Wapsi Square

Slice of supernatural life YA comic PG-13 to R
  • Home
  • About
  • Book Store
  • Bluesky
  • Twitch
  • Forum
  • Archive
DeviantART pinterest YouTube RSS
"Early Bird"
<< First < Prev 82Comments Next > Last >>
Early Bird
<< FIrst < Prev Random 82Comments Next > Last >>

Friends

  • Dumbing of Age
  • OGLAF (NSFW)
  • Something Positive
Buy Me A Coffee

Mastodon

Latest Medusa Comic

Early Bird

by Paul Taylor on March 21, 2012 at 12:00 am
Story: Wapsi-Archive
Comments RSS

Discussion (82) ¬

  1. Tristan
    March 21, 2012, 2:29 am | # | Reply

    What happened at the Library?!?

    • Leak
      March 21, 2012, 2:31 am | # | Reply

      I guess that is going to one looong cliffhanger… 🙂

  2. DJ
    March 21, 2012, 2:46 am | # | Reply

    She’s being way too hard on herself. They eloped so I doubt too many people got an invite to come along.

    • Dusty668
      March 21, 2012, 5:45 am | # | Reply

      That’s the whole point of eloping, so the hassle and fooferaw of the ‘celebration’ doesn’t overpower the ceremony of the ‘joining’.

      If you invite someone you ain’t eloping.

      • iliad
        March 21, 2012, 8:12 am | #

        well, if you want to marry that way, it can involve 1 or 2 very close friends… 🙂

      • Fairportfan
        March 21, 2012, 8:13 am | #

        Someone i used to correspond with online said her family had four daughters.

        Her dad made sure all the girls knew where he kept the ladder.

      • Julie
        March 21, 2012, 9:58 am | #

        I’m an only child and my father tried to bribe my husband and I to elope (offered to make the down payment on a first house). It was hard to turn that down, but I wanted my wedding. 🙂 We are both happy we made the choice we did, but I guess dads don’t like dealing with the fuss of it all.

      • Fairportfan
        March 21, 2012, 10:29 am | #

        Or the expense, which i think was her father’s point.

      • bmonk
        March 21, 2012, 11:43 am | #

        Yes–not just the expense of one wedding, but fourfold.

        Especially considering how extravagant some weddings get these days.

      • eggishorn
        March 21, 2012, 11:49 am | #

        Considering that the wedding dress alone can equal the down payment of a house, I think your father was just being sensible. My wife and & had our wedding 10 years after the marriage and still we ran away to Vegas and only had 4 other people there. Among my siblings, at least, there’s been an inverse relationship between wedding expenditures and length of the marriage.

      • Julie
        March 21, 2012, 6:25 pm | #

        My dress was nowhere near the cost of a down payment on a house. 🙂 I don’t know how much the wedding itself cost (my mother worked hard to keep that from me), but I understand that she was at or under budget for it. 🙂 I’m a fairly simple girl with simple needs. No $20k wedding here!

    • Avenger_Reloaded
      March 21, 2012, 2:06 pm | # | Reply

      My wife and I did what we dubbed “wedding in a box.” We gave ourselves 18 mo. to get it done.
      Bought the dress used. Used fake flowers from Michaels arts & crafts to make the centerpieces well in advance. Center piece for the cake was purchased long ahead of time.
      The bridesmaids go to pick their dresses from magazines we tore out of many bridal maganies with the caveat of pick something you can wear after after the wedding. All we needed was for it to be dark purple. We had it in November so no one would die of heat stroke.
      She essentially catered our own wedding since stuff was prepared ahead of time and frozen. 4 freinds went ahead to the clubhouse to set up for the reception. My brother and a friend were the DJ who did a great improv job with a legit stereo system. Another friend was a pro photographer who took our wedding pictures.
      Limo was a rented Cadilac and not a limo. MUCH cheaper and my brother drove us to our destination. That night before we drove to our honeymoon destination the next day fully rested. We live in Jersey so my brothers were a lot more conventional over the top weddings but they’re still paying them off whereas my family is working only on the mortgage. I may have left out details but that’s the reader’s digest of what we pulled off.
      Cheap can be done but giving yourself the leeway of time and not rushing it is essential to the process.

