Oh, he ought to have the option of picking out one of anybody’s contributions if he wishes. There’s a very diverse lot of stuff in there… a regular albino Arabian typographer’s marketplace of goodies.
you can have my second-born if you want him…of course he’s a teenager and good for nothing but jerky at this point. nothin but eyerolls and video games in that child! 😉
I love the looks those two are showing… the one on the left is kinda embarrassed to have been doused by a sphinx, and the other one has that stubborn “I’ll get even, any way i can” look to him.
and i was right that they went in the wrong door… 🙂
Okay, so they DID come in the wrong door. I did suspect something quite a bit more sinister, thinking perhaps Prester Fred was on to something in his post yesterday (sorry, don’t know how to link to posts).
Right click on the “#” symbol and then “Copy link location” (for Firefox, similar for others). You can then just paste the URL in your comment or make a hot link with the HTML anchor tag: <a href=”the url goes here”>hot linked text</a>
Kilts are great, and very comfortable. But, yeah, watch out for the snow blower. If you go out in public in a kilt, more than one woman may want to blow you.
Kudos to those who worked it out!
Frankly, I find the fourth panel disturbing. I mean, her “shadow” could have just gone transparent and blinked out, not gone all icky and corpse-like. Eww eww ew.
Nasty, eek-worthy melting rotten corpse, looking decidedly like the “bog-Men” I saw in a museum about Drenthian marshes (Drenthe=Northern Province of The Netherlands, steeped knee-deep in Huns, druids, human sacrifice, Stone graves and a lot of heather&Marshes/bogs)
A number of mundane animals indicate their mood with bodily features, say, puffing up their feathers etc.
Tsillah’s 3D avatar could either be an emulation of such a “species” or it is simply the way she is. And I find myself careful with assuming Tsillah is a female in the conservative sense, the 3D-body’s sex could just as well be a matter of choice? Would somewhat explain the fluctuation in the feminine features….
As has been shown by many a specialist in the psychiatric field, gender is as much a state of mind as it is of body. Physical gender defines your physical capabilities, “mental gender” is an expression of self.
Hence the “woman trapped in a man’s body”, etc etc. Me, I’m a lesbian trapped in a man’s body 😀 Sorry, old joke. ::drops a pair of “comfortable shoes” in the pun jar:: (can you pay the pun jar with a pun? does it count as double?)
This particular creature doesn’t appear to naturally have a physical form, it just projects one when needed, so it’s all about the mentality – and I’m guessing it “sees” itself as female.
But it could just be they figured female would be less threatening (dangerous presumption – try that with Bud!), and that’s what the situation called for.
Besides the Shadow, only Paul knows for sure. And even then I’m not putting my bet down on Paul, just yet – he’s still got room to wiggle on this one til he draws it, heh.
Well, grey wolf. You said more exactly what I was implying.
Gender can be even more of a mental attitude than physical. Interestingly enough, the ‘physical’ usually has ‘first shot’ at determining outlook.
‘Lesbian’ and ‘Homosexual’ are simply mental sets in which the person has rejected the physical aspects and abilities for a socially reprehensible alternative.
♪The worms crawl in,
♪The worms crawl out,
♪The worms play pinochle in your snout!
♪Your skin turns green, a slimy green —
♪So green that you hate to be seen!♪
Nobody likes me
Everybody hates me
Going to the garden to eat worms .
Long thin slimy ones
Short fat fuzzy ones
Itsyby bitsy fuzzy wuzzy worms.
The first one was easy
The second one was quezzy
the third one got stuck in my throat .
Long thin skinny ones
Short fat juicy ones
Itzy bitzy fuzzy wuzzy worms.
On the one hand… if her “solid” form is something akin to ectoplasm, and is being held in its shape through a conscious expression of will, it would make sense for it to slump into an amorphous form when she releases her control of it and allows it to dissipate. Definitely creepy, though.
On the other hand… how many of us are gracious and careful, when we’re done using out own shadows and put them away for a while? We usually don’t bother to press and fold them for proper storage, or put them up on hangers. Most often, we just walk right into a dimly-lit building, and let our poor shadows get ripped off of us (shredded and/or decapitated) by the knife-edge of the building’s own shadow. No respect, no consideration… considering how we treat them, we’re really not in a great moral position to criticize Tsillah and her folk (whoever they are) about their own corporeal-body handling practices.
The thing is, the longer I look at it, the more it looks like “melting light” – for lack of a better term- a bit like the “hard light projections” of the classic danger-room as described in “the X-Men guide to the mansion” (yes, I still got that, spiral-bound and all)
Shadow does not mean “evil” or “dark” (in the emotional sense that is). So she’s a creature of shadow. She’s still not all that creepy to me especially in light of the cartoon’s other characters of note.
After Tina being populated by demons, Jin before her breakdown and restoration, Nudge…frankly she doesn’t bother me.
One of the things that I like about the artist is the fact that he is very VERY good at conveying the emotions behind the characters. If you are good at reading people, you can “read” these characters.
This girl just comes across too happy and bubbly to give me the creepy Oompa-Loompa vibes.
Yeah, reminds me of a highscool freind who simply couldn’t accept defeat even when it was clear he was completely outclassed. His self image wouldn’t allow for the fact that he wasn’t as awesome as he thought he was.
