It’s come to my attention that certain readers have been nearly driven to the point of insanity by this interminable birthing story arc, and that fact amuses me to no end. Because nothing amuses me more than beating a dead horse long past its expiry date. Still, take heart, readers! The baby is out at long, long last!
And no, Robert, there will be no afterbirth joke. Instead you get an umbilical cord joke. Because I like to be derivative in new and fresh ways.
For those who will judge Colin harshly for his confusion surrounding the umbilical cord, let me say this: unless you’ve been through this, you don’t know jack about what an umbilical cord looks like, and whatever you think it looks like, you’re wrong. Hollywood will not help you on this either; they’re wrong too. One thing that is weird about a real umbilical cord is the colour: bluish, almost verging on turquoise. And cutting the thing is … unsettling. The nurse hands you tough, bulky scissors that look like they’re made for trimming tree branches, and even with such heavy-duty equipment on your side, it’s not an easy cut. The umbilical cord is decidedly … crunchy.
For those who are wondering, you actually see the baby (and find out the gender) next week. In strip 200. Just like I promised a million years ago.
2ND September Voting Incentive! PAPER DOLL PHOEBE GOES CLUBBING!!!
That’s right! Get into the Victorian hobby of paper dolls – Phoebe style! Dress up our comic’s resident clotheshorse however you see fit! This week we’ve got the clubbingest outfits Phoebe ever wore! Vote again soon to see the next one!
For each paper doll, you can download the printable file (see the text above the incentive image for more info), print it on glossy paper and get cutting!
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ALSO…
BABIES. They are in existence.
And crying!
Every doctor needs a light beating once in a while.
And my mom, who was a RN, would agree.
People in general can benefit from periodic thrashing.
Even if it’s done in the name of love?
Well, that just makes it creepy.
Okay, I can’t leave it alone now. . .
What about Bob?
hee hee he he he he he
I’d love to thrash ….
With respect to my wife, who is a doctor, I (and everyone who knows her) would disagree. And she would disagree concerning people in general.
Who wins the baby pool? My mom’s dog could use a new one. If I win, can I have a gift card for SquallMart? It’s the only place that my mom likes to shop, outside of Krogers.
The winner of the baby pool is one Chuck Fernendez from Rochester NY. Congratulations Chuck!
So she popped at 199. Which made my countdown gag off by one. I bet you took that into account when you paced the birth too. 🙂
Always messing. That’s me.
Heh, so much for being first. . .
No worries.
NASA actually lights the igniters at T-1(ish).
I’m not a father, and never will be. Especially after contemplating cutting an umbilical cord. Doesn’t that, like, HURT or something, to have that cut? Gaaah. I’d rather leave that to the professionals, assuming they’re not knocked unconscious.
You’re talking about something that a baby will never remember. Humans don’t remember much before three, you know? And definitely not the birth trauma.
No, what you should be concerned about is cutting and tying off the cord correctly.
Enh. It’s a cord. It needs to be cut. It’s not rocket science. Baby animals have their cords cut by the mother chewing through them, so I don’t think it’s hard to do right.
They may not consciously remember much, but they can be TRAINED. And they do LEARN. Why no actual “memories” are formed is a mystery.
I’m not a neurologist, so forgive me if not everything I’m going to say is 100% correct.
The brain is a mess of chemistry and electricity. Our memory isn’t like a book or a hard drive where data is just there, waiting to be accessed. In order for a memory to be “saved”, it must form a neural pathway in your brain. Chemical reactions in your brain that I don’t completely understand basically enlarge and shrink neurons to accept or reject electrical signals based on a stimulus. How frequently that stimulus is applied is what determines how strong a memory will be in the future.
A baby’s mind is constantly forming neural pathways for things it needs to know as it grows; walking, talking, feeding themselves, controlling their bladders and bowels…all things necessary to survive and move through human society. A baby’s mind is also forming attachments to the people around them, and building preferences. For example, when I was active duty, I was talking the wife of someone in my unit, and their infant daughter was looking at me and smiling at me because of my uniform; her neural pathways associated my uniform with her father, someone she trusts to take care of her and keep her safe.