    • Dave
      March 21, 2012, 2:44 pm | # | Reply

      My wife and I did it much the same way, Avenger. Planned it ourselves, paid for it ourselves – simple, just a few relatives from each side of the family, held it in the back yard of a co-worker’s house (they had volunteered!). Simple ceremony, simple refreshments served in the dining room (and she let me get away with serving wedding punch with a block of dry ice bubbling away in it!), a delicious creamy-frosted carrot cake made by the lead baker at a local Hare Krishna temple (and we neglected to tell my wife’s fundamentalist sister about the cake’s origin) and a simple honeymoon afterward. Minimal hassles and stress all around, no added debt, and she really looked lovely (Chinese silk dress, and a red-flower headpiece she made herself).

      We just celebrated our 25th anniversary last spring.

      • as363
        March 21, 2012, 3:09 pm | #

        Congrats Dave – that puts you in the top 3 % of the population

      • Valkeiper
        March 21, 2012, 4:50 pm | #

        I’m pretty sure some friends I know are in that elite percentage.

        they married when he was 16 and she was 14. they are now 108 and 106.

        He outworks 30-year-olds on their ranch and she’s absolute monarch in the ranch home (yep, ranch home. I find it hard to call their residence a ‘house’ because of the wonderful life they lead)

        I visited them as often as I could (in Pecos City, Texas) when I was trucking.

      • Dave
        March 21, 2012, 6:40 pm | #

        3%? I don’t think it’s anywhere near that lean, at the 25-year point? A study in 2007 said “For the first time at least since World War II, married people had a less than even chance of still being married 25 years later.”

        It’s true that a lot of younger people these days are declining to marry (or are marrying at a later age)… but it would take a *lot* of people not marrying to get the “married over 25 years” percentage down to 3% of the population, would it not?

        I imagine that the stats on the duration of *marriages* is skewed strongly towards shorter marriages (because a fair number of people have multiple short marriages) but that’s a different statistic.

      • DJ
        March 21, 2012, 5:52 pm | #

        Knew a couple of poor uni students who were very much in love and couldn’t wait. The wedding was in a public garden with about 15 close friends in attendance.

        The reception was nibbles back at their place afterwards sitting around and chatting. The speeches were whoever wanted to say anything about the bride and groom.

        And you know what? It was one of the most beautiful and intimate weddings I have ever attended.

      • Dave
        March 21, 2012, 6:44 pm | #

        Very nice!

        I’m reminded a bit of a passage from Pat Frank’s post-WW3 novel “Alas, Babylon”, in which an old preacher was asked to perform a marriage in the absence of a proper marriage license (the issuing authority had sorta been vaporized):

        “I’ve married quite a few couples in my day. Some had papers, some didn’t. Some stuck, some didn’t. It wasn’t the papers that made the difference; it was the people.” I think the same thing holds true for the lavishness and formality of the wedding ceremony… I doubt that it really has much bearing at all, one way or the other, on whether a couple works out the hard stuff over the years and stays together, or splits up and each goes their own way.

  3. Opus the Poet
    March 21, 2012, 2:53 am | # | Reply

    Now, Shelly, don’t be feeling sorry for yourself. You had your chance and then it passed you by, and they both still think fondly of you (as evidenced by the card). You have a different life now because you took the other road, the one less traveled. You have saved to world, twice. You have a relatively human-looking partner now…

    • DJ
      March 21, 2012, 5:55 am | # | Reply

      Less traveled?! She has been on that road for 80,000+ years now.

      • MerchManDan
        March 21, 2012, 6:02 am | #

        Sure…by herself. No other human being has travelled that road (so far as we know), which is what makes it “less travelled.”

  4. Casey
    March 21, 2012, 3:14 am | # | Reply

    That can actually be a fairly useful superpower at times. You hear all kinds of weird stuff when people don’t notice that you are around.

    • bmonk
      March 21, 2012, 11:49 am | # | Reply

      As long as you don’t get it in the way the protagonist in “The Fly” got his new body.

      Did he ever try to hang on a wall in the movie (or book)? I forget.

      • genis_vel
        March 21, 2012, 12:23 pm | #

        In the original film the full-sized version never tried but the fly-sized one could. In the 80’s remake he did. In the short story I don’t think he did… although he did get mixed with the house-cat too. *shudders*

      • bmonk
        March 21, 2012, 2:39 pm | #

        Thanks for the details. [shudders also] I think.

      • as363
        March 21, 2012, 3:11 pm | #

        A Winged Pussy ? – run for your life !!

