If I can stick to the script the bathroom scene should be over after Friday’s strip. After that it jumps to the hospital. I don’t remember what exactly, but I think something was going down there?
The last few strips have used greyscale watercolor washes overlaid on top of the standard flat colors, to add a little more texture.
Oh, and aren’t you the nasty little piece of work yourself, Keisha? Honestly, where are these kids coming from that they’re such a rotten bunch? Or is it just the spreading cancer of the school’s bad administration?
“Honestly, where are these kids coming from that they’re such a rotten bunch?”
They’re realistically-written kids. It’s that simple. Keisha and Lynni are doing wrong, but they’re not being immature. As children, that’s exactly how they would think at that age.
Giselle, not Keisha.
Oh, that’s right, too. Keisha is friends with Heather and formerly Amanda. Sorry for mixing up the kids.
Most children are capable of being incredible jerks. Many of them grow out of it.
“Many of them grow out of it.”
You wish. Most adults are like this. They just get more subtle and sneaky about it.
Compassion and empathy are learned responses. Humans are born capable only of understanding their own desires. Based on a variety of factors, most blatantly the influence of parental and mentor figures, we then learn how to behave in a way that most benefits us in the society in which we are raised. North America is a society that claims to laud moral and compassionate behaviour, but in practice, sensationalizes selfish and violent behaviour. For the most part, we as adults want to believe that kindness, generosity, etc, will pay off and lead to us living good lives, but kids are more interested in immediate gratification, and the sad fact is that selfishness brings benefits much more quickly (assuming you aren’t caught and punished).
To summarize human behaviour in a sentence: Altruism benefits the society as a whole and increases our odds of survival as a species, while selfishness benefits the individual, making them more likely to survive long enough to pass on their genes.
And before anyone starts going on about children being innocent, that is only true in the sense that ‘innocent’ and ‘unknowing’ are synonymous, because children can’t always connect cause and effect.
Children are selfish, self absorbed, nasty little vermin. “Childhood innocence” is a myth. They have to be taught consideration and compassion for others, it’s not inherent. I can’t be the only one here who remembers how nasty the other kids (and I’ll include myself here as one of them) could be?
Oh, I agree. I generally can’t stand children for exactly this reason. However, by this age, most children have learned at least a modicum of humanity from their parents and other positive role models–assuming, of course, that they are being raised with these values in mind, which is far from given.
You’re not wrong. We have to be taught how to be, well, human the way we want to be. And a lot of times, people aren’t doing it. I’ve never believed in the innocence of childhood…hurt too much as a kid, by kids.
I know! Ender Wiggins met nicer kids, and they were shooting at him!
Well, at least she didn’t loose any more teeth.
Mmm, digging those textures in the background.
Called it. The Amanda-threatening-Giselle thing, not the stealing-rich-friend thing, although that’s actually not really surprising now that it’s been revealed. How many stories have a kid suddenly come into good fortune and become uncertain who their friends really are? (Or lose their celebrity status/family money/swimming pool, and subsequently learn that a lot of people they thought were their friends were just being opprotunistic. Not what’s happening here, but a storyline involving relevant concepts.)
I love those gray washes over the walls and windows – they give a great dingy, industrial look that’s perfect for a utilitarian building like a public school. They wouldn’t work so well in a private home, unless it’s in a state of disrepair or just used to set the mood, but different colour washes could be used to express different emotional tones. A home would probably have a warm wash, like orange or yellow – a wash of red would turn pink and look girly except in very specific circumstances, and so would be inappropriate for most settings. The gray could work for the hospital, too, although I would lean towards a very light green instead – suggesting both illness, and antiseptics.
Sorry Giselle, but I don’t think Heather is going to fall for that.
I desperately want Amanda to find her mum and be happy… 🙁 I feel very sorry for her… She’s a very strong-willed person….
Though i think it’s a good idea to not rush it x3x That and I think even when her real mother put in that request to find her, the process in which to find the child would take a bit of time. Don’t think a ‘super happy ending’ so soon would help… I mean wouldn’t it be more rewarding for us to watch Amanda become kind first AND THEN mother appears? Then it feels like she’s gotten the biggest reward of her life to not be a manipulating little whiner…
I think Amanda basically wants to be loved and to belong somewhere. So far, everyone rejects her, and she really doesn’t have a parenting figure or a role model to look up to: she’s all on her own, so I can’t blame her for bullying others (besides, it appears her bullying methods are far less cruel than other children’s).
Besides, I doubt that meeting her mother will miraculously solve all her problems; far from it, in fact: She’ll have to ask her mother why she wasn’t wanted before. Then she’ll meet her real father, and find out that he preferred to adopt ANOTHER kid instead of her. And finally, she’ll have Selkie as a sibling – good luck coping with all these!
I want her to meet her mother so that the process of healing will begin for her, but it will take a long, long time…
The abandonment issues… The whole ‘why did you choose fishface over your real daughter?’ etc etc. Her history is tragic but you tend to forget that fact when she’s as mean as she is. She doesn’t quite have the concept of herself as a whole, well not until Heather pointed out what a poor friend she is. I really hope Amanda finds her mother too and that she as a person can heal from that poor excuse of ‘people’ that adopted her. And that Todd gets to properly meet the little girl he thought was stillborn.
