True, but… who can say how things would have played out, if Shelly and Owen had gotten together. This might easily have diverted the course of Shelly’s life, enough that she might not have picked up the Artifact and been dumped into the Time Forest. She might have grown old and died as a human, without ever learning of her heritage as a sphinx.
We just don’t know how fragile, possible, or inevitable/fated many things are, within the Wapsi Square timeline. Certainly, some things were very uncertain… consider how many times it took to get things set up right to stop the Calendar Machine timeloop.
When it comes to relationship machinations around the CM, I always felt there was something up with all the principals being out of Minneapolis in late 2002… shortly after Tepoz’s return from “Utah”. Monica is Mexico, not around to bond with Janet during planning for the winter exhibit, and returns to get closer with Katherine (of all unlikely people) instead; Heather distracts Owen from Shelly, and then… Shelly from Owen at critical moments, even though she isn’t right for either of them; Amanda is in Florida with different Amazons, of truly remarkable strength… the significance of this perhaps remains to be seen.
Though as a final note: Who set Owen up with Lakshmi? He hardly seemed to need a blind date. Jacqui already knew who she was. What’s the backstory of that chain of events?
I don’t think anyone set ’em up – Lakshmi saw Owen at a concert Fermented Banana opened for, they met, danced and he got her number.
Shelly saw, but chose not to react…..
ERROR. FILE DATA MISMATCH – Er, I misremembered. went back to find the link, it wasn’t where I thought it was – at least sixty percent of my house is like that.
Eloping is simply running off to get married immediately without a big event with tons of people there. Historically people most often eloped when families disapproved etc but that’s not required.
Not required indeed. My father-in-law actually tried to talk my wife and I into eloping (somebody didn’t want to pay for the wedding that mother-in-law wanted, methinks).
Elope: to escape privately, especially with a lover. It’s derived from Dutch and Old German roots which mean “to run away”.
In a more contemporary sense, “elope” usually means “went off and got married, without advanced notice to others, and usually without guests or witnesses other than those required by law”. It may be done because other people are trying to stop your wedding, or just because you decide you want to get married Right Now without a lot of advanced bother.
She may be getting hit with a bit of nostalgia for a relationship that could have been and wasn’t, but she will have to remember that she is in a relationship with someone that can “physically” survive the world that she is part of. But Shelly must remember an important old adage; “As one door closes, another opens”, since that is what happened when she sort of gave her blessing to Owen by telling him that if he ever hurt Lakshmi she would hurt him and Justin entering her world.
ah so the escape plan to a normal life is eloping… interesting… lol Glad to see those two worked out. I guess the question is now will they ever end up becoming part of this “magical mystery tour” that has been going on.
As for the road less traveled part… I am constantly reminded of a piece of advice given to me once… there is a reason why some people are “ex’s”… In my case I have a bad habit of revisiting the past… oy…
as apposed to what has happened already? the poor boy has been through so much marriage might actually be a walk in the park…. now the honeymoon… that is a different story. 😉
You remember the Sam Kinison bit about the married guy going to hell – Devil jumps out starts to make scary noises, then says “oh — you’re married? Well, this will be nothing new then, lemme give you the tour …”
I’m actually quite happy in my marriage, but that routine still gives me a chuckle, every time. And a punch in the arm if she catches me chuckling at it. 😀
So THAT’S we’re they went!!
Thank you so much Paul for putting them in this comic. I missed them. Just knowing they’re doing well is heart-warming.
I’m really interested in Shelly’s reaction. I’m actually kinda surprised. But I guess it makes sense. She DID have feeling for him at one point. But I didn’t think they ran that deep. At least not in the romantic sense. They were really good friends. Not to mention she has Justin.
I read it as more of a mutual crush. What are your thoughts guys?
True. But that look on here face doesn’t read, “Oh, how beautiful/romantic”, “I’m so happy for them”, or any positive emotions behind those tears. That look on her face is more akin to something like mild heartbreak.
Yeah, I know she had a big thing for him. That can lay dormant and then WHAM you’re hit again.
But I don’t know, it could be anything. She could feel like she missed out on something big in Owen’s life. It could be happy tears. Hell, it could be one of those “Where has the time gone?” nostalgia moments (I got that way when my friends started getting married and having babies).
Having babies could also be part of that tear, Now she has to wonder what will her children be like one day. Will they carry the parents genes or have them active at birth. Babysitters are an adventure when baby can turn into a sphinx.
I guess it’s like one of those moments where one realizes that “the biggest crush” has irreversibly turned another corner and is out of bounds for good.
Suffiice to say, when the greatest (unanswered) love of one’s teens finally gets hitched, it tends to make you melancholic for “what could have been”
I’ve been there. Luckily -as with Owen and Lakshmi- she ended-up with a really good person. Much better than I could ever have been.
So, yes, there was a tear,but 80% of that tear was of happiness for her, and 20% was of closure.
You can face all kinds of scary things but mature decisions and lifelong commitments can still give you some belly rumblings.
Just (and I know I’m letting my geek show here but) look at Buffy. Buffy, died twice and faced evil every night but balked in the face of job and loan interviews. Willow, commands the big bad forces and is terrified of new relationships. Xander, fought evil for six years then was too scared to get married.
Just sayin. No matter what you face, there’ll always be something to scare you. 😉
Or Paul may really throw us for a loop and have Officer Tightbuns propose to Shelly in the not too too distant future. That and Jin and Monica will stop almost blowing themselves up without Bud’s help. /yetmoresarcasm
I honestly thought we were supposed to forget Owen ever existed, and the character had just been dropped completely. Looks like we’ll get a farewell arc to him after all, just like Daren (*looks at Avatar*).
Which begs the question. Jacqui, despite being Shelly’s boss, never seems to hang around Shelly, Monica, and Amanda anymore. This seemed to stop right around the time Owen and Shelly parted ways.
Perhaps Jacqui’s been hanging with Owen and Lakshmi, while Shelly’s been hanging with Monica and Amanda?
If so, then Shelly may get pressured into attending by Jacqui at work, especially since Jacqui knows how close those 2 were growing up together.
If not, then what the heck is Jacqui doing with her days? She can’t be spending every waking hour at her punk yoga gym/club (then again, she’s got the energy levels to do just that (>^_^)>).
Shelly didn’t have the Popeye muscles until after Owen started dating Lakshmi. Prior to that, she was just your standard, lean, semi-muscular girl. Nowadays, she probably has a larger bicep than Lakshmi, who’s arm was bigger than Owen’s whole body. And Owen’s attracted to strong women, which is only going to compound the shock of Shelly’s new look.
