Wapsi Square

Slice of supernatural life YA comic PG-13 to R
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"We Can Practice"
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We Can Practice

by Paul Taylor on January 13, 2012 at 12:00 am
Story: Wapsi-Archive
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Discussion (78) ¬

  1. Maark30
    January 13, 2012, 2:14 am | # | Reply

    Well that answers if she was Sphinx full time in the Time forest or not.

    • Casey
      January 13, 2012, 3:13 am | # | Reply

      Exactly! Mystery solved, as Tom Siddell would say.

  2. Tristan
    January 13, 2012, 2:14 am | # | Reply

    I knew she could’ve switched forms in the forest!!!! Maybe Shelly’s dense that way.

  3. Dave
    January 13, 2012, 2:15 am | # | Reply

    One medium-sized complex crisis, now well on its way to being defuzed. Phew.

  4. TlalocW
    January 13, 2012, 2:24 am | # | Reply

    First thing’s first, kid… You need some snazzy pince-nez glassses like mine to cover our facial markings.

    TlalocW

    • Fairportfan
      January 13, 2012, 2:32 am | # | Reply

      Yup. Even if she takes ’em off, everyone would just figure they left marks.

      Of course, anyone looking at Phix’s nose seriously needs to be checked up on…

      • StJason
        January 13, 2012, 7:36 am | #

        …yeah. She’s so tall, it’s more like looking UP Phix’s nose…

    • DJ
      January 13, 2012, 2:45 am | # | Reply

      The facial markings (and fangs) only show up when she starts to get panicky.

      • Julie
        January 13, 2012, 9:35 am | #

        True enough, but it is kind of neat how Phix’s glasses have the little pads in the exact same spot as Shelly’s markings. 🙂 I like the image.

    • Dave
      January 13, 2012, 10:16 am | # | Reply

      *laughing out loud*

      You beat me to it! The match-up in position between Shelly’s facial markings, and the nosepieces of Phix’s glasses is so great it almost can’t be a coincidence.

      I wonder if even Phix has an occasional tendency to inadvertently show some sphinxly attributes when walking around in human-form?

      • Frumpy
        January 13, 2012, 11:28 am | #

        I am wondering if the resemblance is hereditary. What sphinx had a dalliance with a man way back when? Phix IS acting a bit maternal…

      • Vorlonagent
        January 13, 2012, 11:44 am | #

        I’d be disappointed to find Phix was Shelly’s mom. Seems to em it’s wrapping things to tightly in interconnections.

        But for Phix to be Shelly’s greatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgreatgrandmother could work.

      • Vorlonagent
        January 13, 2012, 11:45 am | #

        There’s a “grandmother” out there somewhere on the next screen over.

        She’s baking cookies.

      • Opus the Poet
        January 13, 2012, 3:35 pm | #

        Sorry, but I had to LOL at the comment to the comment.

      • Maark30
        January 13, 2012, 11:47 am | #

        I wondered that since Shelly came back from the Time Forest.

  5. Paula
    January 13, 2012, 2:29 am | # | Reply

    Awww *hug shelly*
    she looks kinda lost 🙁
    Really does look like a kid compared to the woman she actually is 🙂

    and yea took me a while to work out what the heck that arm is doing in the first panel. am i right its bent at the elbow but angled at such a way that from that viewpoint you can see the fingers going back towards the elbow? like a little teapot handle?

    • DJ
      January 13, 2012, 2:50 am | # | Reply

      One coffee and busty mom hug to go!

      • W00KY
        January 13, 2012, 5:12 am | #

        Considering just how much Phix towers over her it will even feel like Shelly is a little kid getting hugged by her mom and told everything will be okay.

        You know what? I wanna see her getting that hug. Maybe with a simple “Hug.” statement mad by phix. If it helps unstable girl golems it should help 80k old phinx teen-angst.

    • Danzier
      January 13, 2012, 8:51 am | # | Reply

      Which arm? (I’m guessing Shelly’s left one?)

      Shelly is standing with arms at about a 45-degree angle, then raises her right arm towards Phix and leans into the gesture. Her left arm remains as still as possible. We see the tops of her left fingers, the back of the arm, and the pointy part of the elbow.

  6. My2Cents
    January 13, 2012, 3:44 am | # | Reply

    I wonder what the relationship is for time between the library and the real world? Be nice if Shelly can get in a couple months practice in only a hour or 2.

    I also wonder if this is a case of grandma Phix to the rescue.

  7. harukohoshiko
    January 13, 2012, 5:39 am | # | Reply

    HAHA, Phix is the only one who will get away with calling Shelly “Kid” save for maybe her dad, but he has his own name for her.