Pfft, there are kids much more mean than her, both in the comic and the real world. Besides, she’s just a child who has to cope by herself – I can’t really dislike her for turning out as she did. If Selkie had been in her place (Selkie spent some years with her mum before going to the orphanage) she could have turned out much worse.
I’m not saying that she shouldn’t improve as a person 😛 I’m just saying that I REALLY feel sorry for her and I hope she’ll find some comfort as soon as possible.
Yuuup… These are some realistic kids you’ve written in… You could argue ‘bad parenting’ or ‘bad schooling’ but when it boils down to it; finding a kid that’s pure good is EXTREMELY hard to come bye. A kid is born a sociopath, where in lies they learn good and bad morals through parents, peers, consequences. A good example is Truck… His parents may seem no nonsense… But when it comes to their kid they’re practically blind to his faults. Leaving the boy with absolutely no consequences (other than changing schools) or thinking up ways of how to avoid consequence. Hence his morals are never tested they’re just… there… And he’s a ‘normal kid’… Versus Selkie where she’s super strange in their books, but she’s kind and smart. Because of her being a misfit she understands what it’s like to be friendless, to be misunderstood, to be shunned. I mean she’s not the perfect little angel (no kid is) but she is by far a more well rounded person than the humans around her.
I’m disappointed in Amanda for not making a pass at the gap between her teeth… making it bigger or something.
I have to comment that I adore how you portray the children, because it sparks wonderful discussions in the comments.
Well. This backfired all over the place and in the most realistic way possible. Dave, you evoke equal rage and glee in me and I am about ready to explode with ambivalence.
And Giselle is showing signs of making a wonderful supervillain. Giselle, if you need henchmen, I know plenty of out-of-work henchmen who would be happy to assist you in your evil plan.
Also: Amanda’s expression in Panel 3 is THE BEST FACE EVER.
im not the bullying type, nor the fighting type in general…
but were i in amanda’s shoes, that conversation would only garentee giselle left that bathroom with less teeth than she came in.
It really is an accurate protrayal of kids, but I’m going to have to disagree with kids needing to learn kindness and such.
I’ve seen and heard of kids on both ends of the spectrum, the good, and the bad. Kids are inexperienced, and may not know quite what right and wrong actually means… but they do start out with a the ability to do both at will. Kids will do the sweetest things at random, some more often than others. It’s not entirely a learned behavior. (If it was, I’m pretty sure the world would be even MORE full of jerks)
With that said, parents are support to temper and strengthen the nicer side of kids and discourage the meaner side.
Trucks an example of a kid that needed more discouragement to begin with, combined with parents that spoil/teach the child all the wrong behavior.
Go figure I’d come out of lurking around here for the first time to defend kids as not pure bad.
I have to agree with you. Kids run the whole spectrum of good to bad. It’s just, they’re also very malleable. It’s really easy to take a kid who’s mostly good and turn them quite evil, with very little effort. It’s actually just as easy to take a kid who seems evil and turn them into a good person, but most people don’t know how (and it seems to takes more effort). BUT, well, there’s a few kids who appear evil in every school. And we’re only seeing the drama parts. We’re not seeing much from the five orphans who aren’t causing trouble, or the rest of the 30-odd classroom.
We’re really only seeing about 15-20 kids. And only 3 or 4 of them are really bad, the rest either think it’s all in good fun or are going along to not feel left out. Out of the ones who are actually being bad, one’s an orphan and the other’s Truck.
It depends on the amount of empathy combined with intelligence the kid starts with. One who has a high level of empathy with intelligence will make the connection that if you don’t like getting hurt yourself, you shouldn’t be hurting other people relatively quickly. One with high level empathy who isn’t as bright is likely to join cliques or gangs where the accepted mentality is ‘you hurt my group member? I HURTZ YOU!’ Highly intelligent with no sense of empathy gives you a self-centered psychopath and no empathy/no brains gives you your garden variety petty criminal. While a sense of empathy can be cultivated (usually through painful experience), there is a certain amount of sensitivity each individual is born with (as there is iq) that limits exactly how quickly they process empathic-ly. This might explain why it’s about 50-50 whether kids who grow up in abusive homes learn better vs becoming abusers themselves. This is, of course, my opinion and a very generalized one at that.
See? I told you she could take ’em…
Your writing is amazing, and I love this page’s actions… that’s a very common line from me in my years of being bullied.
I think it’s nice that Amanda is still protective of Heather, even though they just had a huge fight and she got uninvited to her party. That shows some good qualities.
I shouldn’t, but I feel deeply satisfied that Giselle was like “I’ma beat you up!” and Amanda was basically “You, and what army?” It’s just refreshing to see someone stick up for themselves (I know, I know, kids shouldn’t fight… guess what, I did, and I turned out normal and not beating up adults).
This is a mistake on Amanda’s part. Trying to frighten someone who was making aggressive moves?
It’s like pointing a gun at somebody–You don’t point the gun unless you plan to pull the trigger.
Amanda shouldn’t have let go.