Potential for interesting dialogue, if nothing else.
As PW’s style developed, he started using more details to differentiate the characters, and Shellys strength became physically obvious. It had been a plot line for quite some time. It’s not that Shelly grew lips, too, since those days, it’s just that PW is showing them now!
Somewhere there’s a When Shelly Met Monica series where Shelly is in her scarf-top and 3 pony-tail hair, but very very muscular.
I always felt there was more significance to the timing than simply art development. PW already had overly muscular women (Lakshmi, the firefighters, Georgette’s sister Jill) in the comic, but Shelly wasn’t one of them (more lean and fit than straight muscular). Perhaps I was reading into something that wasn’t there, but considering Shelly lost her love interest to a muscle bound Amazon, then as time progressed Shelly became more and more muscular to the point of rivaling Popeye, I figured she was overcompensating, intentionally or unintentionally, in reaction to the Lakshmi/Owen incident.
catching up..
It might be true that you were reading into something that wasn’t there, but I have to say I like that theory! I will declare this “PLAUSIBLE.”
Maybe. But I like the idea that it was Shelly who inspired Owen’s interest in strong women; growing up he’d naturally look at the females around him – and Shelly was the most influential girl his age in his life.
Sonic & Wyvern: I bet you’re both right. The loss of her mother drove Shelly into being an angry bully, but her instincts (and Conscience?) made her guard the littlest kid, which resulted in a natural affection on both their parts. Owen transferred those feelings to Lakshmi when he was more mature (but still not much taller), and Shelly was left with a frustrating uncertain future, with no steady boyfriend and no charge to guard. Her overt “musclehead” phase does seem to postdate Owen’s choosing Lakshmi, and the band members pursuing their adult careers.
Come to think of it, what does Owen do for a living? Oh right, spouse of a construction worker, and homemaker!
On a side note, I’d love to know what Shelly’s family thinks and knows of all this…
Not necessarily — some friends of mine eloped (I think they were trying to get under the wire for tax time), but then they scheduled a big reception for a few months later, and just had the party and all that, with tux and wedding dress and everything.
Of course — the old joke: Marriage is a three-ring circus: Engagement Ring, Wedding Ring, Suffering…
Yeah, what Dave said. “We Eloped” means they ran off and got married. That usually means that it was just the two of them. No guests at the service. Probably didn’t even say WHERE.
It’s very likely they’re off somewhere enjoying their honeymoon.
Sorry, I was thinking more along what stjen said, aka Eloped = small, private wedding, but here’s an invitation to come meet us at a bar/club/house/something to celebrate our marriage. But yeah, I definitely did not word my reply anything like that.
I have friends that eloped, mostly because they just got to Vegas and thought it was a cute (and cheap) way to get married, and they invited us friends to the reception for it a week later when they got back from Vegas (It was amazing they actually had some winnings and paid for the trip with them).
I wonder if there will be a scene showing the wedding.
It would be very weird(at least in my opninion) that monica and shelly wouldn’t be invited to the wedding.
True. We’ve seen nothing of Owen’s family, but maybe Lakshmi’s family was far more protective of her than the one scene with his sister indicated?
Monica I could see not being invited. There’s little interaction between the two at any point in-comic. And once Owen and Shelly had a bit of a tiff, Monica and Amanda ditched Owen without so much as a word (and pretty much solely because Owen did not recognize and/or return Shelly’s affection, rather than anything he actually did). Really, Monica was a friend of a friend to him, so I could see her not being included.
Shelly on the other hand, even with the splitting the two of them had, seems an odd omission. While not always the case, letters like this usually indicate some form of party or meeting (even just at a bar or club) to celebrate the newly married couple.
If so, then perhaps this letter is the equivalent of a wedding invitation, given it was an eloped marriage (I’m betting a drunken weekend in Vegas) so Shelly would have been unable to attend.
Please, that problem has come and gone. People do not get married because one is pregnant. Hell, they don’t even need to be married to raise children in this society anymore.
Do we really need to be preggers to throw a baby shower in today’s society? Surely we’ve moved beyond such conventions. And I’d like to hear how the band sounds after all these years of going fallow when faced with an entirely contrived circumstance in a media with no sound component.
As for Shelly, if she even starts to have those “what could have been” thoughts she should just remind herself … with what she has been through (and is likely to go through, in the future) would it really have been fair to Owen? He’s not really built for that, mentally.
And she has Justin instead … he’s definitely better prepared for it, heh.
Speaking of which … how long til we get to hear more about Little Miss Spooky ShadowGirl they met at the library? Still waiting eagerly to hear a little more about that one …
I can’t help but wonder what Shelly’s thinking? Her and Owen have known each other since grade school and she even tried to pursue him romantically which really didn’t work out all that well for Shelly. Owen was always going on in a different direction than her.
I’ve no doubt their paths will cross again in the future.
No faint smile on Shellys’ face on finding out Owen “ran of to Vegas” and got married, but tears. I know some of you have been saying ‘Well Shelly has Justin now’ which makes me think that the ‘OtherShoe’ is going to drop. I hope I’m wrong but I have a bad feeling something happened and Justins out of the picture. Please Justin, walk in, hug Shelly ’cause shes cying make Shelly feel better and make me wrong. 😉
Hmmm. Could this all be a part of Shelley’s “stress test”? Cut to Phix, “You handled physical stess without sphinxing out too much, and now you’ve handled emotional stress. Ok, you pass. Here’s your Sphinxer’s license”. Wouldn’t put it past Paul. However, I think he reads the comments and if we guess it, he does something else. (c8
Marrage wouldn’t be so scary for most males if there was any sence of fairness when it came time to get divorced.
Which is usually her choice as she tends to have nothing to lose.
As it is HELL NOOO!!!
I love how you say “WHEN it came time to get divorced”. Sad example about the attitude that’s developed alongside the insane divorce rate in modern culture. Very sad.
Maybe people will roll their eyes at me, but I plan to really LOOK when it comes to my soul mate. People should stop settling and start looking for a best friend in their significant other. Don’t feel pressured to get married. And it’s also a plus to try and make sure you get along with their family as well. When you marry someone, you marry their family. They’ll be your relatives so try to make sure they won’t make your life a living hell.
So yeah, that’s my soap box. I’ll get off it now. Just saddens me to see how far the institution of marriage has fallen.
You have to admit that, in this, the Catholic Church is pretty consistent. They only allow annulments, which are a declaration that something was missing from the marriage that made it non-effective from the beginning.
