Oh cats. Why do you nip us so?
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It is my pleasure to announce another Fan Art update today. This one is from Mike Lake of Orange as a Colour.
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Thank you Mike!
Today's edition of the Secret Commentary is empty, because Dave failed to come up with something for it.
“It’s all blue”…
Someone else take this one, I disrupted my thinking process when I broke my desk with my forehead.
Implying blueish blood?
I’ll take it, then:
Veinous blood is a color that only barely qualifies as red (a it’s very dark red). A couple lines of Shakespeare even call it “purple”, though the intervening centuries of linguistic changes make it harder for us to call it that.
Veins often do appear blue beneath the skin due to Rayleigh scattering of visible light. If Grandma has not had a reason to see much blood before, it is reasonable to guess that she thinks human veinous blood is blue. However, it is likely that the only person whom she knows whose blood is truly bluish is Selkie.
The joke is that the joke is on Grandma. It is also thoroughly killed by an inconsiderate individual on the Internet 😉
Blue is an awkward color for biology though, I can’t think of any metal that rusts (or oxides) blue off the top of my head.
hemocyanin is a copper based oxygen transport protein in horseshoe crabs and other arthropods and makes their blood a bright blue
Was that a catnip joke?? I thought s/he bit Selkie because she’s kinda fishie… I actually have had several male cats that react weird to different foodstuffs. Example 1: Karos syrup mixed with red dye on my arm to look like fake blood. Mom had to pull the cat off me. Example 2: Green olives with my current cat. Even a dish they’ve been in. He will find it and lick it or try to steal olives if they still linger. Cool art, Mike Lake!
One of my cats loves the syrupy sauce that comes with Flan.
My cats like lima beans, scrambled eggs, and the occasional cream cheese bagel.
Kitty: Hrm… fishie on table, or… BIGGER FISHIE! *chomp*
wow i love this comic! Selkie is just too cute, and her problem was she continued to talk after the cat put his paw on her mouth, my cat does that to tell me to shut up. 😛 he also enjoys pickles. no clue why. then again i get this for nameing him Low-key. >.<
Coming up next: We learn how to cuss in Selkie’s native language! 😀
This comic brings up an interesting question that I’m not sure has been answered. What’s the hemoglobin in Selkie’s blood, if not iron?
copper based blood is usualy found in acrustaceans living in cold, low oxygen pressure enviroments were iron based blodd is less efficient.
it can carry more oxygen but the blood tends to be thicker requiring more energy to pump.
you have learned, you didnt want too, but you did just the same.
You learn something new every day if you’re not careful.
Does that mean Selkie is part Horseshoe crab?
&
Todd shouldn’t say ‘dammit’ in front of her.
She’s 8, I think she can handle it. You’d never heard the word damn when you were 8?
Blue blood does not have hemoglobin, but rather a substance called hemocyanin; instead of iron, hemocyanins contain copper (which, in an oxidized state, turns blue or blue-green).
As for the cat’s reaction, he was probably simply thinking “hey, this fish is fresher!”
I loves her tongue sticking out in panel 2, hehehe.
And oh Gramma – even though veins are “blue,” human blood is still red =P But that’s so cute at the same time, lol.
Love it!! And the cats expression in 5….ROFL!
She’s not human though.
lol, I know – but GRAMMA thinks she is =P I think, hehehe.
Good God, he must think she’s some type of FISH!!!
That reminds me. Todd should never use antibiotics on Selkie, because we have no idea if they’re compatible with her metabolism. Disinfect minor injuries with hydrogen peroxide instead.
Ooooh, I did not think of that, honestly. Good point!
Crook’s little “zaa?” reminded me of Elliot/Ellen from EGS. Did you do that intentionally?
I hoped someone would notice that. The answer is yes, I did. I love El Goonish Shive.
Uh-oh cat, I have a feeling that Selkie is the type to bite back and just from looking at her teeth that looks like trouble!
ah, cat love bites; tend to happen when the cat is extremely happy, generally while getting attention. Not anywhere near as hard or deep as a REAL bite, thank goodness, but they can still hurt.
I’ve have/had a total of 5 cats so far in my nearly 23 years of life, and they always do that when happy. If they think something on you smells delicious, they just lick (like crazy), but tend to only bite for it if there is something substantial there, like an actual piece of meat or something.
Anyway, this has probably been going on for quite long enough, especially for a first comment, so I’ll just go ahead and add that I’m loving the comic so far.
Well it would seem that selkie possibly has hemocyanin instead of hemoglobin, this would account for the blue skin (non-pigmented humans are pink because of our blood) would this mean that selkie’s people are evolved from the higher molluscs?
I see this has been hypothesized already…….. whoops….
I doubt that Crook mistook Selkie for food. It has been my experience that cat have a great respect for size. Cats like beef too but they generally do not go around trying to eat cows or little girls for that matter.
One of my cats will nip to say ‘okay, that’s enough now’ when I’m petting her. She used to bite hard, but now just touches. It’s just a natural part of the conversation these days.
Changing your hemoglobin is biologicaly improbable, I assume it’s something else that makes it blue.