Tiens! La “e” est disparu.. merduehh forgot the “e” in morte gotta read more french. (recently bought “Sillage”, ALL of them…WOW! Some graphic novels!)
By seeing Shelly’s New and Improved SphixAura, no doubt! But… what happens next? Will Shelly transform? Will Tina completely freak? And what about Naomi?
Tune in tomorrow for the Weekly Wapsi Cliffhanger(tm)!!!
Absolutely. Poor Tina. I wouldn’t want to stand around waiting to see if she pounced on me either. Better to leave and have Monica show up to give the all clear first.
Okay…I may have to concede that my previous belief that Shelly didn’t return a sphinx is wrong…but I’ll wait until Monday to see if Paul isn’t just trying to throw us off the trail. 😛
If it just turns out that Shelly is a sphinx and so Tina panics, that seems awfully repetitive at first glance. I hope he comes up with something more interesting than that.
In case people aren’t following, one of the reasons it would come across as being repetitive is that he already made us wait a few days for a conversation to play out to see Tina’s reaction. If he’s hiding Tina’s reaction again, it would be too much, IMO. That joke has already been done.
It’s not really repetitive. It only seems that way because we have belabored the point so very much. It’s simply a plot device to introduce the fact Shelly is, or at least, was a sphinx. Something she may be reluctant to mention. To someone not reading or following our endless comments, it would seem just fine. In fact many may not get the relationship to Tina at all and are waiting for Monday to see what’s going on.
Well, if it’s the exactly the same as the last time, it would be repetitive. But if he has Tina behave differently, then it wouldn’t be.
But I agree that too much anticipation ruins it. I was shocked at what a let down the last time was for me because I had already visualized exactly what Tina would look like. Yet, I still expected to be wowed. In hindsight, that was impossible.
That is important and vital to preserve lives, but it slows down the plot so a very weak cliffhanger today. We have to wait for the Shelly, Tina, Phix free-for-all next week.
I wouldn’t say it’s a weak cliffhanger. Perhaps weaker than “Shelly’s dead?”, but finding out what will happen between Tina and Shelly is still an interesting thing to dangle in front of us with a weekend wait.
But it doesn’t hang? We know what is going to happen. Tina says Shelly is a sphinx and must leave. Shelly may or may not attack. Monica confused, bud confused but ready to keep bad things from happening. Phix may, or may not, safe the say. Where is the suspense? The surprise?
But do we really know that’s Tina freaking out in the background? You should know Paul by now: Pulling the rug out from under the Rabbit. It may be that Tina has gotten herself hung up in Monica’s broom closet. Remember Tina is the one ran her car over her arm while trying to parallel park.
she may not feel any reason to do anything with demons, at all, yet tina may cower for months, always waiting for the snap… of her neck… that will never come.
I do not feel bad saying it, but Shelly was never my fav character. This new Shelly, or Shellinx, I like. Very much so. Though I feel sorry for her dad and boyfriend or whatever he was, she’s not exactly the same person anymore is she.
well, since we don’t know if sphynxes are the kind to require ‘physical affection’, we can’t tell if she’s been in need all that time, i don’t think she’d been getting that ‘affection’ from her other iterations. if they do… there may be much soreness from a certain man in near future, after being kidnapped from work by a nearly naked amazon…
And here’s an interesting question…just because Shelly evolved into a sphinx in the tree realm, she was only there to guide the 56 other Shellys that came and expired/went. What does she know of demon-cleansing duties of sphinxes? How would Tina thus be in danger, other than she senses a sphinx is now in the room?
And anyhow, with Nudge gone, aren’t the remaining demons OK according to Phix?
But don’t only a certain type of Sphinxes kill and hunt demons? I remember that only the apotropaic sphinxes which Phix is one are the ones that do. ( http://wapsisquare.com/comic/not-the-violent-type/ )
Then again to a Tina’s demons any sphinx is a sphinx they’d rather avoid!
It’s also revealed in the Nudge arc that Phix was anti-murder; an “activist sphinx” so to speak. She treated Tina fairly (mostly) and was only viciously going after Nudge for vengeance because she was responsible for trapping Phix in the Library. Perhaps Demon hunting isn’t instinctual, but taught.
I think the apotropaic sphinxes are the same as any other sphinxes. They were just being used apotropaically. Is apotropaic garlic be any different than non-apotropaic garlic?
Monica had assumed that the sphinxes weren’t dangerous because she couldn’t remember any ancient writings that said they were, except for the ancient Greeks, who she thought got it wrong. Then she remembered that the apotropaic sphinxes were sphinxes that were captured and used to keep demons out of temples because they were so good at it.
So sphinx are to demons as cats are to rats? or is it more like sphinx are to demons as trained attack dogs are to burglars?
Better yet, as pit bulls are to letter carriers–once you have been bitten/chased, you wont go near another one. . . .
Silver C: yes, and a few strips later, http://wapsisquare.com/comic/yet-to-do/
could it be that tina was doing something that phix would punish her for?? could be why, she though it was coming for her???
Huh? Demons fear sphinx because they don’t like being eaten. That destroys them. Why wouldn’t they fear that?
Of course, Tina was doing something that Phix thought she shouldn’t have been doing. We saw her doing it, after all, and Phix wouldn’t have showed up otherwise, but that’s not why Tina feared Phix. The fear is instinctual, as Tina confirmed to Phix. Tina’s basement had nothing to do with any of it.
Don’t let the bit about apotropaic sphinx confuse you. Phix was obviously not chained up at an entrance to a temple when she was standing in Tina’s shop, so she clearly wasn’t being used apotropaically at that point. However, the fact that people would chain sphinx to the entrance of temples to ensure that demons could not enter made Monica realize that sphix can be dangerous to demons.
Monica was acting like a clueless idiot the entire episode. Phix was not there to eat Tina, despite the fact that sphinx are the natural predators of demons. Phix was there simply to put Tina in her place. That Tina was in trouble with Phix should have been obvious to Monica the instant Phix showed up, even if sphinx had never been used apotropaically. There would have been no other reason for Phix to be in Tina’s coffee shop (she drank tea, not coffee) and Monica had just seen Tina doing something that was guaranteed to piss Phix off if Phix knew about it! What the hell did she expect to happen?
Tina serves tea too. Several kinds, even the more exotic ones. Phix even had Tina “sense” her choice of earl Grey.
Phix was hunting for Nudge, so, she had to “rattle” the demon-cage for a bit, trying to get Nudge to do something that proved to Phix Nudge was really inside Tina, hiding amongst the demons.
Nice tactics. Shame that it traumatized poor Tina somewhat.
Nah! If you are familiar with office politics it’s obvious what happened. Thanks to Nudge, Tina was stepping on Phix’s turf and trying to decide who got taken to the library. If you do that to someone like Phix, you had better expect to be put in your place, just like Tina was. Having a supernatural being inside of you isn’t necessary at all. 😀
Phix trusted Monica’s judgement on who to bring to the library, but Tina was trying to twist Monica’s arm to get her to take Amanda there. A photographer who wanted to do a photo essay was definitely not the sort of person Phix wanted in the library. Monica understood that, but Tina apparently didn’t.
Phix’s timing makes what Phix was reacting to obvious: Amanda says, “Maybe I could do a photo essay of you.” Monica starts to fumble an excuse for why that can’t happen at the library. Bam! Phix is there to handle the situation.
First, Phix gives Monica a cover story for Monica deciding to not bring Amanda to the library, then (on the next page) told Tina (paraphrasing), “It’s Monica’s decision, not yours, Tina!” Then she gave Monica a story to get her and Amanda out of there while she finished dealing with Tina.
Phix very quickly judged from Tina’s reaction that Tina hadn’t realized that she had been stepping on Phix’s toes and that Tina wouldn’t dare do that again, so there wasn’t any problem anymore. Therefore, she quickly stopped trying to rattle Tina, and instead tried to reassure Tina that everything was fine now.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Phix started to suspect that Nudge might have been involved with Tina because of this episode, but I’m fairly certain that suspicion had nothing to do with the way Phix acted. The thought may well have only occurred to her only later when she pondered what made Tina act that way in the first place. Or perhaps this was enough to get Phix to pay more attention to Tina and that led to Phix noticing Nudge’s influence. Who knows? In any case, she would have reacted the same way even if she never suspected Nudge.
——–
Side issue: You said: “Tina serves tea too.”
In tea bags. That doesn’t count. Tea drinkers would not prefer a place that would serve them tea in tea bags. They would only go to a place like that with a coffee drinker.
——–
I saw you used the confused smiley before. The filename is “icon_confused.gif”, so I’m going to guess that : confused : will work, even though :huh: doesn’t. If not, please let me know what does.
You might be right about the instincts against demons but Tina does not know that. As to speaking loudly, PANIC. She just saw Shelly’s aura transform to sphinx in under a second. Wouldn’t you in that case?
“The left eye-trick’?? oooh.. I wouldn’t be too surprised. But with Nudge it worked because she let it work for that moment, as a token of trust. I doubt if it works that way for a sphinx, but, who knows?
I do not question Tina’s instincts, I question Shellinx’s. Does she feel a natural inclination to go after the conglomerate of demons of which she is composed?
Also, the long time she was gone might have made her forget what tina is and that she never thought of her as a threat. Should be verrrry interesting to see what happens next…
I’m not positive, but judging by Phix’s behavior, sphinxes don’t seem to have a particularly strong instinct to hunt demons. It seems to be more of a duty. Tina should be safe.
But I think it’s normal for Jägers to be buried with their hats, so maybe they are really good at keeping them on. And how often did Kingons even wear hats?
(I think I may have just guaranteed a new record for the number of comments. 😆 )
@eschmenk: Only one occasion did I remember a Klingon wear a hat. That was Q has Picard and Vash playing Robin Hood and Maid Marion story. Worf was among the Merry Men. And Worf is not a merry man. 😆
@eshmenk: I suppose hats must be to the Jaegers what the brow ridges are to the Klingons; I’d hate to see what sort of rhinocerus Gil would have been turned into if the two races switched places.
(On the practical side, getting a Klingon to wear a hat on top of eighteen pounds of makeup would probably violate an actors’ guild rule somewhere…) *ducks under the table and trembles in terror at the realization of the wrath she’s just unleashed
It may be that certain demons relish the act of going after demons or anything else for that matter.. But I would agree that Sphinx’s in general don’t have an instinct to pounce on demons.
Tina has forgotten any personal meetings or experience with Sphinxs due to her punishment. Tina is seeing Shellinx’s and Phix’s aura and having an instinctual fear of them. In the same way the Tina instinctual remembers the Laws of the Demon.
Either Shelly got inherent Sphinx knowledge, or she met other people there in her time. In the comic when she was inimidating the other Shelly, she referenced Odysseus and Gisaultees. Not that Shelly wouldn’t necessarily know who Odysseus was, but seems weird that that bit of knowledge would have been held on to. Maybe some of the other visitors left books.
Point of interest: Do demon hunting sphinxes have demons of their own? Because Shelly’s had one doozey of a demon in Creepy-Girl. (though i guess CG is a special case being a conglomerate of all Shelly’s previous demons) Plus, if all Sphinxes begin life as human, and all humans have demons…..
Maybe humans become Sphinxes when they hunt/destroy/loose all their demons?
Thanks for the sound effect; I couldn’t match “dedar” to the long wail and beeps of the emergency vehicles around here. ( The sound: American fire trucks & Rescue squad )
Yes, that’s more of an European siren sound. It’s also one of the sounds car alarms make. If that isn’t enough noise, @*&#$ mockingbirds imitate the car alarms, too! (They seem to like the down-swept sound better, though.)
The first or the second one? I the the one that sounded like an air raid siren was probably the second siren on the rescue truck, but it might have been on the old white pumper that they were using temporarily.
It’s normal for firetrucks to have multiple sirens and they will often use them simultaneously, so it’s hard to tell which one was using which siren.
On the other hand, here’s a tornado siren. They test those every saturday at noon just outside my house; when they go for real you can barely hear it over the rain.
**Video sound is loud; adjust your speakers!!** They turn it on and off rather quickly in this video; here, the high end stays running for 3 minutes and the whole thing repetes 3 times.
I still don’t think Tina’s in danger, but she probably wouldn’t know that. I’m not entirely sure that demon killing is an instinctive thing for sphinxes, so even if Shelly’s aware of that relationship, she may not feel compelled to act on it.
I think it is instinctive, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have self control. We have instincts too, but we’re not slaves to them. Obviously Phix was usually in control of her instincts and Shelly would hopefully remember that Tina was a friend, not food, and be able to control hers.
Assuming Tina is seeing Shelly as a sphinx, the more relevant instincts for Tina would be her demons’ instincts, which include the fear being eaten by sphinxes. Tina claims to be a like a wild animal who can’t control her instincts. If Shelly is a sphinx, it might be interesting to see Tina try to deal with that instinct.
…yet you saw fit to, nonetheless. Also, I agree with Kermit here; took her that long to stop freaking out, or at least enough to put together a single, worried phrase.
Tina freaked out 60 seconds ago or thereabouts, when Shellynx returned. She’s taken this long to calm down enough to scream for help. Or maybe remember how to breathe.
Well, at least some of her memory is coming back. The rest should follow. On a darker note, poor Tina. Shelly was the person she seemed closest to, but now that friendship will be rather difficult.
She was Shelly before anything else. While she was gone a long time relatively speaking, I’m sure the memories of M and the gang will come back and we will see the old Shelly personality back. Maybe with a few extra quirks or wisdom.
Buuuuut.. if it works-out, it would be a rather unique, reality-shattering situation. A sphinx befriending demons.
On the other hand ,Shelly is a unique specimen, in that she is one of the very few that combined her demons in one entity, so, I tend to believ that -after the initial shock- Tina and Shellinx will become close again, maybe even closer now they both are rather unique supernatural..eehh.. things. But then again, I am an incurable optimist (could also be the Lexapro™ 😆 ).
I don’t think that is what Jay-Em meant, though, with respect to Shelly. Shelly was already a very rare, if not absolutely unique, human because she had defeated her demons and turned them into something else. That may result in her being turned into a unique sphinx, assuming she was turned into one.
Hmmm *pondering* both ideas sound pretty plausible.
To me though ,Shelly is unique because she combined her demons after death (!) and Tina became the demons after her death. i.e. her demons have a rather unique collaberation, shaping “Tina” as we know her.
Bottomline: both died, lived again, and both became something unique with respect to their demons, “Intergrate them” so to speak.
If Shelly is still Shelly, she’s gonna need Tina to keep her grumpy self uplifted, especially now Shell has 81000 years of suffering in solitude (her worst fear) behind her belt. Aaaand, since Tina was a Psychiatrist in her former life, she would be a big help.
Tina’s answers on various questions here&there make me suspect there is more of that knowledge left than we are led to believe.
ok she remebered monicathats good , prolly better idea for tina to try and sneak out rathen than scream at the top of her lungs she needs to leave
but i really think tina is over reacting out of instinct i dont think shelly is going to attack her , but i wonder how long it will take phix to show up a new sphink sudenly appering has to catch more than just tinas attn
New here, decided to stop lurking. I was doing an archive binge last night and noticed that Phix dosen’t have the pronounced canines in her human form, but does have noticeable claws on her hands. Shelly’s right thumb in panel one looks awfully pointy. Add that to Tina’s off camera freakout and I’d say we have a confirmation of Shellinx.
I hate to burst your first post, the I think what you’re seeing is the knuckle on Shelly thumb and not the top. Although I do agree that Shelly fingernails are probably very pointy right now.
Count shelly’s left hand fingers from the pinky. The thing just above the index finger is either a pointy nailed thumb, or… I don’t know what. That’s the only thing I can see it as.
Actually, looking at her hands in general – she didn’t used to have big knuckly gnarly hands – until she became a sphynx. The claws/nails may come and go, but her hands look like her sphynx hands.
I think the hands as well as other features vary all over the place, so it’s dangerous to draw conclusions from them.
If you look at panels 3-5 here, Alpha Shelly’s hands are so large compared to the grip that they cover the prongs that extend from it. In panel 6, either the relic nearly doubles in size or Shelly’s hand shrinks by about 50%. That’s between panels in the same page. A couple of pages later, either the cross part of the relic got so tiny or her hand got so huge that she’s got her hand wrapped around the cross part of the relic, rather than the grip. (Either that, or the blade twisted 90 degrees.)
I will agree that Shelly’s hair is meant to be longer, but I don’t think that you can draw any other conclusions that anything else is supposed to be different.
To hold onto something like that, a person would have their thumbs up and on the other side of the fabric from their fingers. Basically, if she’s holding onto the towel, that can’t be her thumb unless she poked it through the fabric.
Grab hold of your shirt or jacket and see what you do.
No, actually they do not have to be behind the fabric.
Close your right fist and notice that your thumb extends beyond your knuckles. while grabbing your open jacket front at your chest, it feels more natural to have your thumbs in front of the fabric than behind.
@TheSkulker: But then my thumb remains above my fingers. If that is her thumb nail in panel 1, she must have bent her thumb down so it is behind her third finger. If she is doing that, she can’t be using her third finger to grasp the fabric and it’s awkward to use the remaining ones. That’s very unnatural, and yes, I tried it.
Maybe some other Sphinxes may have arrived, ready to ask Shelly what she thinks she’s doing, having run away from her duties as Tree Guardian? And Tina is first to meet them?
