Not a goat, note the lack of cloven hooves. I don’t know what the class of being that had the back half of the horse was called, but that’s one of them, with horns.
A centaur has the whole lower half of a horse’s body (four legs) plus a human torso. That thing is a satyr, and given the whole “demon” thing, is likely going to end up being Satan.
I wonder if Tina needs nudge to live? Nudge seemed to indicate that it was her doing that got Tina up and running after the accident, it might be nudge’s willpower that keeps Tina going and going and going…
I’m thinking she doesn’t need Nudge to live (see yesterday’s LONG thread). However, Tina 2.1 might have a drastically different attitude towards life if she should remain sans Nudge.
Yes indeed – but will it be a positive change or not? That’s what I want to know. Was nudge bringing order to the Legion inside, or was she a disruptive influcence? Interesting way of exorcising a demon, at any rate!
I’ve kinda always thought of Nudge as the chairman of the committee of demons that are Tina. Each demon adds their essence to the whole. Without Nudge Tina will no longer be Tina. I think Nudge adds a positive outlook to the collective and if she is banished it will not be for the better. I don’t think Nudge is evil and I do think she wants to help Monica. Nudge+Demons= Tina
No, Paul’s already spelled it out for us. It was Nudge that gave the Collective the idea to animate Tina’s body after Tina died. And, I’m willing to bet, that it wasn’t TINA’s demons (the Collective) that made deals with Brandi and Jin’s demons… it was Nudge.
@OldWolf – I think the lack of Nudge will bring a bit of order and calm to the Collective (though one or two demons may still talk out of turn in her memory). Afterall, Nudge seemed to be all about shaking things up and throwing people out of their comfort zones/routines.
Seconded! Now.. what will Tina’s other demons do? And…. never mind. I’ll just stop now. And wait for tomorrow.
Er — Pablo sir? Might the server update time someday be set for midnight East Coast time instead of Central? That way some of us wouldn’t have to stay up past 1 AM to get our drama fix!
well I’m in UK here… I find it much simpler to check ‘yesterdays’ strips if I need a morning fix…
(its about 4am in SF, 6am in iowa 🙂 )
Far better than losing sleep!
How do I put this.. Oh I know. ITS A WEBSITE PEOPLE!! There’s nothing that says you HAVE to see the new comic the second it goes online. Trust me, the page will still be there the following morning.. well probibly
Pacific Standard Time, California Coast, 10:00 pm, Waspi Square just update, less than a minute later (depending on strip length, dialouge to read, etc.) I want to know what happens next. NOW, NOW, NOW, WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!
… but I still have to wait another 24 hours. It’s worse than that TV show that used to be on FOX network. Reality sucks.
Well, it would appear that Tina overall is unscathed. Yeah, Nudge (as far as we know) was/is a part of Tina, but she seemed more like her own entity than anything else, while Tina “the collective” seemed to all function more as “one”. At least, that’s how it appeared to me most of the time. Based on the past and this comic alone… I feel relieved that only Nudge appears to have been hurt by this. And relieved that she’s no longer a part of Tina … at least for the moment.
To further claify what I mean: I always felt Nudge was Nudge and that Nudge was just possessing the entity otherwise known as Tina, collective or not. Like two separate beings.
That’s a good point. Perhaps Nudge was residing in Tina, and not in the demon realm like the others (assuming they are). That would explain why Phix was able to punch Nudge out and separate her from Tina so easily.
On the other hand, after today’s unexpected and amazing resolution, I’m not sure it’s even worth speculating anymore. Not that I mind how things turned out, it’s great, just that, once again, Paul has shown us our endless speculation isn’t worth crap-ola. No, I take that back, at least crap can be used as fertilizer, it’s less than crap-ola. Our opinions (mine anyway) are the stuff crap scrapes off it’s shoes.
Agreed. And while I see Tina collective as being Monica’s friend, I was never so sure about Nudge. Helpful sometimes, certainly, but not exactly a friend. This should be an interesting next few days.
It also strengthens the argument that she was hiding from Phix within Tina. I wonder how long she had been there? remember there have been MANY instances going back almost to the beginning of the strip when Tina spoke with the greyed text, indicating a single entity speaking. Were those instances always Nudge?
I’ve been wondering about exactly what cycle that Tina’s Demons coerced Monica in front of that bus. We know that each cycle was subtly different as Jin, the Demons and Phix worked behind the scene to push events in the direction they wanted. And I can’t see events being planned enough during the first cycle for the Tina/Monia/Bus incident to be played out.
Yep. I’m really anxious to learn more about Nudge and Tina. I’m really curious to see how thoroughly that Paul has thought though all of the metaphysics.
If you mean in-story, she’s been there since Tina was at the morgue, but I think you already knew that. I don’t know if the gray text was always Nudge or not. It may be that the collective essentially merged into one entity. I also don’t know how early Paul developed the idea of Nudge.
I wonder what Nudge was doing before Tina was in the morgue and how Nudge got into Tina. I don’t think Tina would have moved to the Wapsi Square area and brought the key with her if not for Nudge. That seemed to be part of the previous loop’s Brandi’s plan. Supposedly the accident bound Monica and Tina together, but it was not explained how that worked. I suspect that Nudge was the reason.
@nerf-dweller:
The accident happened during the final cycle.Because of the way things reset, it wouldn’t have mattered if it happened in the previous ones. I think it was planned in the previous cycle.