It’s also interesting that Tsillia assumes that any ‘folk’ met at the library annex will be able to tie her pooches into a knot. And, to be fair, Justin is the only exception to that rule that we’ve seen. Two Sphinxes, three Golem Girls, a Gorgon and one Monica. And the busty latina may be the most dangerous of the bunch.
and considering there are still many aspects of her ‘status’ as a ‘rune reader’ she has not explored.
You must realize that there is a wide range of powers and abilities open to somebody who can read the runes.
Some runes (and Paul has revealed he knows this) give the reader powers if read aloud. There are some powerful runes just awaiting Monica’s talented eyes.
I think her stuff was like her body – kinda like ectoplasm. In this case the ‘shadow’ baclpack and water bottle are real, and the physical objects are the 3D projection for the convenience of people she interacts with. Must take a little concentration, ’cause we noticed several times when the ‘projections’ were out-of-sync.
It may be a conscious misdirection on her part. If you’re busy looking at the fashion disaster of her marionette, you might not notice what the shadow of said marionette is up to.
Baxter is dexter, of course, while Boo has a more sinister look (if he was ursine rather than canine he’d be “b’ar sinister” but you can’t have everything).
Nah, pretty clueless for all his smarts, but i LOVE his inventions though… OH… you meant the psycho on tv… never saw the show, but having an entire show about some mass murderer trying to not get caught isn’t my cup of tea.
@scantrontb: believe me when I say you’re missing out.
Keeping people clueless about having powers in a comic like Wapsi Square is peanuts compared to working for the police that (in season 2) is after a serial killer that happens to be you, or juggling having no emotions, a family, a recurring thirst for blood, a job at the police and just a 24 hour day to fit everything in… 😀
“Most folks” could tie up a pair of hellhounds in a knot??
Upon reflection, she could be exaggerating somewhat, in order to make sure these two avoid Mundanes whenever possible.
Now, what I’m wondering is: Where exactly is “home?”
That’s my guess. She walks in different circles than most of the main cast. It’s a little ironic that the main cast is actualy in that elite sphere, but are mostly living mundane lives among an unsuspecting humanity. Two of the most powerful beings on the planet work as an office manager and a dance instructor.
Which I love. One of the most frequent complaints about Superman is that he’s “so powerful that no one can challenge him, so you can’t tell good stories about him”.
Paul has taken that and turned it on its head. Brandi, Bud and Jin (before her powerdown) were all leauges more powerful than Clark and any one of them could have folded him up like a paper napkin. Yet they are compelling characters and Paul tells great stories with them. It’s to Paul’s credit as a storyteller that he has created characters like the GGs that are physicaly indestructable but are emotionaly just as fragile as any other character in the story.
Sorry for the rant, its just something that’s been rattling around my head for the past day or so.
Where exactly is “home”? Well, they are hell hounds, so i am guessing “home” is not some place I would want to go…which, makes that last panel really creepy–the only thing missing is a pitchfork!
What’s really disturbing is the very concept of “scrubbed up” with regards to a hellhound. How would you scrub a hellhound (other than “very cautiously”), and why??
If hell hounds are anything like RL canines, they don’t clean themselves very well and Shelly ensured they BOTH got covered in soot from their own ‘attack fire’.
Well Pluto’s realm (Roman version) was a place where the dead went after discarding their bodies and supposedly the only sensation one could feel was pain (not sure how well that jibed with the Elysian Fields). Other mythos have the land of the dead as being a playground for the rejuvenated deceased to recover in until they were ready to go back and inhabit another body. I can’t say one way or the other, the time I was dead was too short to check out the neighborhood.
This got me to think of the song by Mike Oldfield:
“I stay
I pray
I see you in heaven far away
Far away on the other side.
Caught in the middle of a hundred and five
The night was heavy but the air was alive
But she couldn’t find how to push through
Carried away by a moonlight shadow
Carried away by a moonlight shadow
Far away on the other side. ”
I love the facial expression of Baxter and Boo. And Pippy the Fangirl there is a Shade if I’m not mistaken.
They went in the wrong door? *facepalm* Of course they went in the wrong door. Simple mistake…..and here I was thinking it was something more sinister was a foot.
No, I’m sure that Shelly and Justin are too wise than to walk into a new and unknown room with their sinister foot forwards. They’d know enough to walk in, dexter foot first.
“You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out… you do the Hokey-Pokey and you turn yourself about.” It’s an old Elvish charm against enchantment…
It seems to be a reasonably popular variation within one of the SCA kingdoms… the Kingdom of Atenveldt search page shows dozens of registered devices containing a chevron rompu. I would presume from this that it probably doesn’t convey any notorious message like “I am an axe murderer” or anything like that…
Yeah, welcome for the compliment in the name of all of us.
And also, my sympathies for you, poor guy. Going cold turkey with wapsi after reading thru’ the archives is a hard thing (I still haven’t fully recovered and I have been up to speed since last august). Keep up the spirit 🙂
Nope, night shift tech support … with internet access. I can surf all I want as long as I am not on a call or working on a project. No projects lately and calls are slow unless we have an outage.
So perfect for catching up on my webcomics. 😀 Got a lot of them I follow, WS is one of three now on my daily read list, so you’ll see more of me.
Oh, lor – i am retired (not precisely voluntarily, but i got to a point where i was not going to get hired – no letters after my name and sixty-plus – and took early Social Security), and i follow fifty-plus strips regularly (and some are on indefinite hiatus, either officially or de facto) – not all of them post daily – and i am collecting about seven of those (including Wapsi).