Because of all this, a baby’s mind doesn’t have much time to form lasting memories. But by the time a person is around 3, they’ve got full control over their bodies and functions, can walk, feed themselves and talk in their primary language. Their brains don’t have to work as hard to form neural pathways in order to survive and function, so it can devote efforts to forming long term memories.
Thank Film Theory’s episode on Wolverine and Deadpool for giving me a reason to look that up. It’s amazing what can spark an interest to research, isn’t it?
I don’t think umbilical cords have pain receptor nerves, nor THAT sort of link-up to a baby, but it’s hard to tell because the kid’s already screaming its head off.
The kid has been pushed out of a dark, warm, fluidy place out of a small hole smaller than their head (which is stretchy, but still…) into a bright, cold and dry place.
The kid is blind, cold and dehydrated. Wouldn’t that be uncomfortable to you?
And, suddenly, you’re sucking in wind…
Imagine being able to remember that transition.
Good points by both of you. Thanks.
It’s Puck giving birth here. How can you be sure the umbilical cord isn’t some blue alien snake thing, too?
True. But this is NOT a Ridley Scott movie, so I’m gonna say no to that.
Yeah, it’s not like the belly button opens up like a whale and spits the baby out at the ceiling around seventy miles an hour, making a sonic baby birth pop.
Small chested violent female lead who’s unnaturally attached to an inhuman child that isn’t hers and a supporting cast of largely incompetent associates as well as one highly intelligent individual that the lead doesn’t really like but he still shows up whenever she absolutely needs him. If you add in a bunch of face huggers it certainly sounds like a Ridley Scott movie.
You got a point there.
Where was it mentioned that Newt was an inhuman child?
Well, she was pretty creepy, even if she was human.
Hey, you survive against all insurmountable odds and see how you turn out. The only thing that helped the kid was that she was a young kid. Hearing fresh and unspoiled, able to hear hissing at fifty meters, scratching and scraping at 30 meters, and light enough to not make pitter patter noises when crawling away. Smart enough to not take a shower, because wearing the surrounding smells of the station was a smart move, even if it was unintentional.
She survived around that many aliens for way too long to be human. Those things are supposed to be able to swarm entire planets with a fair amount of ease, no way some random kid is going to get through all of that. Especially after seeing her own father be the victim of a chestburster. Plus, most of the shots she’s supposed to be in you’re just looking at the back of a poorly made lightweight dummy.
Still, this doesn’t change the fact that Newt has never been in a RIDLEY SCOTT FILM. Which started this whole mess. Though admittedly, Aliens is awesome.
Bwar, you can not repudiate me with redundancy and facts. Statistical analysis and predatory behavior of the antagonist beast suggest that she should have been eaten on the spot after daddy was a cheeseburger with extra pickles.
Those things could not maneovuer in the air ducts, which was where the kid lived. However, they seemed plenty able to get into the sewer system, which seems just about as stupid, considering that the thing should have had either replicators or a pipe network.
BUT IT WAS A MOVIE. The kid had to be alive in order for it to have worked, the android was the one with the knife and the hand. Who, except for a bunch of mouth breathing drunks wants to root for an android with a knife and some guy’s hand playing count the spaces.
Heh, it amuses me to no end to hear the squeamish and those who’ve never attended a birth of any kind pontificate on how “gross” it is. 🙂
It’s bizarre and overwhelming, but I wouldn’t exactly say it’s gross. It’s … interesting.
Is it true that thins are moving down there?
A baby moves down there, if that’s what you’re talking about.
I can’t remember which comedian says it, but he says that things are moving down there before the baby is birthed.
EXACTLLY! sheesh, if birthing freaks them out…can you imagine how they’d react to killing and butchering their own meat? 🙂 Yes, yes I have done that and birthed more than my share of mammals. 2 leggeds and 4.
Okay, just being smarmy here,
I’ve heard of a boy named Sue, Lynn, and a girl named Ralph, but a girl named Keith?
ooo, what gives you that idea? sheesh I cut the cord on both my boys. Knew the meconium with the first one wasn’t a good thing (it worked out fine). Helped whelp my share of dogs and a couple cats. Among others. 🙂 This dad don’t get grossed out.
