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"Let Alone Twice"
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Let Alone Twice
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Latest Medusa Comic

Let Alone Twice

by Paul Taylor on January 25, 2011 at 12:00 am
Story: Wapsi-Archive
Characters: Shelly, Tina
Location: Mucho Mocha

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Discussion (72) ¬

  1. Cheesy1
    January 25, 2011, 12:05 am | # | Reply

    The rats may be steering the ship, but that is one damn good-looking boat!

    • Rowan Hawthorn
      January 25, 2011, 7:52 am | # | Reply

      Oh, hells, yeah!

    • ChrisHerself
      January 25, 2011, 10:21 am | # | Reply

      I thought it was the motion of the ocean 😛

      • Kusaragi
        January 27, 2011, 6:36 pm | #

        Ride the tsunami!

  2. Jabberwonky
    January 25, 2011, 12:06 am | # | Reply

    Too much Tina cuteness!

    And who’s teeth are on the necklace?

    • Jim
      January 25, 2011, 5:22 am | # | Reply

      Ditto on both.

    • illiad
      January 25, 2011, 6:28 am | # | Reply

      whoa, Indy-Tina Jones!! 😀 😀

    • M
      January 25, 2011, 7:22 am | # | Reply

      Her own, maybe? The originals? Real canines are still kinda pointy.

      • Jabberwonky
        January 25, 2011, 8:13 am | #

        Would have been very easy to loose them in the bus accident….and she did say she had dental work, as well as reconstructive surgery, when she got back to Miami….

      • Fairportfan
        January 25, 2011, 5:11 pm | #

        I think that she said that in order to explain the fangs, rather than that it actually happened.

    • W.
      January 25, 2011, 8:12 am | # | Reply

      They look suspiciously like this. Which would be Funny considering the context.

      • Chaotonic
        January 26, 2011, 10:19 am | #

        INU-YASHA

    • Akamar
      January 25, 2011, 1:33 pm | # | Reply

      They could simply be some manner of animal fangs, artificial or real. Both CAN be found, if one knows where to look. So can jewelry featuring either. Or, they could just be beads manufactured to look like fangs. Or just beads that coincidentally look like fangs. XD

      In other words, I wouldn’t read too much into it.

  3. Sweetman
    January 25, 2011, 12:06 am | # | Reply

    Great strip today. You’ve got wonderful expressions, nice sense of environment, and a ton of exposition. And, of course, the girls look cute enough to start another whirlwind of possessiveness amongst your fans.

  4. vince
    January 25, 2011, 12:11 am | # | Reply

    Shelly forgot that every prior iteration ended with the calendar machine resetting… this time it was obliterated and that’s partially why Jin’s gone cuckoo…

    • Fairportfan
      January 25, 2011, 12:13 am | # | Reply

      Right. This is after the point at which everything started over again in the cyclic universe before the machine was destroyed; we’ve never been here before.

      Paul?

      • Biker Matt
        January 25, 2011, 2:01 am | #

        Close… It’s still in the time frame of the previous iterations, but the context is different, as it’s the first time they attempted a premature calendar machine end, so now they’re attempting a different solution.

        As it’s an alternate solution to how the CM was helping Jin, it’s possible to have run across something like this before, but I guess we’ll just have to see.

      • Fairportfan
        January 25, 2011, 7:50 am | #

        Interesting that, despite her claims to not being all that smart (comparatively), it’s Bud working with Monica on the theoretical stuff.

      • Jabberwonky
        January 25, 2011, 8:29 am | #

        You are always your own worst critic. Bud is a lot smarter than she gives herself credit for.
        She is working her up the ladder to being my favorite character. Not that it’s far, she’s tied for number two with Tina…

      • Fairportfan
        January 25, 2011, 3:57 pm | #

        Bud has been my favourite character for quite a while – she’s the most damaged of the GGs (well, damaged by her experiences, as opposed to Jin, who was apparently always a bit off-center),but, in some ways, she’s the most human of the three.

        The bit with the little lamp is such an “Awwww!” moment…

        (See next comment)

      • Fairportfan
        January 25, 2011, 3:59 pm | #

        …especially when we look at this followup a couple of days later…

        (more)

      • Fairportfan
        January 25, 2011, 4:00 pm | #

        …and, finally, this conclusion to the mini-arc…

      • W.
        January 25, 2011, 10:21 pm | #

        Thanks for those links, they reminded me again why I like Bud so much.

