“That panda looks like an ocelot.” “Oh my bad. It IS an ocelot.”
– – – – –
While we’re here, I want to talk about Chanelle for a moment.
As the snowball fight portion of the arc drew to a conclusion, a few astute readers questioned something of me: where did Chanelle disappear to?
I mentioned in Director Commentary earlier that I was doing a mid-stream shift to downplay Chanelle’s involvement in favor of Ricky (a more long-standing character who was becoming overshadowed by tertiary cast in terms of screentime). An unintended consequence of this is that Chanelle sort of… disappeared. She’s not visible with either the punished “Mean Kids” or the unpunished “Orphanage Kids”.
Looking back on the strips in question I feel like Chanelle’s lack of visibiity is less of a “mystery” and more of a gaping plot hole. So when I get a chance, I’m going to go back and add her in to a few key crowd scenes to make her resolution to the event more visible. But until I get around to that, I’d like to offer those wondering about Chanelle’s fate my official stance on her outcome: As Heather and Keisha’s friend, she changed sides with them when they turned on the others and ultimately avoided trouble by going along with the crowd when they set-up the “Mean Kids” with all the faked crying.
Whoo boy. This will probably cause more problems than I initially foresaw.
Okay, how are we supposed to interpret the male/female symbols, the crossed legs, and the look of horror above Mina’s head? I’m not sure how much is directed towards Todd, and how much is in reaction to Selkie. (And I apologize if this double-posts. I noticed a typo and tried to change it after hitting submit.)
Deleted the first post for ya. And the interpretation… well, that’s not my department. :3
Um it should be, I honestly hate it when writers decide to just tell their readers it’s for their own personal interpretation. It’s lazy writing.
Stephen King knew this when finishing out the Dark Tower and decided to write an extended ending for people who wouldn’t be happy with an ambiguous ending.
I don’t understand the last panel and I’d honestly like and appreciate to know what your intent was with that.
It’s not “lazy writing.” Not everything needs to be spoon fed to a reader. Interpretation, symbolism, analogy, metaphor…they’re all parts of a writer’s tool-kit.
Not when it’s poorly done or obscure. I was clearly not the only person here who was confused and I don’t appreciate people jumping my shit about it.
If you leave your readers confused, it’s not a good thing, you literally failed at the one thing you were supposed to do correctly. And when the comic relies heavily on dialog to begin with, it simply feels like it could have been done better.
It’s not ambiguous or confusing though. She’s yelling “F***,” which is represented by the male/female symbols (the symbols for sex, of F***ing.)
I find that if I detail too much about my own intentions it can prevent a lot of interesting conversations and speculations and idea-sharing. I enjoy reading those, even if it doesn’t agree with my own views or intents. I’d hate to choke out interesting dialogue by slamming down the Word of Dave on a thread.
But as for this particular scene I feel it’s pretty straightforward, just obscured a bit by the symbol-language coded-cussing: Mina just saw her TA run into the room carrying one of the students in her arms, pale-faced and rambling incoherently, after having a discussion with that student’s father about whether she should have even been allowed outside or not. Mina’s had a medical emergency appear out of nowhere in the middle of a pleasant conversation. She’s surprised, maybe a bit shocked, and a cuss word slipped out.
Sure okay, honestly, you could have chosen better symbolism for cussing.
I mean, the male and female symbols together mean nothing to me, personally. And it isn’t until you got the male end actually sliding into the eye of the female symbol that I’d feel it even mean “sex” or the 4 lettered alternative to it.
I think that’s where the actual confusion for me is coming from, I don’t even see that symbolism as being used as a curse word. There’s less creative ways to represent swearing, ignoring the fact you actually had one of the kids saying “bull shit” in earlier comics.
I know there’s a tradition to censor out cussing in comics, but that’s mostly in news paper comics and then they go with the much more common and reliable “#&*^$@”.
You can tell me it’s my problem, but I am just a reader and I clearly didn’t understand what was being said in the last panel. So I am putting it on the author for using obscure symbolism.
Sorry if I sounded like a dick earlier, but I don’t like having to do guess work on stuff, especially when I don’t understand what’s going on.
It took me maybe two seconds to figure out exactly what she said. I thought it was perfectly clear and much more clever than the standard “@#&!” depiction of cursing.
I don’t care what you did. There were other people who were just as confused as I was, and after showing the comic to a friend, his first reaction was him asking her for sex until he read it again.
I’ve become more aware of younger readers who follow the comic than I was back then, so I decided awhile back to move to pictoral cussing analogs. I’ll still use Crap Damn and Hell, but the rest gets censored. Sorry if I didn’t make this particular instance more clear.