I still have one question though. Was the plutonium already in the relic when Bud found it or was it put there by one of the Shelly’s and she just knows about it now?
Since we saw Shelly One put the plutonium in the relic to end the cycle and allow Shelly Fiftyseven to come home, I’d say it wasn’t there before and is now.
It’s the same one that Shellinx used to return to the present, now charged with plutonium thanks to Shelly #1.
eschmenck and myself have raised the issue of how there must have been an extra relic (or maybe several) over the course of 81200 years, but I don’t think it has been resolved. Also, given the pace of the story, something that detailed and involved could take several months to unfold, so we’ll have to pay close attention…
This relic couldn’t have transcended time/space, like the CM did, due to some extreme importance?
Or existed in it’s own time/space bubble (like the tree world) due to it’s nature and power potential?
Just asking. Would make it much easier to say it’s the same relic with extraordinary abilities (beyond it’s as-yet-unknown abilities) to do such a thing.
That’s the wild card. And if it is something as complex as the CM, then we might have to pay attention for a few years!
I really need to start indexing more strips if I want to participate in theory and speculation, cuz this comic demands it, and is also why I keep coming back for more!
Isn’t it about time for a new book? .How much time do You need to fill a new book?. Not as much as when he did only 1-reel gags. It’s all full pages now.
Hmm. I guess after the SHellinx-arc is resolved ,we’ll get our book.
@ SoWhyMe The books some splash-pages ,full-page sketches, stuff like that . I think they are worth the $20.- price-tag, and they are A4/Letter sized on quality paper ,and make for a rather pleasant experience.
Also some of his poster-art on the inside-covers, an intro by another artist ,or someone pretty well-known in the webcomic-community. Worth the trouble of ordering I’d say (let alone the ease by which one can flip back through pages if some inscrutable plot-twist pops-up again..)
Vol.1 has the most “extra’s” prolly’ because it’s all one-reel gags and the pages looked a bit bare.
Another thing that occurs to me is the last panels wording. Shelly warns M that the “radiation will kill you!” So Shelly is immortal as a Sphinx now? (I don’t mean immortal as can’t ever die, just not aging)
Don’t know about immortal, maybe, but She just saw it kill Shelly1 while she watch unharmed. So she knows it won’t kill her but that it will kill Monica.
I don’t know if Shelly knows herself if she is immortal, this goes back to the question of whether or not she was transported to the tree realm physically, and why I’ve been keeping the issue alive (ahem, Ozymandous…)
Whether or not she knows if she is immortal, she could be using the universal “you”…
tx.. 😛 You may very well be right and I wrong. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Hopefully Paul will resolve the issue if she actually traveled there, ala Bud going to the demon realm and the time differences she/we saw, or just metaphysically traveled.
If Shelly’s a sphinx and if she’s anything like Phix, I’d say that she’s only immortal and undamageable when she’s in the place she protects. In Phix’s case, that’s the Library (which is removed from the normal time cycles of Earth). In Shelly’s that would likely be the Time Forest (which is also removed from the normal time cycles of Earth).
It’s possible that both of them are vulnerable in human form when they are in the normal realm on Earth.
^^Could very well be the case. She did mention that she could not die in that place, so perhaps she’ll always carry the aura of a sphinx, but never appear as such unless in the tree realm. But is there a reason to go back there? Can there be some other use of the time trees?
Right, but Phix was aware of the previous 56 loops and was able to give a book from a previous loop to Brand, so time seemed to be going in a forward direction. Also Phix and Nudge seemed to know what happened in the past, but not what was going to happen in the future. Unless time switched directions, it seems unlikely to be the same place.
When your mom says ‘You’ll poke your eye out!’ she doesn’t mean that she couldn’t.
And Monica’s already shown a unhealthy need to be touchy-feely with the artifact. It’s easy to think that she, finding a piece of the relic that unscrews would open it up looking for what’s inside…
That is true. Olfactory input is processed in the limbic system, the same area of the brain as long-term memory, and a familiar odor does tend to call up things in long-term memory that are associated with it.
Fresh cut grass–a May Saturday morning in the Twin Cities probably has a few people out cutting grass–if there are any lawns nearby. That would provide the trigger.
How does that lead to Monica? There, I’m not so sure.
Excellent! She still remembers her time in hell. And, apparently she is still a sphinx or, at the least, her aura still reeks of sphinx. Lets hope it stays this way. At least for a while. I’m just afraid she’ll go “blink” and suddenly be her old Shelly self which would be so very disappointing. Her having to reintegrate back into society will be an intriguing read.
I think she is also still used to being rough with others due to her sphinxy ways of doing things. It may take a while to soften her edges again.
Wait. Shelly had soft edges? If I remember correctly, she grabbed Monica by the shirt in the exact same way after she got the tattoo. But yeah, she will have to get used to society again.
Agreed. Her features seem more ‘jutting ahead’ and pronounced now than prior. But it may simply be me assuming that knowing what’s happened to her in the past weeks comics.
I think that you are correct. Quite some time back, in a strip I cannot find, Brandi was in an argument or confrontation, I think with Jin. And for a moment, a single frame, Brandi’s face changed, assuming some of the shape of her cat morph, the jaws becoming more feline. Then the moment was over and her face resumed human form.
I think that’s what you saw here, with Shelly. For a moment the sphinx came to the fore.
I think it’s just art-style evolution; Paul’s style is constantly evolving, to the point where you can see definite changes over just a year or so, and might wonder if this strip was even drawn by the same artist as the first.
I’m with Ozymandias. As I just remarked elsewhen, Shellynx has a pronounced overbite and a Mayan nose that Shelly didn’t have in the Grove. (MOF, Shellynx’s profile rather resembles Tina’s now.) I say we got a different being to deal with.
Funny: Gocomics has gotten to Watterson’s several-month break in drawing the Calvin & Hobbes strips, and is supplying strips from the first year–and today several comments are on the fact that the characters look very different…
I think will be especialy hard on her friends. For her, it was 81200 years spent mostly alone. For Monica and the gang, it’s been a couple of minutes. Shelly has been forced to exmine herself in ways no human ever could. Seeing her interaction with Shelly #1 shows that Shellinx’s core personality is still there, put she’s likely to be a lot more introspective than she was. She’s had massive character development of camera and M may have trouble keeping up with the changes in her friend. To say nothing of being a Sphinx. What does that intail? Are there responsibilities she’ll have to take up as a gardian race? Is she junior to Phix in the Sphinx hirearchy? Can’t imagine old Shelly as a librarian, but this Shelly might be suited to it.
Shelly won’t have to be librarian. While Phix used to be librarian because she was lowest on the totem pole, it is now because the library specifically chose her and Nudge, and is completely separate from the duties of the sphinxes to guard it.
Hehe I have a cool mental image of Monica turning around to look at Tina and ask why. Tina shakingly points back behind Monica. When Monica turns back, it’s face to face with Shelly in Sphinx form.
(I don’t think Shelly will transform at sight of Tina, but it’s a fun image.)
but in reality Bud poited to 1,000 ft, and just before hitting the ground, poited herself right above Shellinx…
oh wait…poiting doesn’t conserve momentum… that would have been funny
Bud could grab a boulder, poit to 1000 feet ,drop it, poit back and watch the smashing result (allthewhile calculating how many diamonds the repair of Monica’s roof will be) 😆
Shellinx flashes into full-sphinx-mode about to pounce on a frozen Tina..
[“POIT” in background]
-What the….
[giant lion-growl sounds and ginormous shadow suddenly looms over Shellinx]
-I go away for short moment to find the cuutest One-piece ever, I am only late for a bit, and THIS is what happens????
[Shellinx -dwarfed by giant-lion-Brandi- looks up, mouth agape]
-BACK to your corner. NOW!
[Shellinx hastily shimmies back on her butt, looking like a cat that has been caught, not wanting to loose face, starts silently growling and mumbling]
WHAT WAS THAT??????
[Shellinx reverts to Shelly, and swallows hard]
-nothing..nothing whatsoever..just checking if I could still change..heheheh.. ahem….
[Whole crew with mouth agape. Tina on her butt, sweating profusely, eyes wide-open “I..I.I..I..tr.tr.tried to warn..{gulp}”
😆 😆
And for those who think Barandi in lion-form isn’t that big.
Exhibit A)
It looks like Shelly will be just fine in the memory department if she can chain associate fresh cut grass with Monica’s name that quickly, and she knew immediately just who to give the warning to.
Poor Tina must think she’s inside a horror flick when her friend suddenly became her worst nightmare.
Well she’s had a couple of minutes now to build up a real, blinding panic, so maybe so.
Though, it could also be she didn’t spot the sphinx side of Shelly while she sat quietly. That may have only really manifested itself when Shelly became agitated in telling Monica to be careful.
Which is like telling a mouse not to freak out when it sees a cat. Interesting that Monica has been telling Shelly to be careful around Tina because she’s a “wild animal”. Talk about your ironic role reversal.
People-Shelly, Sphinx Shelly, Sphinx Phix, People Phix… on opposing corners of a square stand, facing outward. Tails turn toward their human forms. Human forms have Shelly leaning on or sitting on an engine block or bike, and Phix having tea.
Now I have to figure out how to draw that and post it online. Hmmm.
don’t forget the chess squares for the board and example peaces like mon as white queen and jin’s doubt as dark queen lakashim as a bishop bud as castle owen as other bishop officer TB as a knight
*Phone rings
Shellys dad: Hello?
Shelly: Hi dad i ..uh .. got some bad news.
Shellys dad: its not a giant taatoo, is it?
Shelly: no not that.
Shellys dad: or did you wreck something?
Shelly: no not that, its a bit cpmplex …
-Uhm..ohkay riddle me
-Well..uhm Dad..ehh, “what’s big and furry on the rear ,and bad-tempered on the front?
-Hmm.. My Mother-in-Law?
-Eeehh..yeah that too, but not what I mean.
-Uh-Oh.. You got a wolverine as a pet again?
-No ,ehhhrmm.. IAMASPHINX!!!!
-You are wha…. “thudd”….[silence]
-Tsss..You are such a drama-queen, it’s not like I cut my hair again..it’s even long now…sniff.sniff..[softly] and reeks a bit overwhelming to be honest..
“Oh, thank GOODNESS…for a minute there, I thought you were going to tell me you coming out of the closet!”
“No, Dad, I’m not a lesbian, I’m a sphinx.”
“Hah! Let’s see those Westboro people give you trouble for THAT!”
Could be worse. Our legends of a type of ogre that hangs out in the mountains near here. Or did, until Grandfather Buffalo headbutted one to the moon. I think the rest left the area soon after. Poppa Wahnee will most likely use her new strength levels for more Mundane tasks.
They say that smell is one of the strongest devices to recall memories. Once we get Tina calmed we need a cup of Cafe Americano and a pizza…
Well, I hope this is a cure for the nervous feelings and rampant ‘restless leg syndrome’ I’ve had since last Friday. It looks like we’ll have a mix of both Shelly’s to learn to love all over again.
That’s a good point. Her bikini would certainly boost sales for the day too…..”Now sir. That is you 10th latte. Other customers are waiting.”………….
From the crowd….”WE DON”T MIND!”
If Shelly is just sphinxish, wouldn’t that be enough to freak Tina a little? Or what if Tina sees Shelly’s memory of being a sphinx via Shelly’s aura?
We don’t even know who is talking, BTW. AFAIK, it could only be Tina, but characters suddenly appear all the time. Ironically, we had a similar speech bubble off to the side when Phix walked into the coffee shop.
I was thinking it might be Brandi really wanting to go out shopping with Monica, but then I figured Tina would have to have some reaction.
I mean, a blasé reaction like, “Oh, hey guys, Shelly’s a sphinx now. Um, she could, uh, kill me instantly and stuff,” would actually need a lot more explanation. But we’ll see.
Seems unlikely she needs to open the coffee shop. She was prepared for a day at the beach. Since this series of comics began, only a few minutes have passed from their POV.
I failed to give credit. The “hat out of a rabbit” line is from Robert H. Heinlein’s The Number Of The Beast; Hilda speaking to Lazerus Long. I can look it up if you want the exact line, and the context.
I was wrong like Ed Dames on my predictions. At least my my deep seated hope that Shelly is a combo of the two is happening. (didn’t predict it, just sat around with my fingers crossed)
To try and increase the accuracy of my predictions, I inhaled some dubious herbage…all I could think was
“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I’m on cloud nine.”
*Why* did Shelly warn M so urgently? Could it be… I suspect that in a previous loop (I think we’re till in loop range… how far away is the end, anyway?), M *did* in fact open the relic and die.
At least it’s heartening to see that Shellinx first “real-world” action is to warn her friends.
On the “olfactory” bit: I can imagine that Tina is not only seeing Shelly’s aura, but smelling the stink of sphinx all-over too, triggering her fear tenfold .
Shellinx wasn’t exactly the most well-kempt sphinx, and I didn’t notice a shower oslt around. Contrary to Phix, who leaves the impression of a well-groomed lady.
Still, having watched herself die 50+ times from the process, I think she’d use the mere possibility as a reason to leave it firmly closed. Rather like using an automatic pistol for Russian Roulette–the mere chance it’s loaded would stop me from pulling the trigger.
I would…..if I could poit. 6680.23km is a bit steep to drive. And what if The Rapture happens? Will I be able to catch a plane back???? Or will I have to fly the damn thing myself?
Hmmm.. If they got a Pilatus close I could nick it, fuel-up in RKV… nah..too complex.
One thing is for sure: If The Rapture does happen, the waiting-lines at MSP will be rather short… 😆
The last rapture event, I worked as a bar-back, and had to work that day. All shift long I can remember thinking:
“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I peel limes.”
Yes.. there is something like “insurance” for rapture. Someone found a nifty way to make money with it.
Aww man, my stomach still hurts from laughing.
I think I am going to start a Sphinx insurance scheme. Free flee collars might one change into a sphinx (I have to start somewhere )
The Coast to Coast AM radio show mentioned a service that, for a fee, would pair you up with a nearby atheist that, in case of the rapture, would care for your pets…
We’re having a workshop on sacred geometry followed by a happy hour (which I guess could be a Rapture party) on the 21st. Should be a hoot.
In honor of the day, I plan to play Rapture by Blondie in a continuous loop all day…
Well now you see what you wanna be
Just have your party on TV
‘Cause the man from Mars won’t eat up bars when the TV’s on
And now he’s gone back up to space
Where he won’t have a hassle with the human race
And you hip-hop, and you don’t stop
Just blast off, sure shot
‘Cause the man from Mars stopped eatin’ cars and eatin’ bars
And now he only eats guitars, get up!
Sitting here reading all the fine arguments back and forth about Shelly’s condition, all I can think is:
“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and she’s feline.”
Paula, you don’t need to worry about that for a few months yet. Those of us left are supposed to undergo 5 months of horrible tribulations, then the world will be destroyed on October 21. But, yes, that was just a joke, anyway.
Actually it’s 6PM. Not only that but the event will respect the worlds time zones. It is supposed to roll across the globe as the sun does, with it happening in each time zone at its particular 6PM. Who knew God respected mans time zone setup.
There are supposed to be earthquakes in some of the places too (at their 6PM), so if people vanishing isn’t enough it will be puncuated by disasters as well. All I can say is happy Rapture day! Be sure to stock up on good stuff for your Rapture party before 6PM.
I wonder if there will be a Times Square countdown and decending ball (world globe?) to mark the occasion? At least they could finally get more than one use out of that thing a year.
now we just need to wait til the next one. 8th november. meteor
*sighs*
still if we all keep thinking the world really is about to end it will stop us putting off things we really want to do.
our lives are short. not 80k years anyway 😉 being reminded of this is a good thing 🙂
I was supposed to be part of a presentation today, and I just went blank when it was my turn to speak…all I could think was “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I forgot my line.”
Well, I don’t know. I went and saw the new Pirates movie last night; my brother dressed up as a pirate (peg leg and all) and I got to wear an ex-parrot on my shoulder. I got three “end of the world” comments from that trip, but the best one was from two different people who had nothing to do with each other. On the left, some kid singing that song; on the right, some guy points at my brother and says to his date, “Look, it’s Captain Bly!”
Aaaactually, I’ve shown remarkable restraint in how few I’ve posted.
This is why people think I’m shy, I don’t say stuff like this out loud unless I know you pretty well. And the way my mind works, there’s a lot of this crap rattling around in it.
Nah..brain-farting is the number one affliction on this board.
We don’t mind. Every now&then there are nice solid pieces in it hat give substance to the discharge.. ehh.. discussion (and crazy pun-threads) So, go on spouting. We all do uninhibited.
(And here I got accused of getting too vivid in my examples when delivering my end-speech..pff I just happen to like anal ogies…eeh..ooops..) 😆
Ok, so if each of the other 56 Shellys died, why didn’t Sphinx Shelly pick up the relic they dropped and return home? Why didn’t it happen until now?
And which Shelly put the plutonium in the tree, and when? And why didn’t she die when she did it? Or is that still in the future, because time in tree-land runs backward, meaning this Shelly is still doomed?
We don’t know the back story of how the Shelley’s engineered all the pieces to get the relic together.
Could be that “plutonium delivery” Shelley brought it in some sealed container. Who knows, and that’s a fairly minor point that may not every be discussed at length.
As to your other question, no, time is stable, and the itterations went from this Shelley backwards through each previous one.
There is no “forward” to time with regards to the relic other than this moment we see here and all after. Until our Shelley went back, was the Sphinx guardian, and saw the relic wholly assembled, things couldn’t progress with the next stage of fixing Jin.
