person on line and he checked every page of the comic out for me (apparently there aren’t that many). He said there was not one panel which showed anyone killing a female. ALL the deaths actually shown were males. He also said there were a couple of mass murder scenes in which females may have been involved, but it was hard to tell, and aftermath scenes only showed males bodies laying about. Though he did say there was one aftermath panel in which it looked like there may have been the silhouette of a female laying in the street. No big surprise to me. This is typical for this type of fetish comic. Kind of the Mickey Spillane school of writing.
I couldn’t help but notice that Jin is sleeping alone in this episode… Not thinking this is a good thing for her.
Well, it’s a pretty big bed, and we’re only seeing her side of it.
yea Paul has pulled that one on us before, remember after Jin blew a hole in the wall and Monica had poited Kevin to her bed, only to poit him back with a naked Bud? I would link, but i have to go.
Very deft bit of misdirection there! So evidently, Jin is so accustomed to seeing these images that she doesn’t even notice them anymore?
If it were me (and I could speak), I would say “I suppose you’re all wondering why I called you together for this meeting.” Then I’d laugh maniacally and start my day. And I’d do that EVERY morning.
I like the way you think.
Trust me. Laughing at your hallucinations gets dull after a while…
>:^D
Not if you’re truly insane. Mindless repetition is the conerstone of psychosis.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results…
So my job IS driving me crazy…
At work ROFL, LMAO…. people are starting to look at me funny. Goes into corner and sulks.
When this comic generates those looks for me, I just point at the laptop and say “Funny webcomic.” and grin like the Joker.
They don’t usually bother me for a while after that.
Same here, plus they , very slowly, back away from my office, mumbling “ohhkay, allrighty…” , keeping a weary eye on me…
*note to self: work on better “friendly smile”*
Learn to smile with your lips together. It’s the ‘Golem Teeth’ you had implanted that does it…
No, we didn’t have golem teeth implanted, we were created with it…eeehhh..
Oh..ahaa..that would explain the raw meat that gets tossed into my office every now&then..
This time of year, I’m hoping for sacrificial peeps.
Am I the only one who is really creeped out by the third panel?
Nope.. ‘s pretty unsettling to actually see the imaginary peeps that Jin sees.
It is a good -and utterly eerie- illustration of her going off the deep-end more and more
….What imaginary people? It’s just empty windows… What do you see there?
You’re right! There’s nothing there..noooothing there…nooooooothing there at all…
Ohmm Ohmm Ohmm…
Oh noes! They’re still there..I am pulled into Jin’s madness.. Luckily they are not the ones that make the voices in my head.
If precipitation was talking in your head I’d reccommend you see a better doctor than I am.
Yep. Nothing unusual in that 3rd panel at all.
Aaannnnd … we shift plot points. Ah well, someday we’ll get back to Shelly and Bud.
Yes, we need fewer of the stupid snowflakes and more of the intelligent ones.
Interestingly, at least one of the phantoms is clearly dressed in modern clothes. This would indicate they are not just a collection of spirits from the ancient world. That is to say not simply the victims of the GGGs temper tantrum so very long ago.
I’ve often wondered why ghosts appear dressed. The clothes didn’t die.
I’ve always thought it had to do with self-image. If you thought of yourself as being dressed, you would appear as being dressed. Otherwise, how would ‘psychics’, who have never met you, see you as you?
The suit and tie ghost might be from any when from late 19th to early 21st century.
Maybe someone in the 1920s pissed her off.
If ghosts exist, if they appear clothed, I would imagine that its’ due to how ingrained clothing is on our psyche. We wake up every morning to put on clothes, and we take them off every night. When we spill something on our clothes, we have to change. When we’re too cold, we don extra clothes. When we’re too hot, we put on lighter clothes. I wouldn’t expect a ghost of a person to show up naked in the same way that I wouldn’t expect the ghost of my old dog Coco to show up without her fur.
But these aren’t ghosts, are they? As I understand it, they’re hallucinations, part of Jin’s relapsed psychosis.
But we don’t believe in anything that cannot be explained by science. So ghosts are out.
whaddya mean “we”?
I gather Tina isn’t the only demon-collective here…
“cannot *at this time*be explained by science” …
You miss the point about ‘true science’.. It cannot be true, unless there is ‘visible, repeatable, proof’.. e.g, until recently, most said that there are no other ‘earth – like’ planets.. until they found proof of it, however vague..
Of course, most optimists do not see it as ‘black & white’ as that, more ‘probable’…
there is some evidence of some kind of ‘ghosts’, but the 1 or 2 in a thousand that *actually* see them, are discredited by the millions who just pretend for fame and money…
Right. I saw Silvia Brown on line recently. She just happened to be part of something else I was looking at. She literally phones it in these days. Claims she can see your aura over the phone. Uh huh. Then there’s this guy:
http://tinyurl.com/4qkzg9n
Haunted by naked ghosts… That’s… That’s… yeah…
Oh, yikes. Thanks for that image just before I go to bed…
Nah, they don’t wear clothes. That’s why the photos are always blurred. Ghosts have to be rated G, right?
*snicker*
I guess it’s the ghosts of all those cycles where the world went “kablooi”again.
It is not unthinkable there were some modern societies amongst them.
Although.. “suit and tie”?? What masochistic society, except ours, would have that uniform instated too?
Orrr..it’s just Jin’s conscience that’s playing up and projects in the shape of the people she sees around on any normal day…
She already admitted that she saw imaginary people around (hence her “poking” of people around to check if they’re real)
This is gonna be intrigueing, to say the least.