As far as the greyed text being Nudge, I’d say no. Mostly because of this comic: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/deal-me-in/. Given that Nudge just got punched across the room, there is no evidence of wings; yet, when she’s speaking in the greyed out text in ‘Deal Me In’, there are -giant- black wings behind her.
Double hmm! There was gray text here and Monica’s right eye (I used html this time!) was covered in this wild-looking one, too. Paul had to break continuity to do that — she had a different hairstyle on the previous page — but no one noticed at the time.
I would like to point out that hair across the face is not as much cover as a hand over one eye or one eye closed. 🙂 It’s restricted vision, but not completely removed…so perhaps Monica wasn’t seeing the wings or whatever else you’ve referenced.
Doesn’t it depend on how much hair there is? In the one case, you couldn’t even see Monica’s eye. In this one, there is a little hair covering her eye and Tina looks a little strange. If it wouldn’t take so long I’d like to look through the archives and try to find a correlation.
FWIW, I’m noticed that in this strip, Monica calls Nudge “something extra”. It’s as if she is thinking that Nudge isn’t part of Tina-proper, but Shelly doesn’t seem to interpret it that way.
GSmith got the word “too” in the URL somehow and it messed up his link. It was the same as Telamir provided.
she can choose which demon out of a bunch of demons in a human shell she can hit? why would she have to kill humans to get at the demons then? why doesn’t she just reach in and pull ou- no that’s too creepy and sounds dementoresque.
Remember that it was a demon that was telling the story to Monica about the Sphinxes – truth may have been a casualty. Also – Phix is in her domain – she’s probably able to do just about anything she wants there (most likely why she yoinked Tina to the Library in the first place).
I’d also hazard a guess that it’s easier to go after a demon when Phix doesn’t have to worry about a human soul in the body. If she’d miscalculated and knocked more than just Nudge loose, it’s possible that any other demons caught in the crossfire could just scramble back into the collective while Phix deals with her real prey. She doesn’t have to kill Tina because Tina is already dead. There’s no one in that body who can’t survive being separated from it for a short period of time.
“telling the truth by leaving out details, is that lieing? That’s the start of a multi page philosophy paper you got going there.”
and why are Jin’s *lies* fine while Tina’s are propaganda? because she has hidden agendas? Well everyone has hidden agendas, If you went around telling everyone everything you hope to achieve then you’d never get anything done.
Nudge may not have been there originally but she is essential, if it wasn’t for her Tina still wouldn’t have gotten M’s attention… remember Nudge is the risk taking demon. also she might just go catatonic without Nudge.
As I understand it, Phix ususally just has to deal with a single demon posessing a living human. And since humans are at the bottom of the cosmic foodchain, Phix probibly doesn’t even care about killing the host (unintentially stargate refrence. Whoot.)
But TINA the Nudge/Demon collective is ALL demon. Human Tina died LONG before this comic even started.
So althogh there isn’t a human to get in the way of punch, – aka DIE – there are who-knows-how-many demons still there to keep the Tina-shell-thing functioning normally
.. or atleast as normal as is posssible considering that its a colective of occationally independant demons inside a body that should be WAY passed the point of being worm-food
Could being in the Library- out of the realm of normal time/space have something to do with Tina not being damaged. I can see how maybe in the mortal realm, only lethal force could extricate a demon. Then again… after being the “demon-cop” for so long… Phix may have learned to be more… subtle…
I just realized: the punch-nonphical-entity-out-of-a-body thing isnt actually orignal. The main enemy-badguy in the Cronicles of Riddck movie did the exact same thing, in almost the exact same way. Thats possibly where he got the idea. if not, then: unintentionall RIDDICK reference. WHoot!
ps: if you don’t know why I said ‘enemy’ badguy, its because practcially EVERYONE in the movie is a badguy, its just that some are Aswom-Badguys, some are FAIL-badguys, and some are just more or less bad than others
I think it would have been just as cool if she grabbed her around the throat or head or shoved a claw like hand into her chest and pulled nudge out and thrown here to the ground.
Unfortunately that might not have been as good with her “Tag” punchline.
Congratulations Paul, you did it to us again. Showed us that other possibility not one of saw coming. I humbly bow to the master. She has interdimensional punch capability; who knew.
Which makes one wonder, however, if she could do that, why kill the host to get to the demon? Maybe this is a more recent capability developed after thousands of years of study in the library?
And, of course, Monica is even more dumbfounded than we are.
Poor Nudge. Such an unladylike position to end up. Gotta say though, she can take a punch, considering her head is still attached.
“Which makes one wonder, however, if she could do that, why kill the host to get to the demon? Maybe this is a more recent capability developed after thousands of years of study in the library?”
That’s what I was wondering.
That’s a possiblity. I was also wondering if it might have something to do with the location. Does being in the library (which is not really part of our dimension) give Phix the ability to have direct contact with only the spiritual entities within the physical host?
Of course if that’s the case then why not just teleport the “infected” people they found all those years ago to the library so the demons could be extracted? Your theory fixes that problem.
True. But maybe I missed something, but I don’t think Tina’s physical body is really “dead”.
They keep it moving and breathing and functioning SOMEHOW or it would begin to rot.
Maybe so, but the host soul that was a part of that human body is long gone. Perhaps the soul not being in the body affects what kind of actions must be taken. Tina is a very special case after all.
Which leads me back to Tina’s previous reference to the Phix stumping question of so long ago, which might have been: “Just how ethical and/moral is it for a more highly evolved being like a Sphinx to kill the host creature inhabited by a demon if ANY possible other solution can be researched or discovered?”