See my link in the heraldry section above. You gotta go read the archive–you’ll miss half the story otherwise! Even if you just read a couple weeks’ worth a day, on weekends…
I met Emma Bull a few years ago (the Flash Girls were playing at a bar in my town) and she mentioned that there have been “War for the Oaks” tours of the Minneapolis area. Sounds as if there might be an opportunity for a two-for-one tour, taking in the sights from both WFTO and Wapsi Square. If I ever have the chance to spend a spare day or two in Minneapolis, I’ll be seriously tempted!
I miss Katherine. I think she should be explored more. It would be interesting if SHE were to visit the library…
on Phix’s invitation without Monica’s knowledge. It would be VERY interesting to see what she would desire to research (though Phix may need to remind her to eat and feel her fish).
FEEL her fish?… i know people tend to TALK to their fish, but i think that’s just a bit creepy… and NOT in a good way either! 🙁 Now, if you really meant to say FEED her fish and just did a typo, well… that’s ok. 🙂
You Know takeing another look at the “puppies” THEY appear to be the same as Shelley and Justins’ clothes. I wonder if they are ‘constructs’ as well which could mean “HOME” may be any dark corner.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Does anyone remember a Toon from the 60’s called
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTwYuP77h98]Spy Shadow?[url]
You have to use the pointy tags like this . And put quotes around the http bit. Someone posted a fill-in-the-blank version near the top of this page–I used one for ages before finally taking a basic web class. 😉
Depends on which mythos you are using, in most a shade is the spirit of a deceased person, in some a disembodied spirit of any source, and I know of a few mythos that describe a creature like Tsillah as a shade. I wonder how much research Paul does before writing the scripts on this stuff…
I reviewed all of last week’s panels, and I didn’t see any shapes in the shadows which were anything resembling Tsillah… no bipedal shapes at all. If she was present, she either wasn’t being shown at all, or was taking a very different shadow-form (as far as I can tell).
Her cautionary words to the cerberi today are consistent with all of her comments earlier this week… she doesn’t seem to approve of their attack on Shelly and Justin. Unless she’s being really tricky and manipulative, I’d think she’d have stopped their attack if she’d been present earlier.
I think the reason she wasn’t around to stop Baxter and Boo from flaming Shelly and Justin was because she was in the library. She seems to have arrived just after the fact.
No, SHE is allowed, it’s just the Library has a “NO Hellhounds” policy… you know, the fire insurance premiums just go thru the roof!, so Phix says that unless they’re de-flamed they can’t come in. 😀
Looking at Tsilla’s admonition to Embarrassed and Truculent, i think it could be read as “they could” as in “it could be” – “…you never know, they could have the ability to…”
Looking at Boo’s face, I would not like to be the next being he gets mad at. As Fairportfan said, he looks Truculent. I don’t think he has completely learned his lesson.
It doesn’t take much intelligence to hold a grudge and one can never be too intelligent to do so.
It takes emotional stability to keep such grudges from governing your actions afterward. The hounds past actions tell me at least one of them doesn’t have that (we naturally assumed BOTH hounds attacked, but it is possible only one did, Shelly just ‘manhandled’ both).
Jay-Em called it! Well done!
*takes a humble bow*
There’s NO coinkidink in Paul’s work, so, the shifting shadow (that others also noted) was a dead-give-away.
Great concept! Shadow-person, but not like Gunnerkrig’s “Shadow”
Very nice call, Jay-Em. And of course mad props to Paul, who keeps coming up with things curiouser and curiouser in this wild and whacky Wapsi world…
That’s what made me remember i hadn’t read “Gunnerkrigg” yet…
perhaps she’s one of the Shadow People: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_people
Question –
You notice that her shadow grew as her “avatar” dissolved? I presume that means she used her own essence to form the solid materials.
So …
Did she do the same for making Justin and Shelly’s clothes?
::ponders::
Does this mean she’s now snuggling them wherever they go, til the clothes are dismissed?
She said she “Manipulates” Shadows. It could be that she manipulated Justin and Shelley’s shadows to give them clothing.
I thought perhaps she used Shelly and Justin’s own shadows to create clothes for them…That would make the most sense, right?
Might just have been made from the general shadows of the area. I mean it isn’t like they aren’t in a large dark building.
I also asked if the shawdow controlled her or vice versa
Now, I have to wonder…
How much of the encounter did ‘she’ witness as a shadow before manifesting her ‘physical’ avatar?
Only the Shadow knows.
(Drops a Gold Double Eagle in the pun jar)
That is a princely donation! Pure golden, I’m sure.
[drops in a wooden nickel]
See your Wooden Nickle and raise you 2 X $1 car-wash tokens (solid Brass !) .
Paul never puts in elements that he doesn’t use later. judging by the new – and unique – characters, this next arc is gonna be real interesting.
Agreed – maybe give him something from the pun-vault that was his ..
Oh, he ought to have the option of picking out one of anybody’s contributions if he wishes. There’s a very diverse lot of stuff in there… a regular albino Arabian typographer’s marketplace of goodies.
*groan*
I’m not sure which is worse… the pun, or the fact that I got it.
Embarrassed that i didn’t get it.
What?
“white Ali font sale”.