Her choice? She has nothing to lose? Hello stereotype! 😛
My mother is the mega-earner in my parents’ home, and my dad makes less than I do (he’s got some physical limitations, and was never quite the whiz-kid learner that my mom was). This has been the way of the world for them for 35 years (minus me working for parts of that of course). In situations like that, it could be said that things could get ugly for the woman who has loads to lose.
Besides, how is it the woman’s choice?? I’ve known plenty of guys who made the decision to leave their wives much to that woman’s dismay.
How’s it the womens choice? How is it not with 65-70% of all divorces being filed by women and only around 20% attributed to either infidelity or abuse???
Just because 65-70% of divorces are filed by women doesn’t automatically make it “the woman’s choice.” That just means that women initiate divorces the majority of the time…and not a crazy majority either. I was just pointing out that you were making a blanket statement that implies that men have absolutely zero say in the matter…which is not true.
94% of all divorces (world wide) are filed by women born and raised in the US.
at that from the most recently reported year (1999).
there is a reason US men have a WONDERFUL reputation as husbands overseas and US women have a terrible reputation.
I happen to know the ‘mail-order matching’ service in this country is booming for matching US men, but falling flat for US women.
Sure, there are just as many women searching for spouses in the US as there are men. In the US, “he” have been conditioned to pay attention to “her” needs and “she” has been conditioned to not give a damn about “his”.
Compared to husbands in any other nation, “HE” has a wonderful reputation. yet, compared to wives in other nations, “SHE” isn’t even considered a woman.
I’m expecting effective longevity treatments before artificial wombs. The latter sounds hard – we’re not even sure of all the questions, much less the answers – and every human would benefit directly from the former. But the result is the same, women who are in the workplace for decades with no need to think about children.
The 94% number sounds high, but I have no data on the subject.
Even assuming that number is accurate (it certainly can’t be the “most recent”) it says a lot more negatively about US men than it does about women worldwide.
After all, if it’s men who marry and expect to be abjectly obeyed, they were proven wrong. If it’s women who married to bilk husbands in a divorce, they have been proven savvy. Neither are very healthy, ethically speaking, but divorce is supposed to be a corrective.
In any case, the question that assertion begs is, what are non-American married men doing right? Only people nursing their own agendas would imagine there was anything concrete about women’s behaviour in that number.
@Yamara: I agree, just looking at who initiates the legal filing for divorce is very much oversimplifying the issue. My impression is that when a man “wants out” of a marriage, it’s not uncommon for him to just move out, or start acting as if he was already single… and so his wife’s filing for legal separation or divorce is less “initiating” and more “demanding legal acknowledgment of a fact” in these cases.
Another thing to look at, is what happens financially after a divorce. It’s usually the case that both parties suffer a decrease in their standard of living afterwards… but the last I heard, men on average undergo less of a drop in living standard than women, and recover from it more quickly.
Divorce is usually tough on all parties involved, and there’s usually plenty of responsibility to share around.
You can contact the census beruoe to confirm it, though.
I first heard that figure when I contacted the “princess matching service” (basically, a ‘mail order bride’ service) because I couldn’t find an american woman I thought I could trust my heart to.
Afterwards, i found I couldn’t afford their $5,000 fee.
as to what men overseas are doing right… very little. According to my info, most of the nations around the world, DIVORCE is illegal or extremely difficult (for the woman) to get.
for the man… well take the islamic view. The husband only has to say “I divorce you” 3 times in public and it’s done. That means she can no longer be seen in public with him or any of his sons (who are as likely as not to also be hers) and she lost all ties with her birth family when she married 9so she can’t be seen in public with her father or brothers, either..
In islamic nations, a woman without a male escort in public is a prostitute. The Koran says no prostitute is to be suffered to live and no man is to be punished for killing a prostitute (including her former husband).
Thus, when a woman is married off in an islamic culture (she rarely has any say in the matter), her husband has the power of life of death over her… literally.
other cultures are just as repressive or worse against women.
US men represent a culture seen by unmarried women overseas as freedom, while US women are seen by men overseas as uncontrollable.
I feel deeply for Shelly – she’s been through a lot, and for a long time – most of that alone. She probably has a lot of second-guessing going on about what might have happened if things had worked out with Owen. And I’m sure there are still questions in her mind about what kind of relationship she could develop with Justin. Is Shelly immortal now, or just very long-lived? Would a relationship with Justin seem like a passing moment to someone with an 80,000-year memory? Whatever the case, it’s no wonder she’s got emotions running high.
I thought perhaps she had forgotten about Owen until the elopement announcement. Then all the forgotten memories came flooding back and she was unprepared for them. Eighty-thousand years is a long, long time.
I’m very happy for Lakshmi and Owen…I’m quite certain that Owen would not have been able to hang with the whole Sphinx thing the way Justin can. In fact, do we yet know what kind of creature he is?
Why is everyone assuming that Shelly’s torn up about this? It’s been a couple of years since Owen played any big, significant part in this story, though I don’t doubt she sees him from time to time when she’s not at work or with Monica. I mean, they’re in a band together. He’s her best male friend. They’ve known each other since they were kids. Instead of going the ‘that jealous woman’ route here with Shelly, why can’t we just assume that those are tears of joy, and that she’s genuinely happy for the boy that’s been like a brother to her for so long?
Nothing says it can’t be a little of both. I doubt it goes so far as to call it jealousy, but she can be both thrilled for her friend and a bit hurt because she once wanted to be that woman for him.
being happy does not always include a smile or grin. it can sometimes be the absence of a frown and the forlorn look of memories relived.
THAT is what I see in Shelly’s expression. put it together with her expression from the last strip and I come out with a sense of her contentment that an old friend is finally found peace as well.
Shelly has been through a lot. As she said to Justin, the girl who blew up her gas grill has had time to grow up. She’s become much more than she once was, and her expressions yesterday seem to reflect her finally reaching a point of calmness about who and what she has become.
There’s a price for becoming, though. To truly accept change and growth you have to say goodbye to the person you once were, accept that there are some worthy paths that you’ll never be able to walk, and let go of people who were once very important to you so that they can follow their own paths.
That may be what Shelly is going through, right now.
Speculating a bit here, but this doesn’t appear to be Shelly’s old studio apartment, which means she’s moved, probably in with Justin. If that’s the case she’s been there long enough to be getting mail at her her new residence.
And I’ve been exactly where she’s at. You hear about an old flame you haven’t seen in awhile getting married and it hits you a lot harder than it has any right to.