Speaking of which, anyone have any thoughts as to why they need a plutonium powered artifact to fix Jin? One that can hold a sword blade? Interesting.
Yes, but she apparently saw the relic wholly reassembled 56 times. And I hardly think the questions of when she placed the plutonium in the tree and how she handled the unshielded plutonium core are minor points!!! They may be something Paul will or will not reveal eventually, but they’re hardly insignificant issues.
I don’t think she watched the exact same process 56 times. I still think that the relic as it is now was assembled over 56 visits. I may not be able to explain how that would work if the relic was found by the girls on Earth an flowing in regular time, but it’s the only thing that makes sense to me right now.
Besides, I can barely explain what’s going on right now, so my inability to explain how that would work shouldn’t count against my theory. 😛
Another mind bender. that would imply that the relic can get you into the tree realm, but not out, until some things are done. And Shelly had to figure out those steps AFTER she figured out that time was opposite earth time. Man, that DOES sound like hell.
But at least this starts to explain what happened to all the other version o f the relic, including the one Shelly took with her as #57…sorta…
Well… There are 2 possibilities to your last question that I can fathom. 1) Lanthians are perverts… (draw your own conclusions from that.) 2) It’s the only thing powerful enough to give Jin a labotomy.
This one stayed in my head from the time I read it.
Now what would you do with a super-plutonium powered Lanthan relic and a golem that needs to be plugged into a vast power source?
“And which Shelly put the plutonium in the tree, and when? And why didn’t she die when she did it? ”
It was probably one of the middle Shellys and she probably did die. On Earth, time kept being reset back 1450 years, so another Shelly would eventually be born.
I think we’re looking at an open time loop. I suspect that Shelly they are going to do something that would turn Shelly into a sphinx. This is how I see it:
Our Shelly, let’s call her Shelly(56), touched the object and saw time going backwards (with her as a sphinx) until she was able to persuade Shelly(1) to remove the core of the object and put it into the relic so that it was charged up. Shelly(1) would die in the process but it means that Shelly(56) has a fully charged relic.
Operating blind it would be logical to try and use a Lanthian power source in the handling of the Calendar Machine so that is why, in the first few times, they tried using the Relic.
I suspect that the team will find that, in order to save Jin, they have to turn Shelly into a sphinx. When they do that, and anything else they need to do, they will have a relic with a dead battery. Therefore they have to use it so it can charge itself over 56 cycles or so.
Ps.
Shelly did have something to eat — the Shellys that didn’t make it.
It would be terribly frustrating for her because, as time progresses for her (remember it’s progressing backwards) the Shelly’s would seem thicker and thicker (as Shelly(2), Shelly(3), etc) would have a few hints from Jin to help them. Admittedly it won’t be much…
It would have been less than 56 bodies because, in the later cycles, they would come to realise that they didn’t need the Relic to stop the Calendar Machine cycling. It wasn’t part of Jin’s or Brandi’s cumulative notes so it seems that they stopped looking to the Relic as an aid to the mission they had then.
In the previous cycles, Jin would be relatively normal because it was “fixing” the Calendar Machine that put her in the state she is in now.
If I were to guess, and this is just a guess, I would say that Shelly would have had access to about 30 Shelly bodies.
But that just makes my point even stronger: in 81,000-odd years, 56 bodies, much less only 30, will not be enough, even if she’s peckish only once every century.
Current speculation, due to Shellinx’s greater learning, her greater maturity and lack of excessive insanity (from social deprivation over 81 millennia), is leaning towards Shelly having had other visitors.
Who may or may not have brought food, or been eaten.
On that note: I suddenly got a great gag-reel in my head, where Shellinx goes all teeth&claws, tries to pounce Tina, is stopped in mid-air, goes “GACK”, flops to the ground, looks behind her, and sees Bud casually holding Shellinx’ tail, going “bad doggie”. Hehehe 😀
As much as people think she will now strongly relate to what Jin has been through, I think Shelly will need Phix – who is the only other one to have experienced anywhere near that level of solitude.
Yup, I think that’s the general consensus around here. Only difference with Phix is that she has actually killed quite a few people . As others pointed out to me, that’s in no way sure with Shellinx.
I was more thinking in the lines off: “RAAWWWRRR RAWWWRR!! Slice! Swipe! Slice! Glugg!Glugg! {blood squirting} AAAARGGGggglll.l.l.l… x.x
WRONG ANSWER!!!
{licking blood off claws}
that sort of killing. Not :”Here You go ,a strongly irradiated piece of oopart. Oh by the by, it will kill you about..3..2..1.. now.. Sorry about that {snif}”
Probably not canonical, but whenever I reread the series, I hear Aishwarya Rai’s voice for Phix. An unexplained Indian accent would turns this moment into a connected-dots-reveal:
remember she did guard the library
but she let Tepoz Brandi Bud Jin Monica Shelly Katherine all use it so its possible she would have let others use it in the past 🙂
They probably noticed, but it’s not on the top ten most relevant conversation starters list. i.e.:
*Shelly goes mildly catatonic
*The gang sits her down with a blanket
*Shelly folds M’s girderwear in half
*Shelly says “Don’t open the relic, the radiation will kill you!”
*M stares into Shelly’s eyes and says, “Your hair grew by two feet! What happened?”
TOTALLY in character. Crazy funny topic-jumps are Paul’s trademark. (remember Jin&Angry Brandi, and Brandi’s sudden change in demeanor when Jin offered a Coffee-eclaire??)
A trademark that especially the trolls at bad-webcomicswiki -ptuii!- couldn’t grasp with their ant-sized brains.
I always thought Shelly had a very interesting past… aside from Monica, the only other central character who was mortal and yet somehow touched by the other side. More to her than met the eye, there was.
That said, thecollector expressed the first thing that came to my mind; the lives of Shelly’s dad and the pretty police boy are about to get a lot more interesting.
That’s a good question, actually. I assumed that he wrote somewhere that he was looking for a sound file and explained why, but I’ve gone through the last few days of comments and can’t find anything like that. Maybe he’s been looking for a long time.
If I had to guess, I suspect that the sound was either supposed to be the sounds that Shelly was making yesterday or he was making as he tried to figure out what was going on in Sacred Forest Land.
And Shelly starts to reboot, Tina to freak, and Monica and Bud to realize something is really different, here…
Yeah, they’re definately going to have to bring Justin on board now. When your girlfriend leaves for a day at the beach and comes back with memory problems, big hands, hair two feet longer than that morning, and perhaps the ability to become a Sphinx, that KIND OF requires an explaination.
An important thing to remember is that this is a Shelly from a different cycle. Things could’ve been very different in this one’s past. She may not have had a boyfriend named Justin, or a boyfriend at all, or anything. Her mother might have been alive, and her father dead. There could be a whole lot of adjustments being made in short order.
Let’s see if I can make this work…
‘Mem-riiieees’ = “Miiiid-niiiiight and all the kitties are sleeee-peeeng’ = ‘Cats: the Musical’ = ‘Sphinxes: the Musical’…
Hmmmm…(rubs chin thoughtfully)
The nickname “Moooonica” doesn’t sound like Tina freaking out to me. I’m going to go against the group here and guess that’s not Tina in the background. Instead, I think it’s yet another of the group, showing up a bit late with a hankering to go somewhere.
Katherine’s not there. I was thinking what you’re thinking: “Oh yeah, Katherine’s having a Hypochondriacal break and is freaking out a the word RADIATION!” But Katherine doesn’t seem to have been invited to the beach. Unless she was and she *just* *now* showed up.
was sumerising with a new peep being introduced. would make sence for amanda and katherine to be invited since they like them and they seem to ALL be going 🙂
Ain’t done one in a while and the muse was on me today…
(apologizes to Al Stewart)
In the Grove of the Cat
On a morning like every other,
In a copse where they record time,
You go stalking lonely through the sacred trees,
Like a lioness in her prime,
She comes out of the past just like the last,
With a feeling that something’s wrong,
But don’t bother her with explanations,
She won’t be here that long,
In the grove of the cat.
She always asks the wrong questions,
Her head’s never been in the zone,
Given the detailed directions,
She pulls the sword from the stone,
One courageous stroke fells the great oak,
And she picks up the poison key,
With a tear in your eye you have to tell her,
We’re one and the same but there’s no we,
In the grove of the cat.
She lies still and you stay with her,
‘Til her breath and heartbeat are gone,
You give them no choice you’re cursed with it
So you’re fated to stay on,
You make the claim to their sad remains,
There’s so many of them like water pouring from a well,
You pray that some day you’ll get to leave here,
But for now you’re trapped in this hell,
In the grove of the cat.
I was hoping for:
Shelly: Who…who are you people?
Monica: Oh, Shelly honey…(looks of shock and sadness from all)
Shelly: Gawd! You guys are SO easy! (pointing and laughing)
6:25 am Justin’s kitchen, Justin is there, dressed for work, steaming cup of joe in his hand.
Enter Shelly, hair disheveled, wearing loose tank top and boxers.
Justin: Good morning, hun. How are you feeling? Whatever happened at the beach yesterday left you in some kind of mood.
Shelly: Caffine…(reaches for Justin’s cup)…SPIDER! (leaps into Justin’s arms, defensively transforming into full sphinx mode)
Shellynx: (looking at the pair of legs sticking out from under her large furry butt) Um, babe, we need to talk….
It’s honestly the first thing I thought. I don’t feel we have enough data yet on the intentions or origins of the relic (we know shelly took it apart and put it there at some point..but where are the pieces from? ) to assume it “harmless” now that it’s in its full form. I’m going with more dangerous personally 🙂
If you’re right it would present Monica with a difficult choice. Does she believe the Shelly voice coming from the relic or does she believe the Shelly grabbing her by the shirt and telling her not to open it. Did the Shelly sitting in the chair trap the real Shelly in the relic? Monica would have no way of knowing, but, given the way chair Shelly is acting, she could believe Relic Shelly. I suppose the only way out would be to get Bud to open it. If the chain insulates the Bud from the relic, I would suppose she could put the relic in a vise and wrap some of the chain around the top and use it to unscrew it.
I mostly think it’s Tina offscreen, but when has Tina addressed Monica as “Monica”? I recall it as always being “Sunshine”. Perhaps someone with a better memory or more time to peruse the archives can correct me.
I can’t find the comment I was looking this up for, but her features aren’t that much more pronounced than before…. http://wapsisquare.com/comic/what-are-you/
her eyes and lips are noticeably different though…
Many thoughts here. Tina freaking and verbalizing it is probably a freak out by committee. They’re all in a panic and one of them decided to tell Monica, thus giving herself away.
Big thoughts on Creepy Girl. If she WAS with Shelly, is she now Sphink like too? Is this what Tina is seeing? Was she eaten by Shelly once she obtained Spinx status? Where is she now if she didn’t go with Shelly?
If it’s the end of the world as we know it, I feel fine. Someone on facebook made a group that’s going to take older sets of shoes and place dry ice in them on random sidewalks…
The reality of the relic is as simple as a phone connection. It is one relic and is simply put in the same place it started each time. The other end always connected into tree land and running but the starting end of things keeps hanging up. Now that Shelly is back, the phone line is probably cut off on an 81,000 year call. Hope they had unlimited minutes on that calling plan.
The Shoe-gag had me LOL-ling bad.. 😆 😆 A friend of mine posted an ad on craigslist for believers to donate all they have to a specific good cause.
Ad got removed again&again….sore losers! Got me giggling too.
ya’ know… thinking about it, i think that Tina isn’t freaking out because of the Shinxiness of the new Shelly, but the realization of what she just said to Monica, namely that the radiation WILL KILL YOU!… and unlike a “normal” demon who will just get reset, Tina’s demons will cease to exist, and she REALLY doesn’t want that to happen!… THAT’s why she needs/wants to get out of there. now for the question: has the relic been opened, or not? and if it has been opened, then who did it?
Shelly’s conscience is the only demon that claims a life span. Even Tina is only not sure of what may happen. Here’s a strip where she’s talking to Kittie and pondering why it hurt when she broke her wrist. http://wapsisquare.com/comic/a-comforting-thought/
And the next one.
Also: Evidence of Belly Pudge Syndrome.
CG didn’t change as shell aged so why change for the sphinx shift? also has mon ever seen CG before or was that her introduction when mon grabbed the relic (and if you look at the date I post this guess if paul ever clears that up).
We got us a being changed in several significant ways here besides the psychic. Shellynx has a Mayan nose and a significant overbite that Shelly never had.
It’s basically Shelly with a few years added (notice the bags under her eyes?) It could also be that her own “young” face slowly fades back in while the Shellinx-character dissipates.
Anyone notice how Jin got younger&younger after destruction of the CM? I think the same goes for Shelly ,she’s slowly, but surely, reverting back to the way she looked before the 81000-year banishment.
The “Magic” part of her existence slowly evaporates.
If that makes any sense……. 😕 😕 😕
I don’t agree with your interpretation of Jin. To me, Jin acted very young when Maya first showed up, but is acting in an age appropriate way in this sequence. I think it varies, depending on how well she is doing at the time.
I also think that a lot if it has to do with the amount of responsibility Jin has. Everyone apparently thinks that she can’t help much with what’s going on now, but she had the responsibility for keeping things running smoothly while the calendar machine was broken. The difference in what’s expected of her would make a difference in her behavior, even if nothing was wrong with her.
At the moment Jin does NOT have the responsibility to keep things running smoothly. She’s off the hook since the CM got a bout of super acceleration towards the sun. New ,fresh timeline, no more spiralling. Remember?
A different responsibility, the responsibilitry to “fix” Jin now lies with the rest of the clowncar. i.e. they have taken it upon them to fix her.
That was what I was trying to say, but I didn’t do it very well. I meant that some of her seeming younger may be due to her having less responsibility and relaxing more now.
I am very very curious whether or not this truly IS Shelly. I am a bit confused at this causality time-loop. If I read it right, the Sphinx was a future Shelly who waited as a human and became a sphinx over time? O_o
Nahh! It’s because M was pulled forward and then up, so her lower back is bent. That causes her abdomen to also bend out making her look slightly pot-bellied.
Later in the same day of the first link, it’s super flat again. I call variations. The other was a graphical representation of the fact that she just ate the food supply of 2 small countries. The next time you see her she’s tiny again. Part of her character is that she can eat tons of food and not gain any weight.
I agree that it’s mostly variation, but part of Monica’s character is that she is adverse to exercise and therefore isn’t in great shape. I remember, but can’t find, a series about Kevin trying to get her to get some exercise, but that didn’t work very well. Despite what Opus the Poet said above, Monica’s doctor said that she needed the exercise. IIRC, her cholesterol number, in particular, was a problem.
If she felt so bad about the last Shelly dying and the radiation won’t kill her as a sphinx then why didn’t Shelly-sphinx fetch the plutonium after human Shelly cut the tree?
I guess because the moment Shellinx would touch the relic, she would have instantly plopped back in the real world, without the plutonionomumthingemajig in the oopart.
Oh, and if the shielding of that super-duper plutonium wasn’t there without the oopart, Shelly would have started dying the moment the entered the radiation-saturated realm of Shellinx anyways.
Ugh! suddenly realized that makes no sense. If the oopart would transport Shelly in -and out ,she would have not stayed there.
*covers ears, crouches and starts softly rocking*
I don’t wanna know, I dont wanna think about it, I don’d wanna ponder ANYTHING of that whole time-crap… I am seriously tired of it. I’ll just let the story flow, and when the book is at LuLu, I’ll buy it, and then, and only then will it make any bloody sense. 😥 😥
I can understand your wanting to put it out of your mind. In that light, you might want to cover your eyes as you read this.
It could simply be that sphinx-Shelly was trying to save human Shelly from thousands of years of being trapped there as she was. Better to die than suffer that fate. Plus, Human Shelly was going to be reset anyway. This could be because a given relic is only good for a one way trip for a particular user. One way there, or one way back. A different user can go the other way. So human Shelly had no chance of returning, but sphinx Shelly did. Also, I don’t think even that aspect of it would have worked for sphinx Shelly before this no matter what. All the Shelly’s had to come through before it would work for her period. It’s also posible the relic had to be charged with the plutonium as well before a return trip was possible for anyone and it took that long to fully charge.
It looks like Jay-Em jumped from denial to depression, although there is some anger mixed in there. Acceptance should be the next step, though, assuming he doesn’t revert.
In a way it’s too bad. If he had somehow come up with something that made sense, we could have assigned him to explain why the voice in the library didn’t say anything to Phix for so many years, or why Phix claimed that she was trapped in the library, despite being able to leave to flirt (and probably more) with Monica’s boss when she finally decided to do that.
I’ve been spending the better part of today going over the whole Shelly\Shellynx thing and all I can say is: (wait for it)
“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I don’t get this time-line.”
oooh..not actual Lying. I just had 2 chocolate-muffins with chocolate-chunks of amazing size….
Had to do sumptin’ to quench my sudden depressing thoughts about my mental incapacity to follow all this time-hoohah….
Sat on a piece of chocolate too.. 😳 how the hell am I gonna get that out of the tweed cover of my seat???? Tips are welcome.. (on a side-note, my sand-coloured cargo’s have a dubious brown spot too…no wonder people looked a bit strange at me.. 😆 ) Amazing what piece of realestate can be covered with just a cubic cm of dark chocolate..
