This weekend will feature a bonus Sketch Day on Saturday. I completely love playing League of Legend’s new champion, Vi, so I am going to revive my “Selkie Characters as League Champions” sketch series because Andi is such a ridiculously good fit for this. XD
Also, I am going to attempt both a regular comic and a bonus non-canon Christmas one-shot strip for Monday. See you then and have a great weekend!
I have a tidbit of background development info I've been meaning to share for awhile now, and since it pertains to Alexis this may be my last chance for the info to be relevant. XD One of my first Webcomic attempts was a sci-fi/superhero story that I've had running through my head since high school (I can't link to it because the website went down and I lost the source files and drawings years ago. It's for the best as they were terrible, although one day I'd like to try it again). The story took place five years after an alien invasion and featured four humans tasked to save the world: Rita, Russell, Mari, and Leon (Russell's eleven year old son). As a personal joke/nod, I lifted the character designs for three of those characters to become Selkie characters (albiet with different names and personalities). Rita was actually split into two characters: Her general look was used for Marta, but her skin tone and hair color palettes were used for Mary (the orphanage staff member who first interviewed Todd). So if you palette-swap Mary's skin and hair colors onto Marta, you have Rita. Before the alien invasion, Rita was an automotive engineering student, a trait I chose to preserve with Marta. Leon's design was used for Ricky (one of the orphanage boys picking on Selkie near the beginning). A slight difference between them is Leon has green eyes, but I gave Ricky grey ones. Also, Leon is a "gentle soul" type of character, while Ricky is a bit rougher and wilder and more jock-y. And Mari became Alexis, which is probably the biggest personality overhaul of the bunch. Mari was a caustic venom-tongued lone-wolf who was smart and ruthless and not much of a people-person. Alexis is kind of a lazy sponge. XD I have yet to figure out a place to incorporate Russell's character design, but you'll know him when you see him; he is a large-framed redhead with an Alabama accent. Oh, and I almost forgot this, but Jessie's hair stripes come from this same story. One character was a cyborg human race traitor working with the enemy aliens. Her bright blue hair stripes are the only thing she and Jessie have in common. XD If I ever revive this story it'd be fun to see how many "Selkie did it first!" moments people can find.
Awesome that we get to start off the holidays with som potentially lethal shoe throwing.
Have these two broken up? Is our least favorite shoe addict going to be staying with Andi for a while? And how will she react when she learns that Andi is planning on re-entering Amanda’s life? So many questions invading my brain!
Looks like it’s happening, yes.
I do have to say, though, that I don’t fully understand Alexis’s arched-eyebrow “…Really?” in the last panel. Is that supposed to be “what, you’re mutilating a shoe, that’s really the best you’ve got?”, or….?
She licked it.
😛
Among other questions, “Is Alexis’ sister, whose name has never been mentioned in the comics or commentaries, actually Andi, as many readers have assumed?”
Oh, come on. You don’t think Dave would answer something like that here, do you?
For the record, I don’t think Alexis’ sister is Andi. I’m just trying to point out that others have come to that conclusion based on almost no evidence.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that Andi is NOT Alexis’ sister. Why? Because when we first saw Alexis she was on the phone with her sister and her sister’s ex was trying to claw /his/ was back into /her/ life. Andi’s trying to claw /her/ way back into /Todd’s/ life.
https://selkiecomic.com/selkie121/
Even if we assume that Alexis’s sister is 100% reliable in what she tells Alexis, would Alexis be 100% reliable in repeating that information to Jessie?
We’ve already seen that Dave’s not afraid to use unreliable narrators…
People like Andi twist things like that around all the time.
must resist making…quote………”YOU DONE GOOFED!”…truly sorry for that, At first i thought Jess was breaking/twisting the heel, but then i saw what was really going on..
I laughed SO HARD at those last few panels…. how is THAT for an extra f***you? But, I see her point in doing it, saliva on vintage leather can’t be good.