(Ihave to admit that I love the digging into character-development paul gives us)
Jin’s hallucinations don’t necessarily have to be figures from her ancient childhood. Its been established, if I recall correctly, that Jin’s lucidity has been a byproduct of the Calendar Machine’s ongoing malfunction, but that her psychosis began much earlier in her life. But she’s experienced 85 thousand years, 52 loops, each of which included its own “modern era,” and those accumulated memories are now “up for grabs” as fodder for her returned mental deficiency.
The hallucination of the man in the suit and tie might be linked to a memory from a previous loop, or even the current loop.
This is assuming they’re hallucinations in the first place.
Oh..Great! As if I wasn’t creeped-out enough by panel 3
The images of of the staring folks are hallucinations of Jin.
I thought they were us reading the comic, that Jin had become “comic-aware”.
That would be interesting, Opus. That may very well be how Paul sees us, his borderline psychotic fans.
“Borderline??”
Just trying to give some of you the benefit of the doubt.
They’re Wisconsin senators! Of course they’re hallucinations. (The short one isn’t a little kid, she’s Hmong.)
As in “there are creepazoids hmong us?”
Regardless of what they are, I am filled with a sense of hope that she’s able to ignore the hallucinations relative to the snowflakes…
“suit and tie” is masochistic? No. Not if it’s a correctly-fitting shirt (and if you don’t (needlessly) try to strangle yourself with the tie).
Also, circular irises.
Yeah, I find that creepy too…
hmm
the little girl at the frount
could that be the one haunting her?
Wha? She has about ten really really freaky, scary looking people-ghost-thingies standing around and You only think the little girl as haunting Jin??????
Makes me reriously wonder what You are used to
By the by, I thought it was Bud, not Jin, that saw that little girl, eyes wide in fear when the plasma-wave devoured the world.
Well, they were all three there…
What I meant was, it was Bud that Monica found “zoning-out’ in her (rather extensive) wine-cellar.
As I understood it, Bud was the one drawing Monica into the re-living of her memories, possibly triggered by monica’s boyfriend accidentally damaging the “Bud-Skeleton”
brandy and Jin didn’t seem to have had this “re-living”. They only had nightmares.
As I understand it, they were all fused into a single creature at that time so they all should have seen her at the same time. Only Bud, however, seems to suffer from the nightmares.
But multiple observers of the same incident will bring away different things that they remember. Even seeing the same event with the same eyes, when they were separated, they would remember what they thought was important.
Ahh! It didn’t land where it was supposed to…but it will still work here, I guess.
Brandi has nightmares too.
If you remember them being close together (bud and brandi that is) it made her think of them.
Maybe the girl sticks out in Bud’s memory – when it occured, the were the fully combine Chimera, so they may all have individual memories. Or not – don’t know how combined creatures memories are managed.
Friggin’ keyboard sprites…..
…MIB.
“…why is it that you felt little Tiffany deserved to die?”
“I’m thinkin’, 8-year-old white girl, middle of the ghetto, full of creepy monsters, this time of night–with Quantum Physics books?! Those books are way too advanced for her. I’m thinkin’ she about to start some s**t.”
Hmm I was thinking that the others are just hallucinations?
Tina said Jin had something in her and it was Bud who said she might be haunted
Made sence to me that a real ghost would disguise itself and hide in amongst the imaginary stuff.
Specially if the ghost is in a bad mood
That’s an interesting speculation.
She’s looking younger and younger every day… they’d better get Yggdrasil soon for the sake of the universe
Well, she was only about 17 or 18 when she died for the sake of Bud and Brandy.
Possibly the return of her Mom made her more of a teen again?
Good to see Jin’s got her priorities straight…
Jin is just not a winter person. It IS a bit creepy, though, how she accepts and ignores the hallucinations around her bed to shout invective at her real enemies, the snowflakes.
The phantasms in panel 3 remind me a bit of Zimmy’s Nobodies from Gunnerkrigg Court. Except that her mental figments can sometimes become real…
I think the giant face in panel 4 is interior decorating and not another illusion. Haven’t we seen it there before?
It’s a large head of the Buddha. I don’t know if it’s a wall sized poster or a sculpture. I like it.
In Thailand, you find paintings similar to that one in all of the art shops. I always assumed that’s what it was. And now, when I go to Thailand, Jin is who I think of when I see them.
Given Jin’s poiting ability, it may be an actual Budda head with the rest of the statue embedded in another dimension. Or just the head with the rest simply embedded in the wall and an adjoining room. Heck, The Budda himself may have posed for it as a favor to Jin.
For yea, even when the sun goes red supergiant and engulfs the planet, Minnesota shall still have winter…
Alright folks, it’s offical: snow is worse than psychosis.
yep…. at least psychosis is warm!
Lmfao ..I f*cking love you, Jin.
If I hear ANYONE in my office bitch about the hazy, hot, and humid R.I. summer this year, I’d like to sic Jin’s hallucinations on ‘em. Oh, how I hate snow, ice, cold………can’t leave until I retire………crud.
Question to anyone – can we post quotes from books here? I have one from Terry Pratchett that fits the bill for the ghost.
I can’t see why not – just provide the attribution.
That’s right, Jin. Priorities.
DAMN the objects that annoy you the MOST.
Ghosts? Bah, old hat. Snow? Damn you to hell!
Amen! We haven’t seen bare ground since November.
You forgot one more flake Jin…the one in bed shaking her fist!
Is that The Face of Boe behind Jin in the last panel?
Nobody ever asks what happened to the other body parts of Boe.