    • Maark30
      January 13, 2012, 7:17 am | # | Reply

      Probably wreaking-ball. ;-p

      • Analyst
        January 13, 2012, 8:16 am | #

        If I remember right, it was “Shelly-bean” – a take off on the words Jelly bean. ‘Cause she’s so sweet. (c8

      • Stigmartyr762
        January 13, 2012, 11:52 am | #

        You are correct. Shelly’s dad calls his little girl Shellybean.

      • kermit
        January 13, 2012, 2:28 pm | #

        And sometimes “Shelly goddam it those engines cost money!”, if I recall correctly.

      • SoWhyMe
        January 14, 2012, 1:38 pm | #

        Puts me in mind of the dog someone told me about which hung around the campus during his stint at a seminary college. The students sort of adopted it, and took care of it’s needs. They called it “Damn Dog,” due to it’s habit of getting into things, except on parents visiting days, when it was “Spot.”

  8. Atomic
    January 13, 2012, 6:42 am | # | Reply

    It’s possible to become so utterly competent at something that is seems second nature — then when you need to explain or explain what you’re doing, it’s difficult because it’s so transparent.

    That’s where the work is!

    For example: Can you explain, in detail, Exactly how you swallow?

    To quote Johnny Cash (regarding criticism of his music):
    “Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s easy.”

    • bmonk
      January 13, 2012, 12:45 pm | # | Reply

      Or, to use Augustine’s example, when nobody asks, I know what time is–but when I must explain it, it’s impossible to put into words.

      • W.
        January 14, 2012, 9:49 am | #

        That’s an interesting take. I have always heard that if you can’t explain it, you don’t truly understand it.

      • SoWhyMe
        January 14, 2012, 2:40 pm | #

        Fortunately, you don’t have to truly understand something to make use of it.

    • Dave
      January 13, 2012, 2:44 pm | # | Reply

      Sure, I can tell you exactly how I swallow.

      I arise at around 5 AM, on a day predicted to be clear and with light winds. I dress according to the weather forecast for the morning.

      I gather my fine-mesh birding net, and set out for the cliffs.

      On arrival at the cliffs, I pick a location near the nests, and carefully hang the net between two trees.

      When the swallows wake up and fly out to start catching the first batch of early-morning insects, several of them always run into the net and are quickly and safely caught.

      I can then (gently) untangle them from the net, and check to see whether their legs already have bands on them. If not, I fasten new ID bands onto their legs. In either case, II enter the date, location, and band numbers into my tracking computer, and then release the birds.

      See? It’s really easy to describe, even though i do it very frequently.

      🙂

      • ShadOBabe
        January 14, 2012, 12:25 am | #

        Oh, you’re clever.

      • SoWhyMe
        January 14, 2012, 2:42 pm | #

        Now explain how a swallow swallows. Better still, do without using the word swallow.

      • Dave
        January 14, 2012, 3:49 pm | #

        Oh, they have an easy job of it. They’re passerines, adapted for feeding while flying. They let their airspeed do all of the work… just aim, open up their beaks, and zip the little flying creature they aimed at goes straight down their gullets with no further work required.

        In other words, they gulp their gnats, down their dragonflies, slurp spiders… more generally, they just ingurgitate insects.

      • shadowinthelight
        January 15, 2012, 6:27 pm | #

        Any difference between African and European?

      • Dave
        January 15, 2012, 7:27 pm | #

        Hmmm. I don’t know…

        ….. AAAAAaaaaaggghhhh …..

      • Danzier
        January 15, 2012, 7:31 pm | #

        Doesn’t it have something to do with whether they’re trying to migrate with coconuts? 😉

  9. Jay-Em
    January 13, 2012, 7:04 am | # | Reply

    Awww..Shelly finally has a Mom in ” normal time” even though Shel’s far too absorbed in angst to realize it, but Phix has taken Shelly in as an “adoptee”

    • jwhouk
      January 13, 2012, 8:35 am | # | Reply

      …

      You know, if it wasn’t that Phix didn’t have the right hair color…

      • Danzier
        January 13, 2012, 8:46 am | #

        Eh, the whatsis-gene-matching-diagram may come in handy on that one. Blonde is a little recessive, isn’t it? I know it works the other way around–dark-haired parents can and do have blonde kids (all my cousins are blonde, and my daughter’s dishwater blonde). Then again, looking at the facial structure, I’d stick Phix in the role of M’s mom.

        Speaking of our resident archeologist/museum mole, is she late for work yet?

      • Maark30
        January 13, 2012, 11:52 am | #

        Easy fix for that, Shelly’s dad has dark hair so she has her fathers hair.

      • Jay-Em
        January 14, 2012, 9:37 am | #

        I’d go for Phix being Shelly’s great, great grandma.
        Some features have an uncanny ability to skip generations.

        After my grandparends passed away, we found a sketch that my great great, granddad had made of my great granddad, and it was asif it was a current sketch of one of my uncles. Thát uncanny.

        He, himself was pretty baffled too.