      • Jabberwonky
        January 25, 2011, 10:32 pm | #

        The lamp is one of the things that make me love Bud the way I do. The wallpaper of her and the old home is one that spends a lot of time on my desktop.

      • SoWhyMe
        January 25, 2011, 10:16 am | #

        Right. It normally didn’t reset until 2012. We don’t know quite what happened to those involved in the previous times, but it wasn’t good. Also Tina would probably have been alive doing whatever she did (unless the drug dealers bumped her off). No coffee shop though. Probably not even involved at all. She’s kind of a wild card now.

      • ChrisHerself
        January 25, 2011, 10:23 am | #

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7shwZWNjFy8

      • Jabberwonky
        January 25, 2011, 3:49 pm | #

        Baa-ha-ha-ha…..Love the Zim…

    • Cheesy1
      January 25, 2011, 12:14 am | # | Reply

      I was just thinking that. Time kept reseting at that point. Everything that’s happened since then this time is a first for everyone. So this little quest is new territory I would think.

    • NOTDilbert
      January 25, 2011, 12:25 am | # | Reply

      That’s what I was thinking – until the machine was fixed/destroyed, all work was on the calendar machine. They never reached the point past that at which Jin’s problem became the next goal.

      • Vorlonagent
        January 25, 2011, 11:34 am | #

        Agreed.

        Because the Calendar machine was never fixed before, Jin never broke before.

        The world now has a nice, orderly starched and ironed timeline. Don’t spill hot chocolate on it the first time you wear it out of the house.

    • choronzonseyes
      January 25, 2011, 3:14 pm | # | Reply

      Say rather that Shelly’s understanding of this time and these events is not as complete as say Monica’s or even Jin’s. The idea of replicating events 50 or 60 times is pretty hard to forget. It feels rather realistic for her to assume that this may have happened before. Dare I say she might even be trying to comfort herself… “Yeah, I have done this before… right?”

  5. Opus the Poet
    January 25, 2011, 12:20 am | # | Reply

    No, the time resetting thing was always on 12/21/12, but even so up until that time they were always working on “fixing” the machine and not on “fixing” Jin. So, even though they have been through these dates 56 times before, this is the first time through for this scenario.

    • Paul Taylor
      January 25, 2011, 12:28 am | # | Reply

      Correct. 🙂

    • Dusty668
      January 25, 2011, 4:25 am | # | Reply

      Kinda like time was trapped in it’s cycle, endlessly circling until given a lil ‘Nudge’.

      • morven
        January 25, 2011, 10:16 am | #

        And if a little nudge can have such a big effect, that makes it a chaotic system?

      • choronzonseyes
        January 25, 2011, 3:17 pm | #

        Time is fluid and fluid is chaotic so therefore Time is chaotic? Aka nonlinear and thus trackable only after the fact and then incompletey. Especially for entities that reside within the system they are trying to predict/measure. Sounds fun!

    • Dantelives
      January 25, 2011, 10:22 am | # | Reply

      My head is hurting. . .

      • kramegame
        January 25, 2011, 4:35 pm | #

        It’s not that difficult of a concept. Imagine time as a river. You can only measure the water in front of you, while you are in front of it. For example, Niagara Falls records the volume of water that flows over it per minute. However, they can’t say exactly where that water came from or where it is going to go, all they know is the amount that flows over the falls.

      • SoWhyMe
        January 25, 2011, 5:26 pm | #

        I see our current place in the flow of time as riders on that flow. We are swept along with the flow. Only by standing on the bottom and letting the water flow past us would we become immortal. Going onto the “banks” would allow us to be out of the stream completely and time travel. To the future anyway. Jump back in when time has flowed past to where we want to explore. To get to the past we would have to be able to outrun the speed of the flow, moving down the bank and jumping back in at some point in the past. Which brings up the question, at what “velocity” does time flow? Also, does time have a smallest increment? If so, are there seemingly dead spaces between those increments? Perhaps space is shared? In one instant we are here, then gone for many instants, then back again. Sorta like computer multiprocessing but going even farther. We’re removed from space and put on hold somewhere while other universes are put in the same space and run for their instant. Time is so fascinating.