This is something I’ve never really understood in real life. Here’s a person who’s done something that’s hurtful and thoughtless and instead of apologising and saying sorry – they persist in holding onto that it wasn’t hurtful it was all in fun. Why don’t they just apologise and stop doing something that was clearly hurtful because it has illicited such a strong response? Do they think jokes end with fury?
on the other side of that why cant ppl handle jokes without flipping out, in this case alexis is clearly out of line, but its also often the case that the person freaking out is over reacting to something trivial
Being a jerk is all about how your behavior effects others, not how your behavior effects you, so logically it’s the opinion of the effected people that counts in measuring your jerkiness. Your own opinion of your behavior is irrelevant.
No matter how surprised you may be by their response, you’re not really the one who can judge whether they’ve overreacted. It’s up to you to anticipate their reactions when formulating the joke. If you fail to do that accurately, then it was just a mistake, so apologize and move on. If you don’t even try to do that at all, then you’re exactly the sort of antisocial that people are talking about here.
But either way, simply blaming them for overreacting is illogical and inherently self-centered.
Let Jess superglue all of Alexis’s favorite shoes to the ceiling and let’s see if she’d freak out and over-react over something that’s trivial. They are just shoes after all.
then their landlord would freak out.
They already have the hole in the wall, go for broke!
Usually it’s because the jokester can’t put themselves into the other person’s shoes (what an appropriate analogy for today’s strip) and realize that they’re the only person who thinks it’s funny. It’s essentially a lack of empathy.
I’m going to be on Jessie’s side here. That prank really could have gotten her fired, and as she told Todd when she was helping him in Wool-Mart–Alexis is unemployed. If Jessie lost her job then who would pay for food and rent?
Food and rent AND SHOES.
Uh, did I say I was supporting Alexis? If I did, scratch that, ‘cuz I’m NOT. ><
I used to like Alexis. Now that she’s just stupidly believing in her innocence, and I’ve had WAY TOO MANY people in my life like that… I hate her.
I also hate that it’s not 100% conclusive whether Jessie’s breaking up with her or whether Alexis is going to realize the error of her actions. (I hope at least the latter occurs.)
I also hate that this is a Thursday strip since I now get a weekend cliffhanger. Blah.
Wow, talk about Not Getting It. I love Jess’s point – chicken’ crossing road = joke, messing with kids’ homework, upsetting them and their parents and making the teacher look bad is very NOT.
Neat info about your other comic! It’s fun to play with characters in that fashion.
“I was just messing with the kids.”
OH FOR THE LOVE OF. . .
Those are either very strong shoes, or very weak drywall. Suppose if they’re vintage then they don’t make ’em like they used to! ZING!
Drywall isn’t all that strong. I have punched through the stuff with my bare fist. However, a word of warning: I don’t recommend you try it yourself – I know I won’t be doing it again.
The arc of the throw (that it’s a ‘lob’ and not, say, a vase-hurling or base-ball throw) makes it seem like it wouldn’t have the force to penetrate the wall, but my gf has shoes that could easily stick in drywall or fibreboard given a hard enough chuck.
That said, I only noticed it looking back on it…
Something I like about the Selkie comic is when something is done that seems humorously absurd at first, and then we get to see the real-world consequences or context of that situation. For example, the Fairweathers were apparently set up as shallow characters, but they turned out to be good parents who took their child’s misbehaviour seriously and dealt with it. Amanda seemed to be just a random brat and bully who existed in-story as a foil for Selkie, but then we learned her backstory and her behaviour became more understandable. In this case, the pranked homework was set up as silly and random, but it really did cause a confrontation between at least one parent and the teacher, and could indeed have risked Jessie’s career. Good work, Dave. Good work.
Thank you for articulating something that I love about the strip as well: the showing of consequences. In a non-preachy way too, which is very difficult to pull off.
It’s unclear whether Alexis has realized that Jessie is serious. I get the impression this is not the first time something like this has happened in their relationship, and Alexis might think it can be smoothed over. That kind of ingrained behavior doesn’t change overnight; another reason that Jessie is ready to draw the line at this incident.