That’s fine, but then think of the young readers then. If some adults didn’t really understand the last panel, younger readers weren’t going to. At least they would have more easily understood !@#$%^& as swearing as opposed to some obscure symbolism.
obscure? I think you being stupid is the bigger issue here.
I understand we’re in the middle of a heated debate, but can we not have name-calling please?
I agree with Dave. I didn’t get the male/female symbol either, until it was explained, but I think the anger on both sides of the argument are a bit uncalled for.
One thing I will toss out there, is what happened to using imagery that had the first letter of each picture adding up to a cuss? Once it was understood that was what was being done, it is a very good way to portray the sentiment without using the actual word.
My issue with those is that to fit alongside the regular text the drawings had to be so small that it was difficult to tell what they were at all. Whereas with this style of pictoral analogs the content of the imagery is pretty clear, even if the meanings and allusions need some “footnotes” to clarify intent. Like, even if you don’t get what the two gender symbols signify, you can at least tell it IS two gender symbols this way.
I may give the old way another shot, though, sometime. Having some text around the pictograph may help reduce all the confusion I seem to be causing.
My advice is to draw a few symbols you’re going to be using constantly and put them in a file so you can add them in post and keep consistent. I don’t mind the picto-swears, but I’ll want them to be consistent.
That sounded more entitled than I meant. I hope anyone reading that takes it as friendly advice, not trying to give orders. I just think a consistent image will make it obvious in time what each symbol means. It doesn’t have to be obscure when the context is obvious.
I don’t see why you don’t just go with something a lot of people do, have the word partially blurred out.
Kids know what swear words are, I was saying fuck in elementary school.
I think it was very clear what was being expressed by the symbols.
It is more interesting and creative than the overused: @#$ nonsense.
I personally think it is silly that this one individual went on and on about the issue that he/she did not understand it. It is not the job of any writer or artist to dumb down or simplify their work because a minority of people cannot think outside the box and understand it. That is not a very good argument. If every artist simplified their work and used no creativity than why would anyone want to read them?
I think Dave did a good job here. Also, this is a free web comic! The artist is doing this for his own enjoyment and is kindly sharing it with us. He does not owe you anything.
I hope I don’t sound too confrontational, but I am a writer and avid reader and I personally don’t like things always spelled out for me, I prefer dimension and like when a writer gives their audience enough credit to try and figure things out by themselves.
Also, I don’t really like reading a lot of unnecessary cursing unless it fits the piece.
It took me a moment to understand the symbol. A couple interpretations flashed through my mind and it did break me out of the story, which is what a lot of writing books say not to do.
On the other hand, the second I understood it I thought it was very clever. I do like to see alternative ways of swearing. This is a way that probably goes over the head of the younger readers, which is good (although it seems to have gone over the head of some of the adult readers too).
I think it was a good choice. Maybe could’ve been a little clearer, maybe it’s the context that brings up alternate interpretations to muddle things, but I’m glad it’s not the normal #&$% stuff that everyone else uses.
One way I’ve seen the “F**K” symbiology done better, is to insert the male arrow through the female circle.
You have them just crossing each other, and that’ not really the point of the word you’re replacing, is it.
Dave can’t exactly just fill this webcomic when cursing. Using creative images to replace curse words is a long standing tradition. Ever watch a cartoon and you see s thought/speech bubble appear with a pile of poo in it? same thing, it’s obvious what curse word is being said, but it’s being done in a tasteful way to avoid offending people. If you can’t figure out what a male and female sign crossing over each other is supposed to imply, then you’re SOL bro.
First: Thanks for deleting the double!
Second: Wow, (almost) sorry I asked! When I came back to reread this strip before going forward, I looked at the symbols and wondered if they represented something along those lines. But since I generally have a dirty mind (and my preferred cuss words are a bit different), I wasn’t sure. I actually appended “mother” to my interpretation. Now I’m going to have to make up a questionnaire and ask folks how they interpret that symbol. I’ll bet it will rely heavily on cohort, with a bimodal distribution related to literacy… *(wanders off to do something geeky…).
I interpretted it somewhere along the lines of, and pardon my french here, “Fuck me!”
I read it as a loud F-bomb.
I interpret her reaction as “neural overload.” She just got two conflicting surprizes at the exact same time and her mind is blown.
That would work well with my original interpretation. Too many inputs at once (which sounds really bad considering what it was intended to represent).
Ok calmly tell himto come to the school. she was doing the rite thing to call him and it can all be settled calmly and logically. Yeah … I hope…
“Would you like to”
“[synonym for ‘copulate’]! You need to come to the school right now!”
“I didn’t mean right this minute!”
You just made me literally LOL….. in the middle of a library….
does jessie work out? that gym teacher? coach?seems to have a pretty commanding personality. i suspect everyone in earshot ends up working out.