      • bmonk
        March 22, 2012, 12:00 pm | #

        With fangs and claws? And bloodsucking mouth??

  5. Maark30
    March 21, 2012, 3:15 am | # | Reply

    She may feel invisible but her guy seems to know the right way to make her feel good about herself. (Now how about the Justin haters renounce their hatred a little???)

    • Ari
      March 21, 2012, 4:16 am | # | Reply

      Nope. Doesn’t take a good guy to notice a hot chick.

      • lake_wrangler
        March 21, 2012, 9:58 am | #

        Maark30 didn’t say that Justin’s a good guy for noticing a hot chick.

        He said Justin’s a good guy for knowing that hearing about guys noticing her would probably cheer her up a little (and counter the argument that she’s “socially invisible”)…

      • Julie
        March 21, 2012, 10:13 am | #

        Points for lake_wrangler! 🙂 Sorry Ari…I know you’re not alone in your anti-Justin stance, but there aren’t too many people who feel that there’s anything wrong with him. He’s shaping up to be a pretty good match for Shelly.

      • Sheik
        March 21, 2012, 10:51 am | #

        Especially since she can afford to roll over in bed an not accidentally kill him.

      • Ari
        March 21, 2012, 8:09 pm | #

        Still not sold. Justin haters were asked to renounce some hatred and I’m not sold because he told her she’s hot. S’all I’m sayin.

    • MerchManDan
      March 21, 2012, 5:24 am | # | Reply

      Since when does anybody hate Justin?? I must have missed that discussion.

      • ChrisHerself
        March 21, 2012, 10:30 am | #

        Exactly what I was wondering.

      • Dave
        March 21, 2012, 10:56 am | #

        As I recall, Justin got some strong criticism from a few people, for having raged “Don’t touch me!!” at Shelly, called her crazy, and refused to listen to her explanations on that fateful day in the gym. This was seen by some as him being abusive to her, and overreacting to what she had done (and to be fair, it had not yet been made clear through dialog in the script that her reflexive attack had connected and that she had slashed him to the bone.)

      • bmonk
        March 21, 2012, 11:51 am | #

        Also before we got his full back story (such as we’ve heard) about prior relationships with supernatural critters that went sour.

      • proptarts
        March 21, 2012, 1:06 pm | #

        Was wondering as well, but then I’m a newbie who’s just sat down and read the archives, so I got Justin’s backstory in one swoop.

    • iliad
      March 21, 2012, 8:34 am | # | Reply

      but she said *socially* invisible… plenty are seeing her, but no-one is inviting her places!!! :/

      time for justin to ring around, and get her friends to come around…

      • Boxilar
        March 21, 2012, 1:45 pm | #

        I think part of the problem is that Shelly is part of another world entirely from her old friends. She made it clear to Monica way back that she didn’t want to be part of all the supernatural goings on. And despite the fact that she IS the supernatural, a part of her still wants a “normal” life. Owen represents that to her. Justin is a great guy and is compatible with her, if for no other reason than he can survive the things they’re likely to go through together. Owen would have been criticaly injured if not killed outright at Punk Yoga. He would have been permanantly disfigured or killed during the run in at the library annex. No normal human could survive the things she’s likely to get into in the future. Justin can. And part of being in a relationship is shared experiences and there are so many things that Shelly couldn’t share with anyone else.
        This also explains the gradual fade out of some of the original characters. The current main cast, which I consider M, the GGs, Shelly and Tina, deal with things on a regular basis that they simply can’t share with anyone outside thier limited circle. Amanda and Katherine got included because M wanted to stay grounded with the normal. Shelly hasn’t included any of her old friends because, despite her longing for what she can never have, she knows she isn’t “normal”.
        Shelly’s “socialy invisible” comment is her realising that she’s lost connections that she’s never going to get back. Justin’s comment was a well timed reminder that for everything she’s lost, she’s gained a lot too.

    • Valkeiper
      March 21, 2012, 4:37 pm | # | Reply

      Notice the ‘off-hand’ way he made that remark. It was like “Hey, you do it every day. It’s nothing out of the ordinary for cars to back up watching you”.

      Wonderful delivery, Justin. The way you made it seem like you didn’t consider the backup extraordinary probably will boost her moral more than the actually words.

  6. Cherish Bloom
    March 21, 2012, 3:50 am | # | Reply

    So that’s why I was swearing at the snarl in traffic yesterday!!

