Andi’s been busy, albiet mostly off-camera.
I got to thinking, with assistance from reader feedback, that since I am more and more frequently posting “beta” versions of the strips for short periods before finalizing them, and at times the reader commentary reflects the beta version and not the final product, perhaps it’d be a good idea to preserve the beta images instead of removing them. I’ll see how it goes.
Beta version:
Andi's tattoo list now includes hearts and clovers. I think maybe horseshoes or blue moons should be next. And to get that Gilgamesh tattoo completed.
This won’t end well.
There’s a chance it might end well! But will it middle well? No. No, it will not middle well at all.
All’s well that ends.
It’s a nice idea, and we might be stronger for the journey, but no, it’s not all well.
You can have the happy ending, even after a long time have a mostly happy life, but after the kind if pain Amanda has been through, you’d have days as an adult when that old fear swamps the mind.
I just have to say, I’ve seen plenty of these strips in various states of in-progress (as I frequently find myself checking in here at around 1am MWF), and I particularly like the way this in-progress page looks. (Of course, this comment will soon be outdated when the finished page is up.)
Hmmm… hadn’t thought of this until now, but maybe I should preserve the beta strips? For when people comment on them?
To be fair, a lot of adults who never had younger siblings or relatives tend to completely forget what the different stages of childhood are like. Gotta cram your head full of other things to forget, like long division and the geography of continents you’ll never visit. After forgetting all that, who has time to remember what the larval stages of your own species are capable of?
…
What do you mean, mammals don’t go through the larva stage? I’m pretty sure I remember this from science class.
Mammals only go through the larval stage when lazy biology textbook-writers can’t think of a better metaphor for holometabolous metamorphosis.
Mott, you alway say something worth reading. 😀
*Mort (Sorry)
Yes, “Mott” is not a ghost. He’s a Hoople.
gah, I hate to think of the s@#& storm that’s gonna happen when Selkie and Amanda find out Amanda is Todd’s biological daughter. Amanda is going to be in pain, because HER dad picked fish-face and not her. She’s going to lash out at Selkie, and try to hurt Selkie as bad as Amanda is feeling. I just hope the adults are conscious of this and deal with it well.
Yeah … the solid human waste will be hitting the rotary air circulator apparatus in T-minus…
Considering how Andi’s involved, I can’t see it being handled well or ending well. She’s as self-centered a b**** as Amanda is.
I don’t know, Andi seems to be trying to get her act together.
OR… depending on how things go down in the next story arc…
1) Amanda’s original reason for hating Selkie disappears once she has a parental figure, especially if it’s her original mother. Being a kid, she might not realize she doesn’t need to hold onto that grudge any longer, but she’ll figure it out eventually.
2) Selkie is in a super good position to help Amanda with the Heather situation. Heather’s new “friends” are specifically manipulating her as part of Truck’s “revenge” scheme. Since Heather likes Selkie, Selkie has a good chance to set things right, and would be more than happy to try if she believes Amanda’s side of the story.
3) They’ve basically been step-sisters this whole time, they just didn’t realize it. Between having a common enemy with Truck (and the kids who are on Truck’s side), a common purpose, and good reasons to let go of old grudges, they’re FAMILY.
So this could end up, eventually, turning out very well for both of them.
Aww, she has Amanda’s name on her tattoo. That’s so sweet. I hope this works out for both Andi and Amanda. I think they need each other.
This will be… interesting, to say the least. It won’t go smoothly, that’s for certain. Amanda is going to flip her lid with rage at least once, I’m sure.
I noticed a strange resemblance…
And then the name on the tattoo…
and all I can say is O_O
It was pointed out ages ago in the comic itself.
I need links because I honestly don’t think I was paying close enough attention to know this. I’m about to flip out because I seriously wouldn’t have guessed it was Amanda.
https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie194/
OMG HOW DID IT NOT CLICK TO ME BEFORE *ahem* thanks. Lol
Andi, as an uncle with a niece just a year younger than Amanda, allow me to give you some advice.