@eschmenk:
Ya know I tend to think Nudge staged that voice. If you look at her as she looks up at Phix, Nudge has that “is she buying this?” expression. http://wapsisquare.com/comic/go-well/
Regarding sitting-on-chocolate stories: Arthur Fiedler once, with great enthusiasm, told the story of a Boston Pops Fourth of July concert. Outdoors in like ninety(F)-degree weather.
The orchestra members were wearing white pants, and had folding metal chairs.
During intermission, a nice old lady came up, and, without anyone’s noticing, an placed a gift for each member on their chairs – a piece of unwrapped chocolate.
Ninety degrees, metal chairs, white pants, remember?
The interviewer to whom Fiedler told this story siad “I bet it wasn’t as funny then as it is now, telling it.”
“On the contrary,” Fiedler said. “Conductors do not sit down.”
Which story, as often, stimulated a chain of association in my mind, which led me to hunt around for this story they tell about Toscanini. One day his orchestra was doing horribly during a rehearsal.
Toscanini finally stopped in mid-scream, then said very quietly “When I die I’m coming back as the doorman of a whorehouse and I shan’t let any of you in.”
First you need to blot the fabric with a wet towel, blotting from the out side of the stain in. Remove as mush of the surface stain as possible. Then you can use a solution of very mild upholstery cleaner and watter an dab it from the outside of the stain in again. This should remove the stain. If it is still not gone, you may want to seek professional help.
Jay-Em
May 21, 2011 at 3:24 pm | #
[…]Sat on a piece of chocolate too.. how the hell am I gonna get that out of the tweed cover of my seat???? Tips are welcome.. (on a side-note, my sand-coloured cargo’s have a dubious brown spot too…no wonder people looked a bit strange at me.. ) Amazing what piece of realestate can be covered with just a cubic cm of dark chocolate..
First off, you want some ice or an ice pack, wrapped in a towel or washcloth. You want the chocolate cold but not wet. When the chocolate is good and solidified, use a butter knife to remove the large bits. Baking soda and a damp toothbrush should get the last bits. Takes some doing but you don’t have to pay for it.
My mom suggests a warm iron on top of a paper towel to soak up melted chocolate, but I’m not sure how well that would work… (it didn’t work on my car–I didn’t have a long enough extension cord to try it.)
At everybody: Thanks. The ice cubes, a bit of dilligent scrubbing with a toothbrush with a mild washing-powder combined with blotting-paper and an iron DID IT!!
Next-time I’ll only buy furniture in chocolate-brownie-clour. .. No-More nice light-grey, being as clumsy and messy as I am… 😀
Since we don’t know the range, it might not have made a difference if it was Shelly or the Sphinx Shelly who pulled it out. That Shelly was probably already dead as soon as she cut open the tree, even if she didn’t pick it up.
When Shelly Sphinx arrived, she came with the relic, but obviously grabbing it again did her no good. (she said she couldn’t go back and she couldn’t be hurt or killed). There could be multiple relics laying around. From those that died, while others that survived returned via their relic. (We know at least one survived because Sphinx Shelly said that a previous visiting Shelly buried the relic in the sacred graveyard.) Or the relic could return to normal time on its own with the loop started again (It just wouldn’t work for Shelly Sphinx). She figured touching the relic would work this time because that was the last.
I’m hoping whoever that is freaking out is in fact Tina, and that she’s doing so because she now sees Shelly’s sphinx aura and not because she might have gotten the relic from Bud and maybe kind of peeked or or other ‘not a good idea’ thing before Shelly could warn them.
Ahhh. There’s Tina, right behind Monica.
Shelly is indeed a sphinx!Long live Shellinx!!
Le Shelly est mort–vive Shelly?
(Shelly is dead, long live Shelly?)
…AAAAAaaaand the first word should be “La” since Shelly’s not a guy. Dangit.
Actually it would “Shelly est morte.”since she is female. You could say La femme (the or a woman) or l’homme (the man ) tho. 🙂
Make it :” La femme-Shelly est mort” Vive la Femme-Shelly”
Makes it sound all “literaturish”, or ‘Nouvelle Vague”
Tiens! La “e” est disparu.. merduehh forgot the “e” in morte gotta read more french. (recently bought “Sillage”, ALL of them…WOW! Some graphic novels!)
Soccer blue!
Silver plated?
Everything I know about French I learned from Pepe Le Pew…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pep%C3%A9_Le_Pew
And cue Tina freaking out at suddenly seeing Shelly as a Sphinx!
Yep. right on time.
By seeing Shelly’s New and Improved SphixAura, no doubt! But… what happens next? Will Shelly transform? Will Tina completely freak? And what about Naomi?
Tune in tomorrow for the Weekly Wapsi Cliffhanger(tm)!!!
We just saw the weekly cliffhanger 🙁
It’s Friday! (cue the cheesy music)
Oh, no you don’t…
Duh.. that’s what I get for reading this on Thursday night…
-emilylitella- Never mind! -/emilylitella-
Yup I hate that. He shold post 2 a day. One at midnight and one at about 2:30.
We’ll see how it goes from there.
I can’t believe someone remembers “Love of Chair.”
And what about….Naomi?
The answer to these questions, and many others..
“Do what, now?”
…Next week, on Wapsi Square!
No, it was “As the Stomach Turns” via Carol Burnett.
…..If the Rapture doesn’t come Saturday. (*Ha-Ha)
Party at my house if it does ’cause I know I won’t be in the sweep.
I would think that Tina’s reaction offers objective proof of Shelly’s new status.
Absolutely. Poor Tina. I wouldn’t want to stand around waiting to see if she pounced on me either. Better to leave and have Monica show up to give the all clear first.
Okay…I may have to concede that my previous belief that Shelly didn’t return a sphinx is wrong…but I’ll wait until Monday to see if Paul isn’t just trying to throw us off the trail. 😛
Same here.
If it just turns out that Shelly is a sphinx and so Tina panics, that seems awfully repetitive at first glance. I hope he comes up with something more interesting than that.
In case people aren’t following, one of the reasons it would come across as being repetitive is that he already made us wait a few days for a conversation to play out to see Tina’s reaction. If he’s hiding Tina’s reaction again, it would be too much, IMO. That joke has already been done.
It’s not really repetitive. It only seems that way because we have belabored the point so very much. It’s simply a plot device to introduce the fact Shelly is, or at least, was a sphinx. Something she may be reluctant to mention. To someone not reading or following our endless comments, it would seem just fine. In fact many may not get the relationship to Tina at all and are waiting for Monday to see what’s going on.
Well, if it’s the exactly the same as the last time, it would be repetitive. But if he has Tina behave differently, then it wouldn’t be.
But I agree that too much anticipation ruins it. I was shocked at what a let down the last time was for me because I had already visualized exactly what Tina would look like. Yet, I still expected to be wowed. In hindsight, that was impossible.
But we really don’t know who voiced that; you’re assuming it’s Tina.
too many assumptions here.. she was the only other in the room.. unless someone else is *very* late for the beach party….
Yes, Tina. Draw attention to yourself by shouting in front of the sphinx!
Don’t kill me over by this wall, Shelly, kill me over–
Let… me… rephrase that.
You gotta remember the excess storage capacity of that bikini is 0.
Oooh, Tina! You can run faster if you’re completely unencumbered by clothing! 😀
not only that, shouting TO the person who is distracting the sphinx 😉
…after (probably) not saying anything at all to the person who is powerful enough to protect you as she walked past to get the towel. 🙄
And whomever chose that she would first issue a warning about the relic gets the win…
That is important and vital to preserve lives, but it slows down the plot so a very weak cliffhanger today. We have to wait for the Shelly, Tina, Phix free-for-all next week.
I wouldn’t say it’s a weak cliffhanger. Perhaps weaker than “Shelly’s dead?”, but finding out what will happen between Tina and Shelly is still an interesting thing to dangle in front of us with a weekend wait.
But it doesn’t hang? We know what is going to happen. Tina says Shelly is a sphinx and must leave. Shelly may or may not attack. Monica confused, bud confused but ready to keep bad things from happening. Phix may, or may not, safe the say. Where is the suspense? The surprise?
It hangs! This cliffhanger is hung like a HORSE.
Ok, who told Paul that we were on heart meds and couldn’t stand another shock like that last one?
Every five pages shouldn’t be a big cliffhanger because the story has to be collected eventually and the pacing would be noticeably choppy.
Kind of like Dickens writing his novels in serial form for magazines, and those were entire chapters.
On Monday we’ll probably find out what happened to Janet, or follow Selenium’s day at home.
But do we really know that’s Tina freaking out in the background? You should know Paul by now: Pulling the rug out from under the Rabbit. It may be that Tina has gotten herself hung up in Monica’s broom closet. Remember Tina is the one ran her car over her arm while trying to parallel park.
she may not feel any reason to do anything with demons, at all, yet tina may cower for months, always waiting for the snap… of her neck… that will never come.
I do not feel bad saying it, but Shelly was never my fav character. This new Shelly, or Shellinx, I like. Very much so. Though I feel sorry for her dad and boyfriend or whatever he was, she’s not exactly the same person anymore is she.
well, since we don’t know if sphynxes are the kind to require ‘physical affection’, we can’t tell if she’s been in need all that time, i don’t think she’d been getting that ‘affection’ from her other iterations. if they do… there may be much soreness from a certain man in near future, after being kidnapped from work by a nearly naked amazon…
Judging from Phix’s relationship with Monica’s boss, she at least requires ‘companionship”…
Paul,
I’ll be there at SpringCon on Saturday.
If you have any more original art featuring Phix and/or Nudge…?
And here’s an interesting question…just because Shelly evolved into a sphinx in the tree realm, she was only there to guide the 56 other Shellys that came and expired/went. What does she know of demon-cleansing duties of sphinxes? How would Tina thus be in danger, other than she senses a sphinx is now in the room?
And anyhow, with Nudge gone, aren’t the remaining demons OK according to Phix?
Remember – SHelly was only there for a fraction of a second – in the “real” world. She knows all about Tina and sphinxes…
They’re still demons… And I imagine all demons have a bit of fear of Sphinxes.
But don’t only a certain type of Sphinxes kill and hunt demons? I remember that only the apotropaic sphinxes which Phix is one are the ones that do. ( http://wapsisquare.com/comic/not-the-violent-type/ )
Then again to a Tina’s demons any sphinx is a sphinx they’d rather avoid!
It’s also revealed in the Nudge arc that Phix was anti-murder; an “activist sphinx” so to speak. She treated Tina fairly (mostly) and was only viciously going after Nudge for vengeance because she was responsible for trapping Phix in the Library. Perhaps Demon hunting isn’t instinctual, but taught.
I think the apotropaic sphinxes are the same as any other sphinxes. They were just being used apotropaically. Is apotropaic garlic be any different than non-apotropaic garlic?
Monica had assumed that the sphinxes weren’t dangerous because she couldn’t remember any ancient writings that said they were, except for the ancient Greeks, who she thought got it wrong. Then she remembered that the apotropaic sphinxes were sphinxes that were captured and used to keep demons out of temples because they were so good at it.
So sphinx are to demons as cats are to rats? or is it more like sphinx are to demons as trained attack dogs are to burglars?
Better yet, as pit bulls are to letter carriers–once you have been bitten/chased, you wont go near another one. . . .
Maybe it’s more like fox hounds are to foxes. It’s the instinctual thing to do, but it’s controlled.
They both gimme gas, I know that much.
Silver C: yes, and a few strips later, http://wapsisquare.com/comic/yet-to-do/
could it be that tina was doing something that phix would punish her for?? could be why, she though it was coming for her???
Huh? Demons fear sphinx because they don’t like being eaten. That destroys them. Why wouldn’t they fear that?
Of course, Tina was doing something that Phix thought she shouldn’t have been doing. We saw her doing it, after all, and Phix wouldn’t have showed up otherwise, but that’s not why Tina feared Phix. The fear is instinctual, as Tina confirmed to Phix. Tina’s basement had nothing to do with any of it.
Don’t let the bit about apotropaic sphinx confuse you. Phix was obviously not chained up at an entrance to a temple when she was standing in Tina’s shop, so she clearly wasn’t being used apotropaically at that point. However, the fact that people would chain sphinx to the entrance of temples to ensure that demons could not enter made Monica realize that sphix can be dangerous to demons.
Monica was acting like a clueless idiot the entire episode. Phix was not there to eat Tina, despite the fact that sphinx are the natural predators of demons. Phix was there simply to put Tina in her place. That Tina was in trouble with Phix should have been obvious to Monica the instant Phix showed up, even if sphinx had never been used apotropaically. There would have been no other reason for Phix to be in Tina’s coffee shop (she drank tea, not coffee) and Monica had just seen Tina doing something that was guaranteed to piss Phix off if Phix knew about it! What the hell did she expect to happen?
@eschmenk :
Tina serves tea too. Several kinds, even the more exotic ones. Phix even had Tina “sense” her choice of earl Grey.
Phix was hunting for Nudge, so, she had to “rattle” the demon-cage for a bit, trying to get Nudge to do something that proved to Phix Nudge was really inside Tina, hiding amongst the demons.
Nice tactics. Shame that it traumatized poor Tina somewhat.
Nah! If you are familiar with office politics it’s obvious what happened. Thanks to Nudge, Tina was stepping on Phix’s turf and trying to decide who got taken to the library. If you do that to someone like Phix, you had better expect to be put in your place, just like Tina was. Having a supernatural being inside of you isn’t necessary at all. 😀
Phix trusted Monica’s judgement on who to bring to the library, but Tina was trying to twist Monica’s arm to get her to take Amanda there. A photographer who wanted to do a photo essay was definitely not the sort of person Phix wanted in the library. Monica understood that, but Tina apparently didn’t.
Phix’s timing makes what Phix was reacting to obvious: Amanda says, “Maybe I could do a photo essay of you.” Monica starts to fumble an excuse for why that can’t happen at the library. Bam! Phix is there to handle the situation.
First, Phix gives Monica a cover story for Monica deciding to not bring Amanda to the library, then (on the next page) told Tina (paraphrasing), “It’s Monica’s decision, not yours, Tina!” Then she gave Monica a story to get her and Amanda out of there while she finished dealing with Tina.
Phix very quickly judged from Tina’s reaction that Tina hadn’t realized that she had been stepping on Phix’s toes and that Tina wouldn’t dare do that again, so there wasn’t any problem anymore. Therefore, she quickly stopped trying to rattle Tina, and instead tried to reassure Tina that everything was fine now.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Phix started to suspect that Nudge might have been involved with Tina because of this episode, but I’m fairly certain that suspicion had nothing to do with the way Phix acted. The thought may well have only occurred to her only later when she pondered what made Tina act that way in the first place. Or perhaps this was enough to get Phix to pay more attention to Tina and that led to Phix noticing Nudge’s influence. Who knows? In any case, she would have reacted the same way even if she never suspected Nudge.
——–
Side issue: You said: “Tina serves tea too.”
In tea bags. That doesn’t count. Tea drinkers would not prefer a place that would serve them tea in tea bags. They would only go to a place like that with a coffee drinker.
——–
I saw you used the confused smiley before. The filename is “icon_confused.gif”, so I’m going to guess that : confused : will work, even though :huh: doesn’t. If not, please let me know what does.
Testing: :confused:
A Phixphobia. Bad case of it.
Would you call that…a phixation?
You might be right about the instincts against demons but Tina does not know that. As to speaking loudly, PANIC. She just saw Shelly’s aura transform to sphinx in under a second. Wouldn’t you in that case?
hmm i predict monica asking why and tina telling her to cover her left eye ( or was it the right one) followed by Monica freaking out along with tina
well that is if the eye trick works on sphinks
Hahaha!! Ooooo, I LIKE that idea!!
The mental image made me giggle. XD
“The left eye-trick’?? oooh.. I wouldn’t be too surprised. But with Nudge it worked because she let it work for that moment, as a token of trust. I doubt if it works that way for a sphinx, but, who knows?
“Its always there…. In the corner of your eye.”
*shiver*
stop reminding me of creepy episodes!
I do not question Tina’s instincts, I question Shellinx’s. Does she feel a natural inclination to go after the conglomerate of demons of which she is composed?
Also, the long time she was gone might have made her forget what tina is and that she never thought of her as a threat. Should be verrrry interesting to see what happens next…
I’m not positive, but judging by Phix’s behavior, sphinxes don’t seem to have a particularly strong instinct to hunt demons. It seems to be more of a duty. Tina should be safe.
Oh..Good point!
I think it’s a duty that they enjoy and that they are particularly good at. It would be a bit like Jägers in Girl Genius or the Klingons in Star Trek.
Any plan that lets you lose your hat is a bad plan, but today is a good day to die? I’m not sure Shelly is that conflicted…
Right. It’s not only their duty; it’s what they do when they’re relaxing at the pub.
@Danzier: I said, “or,” not “and.” 😀
But I think it’s normal for Jägers to be buried with their hats, so maybe they are really good at keeping them on. And how often did Kingons even wear hats?
(I think I may have just guaranteed a new record for the number of comments. 😆 )
@eschmenk: Only one occasion did I remember a Klingon wear a hat. That was Q has Picard and Vash playing Robin Hood and Maid Marion story. Worf was among the Merry Men. And Worf is not a merry man. 😆
@eshmenk: I suppose hats must be to the Jaegers what the brow ridges are to the Klingons; I’d hate to see what sort of rhinocerus Gil would have been turned into if the two races switched places.
