Now with 20% more word balloons.
I had to ask my mother the difference between chicken soup and chicken broth to make sure I used the right wording. Apparently broth is the second easiest thing in the world to to cook if you count boiling water as the first.
I’ve been waiting for that angry face !
Your mum is right – although for Selkie I would have thought leaving the chicken in would be a good thing as well.
I DO hope that Mr Smith gets involved in the whole school incident – I suspect he’s one of the few people that can stand up to the parents of the ‘bigger boy’
I actually feel for the school, they are the ones caught in the middle of what amounts to a political pissing match between parents.
If the school had more power, standing up to those parents wouldn’t be the cluster fuck that it is turning into.
Schools have a pretty fair amount of power if the administrators are 1) gutsy and 2) creative. Unfortunately, this administrator is neither.
Agreed. Also, I feel this is imminently relevant:
“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much;
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus’d;
Still by himself, abus’d or disabus’d;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all,
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d;
The glory, jest and riddle of the world.
“presume not God to scan“? Where’s that from?
Alexander Pope. ‘The Riddle of Mankind’, written 1734.
*Gah* ‘The Riddle of the World’ (Smacks self in head.)
Yep! It’s one of my favorite pieces.
I know the first lines are a bit out of place for this (I was thinking of the principal’s folly), but when nearly the whole piece is applicable, it seamed a shame to cut the tail off.
… Does that make a lick of sense? <.<
No, could you explain?
Of course.
The poem is an excerpt from Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Man”, a collection that was, I believe, never finished.
The lines that I was thinking of before posting were;
“A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride,”
which I feel sum up the character of Selkie’s school Principle.
But the whole poem is certainly applicable to many situations and people. Take the character of Agent Brown; he does his best, he has a great deal of knowledge and power, but he is still quite fallible. He makes mistakes, misjudgments. There are times when he hasn’t been certain of the correct path, but it’s his job to make the choice.
The poem is saying that no-matter what our position in power, knowledge or wisdom, we are not omniscient, or omnipotent. It is human that we are fallible.
Others may not see as much in it, but the poem resonates with my view of the world. I love it.
Oh, great excerpt! I am going to need to track that down.
20% more words are fine by me if that means Brown starts explaining some things. And I’m hopeful that “Did he, now.” means something is about to hit the fan for some people that deserve it. 😀
Second
third
fourth
fifth
Sixth
The Agent follows unpleasant orders, but he seems to be a decent sort who genuinely cares about Ne Lei
I wouldn’t want to be Principal Baggins right about now.
And then Agent Brown finds out that Truck was brought back to school because his parents threw a temper tantrum when Selkie decided that she didn’t like them insulting her.
My “Evil Grin” is already on, and my “Manical Righteous Laughter” is warming up for when Agent Brown confronts Truck and his family. Good times all around.
Federal agent > pissy rich parents
If they are so rich, why are they sending their kid to a public school?
Worse than pissy rich parents – pissy OVERLY EDUCATED parents.
Heather’s parents are rich. She wanted to stay at that school, even though they wanted to send her to private school. https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie140/
Maybe Truck likes being the school bully, and wants to stay where he KNOWS he has power. Going to a private school and he might not be richest or the biggest.
Could be that there’s no good private school in the area, particularly not for elementary school. Growing up, my town only had one “private” school that was basically populated by kids who got kicked out of other schools, one arts-only charter school, and one religious prep school. Even if we’d had the money, my parents would have kept me in public schools.
Hey Dave, we need a “Like” button!
Panel 7 = sh*t’s gonna hit the fan for Principal Hobbit!
So even Agent Brown think Selkie got a raw deal? When she goes back to school I wouldn’t be shocked if there is a new principal.
Although I’m gleefully anticipating the impending karma, can the government legally intervene over something so petty? Disciplining a corrupt principle is far too mundane a matter for the “Men In Black” to get involved; something much more important would have to be at stake…
IF it impedes upon the health of his charge, I think Agent Brown will do anything to set this right.
He’s not going to intervene directly, especially if the school is run by the state and Brown is a Fed. However, it isn’t beneath him to “apply significant pressure” if you get my drift.
I think the school board will send the guy packing for “undisclosed reasons.”
Selkie is a “special needs” child, and there are federal regulations in place to assure her of a healthy educational environment. In general, the enforcement of those regulations is pretty hit-or-miss and depends largely on how diligent the faculty is and how much pressure the parents put on them. But Selkie has a federal agent in her corner, so enforcement is considerably more likely in her case.
Y’know, this is true. I hadn’t thought of that. Not every special needs kid has his or her own Federal agent, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt.
Dr. D’Madiea can easily write a finding of disability that would help her with the gill-cleaning breaks and the need to be kept warm. That would help set up a plan for her that would stomp the principal dead in his tracks.
remember that brown is a fed and professor jerk is … a professor. i don’t know what his field is, but if he doesn’t directly receive federal funds, you can bet he has colleagues who do. brown doesn’t have to go near the school. a little ‘discussion’ with the wayward prof and, if needed his superiors and truck sr. will very likely sort out the school himself. and no unseemly bullying of school boards or principals that could wind up in the news needed.