Clothing: Children wear clothes. It protects them in the winter and keeps them from sun burning in the summer.
Food: Children like food from time to time.
Shelter: Let them come in out of the rain occasionally.
Entertainment: If you do not entertain them, they will entertain themselves, sometimes at your cost.
This has been advice for the dimwit parent who can barely parent themselves. 😛
Language Studies: Kids constantly learn things whether you want them to or not. So if you don’t fucking want them to start using shitty language that is considered goddamn impolite, you need to watch your own words around them.
They will anyway, since playgrounds are a thing, and will find it ADORABLE that you like to play pretend that you’re sheltering them from anything they aren’t already encountering.
Its not about them not learning the words but about you having a leg to stand of when teaching them manners. If you cant keep yourself from cussing around little kids and visitors, how can you expect them to do the same. The concept of hypocrite is something a kid will get there head around really quick even if they don’t know the word.
I can see it now. Selkie makes that one toothy smiley face at Amanda. Later Amanda comes home and tells Andi she pooped herself. Andi: “So she DOES need diapers!” Amanda proceeds to tantrum. Good times.
Did you just use an “implying” joke in what would be a real life conversation?
I think I’m gonna be sick…
Oh, it’s nothing personal – I just find the idea of people using that in real life just… agh!
Why? Is there something about the word “implying” that you don’t like?
The word, used like that, just reminds me too much of people from message boards who have no idea what they’re talking about and are just trying to rile up people.
Well good thing we won’t be meeting in real life because I end up using implying more than I should.
Because I am surrounded by high ranking idiots and that is the better way to let them know their dumbass is showing without actually calling them a dumbass.
There’s no reason for people to hate Andi. People only hate her because “OMG THEY ARENT THE MAIN CHARACTER AND TODD DUN LIKE HER SO SHE MUST BE AWFUL IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY!” And that **** just plain sickens me. The immaturity of it all is plain disgusting.
No, people don’t like Andi because when she got pregnant and went into labor (knowing Todd would have taken care of her and wanted a child), she told him the baby died and secretly put it up for adoption behind his back. She then mocked Todd when he adopted.
We have yet to see her being a good person, except she is now looking for her 8yo daughter Amanda (which many would say will be extremely damaging to the child, seeing as her mother has no filter and no story prepped as to why she was “unwanted” and “Why now?”)
Very, very true. In the real world, this absolutely would not happen. Andi would have to go in front of a judge to even attempt this and IF he even slightly thought maybe it could be okay, he’d call CPS in to come do an evaluation and make a recommendation and would almost certainly follow their findings. I know, because I used to work in CPS and a similar sort of situation happened (though in this case, the child was young elementary aged when parental rights were relinquished and was well into his teen years when he returned to his mother of his own accord). There were concerns so the judged asked us (me) to go and investigate.
CPS would find out about what Andi told Todd because in order for her to claim she grew up she’d have to out his name and Todd’s rights would have never been terminated- just unknown to the world. Todd would be contacted immediately and been asked if he was prepared to take on another kid (surprise!) and expected to do so since he is the father and is in the position to support, love, and protect her appropriately. At this point, it would be impossible for Andi to regain her parental rights because Todd knows that Andi is not a mature or capable parental candidate. Even if Todd didn’t exist, CPS would be extremely hesitant to even let Andi see Amanda because of the time that had passed and how potentially damaging this could be if, say, Andi changed her mind or proved to be completely incapable to be a stable and good influence in Amanda’s life. Since Andi doesn’t even know that 8 year olds don’t wear diapers, she cannot at all be considered to care for a child not to mention her very concerning behaviors. She lacks empathy, common sense, and has a tendency to lie. She cannot prove that she is any more mature than she was when she put Amanda up for adoption. Can you imagine her trying to answer any of Amanda’s expected questions? I can’t.