Which would explain what one of the things that Phix has been researching all this time and how she could do this non fatally to both parties…
Re: Separating demons instead of killing the host… do we have any evidence one way or the other as to whether a living human could survive having a demon punched out of her by a sphinx? Although everyone might refer to the collective as Tina for convenience, the fact is still that Tina, the human being originally associated with that body, is already dead. I don’t doubt that Phix could put the collective out of commission if she wanted to, but it might be necessary to force out one demon at a time and deal with them individually.
Perhaps one that has previously been infected is prone to being infected again? Or, initially, human lives were just considered unimportant and it was just easier to kill the host. It may well could be that the original mind is so damaged after possession that exorcising the demons leaves nothing to direct the body.
Akamar – I would not think that a possession would be harmless to the host.
Bramble – I think the key here is that Tina’s “demons” are native to her, the personal doubts and vanities that everyone has (remember Jin saying that the rats took over the ship?) and that Nudge isn’t.
Reminds me of Luke 11: 24-26, where a demon cast out returns to find the “place” swept and cleaned up–so goes to get seven others worse than itself, and the final state of the person is worse than the first.
The look on Monica’s face says to me “Tina, Tina, are you ok?!”
That’s why she’s ignoring the strange thing that just fly past her & skidded across the floor.
OK as mentioned in one of the previous comments I didn’t see that coming, but that does explain the transfer to the library. Perhaps in the bibliotiki is the only place where Phix has this level of control to hit a single demon in a body without damaging the rest of the complement.
Given the past couple of comics just before today, does this mean with the ‘you’re it’ line from Phix that Nudge might be forced into the Library somehow?
I agree, it’s cute and funny. Like someone peeking around a door. It puts me in mind of a caption that reads “Hi! You up yet?” Or, “Can I use the bathroom now? I really need it!”
IIRC, that view of Tina from the other day freaked a few people out (I think it’s cute, myself!)…and it was cut perfectly to create the severed head effect, so I totally understand your point…
The Greek satyrs had horse tails, but everything else was human. They were almost always male. The Romans replaced their lower half with goat parts, including the tail, so they became like fauns. I don’t know of anything that was like a two-legged centaur, but someone else might. Nudge has ram horns, too.
Also, satyrs were predominantly used to display rather hedonistic traits whereas fauns are said to either help or harm people (of which Nudge usually helps Monica)
For just a second there, seeing Nudge lying on the floor, I thought it was another sphynx – the massive horns beyond her head looked like retracted wings. THAT was gonna be a weird-ass plot twist.
Selective targeting. Heh. Who knew? (Yes, yes, Phix did, but it’s a rhetorical question).
You know, one has to wonder about the poor sap who has to mop the floors in the Library. You just know that at one point in time he/she told Phix that they’d quit if they had to squeegie one more demon off the floor.
Tomorrow’s comic will be said cleaning crew walking in a side door, looking at Nudge on the floor, glaring at Phix, and then throwing down their bucket and mop before storming back out. *nodsnods*
A while back, there was a comic where Tina’s demons got into a fight with each other and her body just seemed to freeze/go comatose throughout the night. The next strip had a spider crawling into Tina eye and disappear in a flash.
The problem with resisting is that someone else will say it–and then you not only have to endure it, you have to live with the shame that someone else said it first!
damn Spanky…. that’s one way to mop the floor with someone. I’m wondering if Nudge’s boasting about being the ‘get up and go’ will prove true and if The Tina Collective will miss her.
Apparently, when we saw Tina in her aspect, when she showed herself to Monica, it was Nudge we were seeing. So, I wonder who/what we would see now.
You know, I’m curious as to what Monica’s reaction to all of this will be…right after she gets past the “Uh…buh?” feeling that she seems to be experiencing.
My expression is somewhat similar to Monica’s. An etheric punch? You don’t see one of THOSE every day. And Nudge has hooves. I don’t think we’ve seen any demon have hooves before. I wonder if Nudge might not really be a demon…
Sphinxes aren’t demons. That we know of. And if you’ve got two different paranormal, pandimensional races, there may be a whole bunch more we just haven’t encountered yet. Nudge might be one of those. It MIGHT explain how Phix was able to seperate her from Tina 2.0 by less than fatal means, which doesn’t seem to be possible when dealing with demon infected humans.
Tina, Monica and Shelly had unusual connections with their demons, and Tina is dead on top of that, so it could be possible that something is possible in her case that wouldn’t be possible with most people. I don’t know.
When Shelly defeated her demons and cut off communications to the demon realm she somehow wound up turning her demons into her conscience. Shelly’s conscience said she wasn’t subject to the same rules as the demons. I agree that Nudge might be another case of something that’s demon-like, but not a not really a demon. Who knows?
I think we have. Back on the page(s) when Monica was walking down the street with some of her demons for no aparent reason, I’m pretty sure that 1 or 2 of them had hooves
I think you mean this strip, but they all had human feet in that one. The feet weren’t visible when Monica introduced them to the GGGs or when Doubt was talking to the other demons shortly before the calendar machine was destroyed. I think Nudge is the first to look like she was made with parts of another animal, although Panic might have had tentacles for hair.
I’m just a Nudge Yes I’m only a Nudge And until I got punched I would not budge Well, it’s a long, long journey from the timeless demon vista It’s a long, long wait While I sit in this barista But I know that I’ll be free somedaaaaay At least I hope and pray I can trudge But today, I begrudge, I’m a Nudge…
Did Paul just add shading to Monica? I don’t recall if she was shaded before. Now it seems her upper teeth stand out more as covering her lower lip, as was mentioned before by Ak4mc, (as opposed to that being her lower lip). Also, the upper lip is shaded while her teeth stand out as white.
