I slip up sometimes on what’s been said in-canon and what’s been mentioned in commentary or ancillary updates, so if you are unsure why Selkie is coughing, it’s not a “drying out” affecting her. Her gills secrete an oxygen-transfering mucus when out of water to allow breathing, which builds up over time when out of water (which is pretty much all the time for Selkie). The mucus needs to be flushed with fresh water when it builds up too much, and things like cold dry air and rapid breathing from activity accelerate the mucus build up.
In other words, racing to the car in a blizzard was not a great idea.
The spelling of Selkie's cuss words have been modified to accommodate mucusy gill-speech. "Nezzui Joh'de" translates politely to "Unlucky Poop". Selkie's using it as an exclamation but it's actually a moderate insult. "Kransa bi Cholek" and "Baalu" are much worse and she really shouldn't be saying them at all.
hahaha Todd has gotten smart on her “cussing”.
One of the things I love about this comic. Most artists go, “Hey, this is a fish-person, let’s ignore any real level of detail about it.” You however explore all the realistic aspects and implications of a humanoid fish-person. *thumbs up*
Anyone else notice how her backpack is leaning over backwards to see what is happening in the front seat because it is worried and sympathetic about Selkie?
Maybe Selkie should flush her gills every morning before going out in the winter – start with them as clear as possible. Also before leaving school to go outside, but she might feel that is asking for trouble.
She does flush. Morning – pee, brush fangs, flush gills, have breakfast.
https://selkiecomic.com/selkie134/
Poor Selkie, she can’t even get away with using foreign language to insult. I use to do that. Then my mom caught on I was using it to be defiant. 😛
When I was a kid secret cuss words was basically the whole reason to learn a new language lol.
When I was a teenager “feldercarb” was the secret cuss word of the day.
Uh-oh. Dad catches you cussing in your native tongue.
Solution?
Cuss in HIS language! XD
Also, I’m lovin’ the snow effect in these last few panels.
BTW I’m with Selkie in the 3rd panel: Who cares about math?
………-looks mad at a math sheet-……..my mortal enemy….
Great, now she’ll have to learn how to cuss in German to maintain the illusion…
This is a general audiences strip, I cannot believe you showed her saying “Kransha Bi Scholek” in the strip, that’s like half way to X-Rated, in my house! No desserts for you, young man, until Friday night for that! Such language! /:–)
But but but… what about my sundaes? I always draw the comic while eating three-layer peanut butter/chocholate sundaes… it’s what gets me through the coloring phase.
Dave, have you thought about building Selkie’s language as a conlang? It might be difficult but it’s kinda fun IMO
I’m not clear on what a conlang is compared to what I am doing now (devising words and grammer rules etc.)
Conlang is making a working language than just making up words. Its devising an alphabet (or a equiv of one) and complex rules. I am not sure if I’ve seen any consistent grammar in the strips. You should look up Marc Okrand, he is the one that invented Klingon and Atlantian.
🙂
Ah, one of my other hobbies:) No, not reading Klingon… Inventing languages, with at least a working alphabet if not grammar and of course how one would write it in its native form! Weeee!
If you’re really interested, one of my favorite writers has a workbook for making up languages and having them work. (Yes it works, I do this stuff in my free time too!)
Hello, I’ve finally worked up the courage to tell you I love your comic. I’ve loved seeing you art improve, and how fleshed out all of the characters are. I especially love Selkie, she’s just so relatable! Thank you for sharing this story with us. It’s been a joy to read.
Glad to have ya aboard. 😀
Ok, so I’m not called a troll for voicing my opinion I’ll go into detail this time. I love this comic because the artist has good ideas in characters, world building, etc; he just doesn’t do a good job sharing them. It feels rushed. There are several examples of this but for the latest ones: the FBI guy could have been introduced better. He could have left a mystery and hinted on it or built up to it better than just a slip of words and poof he’s there. It felt like he was so excited to share that he didn’t plan it out. That excitement to share is great but it’s a bit out of hand if you rely on the comments to explain what’s actually happening.
There are also many times where he has to make a comment (either in the notes, transcript, or the text posted with the comic page) to even explain what’s going on. This thing with Selkie’s gills is a perfect example. If he showed it in the story it could have been a way to get to know her biology better as a story vs random facts that people will only know if they read the comments. It feels more like a book with a few photos with all of the notes you have to read to get the whole story; that’s not right. Things like the hand warmers were done well, it’s clear that Dave doesn’t always do this, but it’s still very common.
Now it’s not my comic or anything and I don’t believe he should change just because I said these things or anything, but I do look forward to seeing how the comic grows as Dave gains experience. This is more of a request from a fan than advice from some critic: please slow down and let us enjoy it. We know you’re excited to have an audiance for all of the ideas you have, but if you focus on just the ideas it’s going to take away from the story itself. If we have to read comments to understand what’s going on then we’re not allowed to get as deep into the comic because it lets us know we can’t trust you to tell the whole story clearly. If we don’t read the descriptions/transcript/comments we don’t always know what’s going on and that’s just not right.
I didn’t want to go into details of why I feel like the comic is rushed but if I don’t people seem to toss out my opinion as if the only reason I said it was to hurt Dave, but there you go.
I’m not sure if the troll comments are directed at me or not, but I don’t believe I’ve called anyone here a troll. But as for your observations about Agent Brown and the gills, I’d like to point out in my own defense that Agent Brown was discretely foreshadowed earlier in the comic. He’s visible in a semi-flashback here. His presence was planned, just not overtly. And Selkie’s need to gill-flush was shown and stated in-story way back near the beginning, albiet the exact details of WHY she needs to flush her gills is, I concede, a bit of an “ancillary information” problem.
That being said, I find your criticism that I jump the gun on sharing information, however, insightful and valid, as is your view on my relying on ancillary notations to provide background information. I started handling information that wasn’t plot-critical, like some of Selkie’s biological information, in ancillary notations because I didn’t want to bog down an already slow-paced story with walls of text that relay what amounts to trivia. Think of it as footnotes which explain information to the readers without having to force the characters to speak huge amounts of exposition.
I’ll agree that there are a lot of areas of the story that I may have jumped the gun on sharing too early. The only defense I can offer for those is that it felt like a good idea at the time. But if I could go back and change my decision to reveal a few key points when I did, I would probably choose to tuck them away for later.
I, personally, feel like one of the comic’s biggest problems right now is that the readers know a lot more information than the main characters. And a lot of that comes from things like what you’ve pointed out, where events either aren’t foreshadowed strongly enough or are mentioned in-story but not fully explained, or just plain had guns jumped.