Adrenaline kicks in when a child is in danger. Working out becomes kinda superflous at that point.
Yeah ^ what he said.
I think Mina just screamed FUCK into the phone. I really really really really want to see Todd’s reaction to hearing THAT in the middle of his attempt at asking her out.
It’s gonna be GLORIOUS.
Yup, way to finish a sentence for someone 😀
Definitely not a fan of the possibility of these two becoming a couple.
No? Why not?
Maybe because dating your kid’s teacher isn’t a smart move in the first place (and Mina seems smart enough to know that), and that it would land Selkie in an even worse place bullying-wise.
Just don’t think they’re a good match. Don’t care for them as a couple in the least.
I think they seem like a good match, but on the other hand… let me tell you from experience; having a parent (or significant other of a parent, in this case) as a teacher is HELL.
ESPECIALLY if you are not inclined to have people like you in the first place.
My dad was my teacher during middle school, in a racist town in which I was 1 of only 2 kids in my class that were not the dominant race, and the torment I received as a result of it destroyed me. I am only now beginning to recover from the severe depression I suffered as a result. I attempted suicide on 2 separate occasions and am only barely managing to cope now, 10 years later, with help from medication and twice-monthly psychiatric visits, while on state-funded disability and living in subsidized housing reserved for people with mental health problems. I only spent 2 years in that godforsaken town, and I am STILL trying to recover.
As much as I hate to say it, it would probably be best for Selkie if Mina stayed far, FAR away from Todd.
I’m sorry for what you went through. I had to get some psychiatric treatment around age eleven or so myself for bullying-related reasons. I didn’t actually make a suicide attempt, but my parents heard me talking abut it and got me counseling.
It’s rough, but I am glad you’re recovering. 🙂
I also went through bullying. Though I went the opposite direction with it. I was the one kid you read about or see on youtube that gets tired of it and hurts the bully to end it. Glad you both got through.
When you use images to mean words in speech bubbles (which I approve of usually), it’s confusing. I don’t mean to be boring, but it just IS. The images you chose don’t seem to fit the word(s) you’re implying. I mean, if I hadn’t read these comments, I would NEVER have thought those two symbols meant copulation. I thought she had blurted something about being married or gay!
Maybe I’m just an easily confused person.
It’s fairly obvious, given the context. She just found out her student went into shock, and she had almost literally just assured the parent of said child that there was no need to worry about her. Not a whole lot of things having to do with the symbols for the two sexes for her to shout that would make sense in that context, especially given the fact that Dave censors almost all swears, and has occasionally done so pictorially.
Also note that the male symbol is laying on top of the female symbol. You know, like the missionary position?
Symbol language can be weird like that. They can signify varying things according to the viewer.
If a little insight into why I chose this particular symbol may help, my intent was simply to illustrate the two gender symbols… intersecting.
Oh, thank goodness. I though Prince was making a cameo 😉
Dave, have you ever read the Unicorn Jelly comic? I really liked the way she censored her swears. It used pictures that were–vaguely–representations of the curse. I read the comic once when I was in 7th grade, and interpreted the images as merely ‘someone is swearing’. I then re-read the comic when I was in 11th grade or so, and realized that if you ‘translated’ the images you had a pretty good idea of what the characters were actually saying.
I haven’t read UJ in years. Fond memories. I don’t remember her censor-swear stylings but it sounds more or less like what I am going for.
I’ll have to give it a re-read sometime.
I agree with you. It can be really confusing, and I never would have been able to figure it out without the comments, either. It’s kind of annoying– like I feel it should be in the commentary or something. But then again I can see how the artist was trying to be tasteful with the swear. Maybe, a more obvious symbol could have been used? I dunno, that’s just my opinion.
I was thinking that Mina nervous about where the conversation was going and wanted to clear the air about a certain ambiguity. So, when they were suddenly interrupted I read it as Mina saying “I’m transgender!!!!!” in a bit of a panic.
Great symbol. Original with you?
Oh. Oh that is just beautiful.
Todd’s reaction would have to be priceless, but I can’t imagine him thinking she was actually…finishing his sentence with the obvious tone and volume she’s using.
I admit, at first I thought it was just her…thinking “he’s asking me out. Score!” But that was only when I saw the symbol.. once I read the panels leading up to it and saw her expression…yeah. she totally said [explitive deleted].
Dave i must say im quite fond of ur unique finese with censorship ^_^
Bahaha, I love that symbol. Creative ways to demo cursing without actually doing it.
I very much like the concept of Todd and Mina, but I imagine that’s about to get derailed. Something really needs to be done about this school. There’s a real culture of bullying, not just at Selkie, but at others, and clearly at the orphans to an extent too…they seem to be a “group” whether they want to be or not.