      • illiad
        January 26, 2011, 6:52 am | #

        “dead spaces between those increments?” hey its anybody’s guess… even physicists are arguing about it – consider the ‘double slit’ experiment…
        They seem to agree on ‘matter’ though.. they say if all the ‘dead space’ is removed from your body, it will only be the size of a sugar cube!!

      • illiad
        January 26, 2011, 6:54 am | #

        science link here (flash) 🙂
        http://htwins.net/scale/
        drag the slider to show sizes from the smallest to the largest.. 😮

  6. Atomic
    January 25, 2011, 12:21 am | # | Reply

    And I, for one, am looking forward to two things on the way:

    1. Visiting the Biblothiki Annex, and
    2. Nudge visiting Monica, et al!

    • Jabberwonky
      January 25, 2011, 8:31 am | # | Reply

      For me, it’s Tina and Nudge meeting as two seperate entities. Well, two seperate entities and multiple personalities…

  7. D. Walker
    January 25, 2011, 12:47 am | # | Reply

    Paul, artistic question.

    The bottom panel over-lapping the above is a nice touch, but the white space cutout to give it room is something one doesn’t see typically. It caught my eye and got me thinking about it. I thought, “Huh, I would have expected Paul to just overlay Tina directly on top of the other panels, no cutout involved, but I guess he wanted to ensure clarity.”

    Any comment? Curious to know what you were thinking when you chose to overlay it that way. Oh, and oddly enough, I think I noticed it in particular because I was unconsiously comparing it to the border work of Aaron Diaz in his comic Dresden Codak (and you can take that as a compliment!).

    ~D.

    • jwhouk
      January 25, 2011, 8:06 am | # | Reply

      As an artistic statement, it screams that Tina is “breaking through” Shelly’s misguided thinking about this being a repeat.

    • SoWhyMe
      January 25, 2011, 10:25 am | # | Reply

      Or perhaps you’re reading way too much into it.

    • Paul Taylor
      January 25, 2011, 12:07 pm | # | Reply

      I really wanted Tina to be set apart from everything else, including the reality of the Wapsi world.

      • Fairportfan
        January 25, 2011, 4:02 pm | #

        Yah – the BG to that panel sort of emphasises that.

  8. The Old Wolf
    January 25, 2011, 5:53 am | # | Reply

    Awesome Tina for the win!
    Awesome Tina is Awesome.
    😀

  9. Jabberwonky
    January 25, 2011, 8:17 am | # | Reply

    But, what’s with the creepy eye over her left shoulder? Is our favoite demonic barista under surveillance? Besides the trenchcoat wearing Apos?

    • Greg
      January 25, 2011, 8:55 am | # | Reply

      It’s a clock and it’s 7:05 AM

      • MrBliss
        January 25, 2011, 9:11 am | #

        The clock in in the first panels, over Tina’s right shoulder. In the last panel, worked into the background, all around Tina, there are several eyes. I think I’ve picked out 6 eyes.

      • eschmenk
        January 25, 2011, 12:28 pm | #

        My guess is that it is a gauge, not a clock, although I don’t know why it would have two hands. Tina’s fist seems to be covering another one in the third panel.

        I think the background in the bottom panel is just for atmosphere. I wouldn’t read anything into it.

        I wonder if the flavor of the day has finally changed. 😀

    • Heph
      January 25, 2011, 3:49 pm | # | Reply

      Well “rats steering the ship” in the last pannelish picture could also be a bit self-refferencial as she for herself isnt controled by the calenders repetition or nudge thus that conglomerate of demons is in charge.

      The creepy(s) over her shoulder could now symbolize said demons to empathise that still more then one being is controlling her body.

  10. ShadOBabe
    January 25, 2011, 8:21 am | # | Reply

    Good point, Tina.

  11. Eee
    January 25, 2011, 11:05 am | # | Reply

    Whoa, Tina is WORKING it!

    I’m not sure she’s right about the ‘let alone twice’ comment, though. Admittedly, Jin had nothing to do with the creation of Tina 2.0, that was Brandi and Tina’s demons working together. And she probably would have prevented Tina 1.0’s death if she could, having lost enough friends along the way. But I don’t recall Jin being very anti-demon, and Tina 2.0 played a necessary role in fixing the Calendar Machine, so Jin might have had no choice but to allow it. Phix. Phix is the one who should have come down on the rats steering the ship, but as I’ve posted before, the only way I can see Tina 1.0 getting the ‘clock key’ was through Phix…

    • eschmenk
      January 25, 2011, 12:35 pm | # | Reply

      Brandi and Tina’s demons caught Jin off guard this time. They timed the bus incident for when Jin was busy saving Shelly. It would be much harder to catch Jin so off guard a second time.