I guess I’m not entirely surprised by the elopement. If I recall correctly, Lakshmi has a pretty close-knit family… a very protective sister, I think? It’s not unusual for children in close-meshed families to feel a need to act independently when it comes marryin’ time… either because their family doesn’t approve, or because their family is making too much of a production of a formal wedding.
Happens a lot among families in highly religious communities, too. Sometimes the kids will make a serious break with everyone, in order to marry someone outside of the faith… they’ll leave their church, split with their families, move away from home, and marry an outsider all at once.
Visit almost any town in the American west, and you’ll very probably meet someone who has personally seen a Jack elope.
Not that I think that this is what’s going on with Lakshmi and Owen, mind you…
OOTS is quite popular with gamers, for its tongue-in-cheek attitude towards the conventions of gaming… lots of fourth-wall violations. It’s good for a giggle, often enough.
So I’m beginning to think this is the “other shoe” that Monica was waiting for… this is gunna be a real test to how much Shelly has matured since we last saw Owen.. man, that must feel like 3 lifetimes ago to her…
I think you’re math’s off by an order of magnitude, Opus, unless you’re referring to the lifetime of mourning doves 🙂
A CM cycle was around 1500 years (times 56 is about 80,000 years all told). 20k lifetimes would work out to four years per lifetime, which is a bit low. I’d put it in the ballpark of 2000 to 4000 adult lifetimes. Still, it’s a lot.
Remember, though, that Shelly has what amounts to a dual memory. She remembers (at least some of) her eons as a sphinx in the Time Forest (during which time her human memories faded out to some extent), but on return from the Forest her human memories reestablished themselves. She made a point of telling Monica “I’m fine! I remember the things that happened ten minutes ago, like it was ten minutes ago!”
So, I’d guess that her emotional memories of Owen and her feelings about him are still quite alive and potent.
You’re right, my finger must have stuttered when I was inputting the numbers on the calculator. Actually if you figure the biblical 70 years, it works out to 1200 (+/-) lifetimes in the Forest.
well, i that’s the death-knell for Fermented Banana… typically if somebody elopes, they don’t come BACK to the place they eloped FROM… so that means Owen is gone, Jacqui is full-time into the Punk Yoga place, and Shelly is working with Jacqui, and while I’m not sure if she’s full-time or part-time as the instructor, but either way I’ll bet Shelly doesn’t have that “drive” she once had (Pre Time Forest) in order to be in a PUNK band anymore, I’ll guess the band will just fade away into posterity now… too bad.
Owen and Lakshmi….Wow!
I was wondering when we would get an update on those two.
Personally, Owen is my hero. Most often us short guy get a raw deal. It is cute to be a short female, but not for a short male. For once one of us gets the goddess.
Echoes of the road not traveled…
True, but… who can say how things would have played out, if Shelly and Owen had gotten together. This might easily have diverted the course of Shelly’s life, enough that she might not have picked up the Artifact and been dumped into the Time Forest. She might have grown old and died as a human, without ever learning of her heritage as a sphinx.
We just don’t know how fragile, possible, or inevitable/fated many things are, within the Wapsi Square timeline. Certainly, some things were very uncertain… consider how many times it took to get things set up right to stop the Calendar Machine timeloop.
Mr. and Mrs. No Longer Appearing In This Comic.
When it comes to relationship machinations around the CM, I always felt there was something up with all the principals being out of Minneapolis in late 2002… shortly after Tepoz’s return from “Utah”. Monica is Mexico, not around to bond with Janet during planning for the winter exhibit, and returns to get closer with Katherine (of all unlikely people) instead; Heather distracts Owen from Shelly, and then… Shelly from Owen at critical moments, even though she isn’t right for either of them; Amanda is in Florida with different Amazons, of truly remarkable strength… the significance of this perhaps remains to be seen.
Dramatically, though, Paul did foreshadow this moment nicely a few days ago with Monica’s drunken “You are what you eat”: The fateful breakfast where last we saw Owen and Lakshmi alive. (Excluding pinups.)
“Monica is in Mexico”
Gettin’ too old for this.
Though as a final note: Who set Owen up with Lakshmi? He hardly seemed to need a blind date. Jacqui already knew who she was. What’s the backstory of that chain of events?
I don’t think anyone set ’em up – Lakshmi saw Owen at a concert Fermented Banana opened for, they met, danced and he got her number.
Shelly saw, but chose not to react…..
ERROR. FILE DATA MISMATCH – Er, I misremembered. went back to find the link, it wasn’t where I thought it was – at least sixty percent of my house is like that.
That was back during Paul’s three fingers and a thumb period for the comic.
???
I always thought eloping was getting away from somebody who was actively trying to stop your wedding.
Who was trying to stop these two? sure wasn’t Shelly or Lakshm’s sister (the only two who COULd have stopped it).
Eloping is simply running off to get married immediately without a big event with tons of people there. Historically people most often eloped when families disapproved etc but that’s not required.
Not required indeed. My father-in-law actually tried to talk my wife and I into eloping (somebody didn’t want to pay for the wedding that mother-in-law wanted, methinks).
Elope: to escape privately, especially with a lover. It’s derived from Dutch and Old German roots which mean “to run away”.
In a more contemporary sense, “elope” usually means “went off and got married, without advanced notice to others, and usually without guests or witnesses other than those required by law”. It may be done because other people are trying to stop your wedding, or just because you decide you want to get married Right Now without a lot of advanced bother.
Ahhhh….
And there it is, an emotional nuke from orbit instead of the physical kind, but that counts as a nuke…
Oh man, I know that feeling. A physical nuke would have hurt less.
I love the art this week.
You figure Lakshmi and Owen are honeymooning on the ISS?
Whoa!
Wow.
She will be able to let it go. That was many lifetimes ago, and she has a good man in the here-and-now.
Well said. That doesn’t make it hurt any less in the moment, but yeah. Congrats to Owen and Lakshmi. 😀
Plus it probably doesn’t feel good to realize how disconnected you are from someone who used to be so important to your life and happiness…
She may be getting hit with a bit of nostalgia for a relationship that could have been and wasn’t, but she will have to remember that she is in a relationship with someone that can “physically” survive the world that she is part of. But Shelly must remember an important old adage; “As one door closes, another opens”, since that is what happened when she sort of gave her blessing to Owen by telling him that if he ever hurt Lakshmi she would hurt him and Justin entering her world.
I guess now we know what they’ve been up to.
ah so the escape plan to a normal life is eloping… interesting… lol Glad to see those two worked out. I guess the question is now will they ever end up becoming part of this “magical mystery tour” that has been going on.