(deposits a slightly tarnished lamp in the Pun Cave)
Condemn the pun, Sparks, not yourself… a pun-aware mind us not a bad thing, as it can provide hours of amusement at no cost 🙂
Hmm.. wéll now.. Whó put that first-born in it? I think I’ll have that for lunch… 👿
(not-so-subtely pushing Sandra&Woo)
you can have my second-born if you want him…of course he’s a teenager and good for nothing but jerky at this point. nothin but eyerolls and video games in that child! 😉
Hey J-M, you any relation to a certain person named Richard who also loves ‘infants’ for breakfast?
Woo-hoo!
I love the looks those two are showing… the one on the left is kinda embarrassed to have been doused by a sphinx, and the other one has that stubborn “I’ll get even, any way i can” look to him.
and i was right that they went in the wrong door… 🙂
Paul used a different style than usual on the cerberi. It reminds me of M K Brown if she were to draw Hell Hounds.
Bad HTML. M K Brown
Okay, so they DID come in the wrong door. I did suspect something quite a bit more sinister, thinking perhaps Prester Fred was on to something in his post yesterday (sorry, don’t know how to link to posts).
Right click on the “#” symbol and then “Copy link location” (for Firefox, similar for others). You can then just paste the URL in your comment or make a hot link with the HTML anchor tag: <a href=”the url goes here”>hot linked text</a>
Well, that does seem to answer that question!
And, she (or it) seems like a rather sensible little entity… fashion sense notwithstanding.
Who wouldn’t experiment with fashion, if one could shift looks at the spot.. Heck! I would try a kilt.. something my normal me lacks the courage for…
Kilts rock! Much more comfortable than pants.
as long as you stay away from women named Jeannie.
Kilts are great, and very comfortable. But, yeah, watch out for the snow blower. If you go out in public in a kilt, more than one woman may want to blow you.
That sounds like a man who has run afair of Jennie and her kilt blowing leaf blower of DOOOOOMMM!!! 🙂
My sister convinced to to wear a kilt to that con (my first time to the con). Wore a ‘great kilt’ (ankle length)
met Miss B. while roaming around.
was ‘encouraged’ one night to go a certain direction (completely unaware of what was going on on stage)
saw what was going on and FLED (let’s just say the kilt was ‘it’ for me… too much exposure if ‘blown’).
Some of us wear ankle-length tunics, but not kilts. Still, more comfortable in thier own way.
I remember a song I used to hear as a child – sung in a Scottish accent ( Perhaps Harry Lauder) . The chorus was –
Oh the wind blows high And the wind blows low. As down the street in my Kilt I go .
And all the lassie say “oouch Oh
Doonald where’s yer troosers
That was fun. I hope we see her again.
If not, she’s probably always in the shadows.
(PLINK into the pun jar)
Kudos to those who worked it out!
Frankly, I find the fourth panel disturbing. I mean, her “shadow” could have just gone transparent and blinked out, not gone all icky and corpse-like. Eww eww ew.
^that
Nasty, eek-worthy melting rotten corpse, looking decidedly like the “bog-Men” I saw in a museum about Drenthian marshes (Drenthe=Northern Province of The Netherlands, steeped knee-deep in Huns, druids, human sacrifice, Stone graves and a lot of heather&Marshes/bogs)
I feel that “steeped” may be pun-worthy… but I’m not sure.
*drops old Florin in jar, just to be sure*
Love the personality difference between Baxter & Boo: one dog is repentent, the other is none to happy at being reproached.
She knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men…
I was wondering if anyone was going to make that joke.
But she’s still cuter than Orson Welles.
I believe Dafydd was referenceing one Lamont Cranston, AKA, The Shadow. Unless Welles voiced the character during the radio show?
Yes. Orson was the voice of The Shadow for a while.
Orson Welles: Radio Demi-God. I wonder if recordings go in the library, or just transcriptions?
The fact that the library doesn’t have an audio section was a minor plot point.
LIKE!
So, could it be that her body was the real “shadow” and her shadow was actually her?
Kind of like the the 12th angel (aka: Leliel) from Evangelion.
Yikes! She shed her skin!
That she did. I just wander why her horns get smaller the calmer she becomes? Mood indicating Horns? Now that is a novel supernatural ability.
Which is even stranger if you take into consideration that her “body” seems to be nothing more than a projection. So why the mood horns…?
A number of mundane animals indicate their mood with bodily features, say, puffing up their feathers etc.
Tsillah’s 3D avatar could either be an emulation of such a “species” or it is simply the way she is. And I find myself careful with assuming Tsillah is a female in the conservative sense, the 3D-body’s sex could just as well be a matter of choice? Would somewhat explain the fluctuation in the feminine features….
IF her species even had gender…
IF ‘female’ is one of the genders and…
IF the females of the species had breasts.
Most powerful word in the english language… IF
@Valkeiper
As has been shown by many a specialist in the psychiatric field, gender is as much a state of mind as it is of body. Physical gender defines your physical capabilities, “mental gender” is an expression of self.
Hence the “woman trapped in a man’s body”, etc etc. Me, I’m a lesbian trapped in a man’s body 😀 Sorry, old joke. ::drops a pair of “comfortable shoes” in the pun jar:: (can you pay the pun jar with a pun? does it count as double?)
This particular creature doesn’t appear to naturally have a physical form, it just projects one when needed, so it’s all about the mentality – and I’m guessing it “sees” itself as female.