1) pretty sure in this world they can do whatever Dave decides they can do
2) pretty sure there are a LOT of important things at stake with regard to Selkie, that we likely haven’t seen yet.
Oooooohhh Truck and his parents are GON GET IT.
Agent Brown’s face makes me think of Krieg the Psycho’s intro movie for Borderlands 2. That being said, I am beginning to wonder what personal investments Brown may have in Selkie.
…Now I won’t be able to see him without hearing him shout “I HAVE A SHINY NEW MEAT BICYCLE!!” in my head. 😀
Krieg is a really nice guy though, on the inside…he just has a little trouble communicating.
I’m loving this exposition, but then again I’m not getting why apex predators shouldn’t get sick. Is that a thing?
I think it is a thing, but only with little diseases. I’m pretty sure apex predators can get, I dunno, rickets. But rhinoviruses are pretty trivial, so an apex predator should be able to shrug them off.
You do know humans are apex predators right? It just means you’re so high up the food chain little to nothing naturally eats you, and you can’t get much higher than the species that can tame other apex predators for fun but you’re just as mortal as everything else.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apex_predator
Ummm, we technically aren’t. With only our natural defenses, almost ANY animal can take us out. Think of the number of people killed by domesticated dogs. Now think of how we would fare against wolves and tigers with nothing but out hands and teeth.
This is true. Except that our inventive brains are really the most formidable of our natural defenses, aren’t they? We evolved amongst bear-sized hyenas and sabre-toothed tigers, and hey, guess which of the three species isn’t extinct? Group co-operation and the ability to make use of materials at hand ARE our natural weapons. Pretty good ones, it seems.
The thing is, we’re talking about biology. Biologically, we are not apex predators. Thus, our immune systems are not those of apex predators.
just to add new thoughts to the discussion, a former co-worker of mine has a theory that things like hand sanitizer and antibacterial soap are lessening our natural immune systems by not feeding it things to fight off and acquire immunities for in the first place.
That would actually explain why I rarely get sick there. I do have to laugh at some of my co-workers being how I work nights and can get away with ‘allergies’ when I need to blow my nose because of a cold.
This is true, most of us here grew up in the age without the sanitizer and all the antibiotics. I rarely if ever get sick and I don’t get flu shots or anything like that. While my little brothers are constantly sick because they didn’t like getting dirty as kids and get exposed to all of the bacteria my older brother and I did.
The same goes for physical fitness and durability as well. When I was a kid I would jump off the roof and crash into brick walls on my bike and never get more than a scrap. I’ve met a number of kids who broke bones for less severe injuries that I used to get. One actually broke both arms falling form a second floor balcony.
Just saying, kids are getting weak now.
There’s also a theory that allergies develop for the same reason– the immune system has so little to defend against that it starts picking fights with harmless things.
Anybody with little kids finds this out. The first month or two in daycare is typically HELL while your kid gets infected with every disease that exists. My first kid spent more time at home than at daycare for the first three months.
Little kids are bags of juice and germs.
That’s not a theory, it’s scientifically proven. Did you know that polio only showed up in children from households that were kept super clean? True story. That’s why it’s good to let kids get out and play in the dirt and eat bugs or whatever it is that kids do; you keep ’em too clean and their immune systems never build up any kind of tolerances.
Which is why I only use soap when I take a shower.(It works as I hardly ever get sick and when I do get sick it doesn’t last for more then a day tops.)
Sure, we are talking about biology. But tools, including weapons to deal with predators, are an expression of our intelligence, and our intelligence is an expression of our genes. So, yes, it´s all biology. I think the scientific term is “phenotype”.
As for immune systems in humans, I believe that the additives in foods are both cancer-creating and also, oddly, increase our overall longevity.
Something else caught my attention. Apex predators who rarely get sick in what I presume is cold water… Is it temperature change that makes Selkie sick? Freezing temperatures entering her gills too much? Because obviously the cold doesn’t get to her when she’s in cold water.
I would not consider most humans predators but they do have the capacity to be so.
I think what he means is Selkie’s species swims in ice cold temperatures and eats bacteria laden food all the time with no ill effects, pardon the pun, so something as every day as the common cold should have been chewed up and spat out by her immune system.
I’m a bit confused about that. If they naturally swim in ice cold water, how is it that getting chilled can interfere with their otherwise-formidable immune system?
Luckily we have two characters right here who know the answer! Let’s hope they are about to explain to Todd, and us.
Agent brown says “open water” rather than ice cold water. Also, coping with anything when you only have one lung working (I assume is the equivalent of Selkie not using her gills while on land) is harder than if both of your lungs (or lungs and gills) are working.