I’m just glad you excluded the horror of… Forced excrement from the compression of birth on the colon 😉
Uhm … I been through two of these. I had a pretty good view both times. Didn’t happen in either case. Thankfully.
Yeah, that would have been crappy.
Congrats Colin you’re a dad. And finally a little bit more of a man since Puck has pretty much beat your manhood out of you over this interminable two year ark.
Hey, Colin’s manhood is full of manly manliness. He can’t help if he’s partnered with a veritable force of nature.
Especially a force of nature that had a bun in the oven and didn’t know it. Wait a second Gecko, she ate that bun, were you insinuating that this is an edible child, possibly made of boiled hot dog product?
I think I directly established that in the Stickterlude comics.
After having been in labor for several weeks, I think the battery is totally justified. ;P
Four D batteries, I’d say!
Poo on that gentlemen, use a lantern battery. Better yet, a motorcycle battery. That’d do the trick.
I say a gun battery.
That alone sounds very commanding.
Sometimes it’s nice to go commando…
Unless someone is pulling a prank on you.
Commando Prank. Sequential Art
… dang that’s just wrong.
Awww… The doctor woke up.
And awww, the baby’s finally here.
X1
Maybe we’ll be spared too much from the doctor & Puck will knock him out again?
Nah, only one concussion per pregnancy. That’s the legal limit.
Awwww, Gecko, I just read that click through, and poor Bob.
Poor, poor bob. I wonder which commenter Bob is.
Oh well, what has six thumbs under his roof and doesn’t care? Gecko!!
Just remember, you can save 15% or more by calling Gecko.
And we have baby! God if it is a girl Colin’s last remaining shreds of sanity and manliness will flee from the veritable onslaught of womb-walkers. Aww I want to name the baby Bailey as a nod to Colin’s heritage and the alcohol of choice for spicing up a good cup of coffee. Plus its unisex, so it works for what ever fleshling comes out of Puck’s chainsaw wound.
Do we even know Colin’s heritage? But as for the name ‘Bailey’, I boycott that because of Steven Spielberg’s insistence that he would only direct the Harry Potter movie if they could set the movie in America and rename Hermione as Bailey. NO BAILEY!!!!
DAMN IT GECKO. Man up. screw Spielberg’s fantasy island dreams. We have small screen precedents. Bailey Quarters man. Venus Flytrap man. No walls around the news desk. WAKE UP MAN.
heh. Throwing turkeys. That’ll do pig, that’ll do.
Dear God Gecko! I completely forgot about Baileygate! As of today that name shall live in infamy! Ah the Colin thing was because of personal experience since every Colin I’ve come across was Irish and my brain went straight to Irish cream coffee otherwise known as poor man’s excuse for liquor in the morning. Besides properly naming babies is hard. My own children’s names are Artemis Tsukiyomi Rei and Aphrodite Raven Rose(my mom is and forever will be a hippy and I was irrovocably tainted because of it) and I have no doubt that they shal, hate me and their names for the rest of their days. Have fun picking out a name tho I actually want to know the gender and name almost as much as I want to see the ravaged afterglow face of pain-free Puck!
Your name choices are … interesting. Colin’s background is likely a general British Isles mix with a bit of Irish thrown in, though not TOO much Irish.
As for names, I’m a teacher, and that means I see the results of naming catastrophes all the time. Sometimes it turns out okay. Sometimes not. What have I learned after over a decade of teaching?
1) Never name your girl child after a gemstone
2) Never name your boy child any name that starts with ‘J’
Those are the big ones. There are other rules, of course. But those are the big ones.
3) Never give your son a girl’s name and never give your daughter a boy’s name. (At least by modern naming standards.) That way, you won’t get situations where a boy named Taylor doesn’t get mocked for having a girl’s name, or a girl named Tyler doesn’t get mocked for having a boy’s name.
I know that interesting, that is the paraphrase of, “Oh, my God those kids are like blood-covered opiates to the sharks that inhabit school hall!” But its okay better then my full name which is Amanda Raindancer Sunflower. I survived on Amanda alone.