Also, maybe Nudge isn’t a demon as we have come to understand them. Perhaps she is a minion of Satan. Perhaps Satan herself. I’ve often thought that would make perfect sense in that, God created man in His image so Satan created woman in her image in retaliation.
Nudge, Nudge, wink, wink. Say no more!
OK. I didn’t see that one coming. (I don’t think Nudge saw it coming, either 🙂 )
judgen by the look of profound terror she saw it comin
I think it was more of the Collective’s fear of an Apotropaic Sphinx standing over her about to punch her head off.
Looks like Phix got Tina’s Goat!
Just going to ignore that cause if I don’t I shall be forced to pummel you with the prodigious purple pun pounder.
A one-eye, one-horn prodigious purple pun pounder?
(Totally setting this one up)
I can’t do it. I still have a shred of dignity. It’s here somewhere, I know. Ah, there is is next to the prodigious puce pun pounder!
“I LIKE short-shorts…prodigious purple pun-pounder!”
Joe, the next time I see your car in the parking lot, I’m gonna pee on your tires.
LMAO!!!
That was baaa-d.
ga-ROAN!
LMAO!
Hey, Joe, where you goin’ with that big pun in your hand?
Not a goat, note the lack of cloven hooves. I don’t know what the class of being that had the back half of the horse was called, but that’s one of them, with horns.
She’s more like a Centaur with sheep’s horns…
A centaur has the whole lower half of a horse’s body (four legs) plus a human torso. That thing is a satyr, and given the whole “demon” thing, is likely going to end up being Satan.
She looks like she has horse hooves. I’ll have to get a better look at her feet tomorrow…
Okay then…
It’s a good thing this place doesn’t have a Pun Jar.
Or a pun gun.
A Punderbuss?
Don’t fire that in here. I’ll leave a pun-dent in the windows.
Oh!
Oh!
Is that what she did? PUNched her?
Oh, ewe…
Tina was De-Nudgified! I wonder how much she’ll change without Nudge, since she seemed to be a big force within the collective.
May very well not be permanent.
More sort of “I know where you live.” thing.
I wonder if Tina needs nudge to live? Nudge seemed to indicate that it was her doing that got Tina up and running after the accident, it might be nudge’s willpower that keeps Tina going and going and going…
I’m thinking she doesn’t need Nudge to live (see yesterday’s LONG thread). However, Tina 2.1 might have a drastically different attitude towards life if she should remain sans Nudge.
Yes indeed – but will it be a positive change or not? That’s what I want to know. Was nudge bringing order to the Legion inside, or was she a disruptive influcence? Interesting way of exorcising a demon, at any rate!
I’ve kinda always thought of Nudge as the chairman of the committee of demons that are Tina. Each demon adds their essence to the whole. Without Nudge Tina will no longer be Tina. I think Nudge adds a positive outlook to the collective and if she is banished it will not be for the better. I don’t think Nudge is evil and I do think she wants to help Monica. Nudge+Demons= Tina
No, Paul’s already spelled it out for us. It was Nudge that gave the Collective the idea to animate Tina’s body after Tina died. And, I’m willing to bet, that it wasn’t TINA’s demons (the Collective) that made deals with Brandi and Jin’s demons… it was Nudge.
@OldWolf – I think the lack of Nudge will bring a bit of order and calm to the Collective (though one or two demons may still talk out of turn in her memory). Afterall, Nudge seemed to be all about shaking things up and throwing people out of their comfort zones/routines.
Not sure what I was expecting out of that confrontation, but that wasn’t it.
Seconded! Now.. what will Tina’s other demons do? And…. never mind. I’ll just stop now. And wait for tomorrow.
Er — Pablo sir? Might the server update time someday be set for midnight East Coast time instead of Central? That way some of us wouldn’t have to stay up past 1 AM to get our drama fix!
Just saying…
That works for me!! Then I could see my favorite strip at 11pm instead of 12pm. XD
well I’m in UK here… I find it much simpler to check ‘yesterdays’ strips if I need a morning fix…
(its about 4am in SF, 6am in iowa 🙂 )
Far better than losing sleep!
its almost midday here in UK.. 🙂 didn’t notice you are on ‘local time’… 😛
How do I put this.. Oh I know. ITS A WEBSITE PEOPLE!! There’s nothing that says you HAVE to see the new comic the second it goes online. Trust me, the page will still be there the following morning.. well probibly
but waiting SUCKS! I wanna know what happens NOW!
Pacific Standard Time, California Coast, 10:00 pm, Waspi Square just update, less than a minute later (depending on strip length, dialouge to read, etc.) I want to know what happens next. NOW, NOW, NOW, WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!
… but I still have to wait another 24 hours. It’s worse than that TV show that used to be on FOX network. Reality sucks.
Psychic punch !
Whoops, should have put my comment here…”giant psychic punch FTW!”
I expected a punch, but not through Tina. That is something I never saw coming.
I think, next, a cat-pounce by a fully scaled-up sphinx.
Judging by the size of that fist, that might just have been what that was..
I’m not sure it’s THROUGH the head… it kinda looks like a right cross around Tina’s ear… Nudge is just part of her Hair?
So that’s what a bad hair day is.
Yep. That fist is bigger than Tina’s head.