But it could just be they figured female would be less threatening (dangerous presumption – try that with Bud!), and that’s what the situation called for.
Besides the Shadow, only Paul knows for sure. And even then I’m not putting my bet down on Paul, just yet – he’s still got room to wiggle on this one til he draws it, heh.
Well, grey wolf. You said more exactly what I was implying.
Gender can be even more of a mental attitude than physical. Interestingly enough, the ‘physical’ usually has ‘first shot’ at determining outlook.
‘Lesbian’ and ‘Homosexual’ are simply mental sets in which the person has rejected the physical aspects and abilities for a socially reprehensible alternative.
Good Job.
Worse even: She mèlted in a very icky way… I especially hate it when noses rot away.. bwuerk!
♪The worms crawl in,
♪The worms crawl out,
♪The worms play pinochle in your snout!
♪Your skin turns green, a slimy green —
♪So green that you hate to be seen!♪
And part of the other worm song –
Nobody likes me
Everybody hates me
Going to the garden to eat worms .
Long thin slimy ones
Short fat fuzzy ones
Itsyby bitsy fuzzy wuzzy worms.
The first one was easy
The second one was quezzy
the third one got stuck in my throat .
Long thin skinny ones
Short fat juicy ones
Itzy bitzy fuzzy wuzzy worms.
That’s just how she puts her ventriloquist dummy away.
You wouldn’t want that just sitting there, staring vacantly, its limbs in an odd jumble, would you?
Its dead eyes following you around the room. Its smile frozen in some kind of hellish non-joy.
Tsillah doesn’t want to creep anyone out, so when it’s not in use, she tucks that freaky thing well out of sight.
Ok, that made me laugh out loud.
Thanks Yamara. I certainly will sleep soundly tonight with that image burned into my brain.
Yeah, it’s a good thing nobody does that. That would be creepy.
On the one hand… if her “solid” form is something akin to ectoplasm, and is being held in its shape through a conscious expression of will, it would make sense for it to slump into an amorphous form when she releases her control of it and allows it to dissipate. Definitely creepy, though.
On the other hand… how many of us are gracious and careful, when we’re done using out own shadows and put them away for a while? We usually don’t bother to press and fold them for proper storage, or put them up on hangers. Most often, we just walk right into a dimly-lit building, and let our poor shadows get ripped off of us (shredded and/or decapitated) by the knife-edge of the building’s own shadow. No respect, no consideration… considering how we treat them, we’re really not in a great moral position to criticize Tsillah and her folk (whoever they are) about their own corporeal-body handling practices.
The thing is, the longer I look at it, the more it looks like “melting light” – for lack of a better term- a bit like the “hard light projections” of the classic danger-room as described in “the X-Men guide to the mansion” (yes, I still got that, spiral-bound and all)
Shadow does not mean “evil” or “dark” (in the emotional sense that is). So she’s a creature of shadow. She’s still not all that creepy to me especially in light of the cartoon’s other characters of note.
After Tina being populated by demons, Jin before her breakdown and restoration, Nudge…frankly she doesn’t bother me.
One of the things that I like about the artist is the fact that he is very VERY good at conveying the emotions behind the characters. If you are good at reading people, you can “read” these characters.
This girl just comes across too happy and bubbly to give me the creepy Oompa-Loompa vibes.
I bet i know which doggie Shelly handled like a naughty-but-cute puppy.
And it’s not the one looking embarrassed…
Yeah, reminds me of a highscool freind who simply couldn’t accept defeat even when it was clear he was completely outclassed. His self image wouldn’t allow for the fact that he wasn’t as awesome as he thought he was.
It’s also interesting that Tsillia assumes that any ‘folk’ met at the library annex will be able to tie her pooches into a knot. And, to be fair, Justin is the only exception to that rule that we’ve seen. Two Sphinxes, three Golem Girls, a Gorgon and one Monica. And the busty latina may be the most dangerous of the bunch.
Considering that Monica could poit them into a wall or orbit.
and considering there are still many aspects of her ‘status’ as a ‘rune reader’ she has not explored.
You must realize that there is a wide range of powers and abilities open to somebody who can read the runes.
Some runes (and Paul has revealed he knows this) give the reader powers if read aloud. There are some powerful runes just awaiting Monica’s talented eyes.
I think her stuff was like her body – kinda like ectoplasm. In this case the ‘shadow’ baclpack and water bottle are real, and the physical objects are the 3D projection for the convenience of people she interacts with. Must take a little concentration, ’cause we noticed several times when the ‘projections’ were out-of-sync.
“… So you chose to dress yourself this way?”
Sorry, just the thought of her willingly creating her “avatar” in such fashion made me think of that quote.
It may be a conscious misdirection on her part. If you’re busy looking at the fashion disaster of her marionette, you might not notice what the shadow of said marionette is up to.
That’s an illuminating observation there. Also, looking at everyones avatars here, we have some creepy ones of our own. 😉
And what an apt selection of avatar for that observation. 🙂
I’ve been thinking of changing mine for the same type cat ‘getting a move on’
is there any way to get a video as an avatar? I’d love to show the video i have of this cat ‘at speed’.
I’m sure I don’t know what you are talking about…
I tried to select an avatar like I had for the ‘resting cheetah’ in my avatar, but the system would not allow it.