I don’t know if I should be insulted. On the one hand, you’re Canadian. On the other hand, you totally missed some of the clues for one of the hottest brunettes ever to grace the small screen.
Hell with it, let’s get flapjacks.
Weighing in here as a fellow teacher. Can’t say I’ve ever really had issues with 1). Mustn’t be too popular a choice here in Australia. But 2) ? Oh yeah! Nice to hear it’s a (near) universal trait. At least across the English speaking countries.
I mean, you don’t even need to clarify what’s wrong with Boy J names. I KNOW! 🙂
Never taught an Amber? A Crystal? A Sapphire? All bad. But ‘J’ names… Shudder.
Oh yeah and the umbilical cord doesn’t hurt a baby when its cut. Even if it is not cut it will shrivel and fall off all by itself. Its like a USB cord it only is connected very lightly to a baby and there is no nerves in it so yeah chop away.
The chopping part is the weird part. It would be WAY easier to cut through a USB cord.
I just had a thought. Colin is a human and Puck’s a fairy, so their baby would be half-human/half-fairy. Even though Puck basically looks like a human with pointed ears and seems to have no supernatural powers other than immortality, could the mix of human DNA in her child cause it to have an abnormal appearance, or, at the very least, some sort of kickass super-power?
The child is guaranteed to have the power of generating unbelievable amounts of poop and managing to get said poop all over everything. But all babies have that power, so that’s not saying much.
>snort< have we been watching Daddy Day Care in school again?
Looking at this again, I have to say I like the doctor’s priorities: Patient(s) first, then press charges.
Exactly. He’s totally professional. He’s just an @$$hole. They’re not mutually exclusive properties.
Damn. If only Puck hadn’t knocked that anal-retentive doctor out. Since Colin actually delivered his own child, they could boycott his bill.
Or the portion of his bill the insurance won’t pay is more like it…
BUT that wouldn’t be Puck’s world, would it?
Well, this is Canada, so no bill will be forthcoming. I think the doctor gets paid whether unconscious or not.
You think that he’ll put in for hazard pay, after the fact?
OHIP (Ontario Hospital Insurance Plan) does not recognize nor pay for hazard pay for threat of physical injury or actual physical injury to a health-care worker, although they will cover any medical treatment they need due to being injured. For OHIP, hazard pay only applies when having to work around highly infectious agents, surgically removing explosives or radioactive materials from a patient and things like that.
Good to know.
And you think that a pregnant elf carrying a human-elf hybrid does not constitute a potentially hazardous situation, where the unknown infant could be highly infectious in the kawaii sense, potentially explosive as the next host of America’s Next Idol, or just radioactive from having a greatly reduced half life from the parent material?
Ever seen the Bollywood movie Mr Ya Miss? it’s about a man who is turned into a woman in order to understand what it means to belong to the fair sex.
No. And you’re not selling it for me.
I’m curious to see what happens now that the baby’s born.
We all are. Especially me. Because I have no idea what the next plot points are going to be.
Judge Aimee (looking bored): How do you plea?
Puck: I was in the final stages of labour, screaming in pain, and that @$$hole of a doctor said, “Ooh, someone’s getting cranky.”
Judge Aimee (looking purturbed): And then?
Puck: “I bet you’re wishing you’d opted for that epidural a bit earlier now, huh?”
Judge Aimee (banging gavel): Case dismissed.
A fair breakdown, I’d say.
As soon as I saw we were on strip number 199, I started laughing. You really are milking this for every extra strip you can get out of it, aren’t you? “Baby by #200.” HA!
It’s timing. And verisimilitude. Birth is not a quick thing. It’s drawn out and takes longer than you expect. Just like this!
“Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.” ― W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado.
That’s everything I do.
My mom had two very long labors for different reasons. If she can do it, well, I CAN’T, but by golly I can read about it.
The things we do.
And I suppose there’s a reason they didn’t want husbands in the delivery room for a long time.
Some dads just need to not be in the room. For everyone’s sake.
Doc, if there’s even ONE mother on that jury, your attempt to sue Puck for battery is going to 180 into you paying for that kid’s first year of college.
You are not wrong. Though most lawsuits don’t go in front of a jury, from what I understand.