Noticed something in yesterday’s strip that I missed until I went back to look again – Phix keeps her pince-nez glasses on during the combat. Cute.
Of course she keeps the glasses on, she has to be able to see. Did you think they were just decorations?
That’s not combat. That’s a beatdown. (I’d call it something else, but I’d likely get filtered…)
Big-ole can a whoop-@$$? ^_^
Well, it would appear that Tina overall is unscathed. Yeah, Nudge (as far as we know) was/is a part of Tina, but she seemed more like her own entity than anything else, while Tina “the collective” seemed to all function more as “one”. At least, that’s how it appeared to me most of the time. Based on the past and this comic alone… I feel relieved that only Nudge appears to have been hurt by this. And relieved that she’s no longer a part of Tina … at least for the moment.
To further claify what I mean: I always felt Nudge was Nudge and that Nudge was just possessing the entity otherwise known as Tina, collective or not. Like two separate beings.
That’s a good point. Perhaps Nudge was residing in Tina, and not in the demon realm like the others (assuming they are). That would explain why Phix was able to punch Nudge out and separate her from Tina so easily.
On the other hand, after today’s unexpected and amazing resolution, I’m not sure it’s even worth speculating anymore. Not that I mind how things turned out, it’s great, just that, once again, Paul has shown us our endless speculation isn’t worth crap-ola. No, I take that back, at least crap can be used as fertilizer, it’s less than crap-ola. Our opinions (mine anyway) are the stuff crap scrapes off it’s shoes.
Agreed. And while I see Tina collective as being Monica’s friend, I was never so sure about Nudge. Helpful sometimes, certainly, but not exactly a friend. This should be an interesting next few days.
It also strengthens the argument that she was hiding from Phix within Tina. I wonder how long she had been there? remember there have been MANY instances going back almost to the beginning of the strip when Tina spoke with the greyed text, indicating a single entity speaking. Were those instances always Nudge?
I’ve been wondering about exactly what cycle that Tina’s Demons coerced Monica in front of that bus. We know that each cycle was subtly different as Jin, the Demons and Phix worked behind the scene to push events in the direction they wanted. And I can’t see events being planned enough during the first cycle for the Tina/Monia/Bus incident to be played out.
Yep. I’m really anxious to learn more about Nudge and Tina. I’m really curious to see how thoroughly that Paul has thought though all of the metaphysics.
If you mean in-story, she’s been there since Tina was at the morgue, but I think you already knew that. I don’t know if the gray text was always Nudge or not. It may be that the collective essentially merged into one entity. I also don’t know how early Paul developed the idea of Nudge.
I wonder what Nudge was doing before Tina was in the morgue and how Nudge got into Tina. I don’t think Tina would have moved to the Wapsi Square area and brought the key with her if not for Nudge. That seemed to be part of the previous loop’s Brandi’s plan. Supposedly the accident bound Monica and Tina together, but it was not explained how that worked. I suspect that Nudge was the reason.
@nerf-dweller:
The accident happened during the final cycle.Because of the way things reset, it wouldn’t have mattered if it happened in the previous ones. I think it was planned in the previous cycle.
My previous comment was an answer to txmystic.
As far as the greyed text being Nudge, I’d say no. Mostly because of this comic: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/deal-me-in/. Given that Nudge just got punched across the room, there is no evidence of wings; yet, when she’s speaking in the greyed out text in ‘Deal Me In’, there are -giant- black wings behind her.
Hmm. Monica’s [b]right[/b] eye was covered in Telamir’s strip, but she covered her left eye to see Nudge. Was that intentional?
Double hmm! There was gray text here and Monica’s right eye (I used html this time!) was covered in this wild-looking one, too. Paul had to break continuity to do that — she had a different hairstyle on the previous page — but no one noticed at the time.
I would like to point out that hair across the face is not as much cover as a hand over one eye or one eye closed. 🙂 It’s restricted vision, but not completely removed…so perhaps Monica wasn’t seeing the wings or whatever else you’ve referenced.
Doesn’t it depend on how much hair there is? In the one case, you couldn’t even see Monica’s eye. In this one, there is a little hair covering her eye and Tina looks a little strange. If it wouldn’t take so long I’d like to look through the archives and try to find a correlation.
Happened here too
FWIW, I’m noticed that in this strip, Monica calls Nudge “something extra”. It’s as if she is thinking that Nudge isn’t part of Tina-proper, but Shelly doesn’t seem to interpret it that way.
GSmith got the word “too” in the URL somehow and it messed up his link. It was the same as Telamir provided.
she can choose which demon out of a bunch of demons in a human shell she can hit? why would she have to kill humans to get at the demons then? why doesn’t she just reach in and pull ou- no that’s too creepy and sounds dementoresque.
Damfino. I can speculate that Phix has more powers inside the Library, which is her own place, that she can do things she could not do outside it.
Or maybe she simply has learned a lot.
Yeah she’s learned a lot…apparently how to aim…really well… 8|
Remember that it was a demon that was telling the story to Monica about the Sphinxes – truth may have been a casualty. Also – Phix is in her domain – she’s probably able to do just about anything she wants there (most likely why she yoinked Tina to the Library in the first place).
I’d also hazard a guess that it’s easier to go after a demon when Phix doesn’t have to worry about a human soul in the body. If she’d miscalculated and knocked more than just Nudge loose, it’s possible that any other demons caught in the crossfire could just scramble back into the collective while Phix deals with her real prey. She doesn’t have to kill Tina because Tina is already dead. There’s no one in that body who can’t survive being separated from it for a short period of time.