        Back to Phix, it seems plausable that Phix’ involvement in the Wapsi-crew isn’t just to fix the calendar machine. Too many “coïncidences” in her being exactly where she’s needed.

        A blood-line might just be part&parcel of the whole deal.

      • Dave
        January 14, 2012, 12:43 pm | #

        Hmmm. Jay-Em, what you’re saying here (if correct) is goading me to realize that there are some interesting parallels between sphinxes, and Niven’s Pak.

        They’re both born as one stage (human / breeder) and later mature into an adult form (sphinx / Pak protector)

        They’re virtually immortal in their final forms.

        They’re more physically powerful in their final form.

        They take on a protective role after they mature and transform.

        Pak protectors are much more intelligent than they were before transforming, and they have an obsessive focus on protecting their bloodline descendants. We don’t know whether these things are true of sphinxes, or (if so) how much. If it does turn out that Phix is indeed one of Shelly’s ancestors, and the source of at least some of Shelly’s sphinx genetic heritage, such a bloodline-protectiveness might explain some of her involvement in things hereabouts.

        Certainly, Shelly does not seem to have had a major jump in either intelligence or wisdom (although Heather did pick up immediately on Shelly having grown emotionally).

        However, it’s still early days for Shelly in a way. It feels to me as if the Time Forest experience was almost a “fork and graft” process for Shelly… she’s really two different Shellys ( one 80,000 years old, the other in her early 20s) laminated together into a single body/person. It’s going to take some time for her to reconcile the two different women/beings that she is… her 20-something personality with its insecurities, blind spots, and not-always-so-bright-or-sensitive nature isn’t just magically going away.

      • NOTDilbert
        January 15, 2012, 12:56 am | #

        We’ve seen what Shelly’s mom looks like (via dream-sequence, when she got konked by the bowling ball) – long, straight, black hair, typical Amerind; I suspect any sphinxiness is in Daddy’s side of the family tree.

      • SoWhyMe
        January 15, 2012, 4:27 am | #

        Even more to the point is this one:
        http://wapsisquare.com/comic/08182004/

      • SoWhyMe
        January 15, 2012, 4:31 am | #

        And the one of which you were referring:
        http://wapsisquare.com/comic/04282005/

  10. TheDoctor
    January 13, 2012, 8:17 am | # | Reply

    Great, Now everytime I read Phix’s lines, I hear Alex Kingston, Not that theres anything wrong with that. (lol) Glad to see Phix take Shelly “under her wing” so to speak.
    Maybe its the way she dresses now but Shelly appears to be a little — “bustier” also does she not?

    • Julie
      January 13, 2012, 9:39 am | # | Reply

      A little, but that could simply be the cut of her outfit paired with the unavoidable side-effect of holding her arms that way. It presses the breasts together to force cleavage where there wouldn’t necessarily be any. 🙂

      • W.
        January 13, 2012, 9:57 am | #

        Heh, I was going to go with the custom bras…

    • SoWhyMe
      January 13, 2012, 11:11 am | # | Reply

      A female version of Pinocchio? Perhaps the fingernails aren’t the only things to enlarge first when she’s panicky.

  11. kingklash
    January 13, 2012, 10:34 am | # | Reply

    Our long, tall Librarian needs a break from testing her patience with Nudge. Helping Shelly get a hold on herself will seem like a walk in the park.

    • Maark30
      January 13, 2012, 11:55 am | # | Reply

      I’m guessing that since Nudge has been exposed for her par in the creation of Connie that she is being tolerated a little bit better now.

  12. ziggy78eog
    January 13, 2012, 12:45 pm | # | Reply

    Wow, Shelly looks like Monica when compared next to Phix.

    • SoWhyMe
      January 14, 2012, 2:45 pm | # | Reply

      Nearly everyone looks like that when compared to Phix.

    • Opus the Poet
      January 15, 2012, 7:46 pm | # | Reply

      Shelly’s not that much taller than Monica, so yes, next to Phix they both look like kids next to their mothers.

  13. The Old Wolf
    January 13, 2012, 2:52 pm | # | Reply

    I need the next book. The story is so much more cohesive in my poor feeble brain when I can digest it en masse, and flip around to refresh my memory on points that I have forgotten. I need the next book.

    • Jay-Em
      January 14, 2012, 9:38 am | # | Reply

      Ditto!

  14. JRS
    January 13, 2012, 6:14 pm | # | Reply

    I’m probably the last person to notice this: you can tell from his art that Pablo has a background in photography (if, like, you hadn’t read his bio.) He’s very big on putting the background slightly out of focus, soft and blurry, to make the foreground characters /pop/. Neat! 🙂

    -JRS

    • shadowinthelight
      January 14, 2012, 12:50 am | # | Reply

      It could also be a time saving measure letting him get away with simpler backgrounds. Not implying Paul is lazy, an artist saving time on backgrounds gives more time to focus on the charachters which is a good tradeoff IMO.