      • eschmenk
        May 23, 2011, 4:45 pm | #

        I just now spotted my mistake! I meant Monica‘s and Tina’s demons. They and probably Nudge were following a plan concocted by one or more previous Brandis.

    • SoWhyMe
      January 25, 2011, 4:07 pm | # | Reply

      Actually it was Nudges doing. She was the one, for whatever reason, who picked Tina to inhabit and rouse from the morgue slab. I don’t think Brandi or her demons had anything to do with it.

      What I wonder is why Jin had to manipulate all those people to have the dolls, the key, and the hammer in their possession, passing them from generation to generation? Why didn’t Jin just gather them up at some point and keep them herself? Seems like that would be a lot less work and a much greater certainty of having them when they were needed. It’s not like any of the objects shaped the owners over the years in some way to make them more suitable for the task.

      • Lizzibabe
        January 25, 2011, 6:58 pm | #

        Because Jin needed a total of five people to do this, and would you have done exactly what she needed you to do if she just came up to you and *asked*?

      • SoWhyMe
        January 25, 2011, 9:35 pm | #

        Maybe, but I don’t see how having the objects would make them more inclined to do it. There were 4 who had to be there because of their unique abilities. The 3 golems and Monica. All of them were default people so to speak. Monica was roped into it because of her ability as a glyph reader and a “sacrifice.” None of them really had a choice. Their selection had nothing to do with the objects they had, so Jin could have taken them early on for safe keeping. Tina didn’t even go, so her keeping the key really wasn’t necessary in any event. Shelly was there for the muscle. I suppose she had a unique ability in her great strength. Otherwise anyone could have done that job. I don’t know if her vision quest had anything to do with anything either. Perhaps, so she may have had to be the one for that job as well. My point is that possessing the objects didn’t figure into who would be chosen for the mission in the end, their special abilities did.

      • Platonix
        January 25, 2011, 10:27 pm | #

        Actually, Jin didn’t know until the golem design first appeared on Monica’s face whether it would be Monica or Shelly who would be the key.

      • Jabberwonky
        January 25, 2011, 10:41 pm | #

        With 55 previous attempts at it, maybe Jin has tried keeping the sacred objects until the last moment. It must have been like playing the longest, most frustrating version of Myst ever produced. Every time you try something a little different to try and finish the puzzle.
        And I agree with Lizziebabe, how much convincing would you need from a crazy lady that time was broken, but only I can see it? I don’t know that I could have been convinced to shank my best friend in the skull on that advice…

  12. kingklash
    January 25, 2011, 11:33 am | # | Reply

    Tina’s making sure she earns a invite to the next Bermuda Triangle Beach Bash.

    • Jabberwonky
      January 25, 2011, 10:42 pm | # | Reply

      The more the merrier!

  13. Kenoscope
    January 25, 2011, 2:05 pm | # | Reply

    we found the girls sandbar! http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/01/25/vo.piano.sandbar.wsvn?hpt=C2

    • Opus the Poet
      January 25, 2011, 2:57 pm | # | Reply

      Too far west. 😉 I think it was probably one of the tiny islands around Bermuda between Bermuda and FL.

    • illiad
      January 26, 2011, 7:21 am | # | Reply

      nope, that sandbar is far too close to the shoreline… But then, if some eccentric millionaire can helicopter it out ‘discretely’ , then I dunno… It may just be its a very busy place, so one more ‘copter wont be noticed…

  14. Page-Mistress
    January 25, 2011, 3:07 pm | # | Reply

    Tina looks so spunky in the last panel!

  15. Fairportfan
    January 25, 2011, 3:53 pm | # | Reply

    For sensuality portrayed with simplicity but with an impact, check out pib’s dancer’s walk in the first two panels of today’s Pibgorn.

    • txmystic
      January 25, 2011, 8:33 pm | # | Reply

      Yes, that’s a whole other kettle of fish…but she appears to be wanting to break out into new terrtory, much like Tina is doing today, so the symmetry is not lost on me…

      • Fairportfan
        January 25, 2011, 9:06 pm | #

        I love the way Brooke used silhouette to convey Pib’s strut…

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