Maybe her punch was “tuned” (for want of a better word) to only affect things that didn’t “belong” there…
In which case I’m now going to have an image stuck in my head of Phix humming “One of These Things is Not Like the Other” right before punching Nudge…
maybe you are believing the propaganda spread by Nudge???
or maybe Phix has more finely tuned powers…
I think Nudge *lied*.
While the tina-collective was/is always friendly, Nudge (the grey-voice part) doesn’t seem to be a proper part of it.
Well, not as much lied, but omitting important fact/playing on preconceptions of her listeners.
“telling the truth by leaving out details, is that lieing? That’s the start of a multi page philosophy paper you got going there.”
and why are Jin’s *lies* fine while Tina’s are propaganda? because she has hidden agendas? Well everyone has hidden agendas, If you went around telling everyone everything you hope to achieve then you’d never get anything done.
Nudge may not have been there originally but she is essential, if it wasn’t for her Tina still wouldn’t have gotten M’s attention… remember Nudge is the risk taking demon. also she might just go catatonic without Nudge.
As I understand it, Phix ususally just has to deal with a single demon posessing a living human. And since humans are at the bottom of the cosmic foodchain, Phix probibly doesn’t even care about killing the host (unintentially stargate refrence. Whoot.)
But TINA the Nudge/Demon collective is ALL demon. Human Tina died LONG before this comic even started.
So althogh there isn’t a human to get in the way of punch, – aka DIE – there are who-knows-how-many demons still there to keep the Tina-shell-thing functioning normally
.. or atleast as normal as is posssible considering that its a colective of occationally independant demons inside a body that should be WAY passed the point of being worm-food
if thats a little too morbid, sorry. But if you consider THAT morbid, than WTF are you ding reading a comic like this in the first place
Always look on the bright side of death-
Could being in the Library- out of the realm of normal time/space have something to do with Tina not being damaged. I can see how maybe in the mortal realm, only lethal force could extricate a demon. Then again… after being the “demon-cop” for so long… Phix may have learned to be more… subtle…
I just realized: the punch-nonphical-entity-out-of-a-body thing isnt actually orignal. The main enemy-badguy in the Cronicles of Riddck movie did the exact same thing, in almost the exact same way. Thats possibly where he got the idea. if not, then: unintentionall RIDDICK reference. WHoot!
ps: if you don’t know why I said ‘enemy’ badguy, its because practcially EVERYONE in the movie is a badguy, its just that some are Aswom-Badguys, some are FAIL-badguys, and some are just more or less bad than others
Why does she have to punch at all? Because it *looks cool*.
Duh.
I think it would have been just as cool if she grabbed her around the throat or head or shoved a claw like hand into her chest and pulled nudge out and thrown here to the ground.
Unfortunately that might not have been as good with her “Tag” punchline.
Ouch! No Pun intended.
Well, dang. I thought Nudge was one of the good guys!!
Oh Phixie…you got some ‘splainin’ to do!!
Congratulations Paul, you did it to us again. Showed us that other possibility not one of saw coming. I humbly bow to the master. She has interdimensional punch capability; who knew.
Which makes one wonder, however, if she could do that, why kill the host to get to the demon? Maybe this is a more recent capability developed after thousands of years of study in the library?
And, of course, Monica is even more dumbfounded than we are.
Poor Nudge. Such an unladylike position to end up. Gotta say though, she can take a punch, considering her head is still attached.
“Which makes one wonder, however, if she could do that, why kill the host to get to the demon? Maybe this is a more recent capability developed after thousands of years of study in the library?”
That’s what I was wondering.
That’s a possiblity. I was also wondering if it might have something to do with the location. Does being in the library (which is not really part of our dimension) give Phix the ability to have direct contact with only the spiritual entities within the physical host?
Of course if that’s the case then why not just teleport the “infected” people they found all those years ago to the library so the demons could be extracted? Your theory fixes that problem.
In this instance, the host is already dead.
And that’s your difference. But then, why wouldn’t the rest of Tina’s host come flying out of her as well?
Aim, my dear friend. Aim. 🙂
… or perhaps it’s that they really are a part of Tina. They belong there, but Nudge didn’t.
True. But maybe I missed something, but I don’t think Tina’s physical body is really “dead”.
They keep it moving and breathing and functioning SOMEHOW or it would begin to rot.
Maybe so, but the host soul that was a part of that human body is long gone. Perhaps the soul not being in the body affects what kind of actions must be taken. Tina is a very special case after all.
Which leads me back to Tina’s previous reference to the Phix stumping question of so long ago, which might have been: “Just how ethical and/moral is it for a more highly evolved being like a Sphinx to kill the host creature inhabited by a demon if ANY possible other solution can be researched or discovered?”
Which would explain what one of the things that Phix has been researching all this time and how she could do this non fatally to both parties…
Re: Separating demons instead of killing the host… do we have any evidence one way or the other as to whether a living human could survive having a demon punched out of her by a sphinx? Although everyone might refer to the collective as Tina for convenience, the fact is still that Tina, the human being originally associated with that body, is already dead. I don’t doubt that Phix could put the collective out of commission if she wanted to, but it might be necessary to force out one demon at a time and deal with them individually.
Perhaps one that has previously been infected is prone to being infected again? Or, initially, human lives were just considered unimportant and it was just easier to kill the host. It may well could be that the original mind is so damaged after possession that exorcising the demons leaves nothing to direct the body.
*shrug*
Akamar – I would not think that a possession would be harmless to the host.