As for the road less traveled part… I am constantly reminded of a piece of advice given to me once… there is a reason why some people are “ex’s”… In my case I have a bad habit of revisiting the past… oy…
as apposed to what has happened already? the poor boy has been through so much marriage might actually be a walk in the park…. now the honeymoon… that is a different story. 😉
You remember the Sam Kinison bit about the married guy going to hell – Devil jumps out starts to make scary noises, then says “oh — you’re married? Well, this will be nothing new then, lemme give you the tour …”
I’m actually quite happy in my marriage, but that routine still gives me a chuckle, every time. And a punch in the arm if she catches me chuckling at it. 😀
Yea Greywolf
Whats the Difference between Hell, Basic Training and being married. Hell and Basic training dont come with mother in laws and have better food.
“Do you remember our honeymoon?
That glorious cruise.”
“No quarrels.”
“No cares.”
“No survivors.”
Was that a quote from Gomez and Morticia?
Yep. I believe Addams Family Values.
So THAT’S we’re they went!!
Thank you so much Paul for putting them in this comic. I missed them. Just knowing they’re doing well is heart-warming.
I’m really interested in Shelly’s reaction. I’m actually kinda surprised. But I guess it makes sense. She DID have feeling for him at one point. But I didn’t think they ran that deep. At least not in the romantic sense. They were really good friends. Not to mention she has Justin.
I read it as more of a mutual crush. What are your thoughts guys?
Some women just cry at weddings.
True. But that look on here face doesn’t read, “Oh, how beautiful/romantic”, “I’m so happy for them”, or any positive emotions behind those tears. That look on her face is more akin to something like mild heartbreak.
Yeah, I know she had a big thing for him. That can lay dormant and then WHAM you’re hit again.
But I don’t know, it could be anything. She could feel like she missed out on something big in Owen’s life. It could be happy tears. Hell, it could be one of those “Where has the time gone?” nostalgia moments (I got that way when my friends started getting married and having babies).
Having babies could also be part of that tear, Now she has to wonder what will her children be like one day. Will they carry the parents genes or have them active at birth. Babysitters are an adventure when baby can turn into a sphinx.
I guess it’s like one of those moments where one realizes that “the biggest crush” has irreversibly turned another corner and is out of bounds for good.
Suffiice to say, when the greatest (unanswered) love of one’s teens finally gets hitched, it tends to make you melancholic for “what could have been”
I’ve been there. Luckily -as with Owen and Lakshmi- she ended-up with a really good person. Much better than I could ever have been.
So, yes, there was a tear,but 80% of that tear was of happiness for her, and 20% was of closure.
Bittersweet memories of the bully who loved him.
Good luck Owen and Lakshimi!
I agree with cyberspooked. With all the crap the cast of this comic goes through, marriage is NOT that scary.
You can face all kinds of scary things but mature decisions and lifelong commitments can still give you some belly rumblings.
Just (and I know I’m letting my geek show here but) look at Buffy. Buffy, died twice and faced evil every night but balked in the face of job and loan interviews. Willow, commands the big bad forces and is terrified of new relationships. Xander, fought evil for six years then was too scared to get married.
Just sayin. No matter what you face, there’ll always be something to scare you. 😉
Bunnies. Fuzzy, hopping little bunnies. 🙂
EXACTLY!
Suits. Ties. Working in a… a _cublicle_. [shudder]
Ooh! Interesting theory!!! Because, let’s face it, there aren’t enough twists in Justin’s story. /sarcasm
A bit of a flashback for some reference.
I’m so glad you made this, Chief. Those two were my favorite characters, and I missed them dearly.
If there’s a spin off to be had, Married Life with Owen and Lakshmi would be it.
Thanks again.
Wow! What a world of difference 9 years makes in the artwork/artist! Hard to believe it is the same person. Way to go, Paul.
And you just gave us a great title.
“Married Life”
Of course, the perfect life may not be a good story. It needs drama, conflict, excitement, frustration!
On the other hand, maybe “Married life” would be perfect.
Yeah!! OR… Paul could really throw us for a HUGE loop and it’ll will go relatively smoothly.
(Optimist to the end, baby.)
WHAT?!?! That there is crazy talk! I say we burn you at the stake! Witch! Heretic!
Or Paul may really throw us for a loop and have Officer Tightbuns propose to Shelly in the not too too distant future. That and Jin and Monica will stop almost blowing themselves up without Bud’s help. /yetmoresarcasm
Ben Franklin had a comment on that.
He said an optimist is regularly disappointed, but a pessimist is often pleasantly surprised.
I’d rather be a realist… hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
Speaking as someone who’s been there, OUCH!
Ooh! gotta love those “might’ve been me” moments!
OH MY GOD…
…Owen and Lakshmi are still in this comic!
…”were”.
Don’t bet on it.
It would be just like Paul to throw rugrats into the mix.
Sheik, I’m here from 2021 to say you’re right! The magic word is: yummygasm.
Amazing! If Pablo keeps this up we might even see the pizza girl again.
I honestly thought we were supposed to forget Owen ever existed, and the character had just been dropped completely. Looks like we’ll get a farewell arc to him after all, just like Daren (*looks at Avatar*).
Which begs the question. Jacqui, despite being Shelly’s boss, never seems to hang around Shelly, Monica, and Amanda anymore. This seemed to stop right around the time Owen and Shelly parted ways.
Perhaps Jacqui’s been hanging with Owen and Lakshmi, while Shelly’s been hanging with Monica and Amanda?
If so, then Shelly may get pressured into attending by Jacqui at work, especially since Jacqui knows how close those 2 were growing up together.
If not, then what the heck is Jacqui doing with her days? She can’t be spending every waking hour at her punk yoga gym/club (then again, she’s got the energy levels to do just that (>^_^)>).
Thought on my thought.
Shelly didn’t have the Popeye muscles until after Owen started dating Lakshmi. Prior to that, she was just your standard, lean, semi-muscular girl. Nowadays, she probably has a larger bicep than Lakshmi, who’s arm was bigger than Owen’s whole body. And Owen’s attracted to strong women, which is only going to compound the shock of Shelly’s new look.
Potential for interesting dialogue, if nothing else.
As PW’s style developed, he started using more details to differentiate the characters, and Shellys strength became physically obvious. It had been a plot line for quite some time. It’s not that Shelly grew lips, too, since those days, it’s just that PW is showing them now!