(On the practical side, getting a Klingon to wear a hat on top of eighteen pounds of makeup would probably violate an actors’ guild rule somewhere…) *ducks under the table and trembles in terror at the realization of the wrath she’s just unleashed
Klingons didn’t always have brow ridges, you know. Of course, they don’t like to talk about that. 😀
@nerf-dweller – Worf also wore a hat whenever he role-played the Ancient West in the holodeck. IIRC, it was one of his favorites.
It may be that certain demons relish the act of going after demons or anything else for that matter.. But I would agree that Sphinx’s in general don’t have an instinct to pounce on demons.
Tina has forgotten any personal meetings or experience with Sphinxs due to her punishment. Tina is seeing Shellinx’s and Phix’s aura and having an instinctual fear of them. In the same way the Tina instinctual remembers the Laws of the Demon.
Either Shelly got inherent Sphinx knowledge, or she met other people there in her time. In the comic when she was inimidating the other Shelly, she referenced Odysseus and Gisaultees. Not that Shelly wouldn’t necessarily know who Odysseus was, but seems weird that that bit of knowledge would have been held on to. Maybe some of the other visitors left books.
Point of interest: Do demon hunting sphinxes have demons of their own? Because Shelly’s had one doozey of a demon in Creepy-Girl. (though i guess CG is a special case being a conglomerate of all Shelly’s previous demons) Plus, if all Sphinxes begin life as human, and all humans have demons…..
Maybe humans become Sphinxes when they hunt/destroy/loose all their demons?
ooooh, wait! this also means that Shelly has demon radar now! That’s gonna make life interesting.
dedar?
heh tho that sounds like an emergancy vehicle siren 😀
I imagine that’s going off in Tina’s head right now
DEEDarDEEdarDEEdar!
Thanks for the sound effect; I couldn’t match “dedar” to the long wail and beeps of the emergency vehicles around here. ( The sound: American fire trucks & Rescue squad )
Yes, that’s more of an European siren sound. It’s also one of the sounds car alarms make. If that isn’t enough noise, @*&#$ mockingbirds imitate the car alarms, too! (They seem to like the down-swept sound better, though.)
To Kill A Mockingbird. Please! All of them! 😆
that first one sounded like an air raid siren!!!
The first or the second one? I the the one that sounded like an air raid siren was probably the second siren on the rescue truck, but it might have been on the old white pumper that they were using temporarily.
It’s normal for firetrucks to have multiple sirens and they will often use them simultaneously, so it’s hard to tell which one was using which siren.
If you want to know more about firetruck sirens:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCbLv1yQVDA
On the other hand, here’s a tornado siren. They test those every saturday at noon just outside my house; when they go for real you can barely hear it over the rain.
**Video sound is loud; adjust your speakers!!** They turn it on and off rather quickly in this video; here, the high end stays running for 3 minutes and the whole thing repetes 3 times.
I still don’t think Tina’s in danger, but she probably wouldn’t know that. I’m not entirely sure that demon killing is an instinctive thing for sphinxes, so even if Shelly’s aware of that relationship, she may not feel compelled to act on it.
I think it is instinctive, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have self control. We have instincts too, but we’re not slaves to them. Obviously Phix was usually in control of her instincts and Shelly would hopefully remember that Tina was a friend, not food, and be able to control hers.
Assuming Tina is seeing Shelly as a sphinx, the more relevant instincts for Tina would be her demons’ instincts, which include the fear being eaten by sphinxes. Tina claims to be a like a wild animal who can’t control her instincts. If Shelly is a sphinx, it might be interesting to see Tina try to deal with that instinct.
rats and bunnies play with cats all the time when domesticated. it may be that it’s what the animal had experience with as a juvenile.
ah yes, that fits, why tina is calling monica, to help control her instincts, when she sees a sphinx, and stop the old cat and dog thing…
Aaaannndddd … Tina freaks out, right on schedule.
This is the first time in a few days I don’t have to say aaaaaaaaaand…
…yet you saw fit to, nonetheless. Also, I agree with Kermit here; took her that long to stop freaking out, or at least enough to put together a single, worried phrase.
Tina freaked out 60 seconds ago or thereabouts, when Shellynx returned. She’s taken this long to calm down enough to scream for help. Or maybe remember how to breathe.
Well, at least some of her memory is coming back. The rest should follow. On a darker note, poor Tina. Shelly was the person she seemed closest to, but now that friendship will be rather difficult.
She was Shelly before anything else. While she was gone a long time relatively speaking, I’m sure the memories of M and the gang will come back and we will see the old Shelly personality back. Maybe with a few extra quirks or wisdom.
I think that once Tina gets to know Shellinx again. Tina will that Shelly is still basically Shelly. Her being a sphinx notwithstanding.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too, but it will be a bit of a blow in the short term.
Buuuuut.. if it works-out, it would be a rather unique, reality-shattering situation. A sphinx befriending demons.
On the other hand ,Shelly is a unique specimen, in that she is one of the very few that combined her demons in one entity, so, I tend to believ that -after the initial shock- Tina and Shellinx will become close again, maybe even closer now they both are rather unique supernatural..eehh.. things. But then again, I am an incurable optimist (could also be the Lexapro™ 😆 ).
That plot twist has my vote. Bear in mind, Shelly may not be unique, if this is how sphinxes are born. But so far as we know, Tina is.
I don’t think that is what Jay-Em meant, though, with respect to Shelly. Shelly was already a very rare, if not absolutely unique, human because she had defeated her demons and turned them into something else. That may result in her being turned into a unique sphinx, assuming she was turned into one.
…or were you thinking that all sphinx defeated their demons while still human as Shelly did and that enabled them to become sphinx?
The latter, actually.
Hmmm *pondering* both ideas sound pretty plausible.
To me though ,Shelly is unique because she combined her demons after death (!) and Tina became the demons after her death. i.e. her demons have a rather unique collaberation, shaping “Tina” as we know her.
Bottomline: both died, lived again, and both became something unique with respect to their demons, “Intergrate them” so to speak.
If Shelly is still Shelly, she’s gonna need Tina to keep her grumpy self uplifted, especially now Shell has 81000 years of suffering in solitude (her worst fear) behind her belt. Aaaand, since Tina was a Psychiatrist in her former life, she would be a big help.
Tina’s answers on various questions here&there make me suspect there is more of that knowledge left than we are led to believe.
Oh, that’s what was making that noise. I was right…
Hey, Tina.
And M needs a new boulder holder, since Shelly just bent the rebar in the old one.
I was looking at her arms and thinking that her hair was not the only thing that has changed.
Don’t forget her rather gnurly, rough hands. She’s going to need a boatload of Dove™ I am afraid 😀
ok she remebered monicathats good , prolly better idea for tina to try and sneak out rathen than scream at the top of her lungs she needs to leave
but i really think tina is over reacting out of instinct i dont think shelly is going to attack her , but i wonder how long it will take phix to show up a new sphink sudenly appering has to catch more than just tinas attn
New here, decided to stop lurking. I was doing an archive binge last night and noticed that Phix dosen’t have the pronounced canines in her human form, but does have noticeable claws on her hands. Shelly’s right thumb in panel one looks awfully pointy. Add that to Tina’s off camera freakout and I’d say we have a confirmation of Shellinx.
I hate to burst your first post, the I think what you’re seeing is the knuckle on Shelly thumb and not the top. Although I do agree that Shelly fingernails are probably very pointy right now.
I dunno, that definitely looks like an extended thumbnail to me. All the knuckles are accounted for on her left hand.
Shelly’s right thumb is behind a fold of blanket in Panel One.
Count shelly’s left hand fingers from the pinky. The thing just above the index finger is either a pointy nailed thumb, or… I don’t know what. That’s the only thing I can see it as.
It’s another blanket fold her left thumb’s tip is behind.
Actually, looking at her hands in general – she didn’t used to have big knuckly gnarly hands – until she became a sphynx. The claws/nails may come and go, but her hands look like her sphynx hands.
That i’ll agree with. Though Shelly’s hands were always bigger and knucklier than Monica’s because Shelly did manual work.
I think the hands as well as other features vary all over the place, so it’s dangerous to draw conclusions from them.
If you look at panels 3-5 here, Alpha Shelly’s hands are so large compared to the grip that they cover the prongs that extend from it. In panel 6, either the relic nearly doubles in size or Shelly’s hand shrinks by about 50%. That’s between panels in the same page. A couple of pages later, either the cross part of the relic got so tiny or her hand got so huge that she’s got her hand wrapped around the cross part of the relic, rather than the grip. (Either that, or the blade twisted 90 degrees.)
I will agree that Shelly’s hair is meant to be longer, but I don’t think that you can draw any other conclusions that anything else is supposed to be different.
To hold onto something like that, a person would have their thumbs up and on the other side of the fabric from their fingers. Basically, if she’s holding onto the towel, that can’t be her thumb unless she poked it through the fabric.
Grab hold of your shirt or jacket and see what you do.
No, actually they do not have to be behind the fabric.
Close your right fist and notice that your thumb extends beyond your knuckles. while grabbing your open jacket front at your chest, it feels more natural to have your thumbs in front of the fabric than behind.
My vote is for Shellinx’s right thumb.
I grabbed a blanket (which is what Shelly is doing). It’s fairly simple to have the edge bunch up in a way that folds back over your thumbs.
@TheSkulker: But then my thumb remains above my fingers. If that is her thumb nail in panel 1, she must have bent her thumb down so it is behind her third finger. If she is doing that, she can’t be using her third finger to grasp the fabric and it’s awkward to use the remaining ones. That’s very unnatural, and yes, I tried it.
Oh, boy. Tina is most certainly pinned in a corner trying to claw her way through a wall judging from that line.
Poor girl.
Maybe some other Sphinxes may have arrived, ready to ask Shelly what she thinks she’s doing, having run away from her duties as Tree Guardian? And Tina is first to meet them?
Hmmm….????
I personally doubt that.
God, am I the only one that enjoys NOT having a cliffhanger for the weekend? 😛
It certainly is a relief.
But I’m still eager to Tina’s freaking face on Monday. Let’s see who the first person to turn it into a Gravatar is. XD
Stupid typos… eager to “see Tina’s freakout face” on Monday…
What about Monica’s? Her best friends clothes disappeared, her hair is long again and now she’s a Sphinx. Nowthat is gonna be a freak out.
the cliffhanger is (we assume) tina trying to claw her way out
*but*
yes..its very nice to have a non-lethal cliffhanger.
not that we have many but well..they DO seem to have been comming at us hard recently 🙂
I still have one question though. Was the plutonium already in the relic when Bud found it or was it put there by one of the Shelly’s and she just knows about it now?
Since we saw Shelly One put the plutonium in the relic to end the cycle and allow Shelly Fiftyseven to come home, I’d say it wasn’t there before and is now.
It’s the same one that Shellinx used to return to the present, now charged with plutonium thanks to Shelly #1.
eschmenck and myself have raised the issue of how there must have been an extra relic (or maybe several) over the course of 81200 years, but I don’t think it has been resolved. Also, given the pace of the story, something that detailed and involved could take several months to unfold, so we’ll have to pay close attention…
This relic couldn’t have transcended time/space, like the CM did, due to some extreme importance?
Or existed in it’s own time/space bubble (like the tree world) due to it’s nature and power potential?
Just asking. Would make it much easier to say it’s the same relic with extraordinary abilities (beyond it’s as-yet-unknown abilities) to do such a thing.
That’s the wild card. And if it is something as complex as the CM, then we might have to pay attention for a few years!
I really need to start indexing more strips if I want to participate in theory and speculation, cuz this comic demands it, and is also why I keep coming back for more!
It’s why I buy all the books. 🙂
Hear! Hear! I heartily endorse the sentiment of my fellow constituent directly above. It also helps support the Writer/Artist…
Ditto.
Isn’t it about time for a new book? .How much time do You need to fill a new book?. Not as much as when he did only 1-reel gags. It’s all full pages now.
Hmm. I guess after the SHellinx-arc is resolved ,we’ll get our book.
Um, Jay….
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/wapsi-square-letting-the-dust-settle/15123915
^^Snap…
Already got that.
150 pages to fill..hmm lessee. Oct1 was the last in the book.. There’s already more than 150 pages from there.
Well. Just have to be p.p.p.p.p.p.p.patient …..ugh….
So you’re saying the books contain additional art and explanations over and above the daily strips?
@ SoWhyMe The books some splash-pages ,full-page sketches, stuff like that . I think they are worth the $20.- price-tag, and they are A4/Letter sized on quality paper ,and make for a rather pleasant experience.
Also some of his poster-art on the inside-covers, an intro by another artist ,or someone pretty well-known in the webcomic-community. Worth the trouble of ordering I’d say (let alone the ease by which one can flip back through pages if some inscrutable plot-twist pops-up again..)
Vol.1 has the most “extra’s” prolly’ because it’s all one-reel gags and the pages looked a bit bare.
Another thing that occurs to me is the last panels wording. Shelly warns M that the “radiation will kill you!” So Shelly is immortal as a Sphinx now? (I don’t mean immortal as can’t ever die, just not aging)
Don’t know about immortal, maybe, but She just saw it kill Shelly1 while she watch unharmed. So she knows it won’t kill her but that it will kill Monica.
I don’t know if Shelly knows herself if she is immortal, this goes back to the question of whether or not she was transported to the tree realm physically, and why I’ve been keeping the issue alive (ahem, Ozymandous…)
Whether or not she knows if she is immortal, she could be using the universal “you”…
tx.. 😛 You may very well be right and I wrong. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Hopefully Paul will resolve the issue if she actually traveled there, ala Bud going to the demon realm and the time differences she/we saw, or just metaphysically traveled.
Well she did just relive 56 time cycles in reverse. So my bet is if she is still a Sphinx she is at least ageless.
If Shelly’s a sphinx and if she’s anything like Phix, I’d say that she’s only immortal and undamageable when she’s in the place she protects. In Phix’s case, that’s the Library (which is removed from the normal time cycles of Earth). In Shelly’s that would likely be the Time Forest (which is also removed from the normal time cycles of Earth).
It’s possible that both of them are vulnerable in human form when they are in the normal realm on Earth.
^^Could very well be the case. She did mention that she could not die in that place, so perhaps she’ll always carry the aura of a sphinx, but never appear as such unless in the tree realm. But is there a reason to go back there? Can there be some other use of the time trees?
OW! My brainstem…
i wonder if the time tree forest and the library are in fact the same place.
would explain why there is only written copies in there opposed to audio. you don’t make audio from trees.
So if a tree falls in a forest… 😀
No, I don’t think they can be the same. Otherwise, books would be disappearing from the library, rather than accumulating there.
not if the forest is a prior time to the actual library. its outside time as we know it but library time DOES exist 🙂
Right, but Phix was aware of the previous 56 loops and was able to give a book from a previous loop to Brand, so time seemed to be going in a forward direction. Also Phix and Nudge seemed to know what happened in the past, but not what was going to happen in the future. Unless time switched directions, it seems unlikely to be the same place.
maybe a ‘prior’ version of the library could have the same but different timeline 🙂
its also possible for the library and forest to be the same but different incarnations.
after all..look at shelly and shellinx 🙂
When your mom says ‘You’ll poke your eye out!’ she doesn’t mean that she couldn’t.
And Monica’s already shown a unhealthy need to be touchy-feely with the artifact. It’s easy to think that she, finding a piece of the relic that unscrews would open it up looking for what’s inside…
Looks like she needed a few minutes.
“These changes require a restart….”
“Memory size changed. Press F1 to continue…”
I’d love to see the stream of thought that led her from the smell of fresh cut grass to remembering who Monica was.
smells are a huge parts of ones memory from what i hear
That is true. Olfactory input is processed in the limbic system, the same area of the brain as long-term memory, and a familiar odor does tend to call up things in long-term memory that are associated with it.
Reminds me of Maya’s return.
Maybe she and Monica smoked a lot of weed at Monica’s place.
That would explain a lot about M’s eating habits…
That doesn’t smell like fresh-cut grass, but more like burning old grass… Take it from a Dutchie. 😉
unless they just cut some and were about to light it up….
But she didn’t say”
“Fresh cut …grass…Mon…Mon…Monica?…Dude!”
Fresh cut grass–a May Saturday morning in the Twin Cities probably has a few people out cutting grass–if there are any lawns nearby. That would provide the trigger.
How does that lead to Monica? There, I’m not so sure.
AFAICT Monica is the only one with a house. Everybody else seems to be in apartments. Cut grass = Monica.
Monica’s also known for using herbal hair products that have a real “I’ve finished the backyard!” smell to them.
I love it when my girlfriends would use “Gee, Your Hair Smells Like You Just Mowed the Lawn”
Thanks for the explanation! Fresh cut grass (with or without gasoline fumes) always takes me back to my own suburban youth…
Let’s just hope for no BSOD. 😉
Excellent! She still remembers her time in hell. And, apparently she is still a sphinx or, at the least, her aura still reeks of sphinx. Lets hope it stays this way. At least for a while. I’m just afraid she’ll go “blink” and suddenly be her old Shelly self which would be so very disappointing. Her having to reintegrate back into society will be an intriguing read.
I think she is also still used to being rough with others due to her sphinxy ways of doing things. It may take a while to soften her edges again.
Wait. Shelly had soft edges? If I remember correctly, she grabbed Monica by the shirt in the exact same way after she got the tattoo. But yeah, she will have to get used to society again.