Even if we give Andi the benefit of the doubt and say she is a 100% capable parent that will love, care for, and guide Amanda for the rest of her life, reintroducing Andi to Amanda would be done through an experienced counselor very, very slowly. Andi would have to take parenting courses and be evaluated. Amanda would have to attend regular counseling to ensure she was able to process everything appropriately then there would be short, supervised visits. Then longer but still supervised visits more often. Then the visitation would take place in a center without direct supervision but recorded or it would be out in public with a supervisor present but not right there in their face. Then short unsupervised visits/outings, then longer ones, then an over night, then a weekend, and at that point she could move in but probably still as a foster child to make sure everything is still working for everyone and is healthy all around. There would be caseworkers in and out of there for awhile… I mean, what Andi did was seriously illegal when she told Todd that their baby had died and she’s make some poor life choices since then. It would take a lot for anyone to agree to place a child, even one that is her’s biologically, in her home with her track record and no real forward progress since then. Remember, Amanda doesn’t know who the heck she is so it’s not like they’re salvaging a relationship- they never had one! Just Andi showing up could seriously scar Amanda for life and/or trigger some serious mental health problems at a time that Amanda is already acting out and struggling with relationships and trust. If I were making the call in this situation there is NO WAY I would allow any contact between the two of them because it is NOT in Amanda’s best interest. But again, this isn’t the real world 😉
I do enjoy Selkie, in part, because it feels like it could really happen. The way this was introduced though doesn’t settle well with me not only because it’s not at all plausible but because it’s subjecting a child (imaginary or not) to a very bad situation that would be, quite frankly, found as abusive if the group home equivalent to CPS came and investigated Lillian’s orphanage.
These are excellent points and I am at a total loss to justify myself beside them. XD
Just letting you know Dave:I never hated Andi, might have been annoyed with her at times, but never hated. I even get to loving her after that first scene with the shoe in the hall.
(I’m starting to sell my art as installation pieces)
Your view is amazing and clear. More well put than anything I’ve ever read in regards to child adoptions and maternal rights. I just want to thank you for taking the time to type all of this out because a lot of it had to do with things that I didn’t realize happened in the CPS system. Thank you!
It’s not entirely implausible, it JUST happened – Terry Achane just got his daughter back after 2 years of having to FIGHT for her. These issues slip through the cracks if the dad doesn’t even know to look. A lone mother lists the father as “unknown” and at that point it becomes solely her child without a DNA test from a paternal claimant.
Lillian is NOT the counselor you wanna cross so hopefully she can prevent all of this. Todd still doesn’t know his child exists, Andi is doing this to show him she’s “responsible” and “caring”. If not, its about to be an emotional sh**storm with an 8yo girl with anger issues caught in the middle.
I don’t know the specifics of his case, and I can sympathize with men who feel like their girlfriend/wife/lover/whatever “stole” the kid by adopting it out without telling them and going through the proper channels.
On the other hand, I have a low view of “I totally have the right to tear that child away from the only family it’s ever known just because I happened to have sex one night!” All other things being equal (meaning: the new family doesn’t raise CPS red flags), the family the child is with now should be the family the child stays with, unless the child remembers the parents and wants to go back to them.
And yet another disturbing note: Due to the way the laws are written in certain parts of the United States, a *rapist* can sue for visitation rights of “his” kid, and, if he wins, legally force his victim to send her child over to be with her rapist on a regular basis. This puts some women in the position of choosing between prolonged contact with their rapist (and potential harm to their child), or just aborting the child so the rapist can’t use the law to further traumatize them.
Actually, I hate her because her attitude and mannerisms remind me strongly of the ex-wife who drove drunk with my daughter in the car and stole her college savings to fund moving out with another man.
That’s like a perfect storm of reasons to hate someone. My condolences.
“Hate” is a bit strong, but I don’t like the impressions I’ve gotten of her because she seems way to immature and irresponsible to be raising a child; especially one she already gave up after telling the father she was dead, presumably just because she didn’t feel like raising her.
