Sai Fen learned anatomy from the Mattel School of Art and Design.
I actually haven't yet decided which Major Clan the Maiden in Sai Fen's sculpture belongs too. We'll see....
Sai Fen learned anatomy from the Mattel School of Art and Design.
Sai Fen just keeps getting awesome points with me. I’d love living with this kinda person, supportive competition with art, good conversation, mischief. ^_^
(And I’m avoiding commenting on the whole war/atrocity thing, since anything I could say is either blatantly obvious or deeply personal.) But well done Dave, I don’t think any of the readers foresaw this scenario.
So, two clans fighting and one getting wiped out is pretty normal tribal warfare. But the REASON for your particular scenario is pretty cool and interesting. Instead of fighting over resources, they’re fighting over whether or not to go to war. That really tells us a lot about how these Aquatic people think, and how their different clans see the world too.
Let’s take that a step further.
They started fighting a civil war over whether or not to go to war with the united states(or demand the heads of the fisherman who killed the guy), which, for a civilization that exists entirely in one lake*, could be considered suicidal. The tribe that advocated “blood for blood”, has now been virtually wiped out.
*Is that right Dave?
I’ll go ahead and clarify meself a bit. “Blood for blood” is justice, vengeance. All out war was not the Jin’Sorai’s desire. However, they DID desire exposing Sarnoth to the outer world, to make the incident public and demand retribution.
…thanks Dave. Now I’m wondering if her girl parts are the same as human girl parts. This is worse than the “She can never have a human boy(girl?)friend because her spit could kill him” thing.
Just a thought.. if Sarnothi -spit- is irritating to humans, would physical intimacy with a Sarnothi also be harmful?
Also, Selkie’s reaction to the nekkid maiden is every kind of awesome I expected, but Sai Fen is a priceless surprise. Nice!
Honestly the idea of selkie having a boyfriend at this age is kinda ick. At this age boys are icky. Besides which she’s a little girl in elementry school. She’s not really supposed to be thinking about sex at all for, well, quite a while.
I mean. Ick, she’s a little kid. I know it’s something that’ll come up *eventually* in someone’s life, but if they’re not worried about babies, well, hands and nice thick rubber gloves are all you really need to pleasure someone. Icky. I don’t even want to think about it >.< She's, like, six dude! Maybe 8!
I don’t think Makokam intended the issue to come up at Selkie’s current age, more of a future speculation thing.
… This is kind of my specialty field (gender diversity and sexual developement). There’s a lot I want to share, but I don’t know how comfortable other readers would be.
Doesn’t necessarily have to be Selkie herself. If more of Selkie’s people being to move into the US, it will only be a matter a time before humans and sarnoth attempt to….”experiment”. I’ve seen enough of the internet to know that wouldn’t be too farfetched. At least, where humans are concered -_-‘
Ah yes, the more “exogamous” individuals…………….
Doing my best to be civil.
That being said, the Sarnothi are people, so it’s more extreme exogamy/xenophilia and a bit of a grey area.
Little kids in many cultures will sometimes play a variation of “Doctor” or “house” that sometimes involves comparing anatomy. While it is generally icky to adults, it is considered developmentally normal at that age. It isn’t sexual in a grown-up sense, but it does reflect curiosity and an awareness of sexual differences. (@Gryph: Do you think that was vague enough?)
A year and a bit late on my part!
It’s fair enough, not the direction I was thinking on but true.
Perhapse the maiden came before the clans, and represents the genesis of Sarnoth?
(Like Romulus and Remus founding Rome, giving rise to the great families.)
Either that or… The statue represents the merging of the Maiden (pre-Sarnothi people) WITH the serpent and he’s actually in the process of… you know… MAKING Sarnothi people and Sai Fen hadn’t gotten around to sculpting the serpent’s male bits yet?
What about no clan at all? Since the maiden probably dates to a prehistoric myth, she might be of a time before the clans split apart – a singular mother as it were.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Some humor is just what we need after the MEGANTIC WHAM EPISODE.
And I am so going to find a way to use “Reasons. Escalatingly uncomfortable reasons” in private conversation.