It’s also interesting how her facial features still look like the face of her sphinx state.
i actually thought she looked like Tina in the last panel
Agreed. Her features seem more ‘jutting ahead’ and pronounced now than prior. But it may simply be me assuming that knowing what’s happened to her in the past weeks comics.
I think that you are correct. Quite some time back, in a strip I cannot find, Brandi was in an argument or confrontation, I think with Jin. And for a moment, a single frame, Brandi’s face changed, assuming some of the shape of her cat morph, the jaws becoming more feline. Then the moment was over and her face resumed human form.
I think that’s what you saw here, with Shelly. For a moment the sphinx came to the fore.
I think it’s just art-style evolution; Paul’s style is constantly evolving, to the point where you can see definite changes over just a year or so, and might wonder if this strip was even drawn by the same artist as the first.
El Goonish Shive is another. (Link to current page)
Link to first EGS strip
I’m with Ozymandias. As I just remarked elsewhen, Shellynx has a pronounced overbite and a Mayan nose that Shelly didn’t have in the Grove. (MOF, Shellynx’s profile rather resembles Tina’s now.) I say we got a different being to deal with.
Funny: Gocomics has gotten to Watterson’s several-month break in drawing the Calvin & Hobbes strips, and is supplying strips from the first year–and today several comments are on the fact that the characters look very different…
I think will be especialy hard on her friends. For her, it was 81200 years spent mostly alone. For Monica and the gang, it’s been a couple of minutes. Shelly has been forced to exmine herself in ways no human ever could. Seeing her interaction with Shelly #1 shows that Shellinx’s core personality is still there, put she’s likely to be a lot more introspective than she was. She’s had massive character development of camera and M may have trouble keeping up with the changes in her friend. To say nothing of being a Sphinx. What does that intail? Are there responsibilities she’ll have to take up as a gardian race? Is she junior to Phix in the Sphinx hirearchy? Can’t imagine old Shelly as a librarian, but this Shelly might be suited to it.
Shelly won’t have to be librarian. While Phix used to be librarian because she was lowest on the totem pole, it is now because the library specifically chose her and Nudge, and is completely separate from the duties of the sphinxes to guard it.
What is she goes “blink” and reverts to sphinx form?
Tina won’t be the only one freaking out.
Hehe I have a cool mental image of Monica turning around to look at Tina and ask why. Tina shakingly points back behind Monica. When Monica turns back, it’s face to face with Shelly in Sphinx form.
(I don’t think Shelly will transform at sight of Tina, but it’s a fun image.)
{Bud and Monica instinctively poit away, leaving Tina alone in room with confused sphinx}
Aww maaaaan..that’s just cruel!
…and funny.
but in reality Bud poited to 1,000 ft, and just before hitting the ground, poited herself right above Shellinx…
oh wait…poiting doesn’t conserve momentum… that would have been funny
Bud could grab a boulder, poit to 1000 feet ,drop it, poit back and watch the smashing result (allthewhile calculating how many diamonds the repair of Monica’s roof will be) 😆
What would be even cooler, imagine this scenario:
Shellinx flashes into full-sphinx-mode about to pounce on a frozen Tina..
[“POIT” in background]
-What the….
[giant lion-growl sounds and ginormous shadow suddenly looms over Shellinx]
-I go away for short moment to find the cuutest One-piece ever, I am only late for a bit, and THIS is what happens????
[Shellinx -dwarfed by giant-lion-Brandi- looks up, mouth agape]
-BACK to your corner. NOW!
[Shellinx hastily shimmies back on her butt, looking like a cat that has been caught, not wanting to loose face, starts silently growling and mumbling]
WHAT WAS THAT??????
[Shellinx reverts to Shelly, and swallows hard]
-nothing..nothing whatsoever..just checking if I could still change..heheheh.. ahem….
[Whole crew with mouth agape. Tina on her butt, sweating profusely, eyes wide-open “I..I.I..I..tr.tr.tried to warn..{gulp}”
😆 😆
And for those who think Barandi in lion-form isn’t that big.
Exhibit A)
“tag your it”
(Let’s hope it works as designed)
i love it when brandi gets all authoritave 🙂
still think it was adorable when she stopped bud and jin from attacking each other and had bud (i think) in her mouth like a kitten 😀
Congratulations, you have not broken the interwebs.
*Confetti and fireworks!*
It looks like Shelly will be just fine in the memory department if she can chain associate fresh cut grass with Monica’s name that quickly, and she knew immediately just who to give the warning to.
Poor Tina must think she’s inside a horror flick when her friend suddenly became her worst nightmare.
Interestingly, we can actually blame Hitler for this mess they’re in.
Or, if what Shelly had to do was necessary for time to be fixed, we would have to thank him. Time stuff is funny that way.
I think Hitler would see things differently.
Hitler is Told U-296 Lost the Lanthan Relic
A Script For a ‘Downfall’ Parody
General #1
The enemy has made a breakthrough along a wide front.
We no longer have the firepower to repel the Red Army from the capital.
They are at the northern city border between Frohnau and Panknow.
And we have no additional realized or potential supernatural weapons to deploy.
Hitler
We will. When I have the Relic, I will time loop and become a Sphinx.
General #1
My Fuhrer.
The Relic…
General #2
The Relic was lost at sea and captured by beach babes.
One named “Shelly” becomes the Sphinx.
Hitler
[hand trembles removing his glasses]
If you can’t follow the time travel in “Wapsi Square”, leave. Now.
[Most of the staff leaves]
[Hitler’s screaming rant starts]
What the fuck, Taylor?
Why did you dangle immortality in my face?
“Go fetch the Relic, Adolph.”
[outside room]
Only to have your invincible women screw me over.
[Young Officer looks over to Crying Girl]
Chicks are eye candy.
Not howitzers in sexy clothes.
[back inside]
Next, you’ll have magic puppies take out the SS.
I was looking forward to time looping and becoming a Sphinx with fifty-six lives.
General #3
Sir, I believe it adds up to fifty-seven lives.
Hitler
That’s bullshit. It’s fifty-six.
General #3
But sir, Paul Taylor said it was fifty-seven.
Hitler
You think I don’t know how crappy at math artists are? [throws pencils]
Doesn’t matter.
The point is I did everything right.
My smartest men did the research.
My finest sailors retrieved the Relic.
[outside again]
When what I should have done is send Eva and my secretaries out to find it.
[Eva approaches, worried]
Then there would have been some hot Nazis to draw…
[back inside]
…and it would have been a fair fight.
Some Rhinegold fan service, and I’d be an immortal by now.
I’d have flown my furry ass to the Kremlin and rake that smirk off of Stalin.
[sits, quieter]
I listened to my inner voices.
They told me I would rule over all Europe as a Sphinx.
[Generals exchange glances]
For crying out…
[yelling again]
What was the point of including my sub in the plot? Why?
One little bimbo has brought down the German people.
Why does Shelly get to play?
Why the hell does she get something so cool?
No one likes her, not even herself.
[outside]
Comforting Woman
[to Crying Girl]
Shelly’s my fave, too.
[inside]
Hitler [quietly]
I’d make the perfect Sphinx.
I solve everything with violence. War, death camps, terror.
Want to be a big cat.
[Generals exchange glances]
That strangles people I hate.
[General #3 adjusts collar]
[Hitler looks up]
That’s why I named the tanks Panzer. And went for Cairo.
Always wanted to be a Sphinx. And now I can’t.
Stupid webcomics.
ROFL!
“Some Rhinegold fan service, and I’d be an immortal by now.”
Best line in a comment ever!
Want to be a big cat.
That strangles people I hate.
That’s why I named the tanks Panzer. And went for Cairo.
*claps*
awsome 🙂
…..
speechless with awe
…..
Am I the only one wondering why Tina doesn’t just open the door and run out? Is she so frightened she forgot how to use a knob?
Yeah, but I bet she’s thinking she needs the safety margin that only poiting provides.
Starting to realize why she wears a choker, though.
Ah yes. Perhaps she is hinting to Monica that it would be great if she would poit her (Tina) out of there right now.
Well she’s had a couple of minutes now to build up a real, blinding panic, so maybe so.
Though, it could also be she didn’t spot the sphinx side of Shelly while she sat quietly. That may have only really manifested itself when Shelly became agitated in telling Monica to be careful.
Perhaps Shelly is between her and the door (and the window)?
No – there’s a window she could prolly access with having to get within grabbing range…
Agh. “without“
I’m sure in her current state of panic she could just claw a hole through the wall bare-handed.
For some unknown reason I thought she might have been locked in the bathroom.
No, you lock the cat in the bathroom…
But–but–but Shelly’s in a chair, not the bathroom…
Then we need to lock her in the bathroom until we get Tina out of the house…
I volunteer to sit with her until it’s okay…
We’ve seen Tina freeze up meeting strange sphinxes before. Phix even told her not to freak out meeting people like her (Phix).
-JRS
Which is like telling a mouse not to freak out when it sees a cat. Interesting that Monica has been telling Shelly to be careful around Tina because she’s a “wild animal”. Talk about your ironic role reversal.
Anyone want to see a Shelly-the-Sphinx figure from Patch Together?
I’d figure out how to pay for that one.
Shelly the Sphynx, Phix the Sphynx, and Phix the maneater, all three!
Hell yeah. Even I’d pay money for that. Loved her as a sphinx. We should start a petition.
People-Shelly, Sphinx Shelly, Sphinx Phix, People Phix… on opposing corners of a square stand, facing outward. Tails turn toward their human forms. Human forms have Shelly leaning on or sitting on an engine block or bike, and Phix having tea.
Now I have to figure out how to draw that and post it online. Hmmm.
don’t forget the chess squares for the board and example peaces like mon as white queen and jin’s doubt as dark queen lakashim as a bishop bud as castle owen as other bishop officer TB as a knight
It would be quite expensive if it were to scale to the other figurines…
I’d find a way, too!!
Well they could do a half scale… and have both Shelly and Phix, in both forms…that would be awesome I think…
Or have them transform!!
*Phone rings
Shellys dad: Hello?
Shelly: Hi dad i ..uh .. got some bad news.
Shellys dad: its not a giant taatoo, is it?
Shelly: no not that.
Shellys dad: or did you wreck something?
Shelly: no not that, its a bit cpmplex …
She tell him in the form of a riddle.
-Uhm..ohkay riddle me
-Well..uhm Dad..ehh, “what’s big and furry on the rear ,and bad-tempered on the front?
-Hmm.. My Mother-in-Law?
-Eeehh..yeah that too, but not what I mean.
-Uh-Oh.. You got a wolverine as a pet again?
-No ,ehhhrmm.. IAMASPHINX!!!!
-You are wha…. “thudd”….[silence]
-Tsss..You are such a drama-queen, it’s not like I cut my hair again..it’s even long now…sniff.sniff..[softly] and reeks a bit overwhelming to be honest..
“Well, um, you see, Dad … ummm … I … uh … sort of changed … into a … uhhh sphinx.” {last word sort of half-swallowed, muffled}
“Really?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, thank goodness! I thought you were never going to get your full growth!”
Oh, I like!
Nope! He’ll faint. He’s such a drama-queen.
“Oh, thank GOODNESS…for a minute there, I thought you were going to tell me you coming out of the closet!”
“No, Dad, I’m not a lesbian, I’m a sphinx.”
“Hah! Let’s see those Westboro people give you trouble for THAT!”
Seriously LIKE!
Could be worse. Our legends of a type of ogre that hangs out in the mountains near here. Or did, until Grandfather Buffalo headbutted one to the moon. I think the rest left the area soon after. Poppa Wahnee will most likely use her new strength levels for more Mundane tasks.
Nice going, Shelly. Mon’s t-shirt wasn’t completely stretched out of shape already.
They say that smell is one of the strongest devices to recall memories. Once we get Tina calmed we need a cup of Cafe Americano and a pizza…
Well, I hope this is a cure for the nervous feelings and rampant ‘restless leg syndrome’ I’ve had since last Friday. It looks like we’ll have a mix of both Shelly’s to learn to love all over again.
pizza for tina
coffee for bud
what about monica and shelly? 😛
what do sphinx eat…besides demons ^^
For M, her Abuela’s mole, Dr Custard or gourmet pizza.
81000 years with nothing to eat but trees and rocks? She may have become vegan by necessity. :S
OTOH she may be really hungry for some nice, fresh, alive and wriggling demon…
My take? Anything they have a taste for, unless it runs real fast!
If it’s anything like the roasted brick that “Al Capone’s” sold me yesterday, than “pass” on the Pizza-part.. >.<
Sumatra with a depth charge, you mean. 😉
Doh!
yknow
tina could just realise she is late to open the coffee shop…again.
That’s a good point. Her bikini would certainly boost sales for the day too…..”Now sir. That is you 10th latte. Other customers are waiting.”………….
From the crowd….”WE DON”T MIND!”
more i look at it.
that mooooonica sounds more of a whine than an actual terrified yell.
Hmm..yeah.. maybe she had “an accident” and needs clean underwear?? 😛
Nah. Her sphinx-ter would have tighten up out of sheer terror 😀
Oh thanks, DJ, I just snorted my coffee up my nose on that one!!
That one was un-sphinx-able.
:ROTFL:
@Kaiybo- that really sphinx, but at least it was coca-cola on your computer screen, shellinx out for that was a nightmare, cost me a small fortune…
Time to fill the pun jar.
Hey I’ve been dropping dimes, but other people need to start coughing up change too.
😀 True…which is why I’m not fully giving up my idea that Shelly isn’t really a sphinx (just sphinxish) yet.
If Shelly is just sphinxish, wouldn’t that be enough to freak Tina a little? Or what if Tina sees Shelly’s memory of being a sphinx via Shelly’s aura?
We don’t even know who is talking, BTW. AFAIK, it could only be Tina, but characters suddenly appear all the time. Ironically, we had a similar speech bubble off to the side when Phix walked into the coffee shop.
I was thinking it might be Brandi really wanting to go out shopping with Monica, but then I figured Tina would have to have some reaction.
I mean, a blasé reaction like, “Oh, hey guys, Shelly’s a sphinx now. Um, she could, uh, kill me instantly and stuff,” would actually need a lot more explanation. But we’ll see.
Seems unlikely she needs to open the coffee shop. She was prepared for a day at the beach. Since this series of comics began, only a few minutes have passed from their POV.
She just remembered she needs to open the shop.
Being that the shop is several blocks away from the sphinx.
The shop that doesn’t carry swift, certain and eternal death? That’s the one.
Phix did catch up to Nudge in the shop….
Yes. But Shelly is right here, at the moment, and the shop is way over there.
Also, there’s a lot of Wide Open Space between here and there.
Unless that speech balloon belongs to Doubt.
That would be interesting.
And wouldn’t you know it, Tina freaks out, just as predicted xD
yea
about our predictions..
they’re never EVER right..
hat out of rabbit – paul is master of it.
Anyone mind if I borrow the phrase “hat out of a rabbit” for my book? I think Jay-Em or Faunticle has dibs…
Fatuncle got dibs on “hat out of a rabbit” I got dibbs on “Hats ‘r us”
As long as we get a spot in the “notes” 😛
Yep. That’s why I’m asking; I’m keeping a running Thank You list as I write it so I don’t forget anyone.
I failed to give credit. The “hat out of a rabbit” line is from Robert H. Heinlein’s The Number Of The Beast; Hilda speaking to Lazerus Long. I can look it up if you want the exact line, and the context.
Ah. Well, I’ll give you guys credit for pointing it out to me; I think I can find the book from your reference.
I was wrong like Ed Dames on my predictions. At least my my deep seated hope that Shelly is a combo of the two is happening. (didn’t predict it, just sat around with my fingers crossed)
Aw, that trick never works.
To try and increase the accuracy of my predictions, I inhaled some dubious herbage…all I could think was
“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I’m on cloud nine.”
It’s the end of the world as we know it,
and you’ll be the victim of a crime
if you keep doing that too many more times! 😆
ROFLMAO
Touche!
Yup..off-panel Tina.
Not exactly “thudd” but close, giving “feaking-out” a whole new dimension… 😛
*Why* did Shelly warn M so urgently? Could it be… I suspect that in a previous loop (I think we’re till in loop range… how far away is the end, anyway?), M *did* in fact open the relic and die.
could be, we don’t know yet… maybe on Monday the Shellster will give the gang (and us) a complete explanation 😉
At least it’s heartening to see that Shellinx first “real-world” action is to warn her friends.
On the “olfactory” bit: I can imagine that Tina is not only seeing Shelly’s aura, but smelling the stink of sphinx all-over too, triggering her fear tenfold .
Shellinx wasn’t exactly the most well-kempt sphinx, and I didn’t notice a shower oslt around. Contrary to Phix, who leaves the impression of a well-groomed lady.
Oh.. ^^that should be in it’s own comment-box. Well..shit!
you mean shelly is giving the sphinx-effect to tina 😉
Yup, the full whammy..
Whether or not Monica opened the relic
(a) it probably wouldn’t have been loaded
and
(b) there’s no way Shelly would know – she wasn’t there.
Right. From Shelly’s return on, this is all new. It’s never happened before in any of the other cycles.
Still, having watched herself die 50+ times from the process, I think she’d use the mere possibility as a reason to leave it firmly closed. Rather like using an automatic pistol for Russian Roulette–the mere chance it’s loaded would stop me from pulling the trigger.
Maybe Tina’s locked herself in the bathroom…:P
So who’s going to SpringCon this weekend?