Bramble – I think the key here is that Tina’s “demons” are native to her, the personal doubts and vanities that everyone has (remember Jin saying that the rats took over the ship?) and that Nudge isn’t.
Reminds me of Luke 11: 24-26, where a demon cast out returns to find the “place” swept and cleaned up–so goes to get seven others worse than itself, and the final state of the person is worse than the first.
Oh, cool Nudge has satyr legs and – OH-NO, TINA ARE YOU OKAY?!?
She’s fine. Just needs a change of clothes and 20 years of intensive theraphy.
And maybe a cookie.
and a scotch – neat
Or both. Mmm… whiskey soaked cookies…
A cookie always worked for me. Well, a xanax chip cookie.
the majority of the cast in this strip could use therapy.
not that it’d really help. It’s like Shelly once said “could you imagine the first visit?”
LOL!! I can imagine it… and it’s awesome. XD
I could imagine it. I could also imagine being the psychiatrist, taking down notes from all these lunatics, and turning them into wonderful stories
Do. NOT. Give. Pablo. Ideas.
What do you mean, don’t give Pablo ideas? Where do you think he’s getting these ideas??
Has Pablo ever mention what he does/did for a living before Wapsi Square? A psychiatrist, maybe?
Considering how he loves to torture us with great cliff hangers, I’m leaning towards IRS agent.
@NerfDweller: Paul Taylor was a professional photographer. His compositional skills have served him very well here.
I’ve been told I am a good listener. To that end, Acacia could talk my ear off until we both grow old.
except Acacea doesn’t grow old. she’s ageless, remember?
Yeah, after the first vist, the psychiatrist would probibly need more therapy than the ENTIRE cast of this comic combind
Monica’s face is bizarre it feels disappointed rather than confused or horrified or worried… huh
I think it’s a combination of confusion and relief.
Look again — I think instead of her lower lip I see her teeth sunk intio her lower lip.
no, thats her lower lip
But the top of the lower lip DOES kind of look like teath so I think I can see why you thought that
Now that Monica’s shaded in, I’m sticking to my take: them’s her teef.
The look on Monica’s face says to me “Tina, Tina, are you ok?!”
That’s why she’s ignoring the strange thing that just fly past her & skidded across the floor.
OK as mentioned in one of the previous comments I didn’t see that coming, but that does explain the transfer to the library. Perhaps in the bibliotiki is the only place where Phix has this level of control to hit a single demon in a body without damaging the rest of the complement.
Given the past couple of comics just before today, does this mean with the ‘you’re it’ line from Phix that Nudge might be forced into the Library somehow?
Or was it just a revenge punch?
dude, you’re gravatar freaks me out. seriously.
Heh. On the other hand, it makes ME smile. X3
I agree, it’s cute and funny. Like someone peeking around a door. It puts me in mind of a caption that reads “Hi! You up yet?” Or, “Can I use the bathroom now? I really need it!”
it looks like a dis-embodied head is floating with this big-ass cheshire grin and it freaks me out cuz ah! to floating heads.
I’ll get over it.
IIRC, that view of Tina from the other day freaked a few people out (I think it’s cute, myself!)…and it was cut perfectly to create the severed head effect, so I totally understand your point…
I was using the same shot but without the background till i put this one up…
To answer your question, I think that’s what we are seeing now. Phix transported Tina and Monica to the library and knocked Nudge out of Tina there.
I’m sorry all I can see is the hilarious illusion of a skree sound effect emanating from a goat’s butt.
Which brings up the question, do demons fart?
Yes, and it’s sulfuric!
Why do demons fart? Because they can, and because it causes so much ugliness…
Monica’s cleavage is getting better and better. Also, there appears to be a fight going on behind her.
Now now, remember our slogan:
“Come for the Babes, Stay for the Story.”
Woot, Nudge got hooves! Faun-esque demon?
Fauns got cloven goat hooves.
Satyrs got horse-type hooves (check) and horse tails (check).
Hmmm.
The Greek satyrs had horse tails, but everything else was human. They were almost always male. The Romans replaced their lower half with goat parts, including the tail, so they became like fauns. I don’t know of anything that was like a two-legged centaur, but someone else might. Nudge has ram horns, too.
Also, satyrs were predominantly used to display rather hedonistic traits whereas fauns are said to either help or harm people (of which Nudge usually helps Monica)
For just a second there, seeing Nudge lying on the floor, I thought it was another sphynx – the massive horns beyond her head looked like retracted wings. THAT was gonna be a weird-ass plot twist.
Selective targeting. Heh. Who knew? (Yes, yes, Phix did, but it’s a rhetorical question).
“Hey Uncle Owen?”
“Yeah Luke?”
“This barrista has a bad motivator, look!”
“Hey, what kind of junk are you Jawas trying to push on us?”
Sorry, it’s very late.
*groan*
In his mind, Luke really was at Tosche Station picking up some power converters…
owies…thats gonna leave a mark,
Phixie said Knock You Out.
You know, one has to wonder about the poor sap who has to mop the floors in the Library. You just know that at one point in time he/she told Phix that they’d quit if they had to squeegie one more demon off the floor.
Tomorrow’s comic will be said cleaning crew walking in a side door, looking at Nudge on the floor, glaring at Phix, and then throwing down their bucket and mop before storming back out. *nodsnods*
More demon slime, I’d think…
skid marks?
she kinda looks like the demon thing off pans labyrinth
So far, everyone has focused on Tina, Nudge and Phix. Poor Monica looks like she’s just been told there is no Santa Clause.
