A lot more people remembered the “Nei Li” name-drop than I expected. 🙂
I got some really lovely fanarts from Datawog to share today! Four watercolor paintings. 😀
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Thanks so much, Datawog!
I considered doing a close-up of Selkie's open gills, but it's not really necessary to see her gooey irritated membranes when I could use the panel space for story-pertinent stuff.
I’ve been thinking, which is usually dangerous, but here goes.
If they had good ol’ Dr. Pohl on board, all this time, and he knew her from way back when she was a minnow, then they should have known her species was carnivorous, and not kept feeding her peas and beans and crackers and making her puke purple.
I don’t think Dr. Pohl knew her before this. That was Agent Brown talking.
Ah right! That makes more sense.
I read it as the docter talking the first time.
That was a major cheap shot, Brown! Just because the little girl doesn’t want to be “seen” by someone that isn’t a doctor. Very, very low blow. Sometimes Agent Jerkhead seems like he honestly cares, but most of the time he seems like he’s just off on his own little power trip.
Big fish in a really small pond, as it were.
Also, amazing watercolors! I wish I were that talented!
In a flashback scene mentioned below, traditional clothing of their species has the sides exposed. Despite Selkie being raised as a human, and Agent Brown being a human, he’s probably not used to people having nudity taboos about gills, or rather quite the opposite. Given his reaction, I wouldn’t be surprised if most of Selkie’s people who aren’t around humans as much have trouble remembering how sensitive humans can be to exposed torsos, and that’s the attitude Agent Brown expected Selkie to have.
Also, since the archives are down I can’t check but was that linked Nei Li reveal before or after the trip down memory lane where Selkie comes onto land with her mother? Doesn’t her mother name her as Nei Li? I can’t remember.
OOOO! They come out of the water near a house… Agent Brown’s house, perhaps? (Although I still think he’s a jerkface. That really was a cheap shot.)
It sounds like you are thinking of a mixture of this strip and the bonus story from the ebook/print collection.
I’m guessing Nei Li IS her actual name. Since it’s agent Brown who says “You’re as willful as ever Nei Li”.
I HAVE A STRONG URGE TO REDRAW THIS PAGE AND I DON’T HAVE A CLUE WHY
AH I GOT IT
SELKIE’S FACE ON THE LAST PANEL IS SUPER CUTE I NEED TO DRAW IT
IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE
Call it fanart. :3
Awesome fanart from Datawog, by the way. (Selkie with a fishing rod is unlikely, but justifiable by cuteness.)
I figured Todd would like a way for Selkie to have her fish-catching fun where he could still keep an eye on her. That or they’re at the ocean.
That’d be adorable.
are the gills considerd private parts?
Kids that age are often very body-shy.
Especially as Selkie somewhat recently had the shirt-stealing incident and had to be “stared at” by others she didn’t trust.
…and Agent Brown didn’t want Dr. Pohl making small talk…
Ok, two things, one that Todd can do something about, one not so sure.
1) if she wants it, she should at this point be calling herself Nei Li Smith. It’s her fricking name, as opposed to “Selkie” which appears to be her species.
2) Todd has to find out who Agent Dickhead’s boss is and confront him with the fact that Agent Dickhead is mishandling this so badly as to consider this borderline child abuse. Having other people around who could have SPARED her the trial and error she went through trying to figure out what to feed her is CRIMINAL.
Maybe the good doctor didn’t enter the picture until much later?
As far as any of us know there could be just three or so of the species left in the entire world. Seriously: why the HELL would anyone think that Selkie being raised as a human was a good idea if an alternative is available? So maybe there wasn’t an alternative. Maybe Selkie is the last child of her species, and Dr. Pohl has his reasons why he couldn’t raise her.
Until we do know more, I’m willing to cut Agent Brown a break. There’s such a thing as “good guy antagonists” and he seems to be one of them.
I don’t know if Selkie should be called Nie Li. If she wants that name, she should certainly have it; but people can develop very strong connections to what they are called. If Selkie feels most comfortable being called “Selkie” changing her name on top of everything else could overwhelm her. She isn’t old enough to understand all the implications of the different names. At this point, trying to identify her with other Selkies, of which she has only seen one, instead of everyone she knows and loves, including her father, could be extremely traumatic. Time enough for her to choose her identity when she is older.
It very likely is not just Selkie Agent Brown is bullying, considering the control he has been exerting over Dr. Pohl’s actions, and how nervous and upset Dr. Pohl has looked every time he has had to interact with Brown.
GLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! This is so incredibly confusing. So … Pohl can’t talk about Selkie’s species, but Brown can say her old name, and … and … now I have to wait for Friday. Darn.
Well, yeah, gooey is unnecessary, especially since I read your strip with breakfast. Blood, gore, goo, or extreme violence are SO not coffee go-withs.
I don’t know any pediatrician who would allow strangers in the room AT ALL when examining a kid. Parents, maybe, and only if the kid wanted their company, but not strangers. Apparently Agent Brown does have a lot of power over the doctor.
Biological note: All we’ve seen so far are Nei Li’s gill covers. The gills themselves must be underneath, or maybe they fan out in the water, like an eft. She’s clearly body-shy about them, probably because the human kids pointed and laughed.
At least Agent Brown’s misbehavior is getting us some exposition of classified information.
I dont see it as him being mean, Perhaps the use of the real name is his way of trying to put her at ease with him? The more I see of him he really does see like an essentially good guy caught up in a whole mess of red tape.
No, he’s used to having people all scared of him because of his position as a Government Agent. They generally have to do whatever he tells them to. Maybe he does mean well in general, maybe he is caught up in red tape, but that last remark? That was him being pissed off because Selkie doesn’t want him looking at her, and just lashing out. Misusing his secret knowledge to say something that he knows will wound a sick kid — not cool. I’d call it… yes, mean.
He isn’t an actual Bad Guy, but he does richly deserve the tongue-lashing I think he’s about to get from everyone in Nei Li’s family. He may be scary, but he’s not scary enough to override their impulse to leap to her defence.
You say he is cruel for calling her Nei Li yet yoy yourself just did the same.
Way to go, Agent Brown. Dick.
Dear Santa,
Please, oh, please, if in the next comic Dave could please draw Todd kicking Brown’s butt, that’s all I want for Christmas!
Okay, if Brown doesn’t spill all the details of how he first met Selkie/Nei Li, he is proven an unspeakably cruel epithet playing mind-games with an eight year old.
If people will remember the ‘venemous saliva’ sequence – the orphanage had a lot of measures in place for the protection of the children. Among those measures were ‘no kissing people’, ‘escorts for all visitors’, and presumably being strongly encouraged to keep all their clothes on except when changing clothes. That could be one reason why Selkie didn’t think to go into the bathroom and take off her dress during the first gill-flushing sequence we saw, after Grandma suggested grapes tasted like ‘sweet eyeballs’. Between those old rules and her experience having her shirt stolen, of course she doesn’t want strangers staring at her gills.
I don’t think her problem is the gills. As we’ve seen, from her mother and the sketch of grownups, her species DOES have mammary glands. And, being raised among humans, she would know, by age eight, that while it is permissible for boys to run around shirtless, it is not for girls. I don’t think this is so much a “I need to look at your gills” freak as it is a “I need to see under your shirt” freak.
In here, https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie169/ she could be hiding her gills, but it looked to me like she was covering her breasts.
During the exam, notice she has her shirt pulled up just far enough so he can see the gills, and has the shirt AND her arms covering the breasts.
This just looks to me like a little girl doing the “not supposed to see my chest” thing.
Great point!
Oh, and Dave, while the archives are there, they don’t work. 🙁
Yeah apparently that widget was only meant for blog posts, not comics. I’ll keep looking into getting a dropdown menu back, but for now I made an Archive page and added it to the top menu bar.
I also agree that Brown wasn’t trying to be cruel or spiteful when he addressed her as Nei Li and was trying to make her realize he’s a friend. Maybe Brown sees her as a daughter of sorts himself and is angry at Todd and his family for letting harm befall her in their care.
Also, has anyone thought that perhaps her facial expression is not one of horror and detest, but rather shock that agent Brown may know her mother and possibly her whereabouts? I don’t think Selkie is angry or hurt by his mention of her true name, just shocked that someone may know about her past and by association, her mother.
Small grammar note: the only reason spell checkers don’t trip on “awhile” is because it’s an obscure synonym of “FOR a while”.
In other words, don’t use it. Use “a while” 😉
I almost DID use “a while” but it looked off to me. Woops. XD
It’d be awesome if she gets dissected. Seriously, it would make the most INSANE twist. Then Todd could become a badass and take down the government.
Aw man, i have to finish my archive binge on a cliffhanger?
Come on, be Friday already
Panel 1
…Wow, that crush on the handsome doctor ended quickly! 😛