Somewhere there’s a When Shelly Met Monica series where Shelly is in her scarf-top and 3 pony-tail hair, but very very muscular.
Yeah, let’s not forget everyone started out with three fingers and a thumb on each hand, too. 😉
I always felt there was more significance to the timing than simply art development. PW already had overly muscular women (Lakshmi, the firefighters, Georgette’s sister Jill) in the comic, but Shelly wasn’t one of them (more lean and fit than straight muscular). Perhaps I was reading into something that wasn’t there, but considering Shelly lost her love interest to a muscle bound Amazon, then as time progressed Shelly became more and more muscular to the point of rivaling Popeye, I figured she was overcompensating, intentionally or unintentionally, in reaction to the Lakshmi/Owen incident.
catching up..
It might be true that you were reading into something that wasn’t there, but I have to say I like that theory! I will declare this “PLAUSIBLE.”
Maybe. But I like the idea that it was Shelly who inspired Owen’s interest in strong women; growing up he’d naturally look at the females around him – and Shelly was the most influential girl his age in his life.
Sonic & Wyvern: I bet you’re both right. The loss of her mother drove Shelly into being an angry bully, but her instincts (and Conscience?) made her guard the littlest kid, which resulted in a natural affection on both their parts. Owen transferred those feelings to Lakshmi when he was more mature (but still not much taller), and Shelly was left with a frustrating uncertain future, with no steady boyfriend and no charge to guard. Her overt “musclehead” phase does seem to postdate Owen’s choosing Lakshmi, and the band members pursuing their adult careers.
Come to think of it, what does Owen do for a living? Oh right, spouse of a construction worker, and homemaker!
On a side note, I’d love to know what Shelly’s family thinks and knows of all this…
Last we saw Owen worked in a music store of some type.
If nothing else, attending the wedding may be an ego boost for OfficerTB. Owen doesn’t quite measure up, especially at first glance.
Though, once he gets a look at Lakshmi, he may empathize with Owen over some similarities to their situations.
Umm… I don’t think there will be a wedding to attend. “We eloped!” – Lakshmi and Owen are already married.
Not necessarily — some friends of mine eloped (I think they were trying to get under the wire for tax time), but then they scheduled a big reception for a few months later, and just had the party and all that, with tux and wedding dress and everything.
Of course — the old joke: Marriage is a three-ring circus: Engagement Ring, Wedding Ring, Suffering…
Yeah, what Dave said. “We Eloped” means they ran off and got married. That usually means that it was just the two of them. No guests at the service. Probably didn’t even say WHERE.
It’s very likely they’re off somewhere enjoying their honeymoon.
Sorry, I was thinking more along what stjen said, aka Eloped = small, private wedding, but here’s an invitation to come meet us at a bar/club/house/something to celebrate our marriage. But yeah, I definitely did not word my reply anything like that.
I have friends that eloped, mostly because they just got to Vegas and thought it was a cute (and cheap) way to get married, and they invited us friends to the reception for it a week later when they got back from Vegas (It was amazing they actually had some winnings and paid for the trip with them).
I wonder if there will be a scene showing the wedding.
It would be very weird(at least in my opninion) that monica and shelly wouldn’t be invited to the wedding.
True. We’ve seen nothing of Owen’s family, but maybe Lakshmi’s family was far more protective of her than the one scene with his sister indicated?
Monica I could see not being invited. There’s little interaction between the two at any point in-comic. And once Owen and Shelly had a bit of a tiff, Monica and Amanda ditched Owen without so much as a word (and pretty much solely because Owen did not recognize and/or return Shelly’s affection, rather than anything he actually did). Really, Monica was a friend of a friend to him, so I could see her not being included.
Shelly on the other hand, even with the splitting the two of them had, seems an odd omission. While not always the case, letters like this usually indicate some form of party or meeting (even just at a bar or club) to celebrate the newly married couple.
If so, then perhaps this letter is the equivalent of a wedding invitation, given it was an eloped marriage (I’m betting a drunken weekend in Vegas) so Shelly would have been unable to attend.
I wonder if Fermented Banana will play at the wedding?
Come on — just one….
Only 2 gaping flaws with that thought:
1. Owen and Lakshmi are already married.
2. The groom is 1/3 of the band.
Uh, that’s the point of eloping! No guests no foofaraw.
Ok then, how about the baby shower?
Do we really need to be preggers to get married in todays society?! I hope it hasn’t come to that.
Please, that problem has come and gone. People do not get married because one is pregnant. Hell, they don’t even need to be married to raise children in this society anymore.
Do we really need to be preggers to throw a baby shower in today’s society? Surely we’ve moved beyond such conventions. And I’d like to hear how the band sounds after all these years of going fallow when faced with an entirely contrived circumstance in a media with no sound component.
Good for them, they were a definite match.
As for Shelly, if she even starts to have those “what could have been” thoughts she should just remind herself … with what she has been through (and is likely to go through, in the future) would it really have been fair to Owen? He’s not really built for that, mentally.
And she has Justin instead … he’s definitely better prepared for it, heh.
Speaking of which … how long til we get to hear more about Little Miss Spooky ShadowGirl they met at the library? Still waiting eagerly to hear a little more about that one …
Oh, Owen.. seems like it was a lifetime ago…
Oh wait, it was over a thousand lifetimes…
well 56 lifetimes at least. 🙂
oooh… we’re getting Neil Gaiman here… “You lived what anybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more. No less.”
Nice one, mate 🙂
http://i.imgur.com/SuMbB.gif
Oh ok i get it. That was a long time ago even by OUR standards. I need to get some sleep.
I always knew those two would take the plunge. 🙂
I can’t help but wonder what Shelly’s thinking? Her and Owen have known each other since grade school and she even tried to pursue him romantically which really didn’t work out all that well for Shelly. Owen was always going on in a different direction than her.
I’ve no doubt their paths will cross again in the future.
She is probably thinking along lines like this… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDLiVwpv89s
keep in mind ordinary has very different definition here… lol
I just noticed that the characters have 5 fingers now, instead of 4… (I’ve been hitting random again!)
Well, now we know what happened to those two…
Somehow, I suspect we’re off to a wordless week of adventure.
Lovely departure from the regular!
Well. That was unexpected. 🙂
No faint smile on Shellys’ face on finding out Owen “ran of to Vegas” and got married, but tears. I know some of you have been saying ‘Well Shelly has Justin now’ which makes me think that the ‘OtherShoe’ is going to drop. I hope I’m wrong but I have a bad feeling something happened and Justins out of the picture. Please Justin, walk in, hug Shelly ’cause shes cying make Shelly feel better and make me wrong. 😉
I SOOOOO Agree …
…Wow.