I have a video (and a picture) of a cheetah moving ‘at speed’ (approx. 75 mph).
The video was from a car doing 65mph and following the cheetah. The cheetah outran it.
I wonder how creepy my avatar seems to people who know nothing about Wapsi.
Hehe – hound look kinda like a couple buffalo, in last panel – especially repentant one (Baxter? Boo?)
“Hounds.” Past bedtime.
Which is which and how does one tell them apart when their personalities aren’t evident?
You tell them apart by their relative positions.
Baxter is dexter, of course, while Boo has a more sinister look (if he was ursine rather than canine he’d be “b’ar sinister” but you can’t have everything).
(drops a two-headed nickel into the Pun Jar)
I dunno. I always found Dexter rather sinister myself. But that’s another comic entirely.
Nah, pretty clueless for all his smarts, but i LOVE his inventions though… OH… you meant the psycho on tv… never saw the show, but having an entire show about some mass murderer trying to not get caught isn’t my cup of tea.
@scantrontb: believe me when I say you’re missing out.
Keeping people clueless about having powers in a comic like Wapsi Square is peanuts compared to working for the police that (in season 2) is after a serial killer that happens to be you, or juggling having no emotions, a family, a recurring thirst for blood, a job at the police and just a 24 hour day to fit everything in… 😀
>>>glares meaningfully<<<
THAT was BAAAAAD.
wish I had said it. I am pretty sure I am not the only one to catch the multiple layers of pun in that one.
This strip reminded me that i hadn’t read “Gunnerkrigg Court” today.
Your comment has reminded me that I haven’t, either. A bientot!
“Most folks” could tie up a pair of hellhounds in a knot??
Upon reflection, she could be exaggerating somewhat, in order to make sure these two avoid Mundanes whenever possible.
Now, what I’m wondering is: Where exactly is “home?”
Perhaps she was referring to the kind of people who frequent the library (sphinxes,demons, etc.)
That’s my guess. She walks in different circles than most of the main cast. It’s a little ironic that the main cast is actualy in that elite sphere, but are mostly living mundane lives among an unsuspecting humanity. Two of the most powerful beings on the planet work as an office manager and a dance instructor.
Which I love. One of the most frequent complaints about Superman is that he’s “so powerful that no one can challenge him, so you can’t tell good stories about him”.
Paul has taken that and turned it on its head. Brandi, Bud and Jin (before her powerdown) were all leauges more powerful than Clark and any one of them could have folded him up like a paper napkin. Yet they are compelling characters and Paul tells great stories with them. It’s to Paul’s credit as a storyteller that he has created characters like the GGs that are physicaly indestructable but are emotionaly just as fragile as any other character in the story.
Sorry for the rant, its just something that’s been rattling around my head for the past day or so.
Where exactly is “home”? Well, they are hell hounds, so i am guessing “home” is not some place I would want to go…which, makes that last panel really creepy–the only thing missing is a pitchfork!
What’s really disturbing is the very concept of “scrubbed up” with regards to a hellhound. How would you scrub a hellhound (other than “very cautiously”), and why??
If hell hounds are anything like RL canines, they don’t clean themselves very well and Shelly ensured they BOTH got covered in soot from their own ‘attack fire’.
Plus, there may be some injury to consider.
Well Pluto’s realm (Roman version) was a place where the dead went after discarding their bodies and supposedly the only sensation one could feel was pain (not sure how well that jibed with the Elysian Fields). Other mythos have the land of the dead as being a playground for the rejuvenated deceased to recover in until they were ready to go back and inhabit another body. I can’t say one way or the other, the time I was dead was too short to check out the neighborhood.
This got me to think of the song by Mike Oldfield:
“I stay
I pray
I see you in heaven far away
Far away on the other side.
Caught in the middle of a hundred and five
The night was heavy but the air was alive
But she couldn’t find how to push through
Carried away by a moonlight shadow
Carried away by a moonlight shadow
Far away on the other side. ”
So “home” is probably “on the other side”.
Mike Oldfield, one of my favorites!
It made me think of a different song…
♪It went so well for you
♪With a place right where you wanted and the ones to fill it too…
HAH!!!!
Called it! Called it! *does little shuffle of victory*
You apparently get a reward via the pun vault, some tasty treasures in there to be sure.
*dives in* Ooooh a Transmutteur Grognon de Bluxte!… I always wanted one of those..
I love the facial expression of Baxter and Boo. And Pippy the Fangirl there is a Shade if I’m not mistaken.
They went in the wrong door? *facepalm* Of course they went in the wrong door. Simple mistake…..and here I was thinking it was something more sinister was a foot.
No, I’m sure that Shelly and Justin are too wise than to walk into a new and unknown room with their sinister foot forwards. They’d know enough to walk in, dexter foot first.
“You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out… you do the Hokey-Pokey and you turn yourself about.” It’s an old Elvish charm against enchantment…
Somebody besides you knows heraldry here. ‘sinister’ and ‘dexter’, indeed.
>>>shakes pun jar<<<
(roots through his closet of ancestral skeletons, and then selects and deposits a pair of widder shins in the Pun Jar)
(also deposits a gallon of diesel, to help fuel the engines of outrage)
“Widder shins”? Really? 😛
No – that’s over here.
This. Just this.
Owowow… makes the skin on my balding head sting, just looking at it!