I would…..if I could poit. 6680.23km is a bit steep to drive. And what if The Rapture happens? Will I be able to catch a plane back???? Or will I have to fly the damn thing myself?
Hmmm.. If they got a Pilatus close I could nick it, fuel-up in RKV… nah..too complex.
One thing is for sure: If The Rapture does happen, the waiting-lines at MSP will be rather short… 😆
Or the lines could be the same. Well, minus those who have a nervous break-down and actually have to plan their lives like the rest of us, unknowing.
make sure you travel with the airline that insists on having one athiest alongside each christian pilot.
i forget which it is 🙂
The last rapture event, I worked as a bar-back, and had to work that day. All shift long I can remember thinking:
“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I peel limes.”
*cries out in pain*
that joke hurt…
and now that song’s in my head.
Well, I got another one for ya. I almost died laughing:
http://www.raptureassurance.com
Yes.. there is something like “insurance” for rapture. Someone found a nifty way to make money with it.
Aww man, my stomach still hurts from laughing.
I think I am going to start a Sphinx insurance scheme. Free flee collars might one change into a sphinx (I have to start somewhere )
Jay-Em, I thought Rapture Insurance would pay out if you get raptured…
oh lord..
yknow..
i doubt any of these scam websites will be laughing if he DOES show up.
The Coast to Coast AM radio show mentioned a service that, for a fee, would pair you up with a nearby atheist that, in case of the rapture, would care for your pets…
I know, I’m relativly close to it (only a full day’s drive…) but I had plans for this weekend already. Y’all say Hi to Paul for me! 🙂
We’re having a workshop on sacred geometry followed by a happy hour (which I guess could be a Rapture party) on the 21st. Should be a hoot.
In honor of the day, I plan to play Rapture by Blondie in a continuous loop all day…
Well now you see what you wanna be
Just have your party on TV
‘Cause the man from Mars won’t eat up bars when the TV’s on
And now he’s gone back up to space
Where he won’t have a hassle with the human race
And you hip-hop, and you don’t stop
Just blast off, sure shot
‘Cause the man from Mars stopped eatin’ cars and eatin’ bars
And now he only eats guitars, get up!
I understand that since the Rapture is predicted for 12 noon, it will be a national day of morning…
8888888888888888
Sitting here reading all the fine arguments back and forth about Shelly’s condition, all I can think is:
“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and she’s feline.”
which noon tho
noon in england is different to noon in america 😛
Actually that’s a good one. 😆
Paula, you don’t need to worry about that for a few months yet. Those of us left are supposed to undergo 5 months of horrible tribulations, then the world will be destroyed on October 21. But, yes, that was just a joke, anyway.
Actually it’s 6PM. Not only that but the event will respect the worlds time zones. It is supposed to roll across the globe as the sun does, with it happening in each time zone at its particular 6PM. Who knew God respected mans time zone setup.
There are supposed to be earthquakes in some of the places too (at their 6PM), so if people vanishing isn’t enough it will be puncuated by disasters as well. All I can say is happy Rapture day! Be sure to stock up on good stuff for your Rapture party before 6PM.
I wonder if there will be a Times Square countdown and decending ball (world globe?) to mark the occasion? At least they could finally get more than one use out of that thing a year.
yea
i actually got it after i posted.
mourning. morning
was too subtle for me 🙂
6pm?
well..crap. i think that’s when dr who starts?
gonna be alot of annoyed brits in heaven if they get raptured then…
Probably. With any luck, though, there will be NO TV in heaven.
well we survived or something
good-o
now we just need to wait til the next one. 8th november. meteor
*sighs*
still if we all keep thinking the world really is about to end it will stop us putting off things we really want to do.
our lives are short. not 80k years anyway 😉 being reminded of this is a good thing 🙂
I was supposed to be part of a presentation today, and I just went blank when it was my turn to speak…all I could think was “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I forgot my line.”
Well, I don’t know. I went and saw the new Pirates movie last night; my brother dressed up as a pirate (peg leg and all) and I got to wear an ex-parrot on my shoulder. I got three “end of the world” comments from that trip, but the best one was from two different people who had nothing to do with each other. On the left, some kid singing that song; on the right, some guy points at my brother and says to his date, “Look, it’s Captain Bly!”
Five dollars in the pun jar, plink-plonk-plunk
how many of these do you have 😛
Aaaactually, I’ve shown remarkable restraint in how few I’ve posted.
This is why people think I’m shy, I don’t say stuff like this out loud unless I know you pretty well. And the way my mind works, there’s a lot of this crap rattling around in it.
That and threats of physical violence from an unnamed contributor to these comments.
*cough*eschmenk*cough*
{bless you}
Nah..brain-farting is the number one affliction on this board.
We don’t mind. Every now&then there are nice solid pieces in it hat give substance to the discharge.. ehh.. discussion (and crazy pun-threads) So, go on spouting. We all do uninhibited.
(And here I got accused of getting too vivid in my examples when delivering my end-speech..pff I just happen to like anal ogies…eeh..ooops..) 😆
You Just had to ask didn’t you?
Ok, so if each of the other 56 Shellys died, why didn’t Sphinx Shelly pick up the relic they dropped and return home? Why didn’t it happen until now?
And which Shelly put the plutonium in the tree, and when? And why didn’t she die when she did it? Or is that still in the future, because time in tree-land runs backward, meaning this Shelly is still doomed?
We don’t know the back story of how the Shelley’s engineered all the pieces to get the relic together.
Could be that “plutonium delivery” Shelley brought it in some sealed container. Who knows, and that’s a fairly minor point that may not every be discussed at length.
As to your other question, no, time is stable, and the itterations went from this Shelley backwards through each previous one.
There is no “forward” to time with regards to the relic other than this moment we see here and all after. Until our Shelley went back, was the Sphinx guardian, and saw the relic wholly assembled, things couldn’t progress with the next stage of fixing Jin.
Speaking of which, anyone have any thoughts as to why they need a plutonium powered artifact to fix Jin? One that can hold a sword blade? Interesting.
Yes, but she apparently saw the relic wholly reassembled 56 times. And I hardly think the questions of when she placed the plutonium in the tree and how she handled the unshielded plutonium core are minor points!!! They may be something Paul will or will not reveal eventually, but they’re hardly insignificant issues.
I don’t think she watched the exact same process 56 times. I still think that the relic as it is now was assembled over 56 visits. I may not be able to explain how that would work if the relic was found by the girls on Earth an flowing in regular time, but it’s the only thing that makes sense to me right now.
Besides, I can barely explain what’s going on right now, so my inability to explain how that would work shouldn’t count against my theory. 😛
Another mind bender. that would imply that the relic can get you into the tree realm, but not out, until some things are done. And Shelly had to figure out those steps AFTER she figured out that time was opposite earth time. Man, that DOES sound like hell.
But at least this starts to explain what happened to all the other version o f the relic, including the one Shelly took with her as #57…sorta…
Well… There are 2 possibilities to your last question that I can fathom. 1) Lanthians are perverts… (draw your own conclusions from that.) 2) It’s the only thing powerful enough to give Jin a labotomy.
This one stayed in my head from the time I read it.
Now what would you do with a super-plutonium powered Lanthan relic and a golem that needs to be plugged into a vast power source?
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/plug-you-in/
That’s why Monica decided that they needed to find it in the first place.
Where do you plug it in?
*cough* Definitely perverts…
I’m going to continue to pretend that Toch has a hatch like Bud.
The storage kind, not the swimsuit kind…
@Jabberwonky: I took me a a day to remember the hatch you are talking about. 🙄
Anyway, Jin has a hole in her center according to Tina, although it is probably occupied by Crispy. That’s kind of the same thing, isn’t it?
You want to give a super-plutonium powerd Lanthan sex toy to crispy?
Who’s the crazy man in this conversation?
Oh come on, 3PO, you have to know by now anything you say is “doomed” is sure to live a long and happy life… 😉
“And which Shelly put the plutonium in the tree, and when? And why didn’t she die when she did it? ”
It was probably one of the middle Shellys and she probably did die. On Earth, time kept being reset back 1450 years, so another Shelly would eventually be born.
I think we’re looking at an open time loop. I suspect that Shelly they are going to do something that would turn Shelly into a sphinx. This is how I see it:
Our Shelly, let’s call her Shelly(56), touched the object and saw time going backwards (with her as a sphinx) until she was able to persuade Shelly(1) to remove the core of the object and put it into the relic so that it was charged up. Shelly(1) would die in the process but it means that Shelly(56) has a fully charged relic.
Operating blind it would be logical to try and use a Lanthian power source in the handling of the Calendar Machine so that is why, in the first few times, they tried using the Relic.
I suspect that the team will find that, in order to save Jin, they have to turn Shelly into a sphinx. When they do that, and anything else they need to do, they will have a relic with a dead battery. Therefore they have to use it so it can charge itself over 56 cycles or so.
Ps.
Shelly did have something to eat — the Shellys that didn’t make it.
It would be terribly frustrating for her because, as time progresses for her (remember it’s progressing backwards) the Shelly’s would seem thicker and thicker (as Shelly(2), Shelly(3), etc) would have a few hints from Jin to help them. Admittedly it won’t be much…
Errk! Ugh!
If cannibals are those willing to eat their own species, what is a person willing to eat herself?
Not that I really want to know.
(Besides, 56 bodies to eat in 81k years? There better be some severe time compression, or Shellinx will starve to death anyway.)
I think sphinx’s are immortal so they can’t starve so she may not have needed to eat.
That doesn’t mean that she didn’t get hungry.
A porn star?
Worse: being part cat, she’s very likely flexible enough to pull it off.
It would have been less than 56 bodies because, in the later cycles, they would come to realise that they didn’t need the Relic to stop the Calendar Machine cycling. It wasn’t part of Jin’s or Brandi’s cumulative notes so it seems that they stopped looking to the Relic as an aid to the mission they had then.
In the previous cycles, Jin would be relatively normal because it was “fixing” the Calendar Machine that put her in the state she is in now.
If I were to guess, and this is just a guess, I would say that Shelly would have had access to about 30 Shelly bodies.
But that just makes my point even stronger: in 81,000-odd years, 56 bodies, much less only 30, will not be enough, even if she’s peckish only once every century.
Current speculation, due to Shellinx’s greater learning, her greater maturity and lack of excessive insanity (from social deprivation over 81 millennia), is leaning towards Shelly having had other visitors.
Who may or may not have brought food, or been eaten.
So we still don’t really know.
Luckily for Tina, there is a super-powered golem near-by that could still fold-up Shellinx like a napkin, might she go feral.
Shellinx is no longer in her realm (the only place where sphinxes are invulnerable), so a whupping by a golem is a distinct possibility.
On that note: I suddenly got a great gag-reel in my head, where Shellinx goes all teeth&claws, tries to pounce Tina, is stopped in mid-air, goes “GACK”, flops to the ground, looks behind her, and sees Bud casually holding Shellinx’ tail, going “bad doggie”. Hehehe 😀
Bad kitty, perhaps?
^^that too
That is a possiblity. Bud wouldn’t hesitate. 🙂
As much as people think she will now strongly relate to what Jin has been through, I think Shelly will need Phix – who is the only other one to have experienced anywhere near that level of solitude.
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/go-well/
Yup, I think that’s the general consensus around here. Only difference with Phix is that she has actually killed quite a few people . As others pointed out to me, that’s in no way sure with Shellinx.
“I’m an executioner.” And then she proceeded to lead Shelly Alpha to her death.
It’s killing, and she is fresh off one.
I was more thinking in the lines off: “RAAWWWRRR RAWWWRR!! Slice! Swipe! Slice! Glugg!Glugg! {blood squirting} AAAARGGGggglll.l.l.l… x.x
WRONG ANSWER!!!
{licking blood off claws}
that sort of killing. Not :”Here You go ,a strongly irradiated piece of oopart. Oh by the by, it will kill you about..3..2..1.. now.. Sorry about that {snif}”
Yamara- I think she said that to keep Alpha Shelly from realizing the similarities in their features…
Shelly Alpha: This? I put this here?
Shelly Omega: You need to drink that. Unscrew the top and pour it all down.
Shelly Alpha: (drinks it, then…) That’s it? That almost seems too easy. What was that almond-flavored drink I put in the tree?
Shelly Omega: Cyanide.
…
It’s murder. Since sphinxes have law, it’s an “execution”. But it’s still manifestly unjust.
Shelly Omega is an adult now.
“That is a possiblity. Bud wouldn’t hesitate.”
Well, there was a time when she would have. 😉
That strip reminds me – Phix definitely must have learnt her English from British soldiers while taking holidays in Egypt.
Masterpiece Theater. The library gets PBS.
Actually, she could have gotten it from reading books. We don’t know if she has the accent right.
…or India.
Probably not canonical, but whenever I reread the series, I hear Aishwarya Rai’s voice for Phix. An unexplained Indian accent would turns this moment into a connected-dots-reveal:
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/not-the-violent-type/
not necessarly
remember she did guard the library
but she let Tepoz Brandi Bud Jin Monica Shelly Katherine all use it so its possible she would have let others use it in the past 🙂
@yamara
Paul said he thinks of Alex Kingston when he draws her.
Of course, this is an example of that “solitude”. 🙄
Monica and company has yet to notice that Shelly’s hair is different.
They probably noticed, but it’s not on the top ten most relevant conversation starters list. i.e.:
*Shelly goes mildly catatonic
*The gang sits her down with a blanket
*Shelly folds M’s girderwear in half
*Shelly says “Don’t open the relic, the radiation will kill you!”
*M stares into Shelly’s eyes and says, “Your hair grew by two feet! What happened?”
…unlikely, eh?
TOTALLY in character. Crazy funny topic-jumps are Paul’s trademark. (remember Jin&Angry Brandi, and Brandi’s sudden change in demeanor when Jin offered a Coffee-eclaire??)
A trademark that especially the trolls at bad-webcomicswiki -ptuii!- couldn’t grasp with their ant-sized brains.
I disagree.
Look where Monica’s eyes are looking in the very first panel of Shelly’s return.
She’s not looking down, she’s looking up.
Sheik, everything and everyone in the whole freaking world is taller than Monica. She doesn’t have any choice but to look up!
This is the sound I was looking for…
I always thought Shelly had a very interesting past… aside from Monica, the only other central character who was mortal and yet somehow touched by the other side. More to her than met the eye, there was.
That said, thecollector expressed the first thing that came to my mind; the lives of Shelly’s dad and the pretty police boy are about to get a lot more interesting.
And now Tina has something else to worry about… 😀
maybe she could start specializing in the maintenance and repair of Jaguars…
[/rimshot]
“This is the sound I was looking for…”
I just realized that there is something wrong with that expression. (Well, no wonder he couldn’t find it. 😉 )
yea
it normally is
this isn’t the sound i was looking for.
submit sound for droids and you have it 😉
Buzz, beep, buzz?
I realize I may lose any credit I managed to have here, but…why is that important?
That’s a good question, actually. I assumed that he wrote somewhere that he was looking for a sound file and explained why, but I’ve gone through the last few days of comments and can’t find anything like that. Maybe he’s been looking for a long time.
If I had to guess, I suspect that the sound was either supposed to be the sounds that Shelly was making yesterday or he was making as he tried to figure out what was going on in Sacred Forest Land.
I know I’m much too late to the party, but I guess he was going for something like this…
😯 Yep, it would probably be something like that. 😆
And Shelly starts to reboot, Tina to freak, and Monica and Bud to realize something is really different, here…
Yeah, they’re definately going to have to bring Justin on board now. When your girlfriend leaves for a day at the beach and comes back with memory problems, big hands, hair two feet longer than that morning, and perhaps the ability to become a Sphinx, that KIND OF requires an explaination.
An important thing to remember is that this is a Shelly from a different cycle. Things could’ve been very different in this one’s past. She may not have had a boyfriend named Justin, or a boyfriend at all, or anything. Her mother might have been alive, and her father dead. There could be a whole lot of adjustments being made in short order.
Nope, this is the same Shelly that was there earlier. 🙂
Ah, I pleasantly stand corrected.
“Mem-riiieees light the corners of my mind…………..”, ala Barbra Striesand in ‘The Way We Were’.
Let’s see if I can make this work…
‘Mem-riiieees’ = “Miiiid-niiiiight and all the kitties are sleeee-peeeng’ = ‘Cats: the Musical’ = ‘Sphinxes: the Musical’…
Hmmmm…(rubs chin thoughtfully)
The nickname “Moooonica” doesn’t sound like Tina freaking out to me. I’m going to go against the group here and guess that’s not Tina in the background. Instead, I think it’s yet another of the group, showing up a bit late with a hankering to go somewhere.
ooh maybe katherine?
Katherine’s not there. I was thinking what you’re thinking: “Oh yeah, Katherine’s having a Hypochondriacal break and is freaking out a the word RADIATION!” But Katherine doesn’t seem to have been invited to the beach. Unless she was and she *just* *now* showed up.
yup
like ross said 😛
was sumerising with a new peep being introduced. would make sence for amanda and katherine to be invited since they like them and they seem to ALL be going 🙂
Ain’t done one in a while and the muse was on me today…
(apologizes to Al Stewart)
In the Grove of the Cat
On a morning like every other,
In a copse where they record time,
You go stalking lonely through the sacred trees,
Like a lioness in her prime,
She comes out of the past just like the last,
With a feeling that something’s wrong,
But don’t bother her with explanations,
She won’t be here that long,
In the grove of the cat.