GOOD FOR THEM!!!
Yet, I hope THEY show up again to tell THEIR story.
Poor Shelly, she has been on an emotional roller-coaster for a while now.
Hmmm. Could this all be a part of Shelley’s “stress test”? Cut to Phix, “You handled physical stess without sphinxing out too much, and now you’ve handled emotional stress. Ok, you pass. Here’s your Sphinxer’s license”. Wouldn’t put it past Paul. However, I think he reads the comments and if we guess it, he does something else. (c8
I’ve often thought that myself.
Although, twinge of regret and all, those two did make a cute couple. Sort of a Regular Version of our Half-Sphinx and Officer Healing Factor.
Marrage wouldn’t be so scary for most males if there was any sence of fairness when it came time to get divorced.
Which is usually her choice as she tends to have nothing to lose.
As it is HELL NOOO!!!
I love how you say “WHEN it came time to get divorced”. Sad example about the attitude that’s developed alongside the insane divorce rate in modern culture. Very sad.
Maybe people will roll their eyes at me, but I plan to really LOOK when it comes to my soul mate. People should stop settling and start looking for a best friend in their significant other. Don’t feel pressured to get married. And it’s also a plus to try and make sure you get along with their family as well. When you marry someone, you marry their family. They’ll be your relatives so try to make sure they won’t make your life a living hell.
So yeah, that’s my soap box. I’ll get off it now. Just saddens me to see how far the institution of marriage has fallen.
Nope, I agree with you. 100% If they want to make gay marriage illegal for the sanctity of marriage, divorce should be in the same boat.
You have to admit that, in this, the Catholic Church is pretty consistent. They only allow annulments, which are a declaration that something was missing from the marriage that made it non-effective from the beginning.
Her choice? She has nothing to lose? Hello stereotype! 😛
My mother is the mega-earner in my parents’ home, and my dad makes less than I do (he’s got some physical limitations, and was never quite the whiz-kid learner that my mom was). This has been the way of the world for them for 35 years (minus me working for parts of that of course). In situations like that, it could be said that things could get ugly for the woman who has loads to lose.
Besides, how is it the woman’s choice?? I’ve known plenty of guys who made the decision to leave their wives much to that woman’s dismay.
How’s it the womens choice? How is it not with 65-70% of all divorces being filed by women and only around 20% attributed to either infidelity or abuse???
Just because 65-70% of divorces are filed by women doesn’t automatically make it “the woman’s choice.” That just means that women initiate divorces the majority of the time…and not a crazy majority either. I was just pointing out that you were making a blanket statement that implies that men have absolutely zero say in the matter…which is not true.
check the records…
94% of all divorces (world wide) are filed by women born and raised in the US.
at that from the most recently reported year (1999).
there is a reason US men have a WONDERFUL reputation as husbands overseas and US women have a terrible reputation.
I happen to know the ‘mail-order matching’ service in this country is booming for matching US men, but falling flat for US women.
Sure, there are just as many women searching for spouses in the US as there are men. In the US, “he” have been conditioned to pay attention to “her” needs and “she” has been conditioned to not give a damn about “his”.
Compared to husbands in any other nation, “HE” has a wonderful reputation. yet, compared to wives in other nations, “SHE” isn’t even considered a woman.
I’m expecting effective longevity treatments before artificial wombs. The latter sounds hard – we’re not even sure of all the questions, much less the answers – and every human would benefit directly from the former. But the result is the same, women who are in the workplace for decades with no need to think about children.
The 94% number sounds high, but I have no data on the subject.
Even assuming that number is accurate (it certainly can’t be the “most recent”) it says a lot more negatively about US men than it does about women worldwide.
After all, if it’s men who marry and expect to be abjectly obeyed, they were proven wrong. If it’s women who married to bilk husbands in a divorce, they have been proven savvy. Neither are very healthy, ethically speaking, but divorce is supposed to be a corrective.
Soon, most Americans won’t marry at all. Divorce problem solved!
In any case, the question that assertion begs is, what are non-American married men doing right? Only people nursing their own agendas would imagine there was anything concrete about women’s behaviour in that number.
@Yamara: I agree, just looking at who initiates the legal filing for divorce is very much oversimplifying the issue. My impression is that when a man “wants out” of a marriage, it’s not uncommon for him to just move out, or start acting as if he was already single… and so his wife’s filing for legal separation or divorce is less “initiating” and more “demanding legal acknowledgment of a fact” in these cases.
Another thing to look at, is what happens financially after a divorce. It’s usually the case that both parties suffer a decrease in their standard of living afterwards… but the last I heard, men on average undergo less of a drop in living standard than women, and recover from it more quickly.
Divorce is usually tough on all parties involved, and there’s usually plenty of responsibility to share around.
well, it’s the latest report i am aware of.
I didn’t believe it at first, either.
You can contact the census beruoe to confirm it, though.
I first heard that figure when I contacted the “princess matching service” (basically, a ‘mail order bride’ service) because I couldn’t find an american woman I thought I could trust my heart to.
Afterwards, i found I couldn’t afford their $5,000 fee.
as to what men overseas are doing right… very little. According to my info, most of the nations around the world, DIVORCE is illegal or extremely difficult (for the woman) to get.
for the man… well take the islamic view. The husband only has to say “I divorce you” 3 times in public and it’s done. That means she can no longer be seen in public with him or any of his sons (who are as likely as not to also be hers) and she lost all ties with her birth family when she married 9so she can’t be seen in public with her father or brothers, either..
In islamic nations, a woman without a male escort in public is a prostitute. The Koran says no prostitute is to be suffered to live and no man is to be punished for killing a prostitute (including her former husband).
Thus, when a woman is married off in an islamic culture (she rarely has any say in the matter), her husband has the power of life of death over her… literally.
other cultures are just as repressive or worse against women.
US men represent a culture seen by unmarried women overseas as freedom, while US women are seen by men overseas as uncontrollable.
Thank you radical feminism.
You’re quite welcome!
I feel deeply for Shelly – she’s been through a lot, and for a long time – most of that alone. She probably has a lot of second-guessing going on about what might have happened if things had worked out with Owen. And I’m sure there are still questions in her mind about what kind of relationship she could develop with Justin. Is Shelly immortal now, or just very long-lived? Would a relationship with Justin seem like a passing moment to someone with an 80,000-year memory? Whatever the case, it’s no wonder she’s got emotions running high.