Well, better that than a Moe-and-Larry Three Stooges slap, or being clouted with a large fish, or etc. 🙂
Speaking of Fish Slapping with large fishies. . . .
“They’d know enough to walk in, dexter foot first.”
Enter at your own peril, through the vaulted door, where impossible things may happen that the world has never seen before…
You guys know any particular reasons I shouldn’t be a fan of a chevron rompu?
No, seriously.
It seems to be a reasonably popular variation within one of the SCA kingdoms… the Kingdom of Atenveldt search page shows dozens of registered devices containing a chevron rompu. I would presume from this that it probably doesn’t convey any notorious message like “I am an axe murderer” or anything like that…
Is there a specific reference to “a Shade” you can give us?
Finally finished the archives … what a wild ride. I look forward to seeing how it progresses from here. Your art and storyline rocks, Paul!
And to the other readers, all I can say is …
… you people are my kinda wierd. I have a feeling this will be fun. 😀
(yeah, I know, I need to get a Gravatar, I will get around to it, eventually)
Welcome and thank you!
… you people are my kinda wierd.
There’s no higher complement around here. Enjoy!
Welcome to the world of Wapsi Square.
Yeah, welcome for the compliment in the name of all of us.
And also, my sympathies for you, poor guy. Going cold turkey with wapsi after reading thru’ the archives is a hard thing (I still haven’t fully recovered and I have been up to speed since last august). Keep up the spirit 🙂
Have I seen you over at the Abominable Charles Christopher?
If so, you’ll fit right in.
And you must be retired or laid up in bed to have had time to go through the WHOLE ARCHIVE…
I did the archive binge some years back – i think it was before Tepoz’s fruit merchant friend popped out of Bud’s hatch…
Nope, night shift tech support … with internet access. I can surf all I want as long as I am not on a call or working on a project. No projects lately and calls are slow unless we have an outage.
So perfect for catching up on my webcomics. 😀 Got a lot of them I follow, WS is one of three now on my daily read list, so you’ll see more of me.
Oh, lor – i am retired (not precisely voluntarily, but i got to a point where i was not going to get hired – no letters after my name and sixty-plus – and took early Social Security), and i follow fifty-plus strips regularly (and some are on indefinite hiatus, either officially or de facto) – not all of them post daily – and i am collecting about seven of those (including Wapsi).
A job where you get paid to read wapsi and babysit a telephone… 😀
did the same thing last January (took almost two days). I also enjoy webcomic and forum.
Only two days???
easy when you read 1200 wpm.
Most of the time was spent comparing what was said in forum to each strip.
my avatar isn’t the only ‘fast’ critter when I’m concerned.
You have done something I aspire to do. Some day. When there’s nothing to do.
Ha!
See my link in the heraldry section above. You gotta go read the archive–you’ll miss half the story otherwise! Even if you just read a couple weeks’ worth a day, on weekends…
Huh, a creature composed entirely out of shadows… who would have thought 😉
I love that I can imagine where the Stevens Door is in relation to this building. Mpls, MN native FTW!
I can’t picture it, but I could easily drive up and take a peek on a weekend. Des Moines native 😀
Post pics? I’m a solid 8 hours away, not a bad drive, but I have to film this weekend.
I met Emma Bull a few years ago (the Flash Girls were playing at a bar in my town) and she mentioned that there have been “War for the Oaks” tours of the Minneapolis area. Sounds as if there might be an opportunity for a two-for-one tour, taking in the sights from both WFTO and Wapsi Square. If I ever have the chance to spend a spare day or two in Minneapolis, I’ll be seriously tempted!
If she smiles any wider in that last panel, the top of her head is gonna pop off.
I miss Katherine. I think she should be explored more. It would be interesting if SHE were to visit the library…
on Phix’s invitation without Monica’s knowledge. It would be VERY interesting to see what she would desire to research (though Phix may need to remind her to eat and feel her fish).
FEEL her fish?… i know people tend to TALK to their fish, but i think that’s just a bit creepy… and NOT in a good way either! 🙁 Now, if you really meant to say FEED her fish and just did a typo, well… that’s ok. 🙂
oops, i didn’t notice that. LOL
Yes, I did intend to say ‘feed’.
I look on my keyboard and wonder how in the heck I hit an ‘l’ instead of an ‘d’ (they are by no means close to each other).
And all that is left … is her shadow.
So Cool!!!
You Know takeing another look at the “puppies” THEY appear to be the same as Shelley and Justins’ clothes. I wonder if they are ‘constructs’ as well which could mean “HOME” may be any dark corner.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Does anyone remember a Toon from the 60’s called
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTwYuP77h98]Spy Shadow?[url]
Hmmmm, Geuss that little trick does’nt work here. Well, heres the link :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTwYuP77h98
You have to use the pointy tags like this .
And put quotes around the http bit. Someone posted a fill-in-the-blank version near the top of this page–I used one for ages before finally taking a basic web class. 😉
I apparrently fail at posting the pointy brackets. Well, they’re what you get when you hold shift and type , and . on a standard keyboard…
*shuffles off ashamed…*
At least the interwebs is still working, unlike some earlier mishap.
Letters aren’t all bold, or italic, no weird formatting.
I think that witches dance in the moonlight on a bedding of bat sweat, frog saliva and some coors, did the trick and nixed “The Danzier Curse”
actually, I suspect those witches went dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight.