Being anatomically incorrect is not very natural, lady. 😉
id say she should be mor’kama cause they haven’t had as much importance as the other castes and also they have no markings like the statue
But the statue is monochrome, and the markings are a coloration issue, not upraised or otherwise texturally defined skin. I presume it’s going to be painted later.
I love Selkie’s face.
“UHHHHHHHH!” Perfect!
Missing “girl parts” is the true mark of a G rating.
Heh, looks like Selkie is gnawing on Sai’s hand
Maybe if Selkie’s people hadn’t demanded blood from a civilization that could, with little effort, wipe them out, then we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Lots of good stuff here. Hopefully Selkie will happy enough to learn about her people as a whole that questions about her clan won’t come up just yet. But I’m going to guess that the remnants of her clan aren’t treated so well…and that’s why mom smuggled her out.
Any time the concept of gender with non-humans comes up, I’m always reminded of the Dark Crystal, where the gelfling Jen has just met the only other of his kind, a girl Kira. “Wings! But I don’t have wings…” “Of course not. You’re a boy.”
“Escalatingly uncomfortable reasons” and Sai Fen’s expression are hilarious!
I was 5 when I first saw that movie, and I cried at that scene! (Early symptoms of my gender identity; I wanted to be the girl and get wings!) 😉
AAAAAAA
I just watched The Dark Crystal again last week how did you know
And that is the best line in the movie, might I add.
… That’s a horrifying reason for a civil war. It has historical precedent, especially in greece, but I’ve always thought that going to war over weather or not to go to war was… well, a bad idea.
Speaking of Dark Crystal, ever see the MAD version drawn by Don Martin? After Kira unfolds her wings, Jen shows her his… parachute. “So THAT’S the difference!”
She deserves to know, Todd. If she finds out down the road you’ve been keeping it from her, she’s going to be mad. Can you hear me, Todd? …. Todd?
Makes me wonder if Selkie’s species have different reproductive organs or… if Selkie is somehow a boy and that’s why things are getting escalatingly uncomfortable lol
There was a skectch or something that was posted a year or longer ago that went over the reproductive diffrences. They lay eggs- as we’ve seen and the ‘nurse’ for a shorter time (similar to how other fish spices ‘nurse’ their young) if I am remembering correctly.
Think fish reproduction that’s been slightly human sized with out the generd changing.
Loving this comic, I’ve not been so engrossed in a story in a long time! 🙂
Is the Mattel School of Design in Sarnoth?
An art note (brought to a head by panel 4): Since the 3rd panel of selkie403, Todd’s mouth has occasionally been distractingly comical (not in a good way).
That said, very glad to learn the background of the civil war! Quite an interesting reversal of what might be suspected otherwise.
(Other than that: Until a short while ago, Selkie didn’t even know that there were different groups of sarnothi. While the war is tragic, ‘her people’ that she’s learnt about is the entire population of the city, and is still left as a massive positive. *smiles*)
In panels 3, 5, 6 and 7 I just noticed that Selkie’s and Sai Fen’s eye brows go off their head. I thought that was only a toon thing until I started drawing it “over the hair” on my characters LOL. Just noticing this, I need to go back and see if this is a new thing Dave started doing or if it is an “always been” thing…
They’ve gone into the hair before but I think leaving the entirety of the head behind is new for me. XD
Aw, but the reasons are easy.
1: It’s a fiddly bit to carve.
2: If there were girl parts showing, all the 12-year-olds would stop paying attention to the “closer to nature” part and be going, “GIRL-PARTS! AHHHH!” and/or snickering and it would be distracting from the art.
3: It’s to better fit-in with human society, which gets all weird about parts.
On the last panel: what is with the horns coming out of Ms. Pohl’s head?
Eyebrows, arched in surprise and discomfort 😛
Sai Fen is also a bad fibber, just like her husband.
Ah, I see the statue’s gill flap was shifted downward to reduce its resemblance to a third breast. A prudent choice.
Pfft. This is a simple question to answer:
SF: “Selkie, it’s not that big a sculpture. Her girl-parts would have been really REALLY tiny, and in difficult angle to reach with a sculpting knife the size of my forearm. Not worth the hassle. besides, who’s going to check if she has girl parts, really!”
Selkie: “I’s checked.”
SF: “Well you’re weird. NYEH!”