I thought perhaps she had forgotten about Owen until the elopement announcement. Then all the forgotten memories came flooding back and she was unprepared for them. Eighty-thousand years is a long, long time.
I’m very happy for Lakshmi and Owen…I’m quite certain that Owen would not have been able to hang with the whole Sphinx thing the way Justin can. In fact, do we yet know what kind of creature he is?
Why is everyone assuming that Shelly’s torn up about this? It’s been a couple of years since Owen played any big, significant part in this story, though I don’t doubt she sees him from time to time when she’s not at work or with Monica. I mean, they’re in a band together. He’s her best male friend. They’ve known each other since they were kids. Instead of going the ‘that jealous woman’ route here with Shelly, why can’t we just assume that those are tears of joy, and that she’s genuinely happy for the boy that’s been like a brother to her for so long?
Nothing says it can’t be a little of both. I doubt it goes so far as to call it jealousy, but she can be both thrilled for her friend and a bit hurt because she once wanted to be that woman for him.
Because generally tears of joy include a smile….
being happy does not always include a smile or grin. it can sometimes be the absence of a frown and the forlorn look of memories relived.
THAT is what I see in Shelly’s expression. put it together with her expression from the last strip and I come out with a sense of her contentment that an old friend is finally found peace as well.
I think you may be right.
Shelly has been through a lot. As she said to Justin, the girl who blew up her gas grill has had time to grow up. She’s become much more than she once was, and her expressions yesterday seem to reflect her finally reaching a point of calmness about who and what she has become.
There’s a price for becoming, though. To truly accept change and growth you have to say goodbye to the person you once were, accept that there are some worthy paths that you’ll never be able to walk, and let go of people who were once very important to you so that they can follow their own paths.
That may be what Shelly is going through, right now.
Speculating a bit here, but this doesn’t appear to be Shelly’s old studio apartment, which means she’s moved, probably in with Justin. If that’s the case she’s been there long enough to be getting mail at her her new residence.
And I’ve been exactly where she’s at. You hear about an old flame you haven’t seen in awhile getting married and it hits you a lot harder than it has any right to.
I guess I’m not entirely surprised by the elopement. If I recall correctly, Lakshmi has a pretty close-knit family… a very protective sister, I think? It’s not unusual for children in close-meshed families to feel a need to act independently when it comes marryin’ time… either because their family doesn’t approve, or because their family is making too much of a production of a formal wedding.
Happens a lot among families in highly religious communities, too. Sometimes the kids will make a serious break with everyone, in order to marry someone outside of the faith… they’ll leave their church, split with their families, move away from home, and marry an outsider all at once.
Visit almost any town in the American west, and you’ll very probably meet someone who has personally seen a Jack elope.
Not that I think that this is what’s going on with Lakshmi and Owen, mind you…
Avoid dark alleys, and carefully check your mail for suspicious packages. “Jack elope“, indeed!
Hee hee 😈
(deposits into the Pun Jar a silver bar from the Constitution Mint, formerly of Provo, Utah)
Non-today’s-page-note:
The second round of March Comic Madness has begun! 🙂 Go vote for Wapsi!
In the name of Kdapt-preacher! Wapsi against Order of the Stick? AARGH.
I’ll vote for Wapsi, but based on the first-round numbers I don’t think things look good…
I came up with the same problem. I also like OOTS (for different reasons than wapsi)
I couldn’t vote between them.
I voted for Wapsi but went to the OOTS comic and tried it.
I wasn’t really impressed.
OOTS is quite popular with gamers, for its tongue-in-cheek attitude towards the conventions of gaming… lots of fourth-wall violations. It’s good for a giggle, often enough.
Wapsi has far more depth to it, IMHO.
I did say I liked OOTS for different reasons than I do Wapsi.
I am a gamer (dating back to BEFORE the original D&D ‘greyhawk’ steel bound manual) and an avid reader.
Everybody has an addiction. Mine is information… I love to learn things (especially if nobody else sees no use for it).
So I’m beginning to think this is the “other shoe” that Monica was waiting for… this is gunna be a real test to how much Shelly has matured since we last saw Owen.. man, that must feel like 3 lifetimes ago to her…
As was mentioned upthread, 56 CM cycles ago, so more like 20K lifetimes ago (+/- a few thousand).
I think you’re math’s off by an order of magnitude, Opus, unless you’re referring to the lifetime of mourning doves 🙂
A CM cycle was around 1500 years (times 56 is about 80,000 years all told). 20k lifetimes would work out to four years per lifetime, which is a bit low. I’d put it in the ballpark of 2000 to 4000 adult lifetimes. Still, it’s a lot.
Remember, though, that Shelly has what amounts to a dual memory. She remembers (at least some of) her eons as a sphinx in the Time Forest (during which time her human memories faded out to some extent), but on return from the Forest her human memories reestablished themselves. She made a point of telling Monica “I’m fine! I remember the things that happened ten minutes ago, like it was ten minutes ago!”
So, I’d guess that her emotional memories of Owen and her feelings about him are still quite alive and potent.
You’re right, my finger must have stuttered when I was inputting the numbers on the calculator. Actually if you figure the biblical 70 years, it works out to 1200 (+/-) lifetimes in the Forest.
well, i that’s the death-knell for Fermented Banana… typically if somebody elopes, they don’t come BACK to the place they eloped FROM… so that means Owen is gone, Jacqui is full-time into the Punk Yoga place, and Shelly is working with Jacqui, and while I’m not sure if she’s full-time or part-time as the instructor, but either way I’ll bet Shelly doesn’t have that “drive” she once had (Pre Time Forest) in order to be in a PUNK band anymore, I’ll guess the band will just fade away into posterity now… too bad.
D’aawwww! It’s times like this when I’m really glad I’ve been reading Wapsi for this long!
Very cool to see the happy ending for those two!
I wonder if the comic will go the whole week without dialogue. So far, the image-only storytelling has been beautiful. 🙂
So shall it be, with those from the past; the last shall be first and the first shall be last… :-/
!!! Well, that settles the question of what Owen and Lakshmi have been up to.
Owen and Lakshmi….Wow!
I was wondering when we would get an update on those two.
Personally, Owen is my hero. Most often us short guy get a raw deal. It is cute to be a short female, but not for a short male. For once one of us gets the goddess.
Soooooooooooooooo….does that mean we’ll see less of Owen, now? 🙁
No, Just wait 8.5 years IRL, 24 years in story.
JUST MET Owen and Lakshmi’s ADULT daughter.
Let’s just say she ‘takes after’ mom BIG TIME