I took it as her starting to swear and then censored it cause of natural reactions around kids so it becomes some sort of symbol that we recognize the parts of it, but not the whole significance.
They’re obviously both attracted to each other, that’s why it sounded like he was starting to ask her on a date. They got good chemistry, and while it may be rough of Selkie for the few months before summer vacation it would mellow out on her. So it’s not too bad an idea.
I think her reaction is a mix of oh no, one of my students is in danger and oh crap, the daughter of the guy I want to date is in trouble, Todd’s going to kill me!
I read the symbol as “Son of a bitch!” So I took a more literal take with the symbols. Male would be son, and female would be bitch (please don’t go crazy on this. I am a female too lol) and since they’re crossed, They are related, thus “Son of a bitch”
You know, I attempt to figure out the pictorial language before I refer to the comments. I don’t often succeed.
However, this was a really good attempt at something very difficult. Some swears are easy to portray in a pictorial way, and this one is the second hardest (in my book.) I didn’t get it at first, but when I did, I laughed aloud. Well done!
So do I. I had a lot of fun with that when Dave did comics where the speech was entirely in pictographic form. Dave usually does a good job of portraying ideas as pictures.
thats has to be the worst timeing ever
Longtime reader, first post. Enjoying story massively, even with a few things skirting very close to triggers of mine – old issues.
On the subject of Todd and Mina, I like the idea of them dating – Todd’s moving on or trying to, and Mina seems to need adult, non-school related social time. They may not end up romantically involved, they might. But it just seems like a few dates would be good for them both.
That has to be her dropping the f-bomb.
What other word would you use when the daughter of the man your flirting with is in shock WHEN your currently flirting with said man?
I thought the symbol was Todd asking her on a date. I guess it -kind of- makes sense looking back at it but i wouldnt have gathered “fuck” from the symbol. I think it might be a case of ‘good idea, not the best execution’ like maybe f they were more… aggressively intersected it would give that oomph.
just wanted to throw in my 2 cents, i had no clue what the last panel meant before reading to comments. those two symbols and the horror on her face would never have meant a cuss word to my mind. my best guess was that he had asked her out and she hated the idea. which didn’t seem right. and when a confused reader asked the answer was “figure it out yourself?” i love this comic, but i’m calling dropped ball. symbols should be easy to understand. and don’t most schools have rules about dating the students parents?
I’ll accept that I dropped the ball a bit here, but I don’t feel I am in the wrong to provide background context and try to lead people to the intended answer organically, instead of just giving it flat out.
Agreed, especially when people have civil discussions on possible interpretations of the matter. There are very few symbols that will be interpreted the same way unless the perceivers have all been taught their respective meanings. In fact, in my experience, a significant number of younger people don’t even know what the M/F symbols represent at all.
FYI:I first read the symbol as something along the lines of “WTF, OMG transgendered!?! Brain overload!” in response to Tod, as Selkie hadn’t been in the room long enough for her to process the severity of her condition.
When I read this I totally failed to understand the symbol. I thought it meant “and here I was so close to getting a date with this guy, and now something has happened to mess that up.” Rather than taking it as those two symbols very closely juxtaposed, I think I saw the angle as a sort of negation. Male and female, not together.
As for Unicorn Jelly, I’ve read through it several times. Some swear words were just made-up swear words, such as “farg” (which from context, clearly is the F-word). To Lose Is To Win…
But some swears were rendered in “Talcryl”, the native language of the Jellese. Here’s a memorable example; to understand it, all you really need to know is that “shatterel” is a jagged, sharp crystal that sometimes forms out of air in the Unicorn Jelly universe. You Can Read Talcyrl.
This talk of Unicorn Jelly has also got me thinking about Pastel Defender Heliotrope and To Save Her. Haven’t read any of the Jenniverse in ages.
I think last I heard she was starting a comic about a pig who follows bushido?
Pastel Defender Heliotrope: had its moments, but I felt the climax and resolution were lacking. Beautiful colors in the art.
To Save Her: a worthy follow-on to the original Unicorn Jelly. To really get the most out of it, though, you should read all the way through all of Unicorn Jelly including the “alternate universe” side comics. That’s a big time commitment, but I stand by this recommendation. To Save Her dives deep into the “multiverse” of Unicorn Jelly, with alternates of characters we have seen before, and you will get more out of it if you know who these people were in the main story.
I think Unicorn Jelly is an amazing story and probably the best thing she ever will create. The corollary is that if you were “meh” on UJ you shouldn’t invest the time in the other stories.
I always kind of liked the bit where the TSH variant of Texto was, like, the one GOOD Texto, and almost all the others were invariably psychopaths.
I can’t wait to see what happens when he proposes.