Val, you’re such a joker…
Meh, he just likes the sound of it.
I thick it rather interesting that particular hero has a ‘Joker’ and a ‘Riddler’ for arch enemies, but not a ‘Punner’ or ‘Punster’.
I guess puns were considered too painful (even as villains).
@Valkeiper
No, but in another series there is a PUNisher running around. ::snicker::
::drops a mag of mercy rounds wrapped in a skull t-shirt into the pun jar::
“<” and “>”
Nothing to be ashamed of. There’s a lot to remember.
What you are thinking of are called “character entity references (see section 5.3.2),” which are a means of displaying characters which would otherwise be interpreted as part of browser tags.
In short, the “<” glyph is encoded as “<” and the “>” glyph is encoded as “>”
Nah, the hell hounds are solid. The smudges you see are where Shelley’s fingers were when she ‘shut them up’.
The greyness is the ash and soot from their fire breathing (deflected by onto them by Shelley’s hands).
Yes, Doctor, I remember Spy Shadow…. “Spy Shadow, come forth!” Dumb henchmen kept thinking it was his ghost……
The 4th panel reminds me of the things that Jin used to see.
May did say that Jin was out of phase with the rest of reality. Maybe she was seeing things like Tsillia in thier home realm?
O-kay… Panel 5 – now, that’s just disturbing…
O_O
Holy bugwhistles, I was right?
I like the Jack O’Lantern look of her shadow form.
Umm…. what’s a shade??? Looks like I have some more research to do.
Depends on which mythos you are using, in most a shade is the spirit of a deceased person, in some a disembodied spirit of any source, and I know of a few mythos that describe a creature like Tsillah as a shade. I wonder how much research Paul does before writing the scripts on this stuff…
obviously enough to enjoy ‘wowing’ people with new ideas of obscure mythos.
I have to ask again. How much of the encounter did our shadow girl witness before manifesting her 3-d doll?
I reviewed all of last week’s panels, and I didn’t see any shapes in the shadows which were anything resembling Tsillah… no bipedal shapes at all. If she was present, she either wasn’t being shown at all, or was taking a very different shadow-form (as far as I can tell).
Her cautionary words to the cerberi today are consistent with all of her comments earlier this week… she doesn’t seem to approve of their attack on Shelly and Justin. Unless she’s being really tricky and manipulative, I’d think she’d have stopped their attack if she’d been present earlier.
It is very obvious she manifests this 3-D form… and possibly others… often (the hounds know exactly who she is, after all).
It is also obvious she has personal experience with neither Shelly nor Justin, so all speculation about Justin knowing her is void.
Now somebody has already stated the possibility Shelly’s dress and Justin’s suit are actually parts of ‘shadow gal’, snuggly-close to them.
consider the possibility she’s not allowed in the library and thinks this is an excellent way to get in.
I think the reason she wasn’t around to stop Baxter and Boo from flaming Shelly and Justin was because she was in the library. She seems to have arrived just after the fact.
No, SHE is allowed, it’s just the Library has a “NO Hellhounds” policy… you know, the fire insurance premiums just go thru the roof!, so Phix says that unless they’re de-flamed they can’t come in. 😀
I can’t believe that nobody has suggested that Tsillah might be somehow related to the Vashta Nerada! 🙂
AUGH, i was gonna make a comment today about how i though her last name was Nerada, but you beat me to it…
I suppose we could refer to her as Natasha Verda?
Nah. Nerada Fatale.
I’m not sure whether to make a Bullwinkle joke or a color green joke…
…but I can do this — *shakes pun jar* — does that help?
aaaaaaand I’ll drop a chocolate swiss army knife in the pun jar for that one.
Dark chocolate, I suppose?
I thought it would have to be Swiss Chocolate.
Odd, I thought they mostly came in red. Cherry, strawberry or raspberry, I suppose.
Weird, her horns diminished between panels in the last page.
Tsillah somehow reminds me of the babysitter on The Incredibles.
*Likes*
the “Stevens” door wouldn’t be a reference to Bewitched would it?
I think it’s a Minneapolis street, actually.
I wonder if there has been a recent increase in pedestrians in that area lately.
Looking at Tsilla’s admonition to Embarrassed and Truculent, i think it could be read as “they could” as in “it could be” – “…you never know, they could have the ability to…”
Melting and becoming a spooky shadow spirit? HAPPY HALLOWEEN AND GOODBYE!!! *goes launching out the door and down the street*
Looking at Boo’s face, I would not like to be the next being he gets mad at. As Fairportfan said, he looks Truculent. I don’t think he has completely learned his lesson.
That was amazingly creepy, she sort of reminds me of a jack-o-lantern.
I want to know how hyper-intellegent these dogs are.
It doesn’t take much intelligence to hold a grudge and one can never be too intelligent to do so.
It takes emotional stability to keep such grudges from governing your actions afterward. The hounds past actions tell me at least one of them doesn’t have that (we naturally assumed BOTH hounds attacked, but it is possible only one did, Shelly just ‘manhandled’ both).
and gave one (the flaming one?) the ‘puppy’ treatment.
They were both flaming. You can see the sparks coming from both of them when Shelly grabs them.
Agreed. Look how long Lex Luthor held a grudge against Superman.
Lex:”You know what the number 300 has in common between us?”
Otis:”No, Mr. Luthor.”
Lex:”It’s your weight, and my IQ.”