    Damn girl, why didn’t you just go to Lake Harriet?

  7. Ari
    March 21, 2012, 4:16 am | # | Reply

    HEY! I have that super power!

  8. GothicMixx
    March 21, 2012, 4:17 am | # | Reply

    A moody Sphinx just what the world needs

  9. The Old Wolf
    March 21, 2012, 4:55 am | # | Reply

    Bicep-to-breast ratio in first panel has blown grammar fuse. Attempting bypass…

    • W00KY
      March 21, 2012, 5:44 am | # | Reply

      …..okay, before i read your comic that whole ratio did not really hit. Now however…brainfreeze.

      Maybe she has more control over her body than just Sphinx/human changing? Which just begs the question:which part of her subconciusness decide to “arm” herself thet way?

    • harukohoshiko
      March 21, 2012, 7:08 am | # | Reply

      Shelly has always had small breasts, and large biceps. We’re used to this by now, aren’t we?

      • Cyrus McDugan
        March 21, 2012, 7:19 am | #

        Shelly once threw a motor(!) out of the garage on the road. So the biceps are alright.

      • Yamara
        March 21, 2012, 8:10 am | #

        Her truly frightening superpower in this page is her ability to down tea while the bag is still steeping in the cup.

        That’s one serious chamomile addiction.

      • Dave
        March 21, 2012, 10:04 am | #

        Chamomile? I was thinking more along thr lines of Rolling Thunder (picture of a charging bison on the cover) or perhaps a double-strong Lapsang Souchong (“A creosote-soaked wharf piling in every cup!”)

        Coffee isn’t the only way to get a caffeine fix in the morning!

      • Valkeiper
        March 21, 2012, 4:31 pm | #

        hey, I drink tea with the teabag in on a regular basis (like right now).

        Usually, I put about 6 teaspoons of sugar and a teabag in a 20 oz mug. then i pour boiling water in. Ten minutes later, I can’t see the teabag for the darkness of the stew and I proceed to drink.

        WONDERFUL pick-me-up.

      • The Old Wolf
        March 21, 2012, 7:57 am | #

        It’s not the concept, which I am used to. It’s just Paul’s day-to-day continuity is not really a focus, so sometimes her bust is bigger, and sometimes her arms are not quite so muscular. Clicky. Today’s contrast was especially striking.

      • W.
        March 21, 2012, 8:51 am | #

        Well, arm size can change significantly depending on the pumped status of the muscles. Right after a work out, they can be a lot bigger than when cold and starting the workout. At least that’s how I rationalize it, because I don’t know Shelly’s workout schedule.

  10. harukohoshiko
    March 21, 2012, 7:06 am | # | Reply

    lol I totally read that in Raritys voice, and that’s funny for a couple reasons.

    • scantrontb
      March 21, 2012, 7:30 am | # | Reply

      Hmm, for me it was Joe Diffie (I’m pretty sure it was him). He sang “She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful”

      • fallconskat
        March 21, 2012, 11:28 am | #

        TheEngineer set that as the ringtone on my phone without telling me. he seems convinced that he got the last beautiful woman on the planet when he married me.

        this delusion makes me laugh in his face. 😉

      • Darkbunny
        March 21, 2012, 2:51 pm | #

        I was always pretty sure it was Sammy Kershaw.

      • scantrontb
        March 21, 2012, 7:22 pm | #

        OOPS! you’re right, i just looked it up on my playlist… Joe does “Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox When I Die”

  11. William Krait
    March 21, 2012, 7:40 am | # | Reply

    It’s so hard to have a pity party when you have friends who love you and care for you. We should all have problems like that.

  12. Rowan Hawthorn
    March 21, 2012, 7:41 am | # | Reply

    I think we’re all missing the most important point here: where the hell is the live-action video of that jog…?

    • TheDoctor
      March 21, 2012, 9:06 am | # | Reply

      The video is in the mobile phone of the gentleman who is currently in Hospital after driving his car up a tree while shooting said said video. 🙂 Lucky for him all the cars were moving slow. 😉

  13. kingklash
    March 21, 2012, 9:01 am | # | Reply

    She’ll be alright. Just having a moment to think What Could Have Been.