I don’t think “just because” was there. I think she was young, scared, in the middle of labor (when the hormones are doing things, and the body is doing things, and it’s pretty overwhelming) and her mother was pitching adoption at her when Todd wasn’t there.
I’m not saying Andi’s a maternal saint, but the situation was a **** of a lot more complicated than “didn’t feel like raising her.”
I can’t stand her because I recently dealt with an ex that manipulated my emotions and lied in an attempt to rebuild me into what she wanted, a puppet. Andi has much of her negative traits, including lying about important things. My own stubborness and bitter sense of rage about things is what saved me in the end.
I think Todd should have asked to see the dead baby’s body, I know I would have. So that works against Todd in that respect.
I just hate being manipulated and Andi at the end whether fear or selfishness or whatever reason was in fact very manipulative. That’s a sign of an abusive relationship.
As a woman I think what she did to Todd was cowardly pathetic self-centred and unforgivable. The only reason she is going after the child she surrendered is because her selfish and immature way of living drove the guy she lied too for 8 +years away from her.
Surrendering the child for adoption probably would have been fine with Todd if they had sat down and really talked about it. He’s an adopted child knows there are good family’s out there and they are both inexperienced teens. But no she was a coward, she lied, and she lost him in the end. And that stemmed for her lie and from her self-centred nature.
Not only that but it’s hinted at that her trash talking about adopted children was the final nail in their relationship coffin.
I would be surprised if she got a parental go- but I’m not familiar with the process. She’s not fit to be a parent of an already troubled little girl and I hope they let her know that. Amanda has been through enough, she does not need Andi screwing her up more.
I think the hate-on for Andi is a little unwarranted. I dug back through the archive to find the page https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie193/ where we saw her flashback of labour, and it was clearly her mom’s idea to put the baby up and to not tell Todd, seems like Andi’s mum should be the one getting the vitriol.
My hate is for the lie not for the surrender. My hate is for her taking away Todds rights as the biological father.
She kept the lie up for 8 years that’s well and truly past being pressured by the mother. If she had spilled a month later or something sure the mums to blame but no. She chose to keep up the lie. And is only now only interested in her kid because she’s no longer getting her way with Todd.
How can the hate on be unwarranted? She kept up a lie for 8 years that profited no one. That’s a sign that she kinda enjoys holding the secret over his head.
A mature person would have bit the bullet knowing that they may lose the other person, but they would know in their heart or brain that the other person deserves to know.
Even now when wanting to bring Amanda into her life she’s not telling Todd. I hope she doesn’t get Amanda back. Andi is a detestable creature that thinks only of herself. She would be the worst thing for little Amanda.
The blame may have started with her mom, but eventually a person has to admit their own culpability and take the blame for their end. Andi refuses to do so. I see her as a villain in the story.
I think Andi is scared, self-centered, and doesn’t want to admit she lied. I think she knows it was a mistake, but after long enough, lies take on a life of their own. I’m not saying what she did was justified, and she definitely needs to have a serious talk with Todd. But I’m saying there’s more to it than her being completely evil or an utter bitch – and I really dislike the term bitch, by the way.
I think Andi needs to sort things out with Todd before she can attempt to be a good mother to Amanda. I think Andi will not be able to help very much with the issues Amanda has. I think Andi is deluding herself on a lot of things, and that the impact her actions have made on the story could make her a ‘villain’. But I also don’t think Dave is trying to make this a story of ‘good people vs bad people’, but just a story about people trying their best and sometimes making unwise choices.
I think it’s ridiculous that people are saying things like they want Andi dead. It just seems too far, to me.
I hate her but I don’t want her dead, I just don’t want her to get Amanda and actually go make a life for herself with someone she’s not lied too for 8 years and maybe have a kid she can do right by after growing up herself.
See, I’d be okay with that. I think it might be good for her to have a relationship with Amanda, but I don’t think she’s quite at the point where she can handle being a single mother. In this sort of situation, Amanda’s needs absolutely take priority over Andi’s wants.