      • scantrontb
        January 15, 2012, 5:41 am | #

        Not only that, but it also allows for continuity between scenes. think of how many times we’ve seen Tina behind the counter handing over a cup of mocha… now take a new look at those backgrounds… they all have the same chalkboard in them that stays the same even though it’s not seen again for a while… that’s either a photographic memory and extremely good memory-eye-hand coordination, or he’s using a photo (or whatever) as a prebuilt background he put’s in every time he shows the Mucho-Mocha from the customers POV.

      • Dave
        January 15, 2012, 12:22 pm | #

        I think the latter… he’s got one or more larger background images drawn up and scanned. He can take a portion of such a background, defocus, add bokeh or other visual effects, and then layer it in behind the scan of the foreground characters he’s drawn for that panel.

        It’s a fine technique, as long as he doesn’t use one background scan of Mucho Mocha for so long that the muffins get stale… that would be bad for sales! 🙂

  15. Danzier
    January 14, 2012, 1:57 am | # | Reply

    Aw poot–it’s Friday. Well, Saturday, now. Here i’ve been hanging out drooling for an update. :0

    • SoWhyMe
      January 14, 2012, 1:26 pm | # | Reply

      Happens to the best of us, or, in my case, the worst of us.

      I’m thinking this may be the last of this sequence and Monday will bring us into a new situation.

    • Danzier
      January 15, 2012, 9:46 am | # | Reply

      Yep. Either it’ll be Dietzel Strikes Again or Who Redecorated The Library?

      After rereading three quarters of the archives yesterday, I discovered that this little scene starts with a role reversal for M and Shelly. See?

  16. Danzier
    January 15, 2012, 12:17 am | # | Reply

    grumblegrumble…
    Off-topic: I was telling someone about Wapsi and the time when Tepoz poited M’s poo and they wanted to see it and does anyone have a link? I can’t efficiently navigate the archives any more…

    • NOTDilbert
      January 15, 2012, 12:59 am | # | Reply

      Ah, I think it was Jin who poited the pee and poo, in a rush to get ready to go somewnere. Sorry, don’t have the link, tho.

    • Casey
      January 15, 2012, 1:06 am | # | Reply

      As NOTDilbert said, it was Jin, not Tepoz. And I have the link!

      • SoWhyMe
        January 15, 2012, 2:34 pm | #

        Tepoz tended to poit stuff into Monica:
        http://wapsisquare.com/comic/10272004/

        Which resulted in monumental pooping the old fashioned way:
        http://wapsisquare.com/comic/11012004/

    • Danzier
      January 15, 2012, 9:13 am | # | Reply

      Thanks, you guys! You’re awesome!

  17. davids4250
    January 15, 2012, 1:16 am | # | Reply

    I have spent the last week-and-a-half (roughly) reading this from the first strip. I’m afraid I will start going through withdrawal if I have to read it just one day at a time now! AAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!

    • TheSkulker
      January 15, 2012, 3:01 am | # | Reply

      Easy fix, David.

      Just stop reading the daily strips for a year!

    • Danzier
      January 15, 2012, 9:44 am | # | Reply

      Yes, you will. It will also rear its ugly head on weekends. The only help is knowing that on Monday there will be more.

    • Dave
      January 15, 2012, 12:15 pm | # | Reply

      My condolences, David!

      The good news, for what it’s worth, is that you’re not the first to face this terrible situation. Many of us have been through it.

      Most of us survived it.

      The others… well, we try not to talk about them, except at the annual trebuchet-lighting ceremony.

      As the newest survivor, you of course will be expected to bring the cake and cookies.

      • david4250
        January 15, 2012, 2:08 pm | #

        Cake and cookies, no problem. And when is this lighting of the trebuchet?

      • Dave
        January 15, 2012, 7:25 pm | #

        I don’t think the date has been set yet. What with the Calendar Machine having been scrunched, and a reverse-80000-year time cycle having been spliced in, everybody’s schedule is in complete chaos.

        Keep reading; I’m sure the ceremony will be announced once it’s agreed upon. 😉

      • Danzier
        January 15, 2012, 7:36 pm | #

        I’ve got dibs on bringing a Marti transmitter; anyone want visuals? We’re meeting at Confusion Corner again, right? 😉

      • W.
        January 15, 2012, 9:44 pm | #

        Dear david4250. We of course by now know the cake is a lie. Phix dispenses the cookies and I don’t know about the trebuchet but Dave better be forthcoming and don’t let him bamboozle you about messed up calendars either. He did that 80,000 years ago and it didn’t work then either. Welcome, the Confusion Corner has hot coffee.

  18. Danzier
    January 15, 2012, 10:44 am | # | Reply

    Another Shelly notebook sketch! http://wapsisquare.com/comic/harmless/

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