  14. W.
    March 21, 2012, 9:02 am | # | Reply

    Good looking Shelly is oblivious to the fact that she is a traffic stopper. Her wake of destruction is enormous. Guys falling in open manholes, guys being hit by other guys carrying boards. You know; the usual. There would probably be wolf whistles if she didn’t look like she could tie you into a knot if you did and she could do it so fast no one could testify to what actually happened.

    • TheDoctor
      March 21, 2012, 9:28 am | # | Reply

      Open manholes, guys walking into boards? Sounds lie a Benny Hill episode.

      • TheDoctor
        March 21, 2012, 9:29 am | #

        Sorry…..”like”……

    • Dave
      March 21, 2012, 10:00 am | # | Reply

      Wasn’t there a strip, quite a few years back, showing just that sort of mayhem in the street as the direct effect of Monica and Shelly having gone bra-shopping?

      • Julie
        March 21, 2012, 10:30 am | #

        Yes. Yes there was. I spent a lot of time not finding it, but it was when Monica took Shelly to her specialty bra shop and Shelly learned that you get what you pay for. 🙂

      • DJ
        March 21, 2012, 5:35 pm | #

        Here 🙂

      • Fairportfan
        March 21, 2012, 10:31 am | #

        Yep.

        “Did we cause that?”

        “Our new bras might have. Let’s get out of here.”

        “Hey – I don’t even bounce!”

        “Lucky girl!”

    • Jay-Em
      March 21, 2012, 11:32 am | # | Reply

      And it’s not exactly the first time. Remember when Shelly and Monica got new bra’s fitted?

      Qui the traffic chaos there…

      • Jay-Em
        March 21, 2012, 11:33 am | #

        Oops,read over the former comments. Well, apparently we are all agreeing here..

  15. ShadOBabe
    March 21, 2012, 10:09 am | # | Reply

    Heehee, great strip this morning.
    I was just wondering why the last two strips had that pretty sepia watercolor look, but today is the usual back and white.

    Was it for atmosphere when Shelly got that We Eloped picture from Owen? Or was it just something Paul wanted to do?

    • Fairportfan
      March 21, 2012, 10:32 am | # | Reply

      Yes

    • ChrisHerself
      March 21, 2012, 10:35 am | # | Reply

      I think the sepia tones were brought in as a way to heighten the viewer’s sense of the nostalgia Shelly felt, and the warmth of the morning. In a comic usually all gray tones, it was quite effective, but going back to gray tones now feels appropriate for this strip and its script. It makes the sepia toned strips have a lot of impact. Paul is very deliberate and thoughtful with his art like that. 🙂

      • as363
        March 21, 2012, 3:16 pm | #

        Totally Agree – and a marvelous job of it .

  16. Sheik
    March 21, 2012, 11:06 am | # | Reply

    Personally I’m beginning to think such a combination is either extremely rare or impossible.
    It’s because athletic females have a naturally high testosterone output that interferes with the development of the hourglass figure.
    Oh well, maybe in my next life. :/

    • Jay-Em
      March 21, 2012, 11:35 am | # | Reply

      For Shelly, that doesn’t go. I mean, how many sphinx-hybrids do Youknow?

    • Valkeiper
      March 22, 2012, 12:21 am | # | Reply

      I’ve seen quite a few athletic women (and known some of them).

      I’ll tell you this. Most have small breasts; but the rest of their figures are even more well defined than a super model’s (and I’ve known a couple of them, too)

      I prefer the athletes any day to the supermodels… more ‘down-to-earth’.

      • Sheik
        March 22, 2012, 10:47 am | #

        Bust size is nice and all, but the real problem is the waist to hip ratio.
        Something Paul is very conscious of.

  17. CPUGuy1
    March 21, 2012, 11:29 pm | # | Reply

    … cars backed up while out jogging.

    Makes me wonder which jogging suit was she wearing.

    • Valkeiper
      March 22, 2012, 12:11 am | # | Reply

      jogging suit or birthday suit?

      now THAT would stop traffic, LOL.

  18. Valkeiper
    March 22, 2012, 12:17 am | # | Reply

    Dang, look at HIS arms… and he just got up?

    I can bench press my own weight (240 lbs) plus a little and I don’t have arms like that after working out 2 hours.

    Of course, being 55 years old may have something to do with that… LOL.

Comment ¬ Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Home
  • About
  • Book Store
  • Bluesky
  • Twitch
  • Forum
  • Archive

©2001-2025 Paul Taylor | Powered by WordPress with ComicPress | Subscribe: RSS | Back to Top ↑