I don’t want her to die myself. I want her to experience a humiliation conga. I want her selfishness and self-centeredness to bite her her on the posterior and gain some much needed maturity. I still see her as a villain in a story with no real pure eeeeeeeeeevil characters. She needs a maturation moment where she actually has to stop being so irritating and selfish and grow into an actual adult several years after she should have become.
Assuming Andi is not totally evil, (and, while she is immature and self-centered, I don’t think she is) she is also going to have to deal with the fact that she gave up Amanda believing that Amanda would be raised in a family with loving parents and instead, the adopting family gave Amanda back and put her in an orphanage. To my mind the adopting family’s acts were far worse than a troubled kid giving up a baby for adoption, and Andi is going to have to deal with what happened to Amanda when Andi didn’t at least let Todd raise her.
I agree with everything you said here. I think Andi’s first mistake was in not letting Todd have a choice about the adoption and telling him Amanda had died – Todd would have /probably/ been okay on trying to be a single parent, and his parents would have certainly helped him raise Amanda. I think her second mistake was not coming clean about the lie, because while I understand that the longer a lie goes on the harder it is to admit it’s a lie, I also think that the longer you lie the more damage it does.
I don’t really think she made a bad choice for deciding she wasn’t ready to be a parent eight years ago and thinking she’s ready now, though. From what we’ve seen, she /wasn’t/ ready to be a parent eight years ago. I also believe she put Amanda up for adoption with all the best intentions of giving her a loving home, which unfortunately didn’t work out quite well. I don’t think she’s totally got her act together yet, but we haven’t really seen what she’s been doing the past few months.
Really, the biggest black mark against her right now is the lie. The sooner she deals with that, the better things will be.
I don’t normally criticise your art, but that looks like a *REALLY* bad temporary tattoo. Actual tattoos don’t look typeset in that sort of font. 😉
As to Andi, my impression is that she felt pressured by her mom to give Amanda up for adoption and to keep it a secret, and that Todd and she split up shortly afterward, and only recently met again. I could be mistaken about that, though. I don’t have the impression she was holding the lie over his head, more that her parents had taught her that if they do keep a secret, that it needs to stay secret.
Making fun of Todd for adopting does seem nasty, and quite weird since she did give their biological child up for adoption. At the least, she should have been straightforward about it then, rather than lying, and certainly not making fun of him for it.
I assumed they would have used a typed font on a template overlay then performed the tattooing using that as a baseline.
Nope, they hand draw a stencil out and trace it onto the body temporary tattoo style. I’ve watched the process in person. I think the tat looks fine myself, but there is no typing that goes onto a tattoo. Looks too mechanical I believe.
Huh. For my tattoo (two hollow stars) they created the stencil with CorelDraw, printed it on transparency paper and temporary-tattooed it to my skin before inking over it. I didn’t see any reason they wouldn’t typeset the words the same way. Just depends on what style of lettering you want, I suppose.
That being said, a more Dave-accurate reason for the typed text is simply that I didn’t want to stumbly-hand-draw a font. Negative points for lazy I guess. XD
All said Dave, you work is still great and enjoyable. I’ve got OCD for little details, so if one niggling little thing doesn’t set it off it just shows that your comic is a great one.
I forgot to add, in the Real World, yes, people do sometimes get their maternal rights back, but after 8 years it would be a bit of an uphill climb. Even people who hate children and don’t have any don’t assume that kids wear diapers past pre-school, unless they are severely disabled. She certainly doesn’t seem ready to actually raise a child.
Hey, Dave, I’m curious. Whom do you use to host your website? I’d like to know because of reasons.
I use ZeHosting. Had good experiences with them, too.
Thanks!
Chiming in with my opinion too(and loving this storyline)…
I’m not sure having Amanda live with either Todd OR Andi would be a good idea at this point, for a lot of reasons. Particularly if Amanda, Andi, or Selkie expect that the biological relationship between Todd and Amanda will be given priority over Todd and Selkie’s relationship.