That is one thing I enjoy in webcomics when there are consequences to actions. I’ve read a few where karma Houdinis are in abundance and it just gets to me that characters who constantly do these horrible things that could and normally should mentally scar someone for life get no consequences for their actions. And what more it’s usually done when one of the people are presented as a main character in the role of a protagonist and that the things that they do are for the sake of comedy.
So far I’ve only read two comics that pulls it off well and it’s only because they don’t pretend like despite all of the crap their characters do to others they are these greet guys you should root for. They are mean and evil but you like them none the less.
Selkie will seem simplistic to many but it’s far from that. Every character has a story, a backstory, a personality, they aren’t just their to emphasize facts about Selkie and Todd, sure they’ll give us a bit of insight but when alone we know that their world isn’t revolving around progressing the story of Selkie or Todd or whoever but are being themselves.
Sorry if I ranted a bit but I had this issue with a different webcomic’s plot and voiced it civilly but basically got bashed as a ‘hater’ for it. It’s a shame when someone can draw well but put out such a cruddy plot and what more when someone can’t draw too well but creates an amazing story only to be shunned by people who looks down on the art.
Selkie’s awesome in how it treats things, but it’s not like there aren’t karma houdinis in the world anyway… we all know some prankster who’s never arrested, that one guy who ruins songs, or anything else, and people just tolerate them entirely too often.
I am aware of it. But when I say karma houdinis I mean in a webcomic that’s been going on for years this one character has done a lot of crappy things and I do mean a lot of them and has never had to face the consequences of their actions yet.
It’s like watching those Tom and Jerry cartoons where Tom isn’t even missing with Jerry but Jerry comes out and picks on him and starts a fight and in the end he’s the victor and you see that type of episode over and over and over again. Then you realize they want you to cheer for the bully with the cute size and smile.
In real life we have them sure, but in a comedic styled webcomic the author has a choice on how to handle it.
Wait, I thought you platform was having people discard social conventions? So why are you so miffed when people do so?
If you mean me then at what part did I say I wanted people to discard social conventions?
I’m miffed at the writers who make up karma houdinis who does these really horrible things to people and ‘friends’ and gets away with it all of the time. I’m miffed at the writers who got out of their way to justify it and try to force it upon you that you’re suppose to like this person rather than just have it happen naturally.
I can name a few comics where someone is a terrible person but the author doesn’t try to justify it, they are meant to be a terrible person and even then sometimes they suffer the consequences of their actions.
My miff is with shabby writing and people being mad at you for not eating it up.
Nope, meant that for Aita. Sorry for the confusion.
Sweet merciful murgatroyd do I hope this is permanent. That girl is a waste of valuable oxygen.
Good. I was hoping this would happen. Dump that bimbo already.
By the way, not to be a nitpick but her boob is waaaaaaay off in the last panel.
No necessarily. She’s shrugging her shoulder, so one breast will be higher than the other.
GOOD! The instant I heard that Andi would play a prank like that on the children I was not liking here and when I heard she has no job and still buys expensive shoes, that really drove the nail in.
Dave… not to be nitpicky, because god knows I can’t draw a stick man, but you might want to do something about the shoe in the last panel. With its pointyish opening and the line in the center of it, it looks like female genitals. :/
It’s just in your head. 😛
I guess I can kind of see it? But it’s not suggestive enough to bother me.
I don’t see such a lethal shoe ever since I played Dwarf Fortress in adventure mode.
So they’re breaking up? Must be some backstory arguments we’re missing here, ’cause while I can see her getting really really upset, I can’t see them breaking up over just this one thing unless Alexis’ laziness and potential unwillingness to find a job has finally come to a head.
I know that it’s unlikely anyone will ever read this, nearly a year after the comic’s original posting date, but my best friend just turned me onto this delightful body of work this past weekend.
While there have been LOTS of things that have made me laugh out loud so far, I have GOT to say that the last three panels are the funniest yet. For some reason, I can really relate to both the action and the reaction.
Beautifully ludicrous!
I just realized Jessie is barefoot in this scene.
Well played, Dave.