There’s been an implication that at least some of them live in Lake Superior. The water’s surface temperature there varies seasonally between 32 F (i.e., ice cold) and 55 F, while below 660 feet (it’s a deeeep lake) the temperature is pretty much a constant 39 F — that is, really cold. Water’s a much better conductor of heat away from the body than air.
So I really want to know why it is that her species would be so vulnerable to cold! Perhaps there’s a set of thermal regulating reflexes that only activates when the species is breathing water?
But we’ll find out soon — I hope!
I think it would depend largely on what bodies of water Selkie’s people live in. Water itself is a highly regulatory agent of temperature, even though it does get colder as you go deeper due to light penetration. If Selkie’s people are ocean-dwelling, they could also have been living in something like the Gulf Stream which is warm. Another interesting point is that selkies are traditionally sea creatures, but non-mammalian sea creatures couldn’t survive in fresh water. However if Selkie were a mammal, she should not have gills. If Selkie is indeed a mammal with gills, we have found an entirely new type of lifeform that would rock the foundation of the scientific community’s world.
Agent Brown’s wording’s a little weird
If her immune system shouldn’t recognize a cold’s existence wouldn’t it mean that she’d suffer from it all the more?
😛
As much as I see potential in this comic I’m surprised by Agent Brown’s reaction… I knew I loved this comic for a reason! 😀 Yay for characters being more complex than they seamed from their excessively-obvious introductions!
Want. More. NOW.
My go-to ‘I’m sick’ recipe is boil water, break up some noodles and add a couple of chicken stock cubes and season to taste. For a cold I add some cayenne pepper as it’s good for your immune system and if your taste buds are screwed up by the cold then it means something you can actually taste!
I am now wondering if Agent Brown has a neuralyzer!
Spicy is good for anything that creates sore throat or sinuses. Seems like it would be pouring gas on a fire, but it actually soothes it for some reason.
I’ve got a local Mexican place that makes a spicy chicken soup that’s perfect for when sick. Chinese hot-sour soup is really good too.
Aah, Mexican mama’s soup. Cures anything. Good stuff, even if you’re NOT sick.
If they ever make a selkie movie I want the guy that played Agent Smith in the matrix, or the G Man in Half Life 2 toplay the agent.
Come on Wednesday! Exposition impending!
With Daves’ story telling style, this is likely to be a cliff-hanger spot, and he’ll moves on to something else that will tie in later.
You know me so well.
Well, after three and a half years of being a fan (almost a year of that building to meet Gillman B Ears, MD), it’s pretty evident that you are a tease, who is pretty damn good at weaving a story.
Go, Todd! Go, Todd!
Heh, everyone is going on about panel 7 but panel 3 and Pohl’s smile as he gives the good news that Nei Li’s illness is not serious is one of my all time favorites for this comic. Grandma’s exasperated reaction is great too. xD
I agree, Brown’s reaction is more plot relevant, but panel 3 would have made a nice ending to a page.
For some reason when ever I read Dr Pohl’s name I think of Dr. Phlox – the chief medical officer aboard the starship Enterprise from the short-lived series “Enterprise.” Did Dave intend this?
No but I’m not above lying and saying I did! Sceencap this comment in case I do!
He is a FED. That means all kinds of creativity. Audits, monitoring, and (GASP) red tape. Heh heh heh….
I read this and at first wondered what someone’s hunger status has to do with anything. 😛
I may be late to the party…but please tell me that Dr. Pohl’s name is a play on NatGeo famous vet Dr. Pol??
Sadly no. I watch a disturbingly low amount of educational television.
Another shot at the inspiration for Dr. Pohl … prolific (and recently deceased) sci-fi writer Frederick Pohl?
Also, although I’m feeling better about Agent Brown than I did a few strips ago, I still think he should have to wear the bunny ears.
71 comments in one day.
You’ve got the people a-talkin’, Dave! Well done!
I’ve been waiting since I met them for the Trunchbull family to encounter, as the saying goes, a Bigger Fish.
I have had hopes that this person they could not push around would be Agent Brown, pretty much from the moment we saw that he was a person with a personality.
And I am hoping that today’s reaction leads to a direct contact between him and someone in the Trunchbull family.
Can I just say that I love this story?
like.. so, so much.
when you first started it was kinda like “hey, here’s a new comic, it’s pretty interesting”
and now it’s basically “UGHHHH IS IT STRIP DAY YET?!?!”
😀 thanks!
“Apparently broth is the second easiest thing in the world to to cook if you count boiling water as the first.”
Only if you start from a can…
What?! You mean microwave oven meals don’t count as cooking?
Woohoo, worthless principal smack-down time! If anything less happens than that principal’s termination and some kind of karma return on Truck, I will not be a happy reader.
Please tell me Agent Brown locks the Trunchbull family in a deep freeze for 2 hours.
They’d survive. They’d just have frostbite and a new outlook on life.