Yes she does. She is at least as stunned by events as we are and probably more than bewildered as she processes and formulates a response.
psshyeah right! next you’ll tell me there’s no Sasquatch!
A while back, there was a comic where Tina’s demons got into a fight with each other and her body just seemed to freeze/go comatose throughout the night. The next strip had a spider crawling into Tina eye and disappear in a flash.
Was that the first time Nudge entered Tina?
Nudge was THERE when Tina was laying on the slab. That was likely when she “entered” Tina the first time.
Well, that was unexpected!
Somebody is going to have a massive headache in the morning.
Nudge, meet Shove.
You just couldn’t resist? Could you?
I had a big brother. It scarred me for life.
The problem with resisting is that someone else will say it–and then you not only have to endure it, you have to live with the shame that someone else said it first!
damn Spanky…. that’s one way to mop the floor with someone. I’m wondering if Nudge’s boasting about being the ‘get up and go’ will prove true and if The Tina Collective will miss her.
Apparently, when we saw Tina in her aspect, when she showed herself to Monica, it was Nudge we were seeing. So, I wonder who/what we would see now.
…ow…
Okay, that hurt just looking at it.
Monica! You need to snap out of it, or bad things are going to happen!
You know, I’m curious as to what Monica’s reaction to all of this will be…right after she gets past the “Uh…buh?” feeling that she seems to be experiencing.
My expression is somewhat similar to Monica’s. An etheric punch? You don’t see one of THOSE every day. And Nudge has hooves. I don’t think we’ve seen any demon have hooves before. I wonder if Nudge might not really be a demon…
What else could she be?
Sphinxes aren’t demons. That we know of. And if you’ve got two different paranormal, pandimensional races, there may be a whole bunch more we just haven’t encountered yet. Nudge might be one of those. It MIGHT explain how Phix was able to seperate her from Tina 2.0 by less than fatal means, which doesn’t seem to be possible when dealing with demon infected humans.
Tina, Monica and Shelly had unusual connections with their demons, and Tina is dead on top of that, so it could be possible that something is possible in her case that wouldn’t be possible with most people. I don’t know.
When Shelly defeated her demons and cut off communications to the demon realm she somehow wound up turning her demons into her conscience. Shelly’s conscience said she wasn’t subject to the same rules as the demons. I agree that Nudge might be another case of something that’s demon-like, but not a not really a demon. Who knows?
I think we have. Back on the page(s) when Monica was walking down the street with some of her demons for no aparent reason, I’m pretty sure that 1 or 2 of them had hooves
I think you mean this strip, but they all had human feet in that one. The feet weren’t visible when Monica introduced them to the GGGs or when Doubt was talking to the other demons shortly before the calendar machine was destroyed. I think Nudge is the first to look like she was made with parts of another animal, although Panic might have had tentacles for hair.
Panic does have tentacle-like hair. The question is whether or not it’s actual animalistic like being hooved.
Well…
…there’s Nudge…
Well, at least Nudge got to keep her shoes…
giant psychic punch FTW!
So what does this mean for Tina?
Well, the rest of the demonic horde are probably cowering in fear at the moment…
Wow, That wasn’t a nudge. That was full on grabbing her and shoving her away from the rest of the group.
Well, at least now we know Tina is an Aries.
I see what you did there..
Judging by the hit, so is Phix.
Nah, Leo.
Taurus
Capricorn
Sure it’s not Gemini? (for her two natures…)
Kinda like the early Bleach chapters when Rukia would smack Ichigo upside his head with that glove to put him in Reaper mode.
I was just thinking about how gods don’t like fire-stealers…
Shall I? I probably shouldn’t.
Oh, who am I kidding, I will anyway.
A wild PHIX appears!
PHIX used PSYCHO PUNCH!
It’s super-effective!
I’m kinda worried about Nudge there. She lost her texture from panel #1 to panel#2. It might mean she’s knocked out or worse…
Hey, how long has the “buy print” button been available?
At least for the last month or so, If memory serves.
Longer than that…I bought a print using the button more than six months ago.
I’m just a Nudge
Yes I’m only a Nudge
And until I got punched I would not budge
Well, it’s a long, long journey from the timeless demon vista
It’s a long, long wait
While I sit in this barista
But I know that I’ll be free somedaaaaay
At least I hope and pray I can trudge
But today, I begrudge, I’m a Nudge…
Schoolhouse Rock!!! Nice application.
this is… yeah okay this is awesome.
NIIICE
Schoolhouse Rock? No wonder it wouldn’t fit the tune from “I’m Just a Girl.”
*snaps fingers in approval*
Oh, Wow!
Oh! That’s right … we are in Phix’s world now. Things happen differently here than in Monica’s world.
Giving Nudge a nudge … I like that.
Did Paul just add shading to Monica? I don’t recall if she was shaded before. Now it seems her upper teeth stand out more as covering her lower lip, as was mentioned before by Ak4mc, (as opposed to that being her lower lip). Also, the upper lip is shaded while her teeth stand out as white.
Also, maybe Nudge isn’t a demon as we have come to understand them. Perhaps she is a minion of Satan. Perhaps Satan herself. I’ve often thought that would make perfect sense in that, God created man in His image so Satan created woman in her image in retaliation.
no, you’re not crazy, Monica’s shaded in, now.
Nice hooves!
All I can say is OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!
Looking forward to seeing Nudge in her fully native form.
Mmmm, antlers.
Actually, those are horns, not antlers.