She always asks the wrong questions,
Her head’s never been in the zone,
Given the detailed directions,
She pulls the sword from the stone,
One courageous stroke fells the great oak,
And she picks up the poison key,
With a tear in your eye you have to tell her,
We’re one and the same but there’s no we,
In the grove of the cat.
She lies still and you stay with her,
‘Til her breath and heartbeat are gone,
You give them no choice you’re cursed with it
So you’re fated to stay on,
You make the claim to their sad remains,
There’s so many of them like water pouring from a well,
You pray that some day you’ll get to leave here,
But for now you’re trapped in this hell,
In the grove of the cat.
WOW. teared me up. for real. Awesome
seriously…. tears now….
Dude, that’s the highest praise I’ve ever got for my odd mental wanderings.
Thank you.
*clap*clap*clap …
!!!!!!!Standing ovation, stomps on floor and whistles!!!!!!!!!!!! Would love to hear that with the music.
…Peter Lorre… contemplating a crime…
M… M…? M!
MONICA!
And very moving lyrics, Jabber. Bravo.
Here’s Al Stewart singing it. But he’s kind of a stickler for using HIS lyrics…
Gurk! Gurk! Gurk! Gurk!
http://youtu.be/OnQzuTcGXko
Like the color scheme on your avatar. Looks like a well-preserved renaissance painting or frescoe…
Well, she is very well preserved for an 81,000 year old…
im the only one who thinks it looks like a orgy?
LOL after seeing it as an avatar, I’ve meant to go clean the hands out of it, but haven’t gotten to it yet.
I did do a quickie wallpaper today, 1440×900…
http://img38.imageshack.us/i/groveofthecat01.png/
very nice 🙂
what’s the font in the text?
The font is Mondo Beyondo, I can look up where I got it, but it’ll take a bit. (Just got in and I’m the wrong kind of funky tonight)
Here’s the wallpaper I was wanting to make yesterday…
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/5527/sofragileheartbeatwtrcl.png
Excellent Jabberwonky, that’s a keeper.
Thanks SoWhyMe, it’s the wings that took time to get right.
@Paula:
Here’s the addy for Mondo Beyondo. It’s a cool site.
http://www.1001freefonts.com/MondoBeyondo.php
Oh man, that’s really something else. Huge respect.
i like this
but as a poem
not a song 🙂
Wonderful. Absolutely great stuff.
That was very good. I like how your strange mind works!
Cue Phix, entrance, stage-right.
I was kinda hoping that was the first thing she would say, I was worried of a catastrophe otherwise.
I was hoping for:
Shelly: Who…who are you people?
Monica: Oh, Shelly honey…(looks of shock and sadness from all)
Shelly: Gawd! You guys are SO easy! (pointing and laughing)
“How do you do?
I am a Tachicoma.”
6:25 am Justin’s kitchen, Justin is there, dressed for work, steaming cup of joe in his hand.
Enter Shelly, hair disheveled, wearing loose tank top and boxers.
Justin: Good morning, hun. How are you feeling? Whatever happened at the beach yesterday left you in some kind of mood.
Shelly: Caffine…(reaches for Justin’s cup)…SPIDER! (leaps into Justin’s arms, defensively transforming into full sphinx mode)
Shellynx: (looking at the pair of legs sticking out from under her large furry butt) Um, babe, we need to talk….
😆 😆
Good one! ROFL!
“E-mare-gen-sie, efery body to get frrom strreet.”
Please tell me y’all know where that’s from… 😉
.
.
.
A movie. “The Russians Are Coming.” Which despite much effort, has yet to be booted from my personal top ten list.
A good movie that for whatever reason I was just thinking about yesterday. It’s good to know I’m not the only one who’s seen it.
I don’t think it’s Tina at all, I think it’s Shelly’s voice from the relic, trying to get her to open it.
Oooh interesting thought….very interesting…
I doubt it, but that’s definitely thinking outside the box, err, relic.
It’s honestly the first thing I thought. I don’t feel we have enough data yet on the intentions or origins of the relic (we know shelly took it apart and put it there at some point..but where are the pieces from? ) to assume it “harmless” now that it’s in its full form. I’m going with more dangerous personally 🙂
If you’re right it would present Monica with a difficult choice. Does she believe the Shelly voice coming from the relic or does she believe the Shelly grabbing her by the shirt and telling her not to open it. Did the Shelly sitting in the chair trap the real Shelly in the relic? Monica would have no way of knowing, but, given the way chair Shelly is acting, she could believe Relic Shelly. I suppose the only way out would be to get Bud to open it. If the chain insulates the Bud from the relic, I would suppose she could put the relic in a vise and wrap some of the chain around the top and use it to unscrew it.
The relic has somesort of a small window in it. Maybe Monday we see a tiny Shelly slamming that window from inside in desperation.
Nah.. I still feel it’s Tina in total-sphinx-panic-mode.
But then again ,I’ve always been wrong…. 😛
To date I’ve never been right! And that is one of the joys of this work.
I mostly think it’s Tina offscreen, but when has Tina addressed Monica as “Monica”? I recall it as always being “Sunshine”. Perhaps someone with a better memory or more time to peruse the archives can correct me.
I can’t find the comment I was looking this up for, but her features aren’t that much more pronounced than before….
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/what-are-you/
her eyes and lips are noticeably different though…
Many thoughts here. Tina freaking and verbalizing it is probably a freak out by committee. They’re all in a panic and one of them decided to tell Monica, thus giving herself away.
Big thoughts on Creepy Girl. If she WAS with Shelly, is she now Sphink like too? Is this what Tina is seeing? Was she eaten by Shelly once she obtained Spinx status? Where is she now if she didn’t go with Shelly?
If it’s the end of the world as we know it, I feel fine. Someone on facebook made a group that’s going to take older sets of shoes and place dry ice in them on random sidewalks…
The reality of the relic is as simple as a phone connection. It is one relic and is simply put in the same place it started each time. The other end always connected into tree land and running but the starting end of things keeps hanging up. Now that Shelly is back, the phone line is probably cut off on an 81,000 year call. Hope they had unlimited minutes on that calling plan.
I LOVE the shoe gag…
The Shoe-gag had me LOL-ling bad.. 😆 😆 A friend of mine posted an ad on craigslist for believers to donate all they have to a specific good cause.
Ad got removed again&again….sore losers! Got me giggling too.
ya’ know… thinking about it, i think that Tina isn’t freaking out because of the Shinxiness of the new Shelly, but the realization of what she just said to Monica, namely that the radiation WILL KILL YOU!… and unlike a “normal” demon who will just get reset, Tina’s demons will cease to exist, and she REALLY doesn’t want that to happen!… THAT’s why she needs/wants to get out of there. now for the question: has the relic been opened, or not? and if it has been opened, then who did it?
Orrr..the relic is hovering menacingly above Tina, like an evil aura, glowing and crackling…
Until tomorrow 7:00 on my side of the pond, everything goes.. :p
Shelly’s conscience is the only demon that claims a life span. Even Tina is only not sure of what may happen. Here’s a strip where she’s talking to Kittie and pondering why it hurt when she broke her wrist.
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/a-comforting-thought/
And the next one.
Also: Evidence of Belly Pudge Syndrome.
CG didn’t change as shell aged so why change for the sphinx shift? also has mon ever seen CG before or was that her introduction when mon grabbed the relic (and if you look at the date I post this guess if paul ever clears that up).
We got us a being changed in several significant ways here besides the psychic. Shellynx has a Mayan nose and a significant overbite that Shelly never had.
It’s more likely variations in drawing. Like here: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/just-clean-up/ Shelly’s nose is more rounded with an overbite, and sphinx shelly is very different. Then in this one http://wapsisquare.com/comic/done-here/ Dying alternate shelly’s nose is very like Sphinx Shelly’s is today.
It’s basically Shelly with a few years added (notice the bags under her eyes?) It could also be that her own “young” face slowly fades back in while the Shellinx-character dissipates.
Anyone notice how Jin got younger&younger after destruction of the CM? I think the same goes for Shelly ,she’s slowly, but surely, reverting back to the way she looked before the 81000-year banishment.
The “Magic” part of her existence slowly evaporates.
If that makes any sense……. 😕 😕 😕
I don’t agree with your interpretation of Jin. To me, Jin acted very young when Maya first showed up, but is acting in an age appropriate way in this sequence. I think it varies, depending on how well she is doing at the time.
I also think that a lot if it has to do with the amount of responsibility Jin has. Everyone apparently thinks that she can’t help much with what’s going on now, but she had the responsibility for keeping things running smoothly while the calendar machine was broken. The difference in what’s expected of her would make a difference in her behavior, even if nothing was wrong with her.
At the moment Jin does NOT have the responsibility to keep things running smoothly. She’s off the hook since the CM got a bout of super acceleration towards the sun. New ,fresh timeline, no more spiralling. Remember?
A different responsibility, the responsibilitry to “fix” Jin now lies with the rest of the clowncar. i.e. they have taken it upon them to fix her.
That was what I was trying to say, but I didn’t do it very well. I meant that some of her seeming younger may be due to her having less responsibility and relaxing more now.
I am very very curious whether or not this truly IS Shelly. I am a bit confused at this causality time-loop. If I read it right, the Sphinx was a future Shelly who waited as a human and became a sphinx over time? O_o
Not a future Shelly. But current Shelly. The one who’s been a main character. And that is the real Shelly. She’s just been through a lot.
For some reason, one of the things that jumped out at me most in the last panel, was how much of a pot belly Monica has now.
I did notice it, but i wasn’t going to say anything since I just chalked it up as a small error….
I doubt that it’s an error. We’ve seen it before.
also true, maybe she should start cycling more….
Nahh! It’s because M was pulled forward and then up, so her lower back is bent. That causes her abdomen to also bend out making her look slightly pot-bellied.
But… http://wapsisquare.com/comic/very-important/
Well, this probably isn’t quite as big, but it’s still there.
…and she’s pretty bloated here.
Later in the same day of the first link, it’s super flat again. I call variations. The other was a graphical representation of the fact that she just ate the food supply of 2 small countries. The next time you see her she’s tiny again. Part of her character is that she can eat tons of food and not gain any weight.
I agree that it’s mostly variation, but part of Monica’s character is that she is adverse to exercise and therefore isn’t in great shape. I remember, but can’t find, a series about Kevin trying to get her to get some exercise, but that didn’t work very well. Despite what Opus the Poet said above, Monica’s doctor said that she needed the exercise. IIRC, her cholesterol number, in particular, was a problem.
“DO. NOT. SEEK. THE TRAYSURE!! 😛
Wait, so the radiation won’t kill her, it will just turn her into a horney toad or beat her up with a phony Bible salesman? 😉
If she felt so bad about the last Shelly dying and the radiation won’t kill her as a sphinx then why didn’t Shelly-sphinx fetch the plutonium after human Shelly cut the tree?
I guess because the moment Shellinx would touch the relic, she would have instantly plopped back in the real world, without the plutonionomumthingemajig in the oopart.
Fracking everything up again ❓
Oh, and if the shielding of that super-duper plutonium wasn’t there without the oopart, Shelly would have started dying the moment the entered the radiation-saturated realm of Shellinx anyways.
“Life sucks, an’ then Ya’ die”
Ugh! suddenly realized that makes no sense. If the oopart would transport Shelly in -and out ,she would have not stayed there.
*covers ears, crouches and starts softly rocking*
I don’t wanna know, I dont wanna think about it, I don’d wanna ponder ANYTHING of that whole time-crap… I am seriously tired of it. I’ll just let the story flow, and when the book is at LuLu, I’ll buy it, and then, and only then will it make any bloody sense. 😥 😥
*passes muffin to jay-em* there there. the cake will help.
I can understand your wanting to put it out of your mind. In that light, you might want to cover your eyes as you read this.
It could simply be that sphinx-Shelly was trying to save human Shelly from thousands of years of being trapped there as she was. Better to die than suffer that fate. Plus, Human Shelly was going to be reset anyway. This could be because a given relic is only good for a one way trip for a particular user. One way there, or one way back. A different user can go the other way. So human Shelly had no chance of returning, but sphinx Shelly did. Also, I don’t think even that aspect of it would have worked for sphinx Shelly before this no matter what. All the Shelly’s had to come through before it would work for her period. It’s also posible the relic had to be charged with the plutonium as well before a return trip was possible for anyone and it took that long to fully charge.
It looks like Jay-Em jumped from denial to depression, although there is some anger mixed in there. Acceptance should be the next step, though, assuming he doesn’t revert.
In a way it’s too bad. If he had somehow come up with something that made sense, we could have assigned him to explain why the voice in the library didn’t say anything to Phix for so many years, or why Phix claimed that she was trapped in the library, despite being able to leave to flirt (and probably more) with Monica’s boss when she finally decided to do that.
The poor guy is horribly depressed and you lie to him?
I’ve been spending the better part of today going over the whole Shelly\Shellynx thing and all I can say is: (wait for it)
“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I don’t get this time-line.”
@fairportfan
muffins work…
cept..i had a chocolate chip muffin which didn’t.
maybe its only banana and double chocolate chips one which work?
oooh..not actual Lying. I just had 2 chocolate-muffins with chocolate-chunks of amazing size….
Had to do sumptin’ to quench my sudden depressing thoughts about my mental incapacity to follow all this time-hoohah….
Sat on a piece of chocolate too.. 😳 how the hell am I gonna get that out of the tweed cover of my seat???? Tips are welcome.. (on a side-note, my sand-coloured cargo’s have a dubious brown spot too…no wonder people looked a bit strange at me.. 😆 ) Amazing what piece of realestate can be covered with just a cubic cm of dark chocolate..
@eschmenk:
Ya know I tend to think Nudge staged that voice. If you look at her as she looks up at Phix, Nudge has that “is she buying this?” expression. http://wapsisquare.com/comic/go-well/
That would be hysterical if that were true! 😀
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that’s the case on the previous page (bottom panel). :huh:
Regarding sitting-on-chocolate stories: Arthur Fiedler once, with great enthusiasm, told the story of a Boston Pops Fourth of July concert. Outdoors in like ninety(F)-degree weather.
The orchestra members were wearing white pants, and had folding metal chairs.
During intermission, a nice old lady came up, and, without anyone’s noticing, an placed a gift for each member on their chairs – a piece of unwrapped chocolate.
Ninety degrees, metal chairs, white pants, remember?
The interviewer to whom Fiedler told this story siad “I bet it wasn’t as funny then as it is now, telling it.”
“On the contrary,” Fiedler said. “Conductors do not sit down.”
Which story, as often, stimulated a chain of association in my mind, which led me to hunt around for this story they tell about Toscanini. One day his orchestra was doing horribly during a rehearsal.
Toscanini finally stopped in mid-scream, then said very quietly “When I die I’m coming back as the doorman of a whorehouse and I shan’t let any of you in.”
@jay-em
First you need to blot the fabric with a wet towel, blotting from the out side of the stain in. Remove as mush of the surface stain as possible. Then you can use a solution of very mild upholstery cleaner and watter an dab it from the outside of the stain in again. This should remove the stain. If it is still not gone, you may want to seek professional help.
from yahoo answers
Jay-Em
May 21, 2011 at 3:24 pm | #
[…]Sat on a piece of chocolate too.. how the hell am I gonna get that out of the tweed cover of my seat???? Tips are welcome.. (on a side-note, my sand-coloured cargo’s have a dubious brown spot too…no wonder people looked a bit strange at me.. ) Amazing what piece of realestate can be covered with just a cubic cm of dark chocolate..
First off, you want some ice or an ice pack, wrapped in a towel or washcloth. You want the chocolate cold but not wet. When the chocolate is good and solidified, use a butter knife to remove the large bits. Baking soda and a damp toothbrush should get the last bits. Takes some doing but you don’t have to pay for it.
My mom suggests a warm iron on top of a paper towel to soak up melted chocolate, but I’m not sure how well that would work… (it didn’t work on my car–I didn’t have a long enough extension cord to try it.)
At everybody: Thanks. The ice cubes, a bit of dilligent scrubbing with a toothbrush with a mild washing-powder combined with blotting-paper and an iron DID IT!!
Next-time I’ll only buy furniture in chocolate-brownie-clour. .. No-More nice light-grey, being as clumsy and messy as I am… 😀
Since we don’t know the range, it might not have made a difference if it was Shelly or the Sphinx Shelly who pulled it out. That Shelly was probably already dead as soon as she cut open the tree, even if she didn’t pick it up.
When Shelly Sphinx arrived, she came with the relic, but obviously grabbing it again did her no good. (she said she couldn’t go back and she couldn’t be hurt or killed). There could be multiple relics laying around. From those that died, while others that survived returned via their relic. (We know at least one survived because Sphinx Shelly said that a previous visiting Shelly buried the relic in the sacred graveyard.) Or the relic could return to normal time on its own with the loop started again (It just wouldn’t work for Shelly Sphinx). She figured touching the relic would work this time because that was the last.
…sigh…
Well, I knew it was “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou”…. The rest of you are now required to watch that movie.
I’m hoping whoever that is freaking out is in fact Tina, and that she’s doing so because she now sees Shelly’s sphinx aura and not because she might have gotten the relic from Bud and maybe kind of peeked or or other ‘not a good idea’ thing before Shelly could warn them.
Orr..ended-up behind that tiny window in the oopart herself.. Curiosity killed the cat..ehrm..Demon 😆