There’s also the fact that Todd may not see himself as a father to Amanda in the emotional sense. Yes, he seems to have been willing to take responsibility when Andi became pregnant, but I’d point out that that pregnancy was unintentional. There’s no definite indication that he wants to have biological kids/would have CHOSEN to go that route(maybe due to something in his past or his family tree that he doesn’t want to pass on? /speculation mode).
Raising one child as a single parent would be hard enough, but two? From a practical standpoint, that would be difficult, especially with the conflicts between Amanda and Selkie.
Chiming in as someone who first met her father when she was seventeen…Well, his explanation was that ‘he wasn’t ready to be a father then.’ He had since gotten married again and had two other daughters, less than ten years younger than I am.
What I thought, but didn’t say, was, ‘Tough titties, Dad, I existed. Nobody asked me if I was ready to be born.’
For a while, we all pretended, Dad, Step-mom, and half-sisters, that we were one happy blended family, but every time, every time we got together, when I looked at my sisters and watched him be there for them, every time I got introduced as ‘my half-sister’ when I introduced them as my sisters, no half about it–it hurt. Why wasn’t I good enough to stick around for?
I don’t keep in touch these days. Neither do they.
Though we’ve had to deal with some extended-family foster-care nightmares, we haven’t had any experience with adoption. But our experience is kind of the flip side of yours: my brother fell in with a girlfriend who already had three kids, they had a kid, they broke up, and we (Mom and I) fought tooth and nail to maintain a relationship with my nephew and then to maintain a relationship with his three siblings. All the time, everyone (family, CPS, and well-meaning friends) was telling us to back off and that we weren’t actually family because we had no blood tie to those kids.
But by now, almost a decade later, my mom and I have a good relationship with all three siblings, and I feel like that will probably last for life. I remember singing the boys to sleep in their cribs when I babysat them; I recall the first time I met my niece; I remember balancing the kids on my lap while teaching them to play computer games, and balancing them on my shoulders to pick plums. Flipping them upside down until they got too heavy to pick up.
Family relations aren’t about blood. They’re about the effort it takes to build a relationship. People related by blood can be absolute strangers – and people with no physical ties at all can have some of the closest family ties that exist.
You know… I’m not entirely sure that meeting Andi would be bad for Amanda.
I do get that in a real-world situation there’d be a great deal more examination of Andi’s fitness as a potential mother, and the social workers’ answer might well be no, Amanda should not even be told this is happening.
But if there’s one thing that has been firmly established in this story, it is that ALL of the orphans have been dealing with the hurt of “Nobody wants me!” Amanda’s also been having to cope with the horrid, inhuman insult of having been returned to the orphanage like so much defective merchandise.
Meeting her biological mother and learning that now she IS wanted by someone — by her real mother! — wouldn’t be an instant magic solution for her built-up rage. She’d have a lot of questions, angry questions, about why she was abandoned in the first place, and why it took Andi so long to come for her. All the same, I think it would ultimately be healing. It would let her construct an eventual story of herself that said, “All that pain was worth it in the end because… I had to wait for my real mother.”
Because, what’s the alternative? Keeping it from her? Letting her finish growing up in the orphanage? What happens when, as an adult, she finds out her mother tried to come for her and THEY DIDN’T TELL HER. All those years from eight to eighteen, she could have had a mother, she could have belonged somewhere, she could have… I think she would have every right to hate all the people who so arrogantly decided she shouldn’t have that chance.
Andi does have some maturing of her own to do, no question about that. Though I don’t think she’s really as clueless as today’s bit about diapers suggests! That’s Dave having her react with a silly sitcom line to convey her sense of sudden panic.
Political punk, eh? So the ringtone in the strip before wasn’t a (not quite correctly remembered) Bob Marley reggea song?
I have come from the near future. Looking back on this, it’s not pretty.