NEW VOTING INCENTIVE! BONUS COMIC PREVIEW!
There’s a new, exclusive bonus story arc that’s going to be contained inside Puck Volume Two! Vote for Puck on TWC this month each week to get a little preview of what’s coming!
VOTE FOR PUCK AND LIVE THE GOOD LIFE!!!
ALSO…
I recently put a bunch of work into updating the PDF collection of voting incentive images, and the results are finally assembled! This new PDF volume contains all the voting incentives from 2011 all the way to 2017 (including some that never even ran) in a print-ready high resolution! That’s almost 200 pages of stuff! So if you’d like to buy a copy, please do!
As for this comic…
Herein lies the basic truth of all counter-culture lone wolves who hold mainstream life in reprehension: weirdos often despise the ‘game of normal life’ because they’re really bad at playing it. Take me: I dislike jocks and their many, many sports, and their many, many sports teams and all that, and I dismiss them all as shallow dimwits, but really it’s all just me overcompensating for the fact that I can’t play sports to save my life. I suck at a defined element of everyday life, so therefore (according to me) they suck on some nebulous, ill-defined level that I can’t really even quantify.
It’s a fallacy of the highest order, but hey, one has to keep one’s fragile ego together somehow.
This is good – GOOD.
Tyler IS going to the Prom – but not with her – and Daphne will learn a LESSON.
Hopefully a every painful one !
(Susan will revel in Schadenfreude) me too
Does ANYONE ever learn lessons in this comic? (Thinking about it. Not sure I have an answer yet…)
Um, I have learned that no matter how violently I post against Daffy, nothing happens. A lesson about the pointlessness of earthly passions. St. Paul has somewhat to say about it
Paul HAD things to say about it. He’s dead now, so its unlikely we’ll get any further commentary.
That’s your opinion. He is as alive to me as if he just fell asleep. Alas, I suspect I will have to wait awhile for any “further commentary,” but I look for ward to it!
Didn’t stopped that carpenter.
Also, didn’t Joan of Arc said Saint Margaret and Saint Catherine of Alexandria are talking to her?
@hkmaly: Yeah, and the Archangel Michael. I am a good Catholic girl but I have never quite understood why those heavenly beings were so concerned about instructing her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination. That will be one of the questions I will ask St. Paul.
Is it not wonderful that divine beings generally tell us to do things that are compatible with our political desires?
The Lord moveth in mysterious ways his wonders to perform 😛
They learned not to steal those Smurf knockoffs.
They learned that cancer is bad.
It is not usually lessons they can apply to everyday life. But they are still learning stuff!
I suppose that Puck did learn that one time that it’s better to set up other people to commit wanton acts of violence for you instead of committing it on your own. So yeah! Learning all around!
Daphne should borrow Puck’s copy of the “Art of War. “
Good idea. Though I don’t think that the coming battle will be one where Puck can help her. Maybe someone else, though…
I’m really hoping you’re not hinting at a makeover scene. You can’t do a montage in 4 panels. And I doubt Phoebe can pick a dress that won’t be too revealing for Daphne.
@Marduk
Let’s leave Prom Dresses to PHOEBE.
(the very thot is causing me to shake – in a good way)
Why not leave the prom dress to Tracee?
@Aaron
That would save on fabric.
😛
@SalemCat
From what I understand, the less fabric there is the more women’s clothing costs. Any dress picked by Tracee would probably cost a fortune.
@Marduk: Says somebody who didn’t work all Christmas holidays in a boutique to buy a Dolce + Gabbana prom dress with her employee discount. Actually, I came up short by quite a bit, but my Daddy, impressed with my effort, paid off the rest. After a tearful telephone call. Gotta love the guilt card.
@Susan
And as I am sure you would like to remind us, that Dolce + Gabbana prom dress still FITS.
Salem, you know how this conversation usually runs.
@EG
snicker
@Salem: I haven’t got a clue. D&G aren’t exactly famous for form-filling outfits, and, anyway, why would I want to try on a fourteen-year-old dress? Mucho passe
Why have a makeover montage when you can have a makeover story arc? 😉
Because your story arcs last years. Daphne will be 30 before she makes it to prom.
True enough.
Ooh, foreshadowing. Lord Foreshadow would approve! [/BG reference]
Modern society, more often than not, is a set of rules designed and enforced by a certain type of people who can succeed within that rule set. Those of us who do not have those skills are expected to lose.
Then there are those who decide that if they don’t like the rules, they should change the game. Which can mean many things, both good and bad.
True. But I feel the rules of society are drawn up, invariably, by the set of people who make up the fiftieth percentile. There’s the most of them, and they end up dominating by sheer number. Those on the outskirts of normal end up sidelined.
Doesn’t sound like my high school. We (the cheerleaders) made up the rules, which you disregarded at your peril 😛
Global Thermonuclear War. The only way to win…is not to play.
She’s not afraid she won’t look good in high heels, is she?
I don’t know whether Daphne even knows what high heels are. I don’t think she’s ever worn shoes that aren’t Chuck Taylors.
Chuck Taylor’s are excellent shoes
Agreed. Though I can’t wear them because I’m not young enough or hipster enough.
@RN
EG is infamous for his claim of being unable to draw HIGH HEELS or cats (also nipples)
Oh for crying out loud. Npples are just oblate ovals colored anywhere from dark pink to light umber. How hard is that?
@Susan
Git yer mind out of the gutter.
In plumbing and piping, a npple is a fitting, consisting of a short piece of pipe, usually provided with a male pipe thread at each end, for connecting two other fittings.
All the little peaks and valleys, as well as the angle and direction of the threads, are indeed difficult to draw.
Which is why even the famed Mario Brothers prefer soldered connections.
No matter what the context, you need to stop using that word. You’ll get me flagged.
One must wonder how PLUMBING Web sites survive…
Well, plumbing websites are mostly stores. Their revenue is not ad-based. As for learning resources on plumbing (or other things), many of them have fallen afoul to the ad censors and have been effectively demonetized or foolish, foolish reasons like your plumbing example.
@EG
You forgot this one !
May 7, 2018, 11:28 pm
I can’t alter it without breaking your link.
Don’t feel too bad about dismissing the jocks as shallow dimwits. After all, the derogatory use of the term “nerd” (and similar terms) comes from jocks and the like dismissing more intellectual pursuits because they suck at those. People who are good at both are not jocks by the most common usages of the term.
Well, yeah. Though honestly, I haven’t been subject to derogatory name-calling by jocks since the 80’s. Most of my life, jocks have traveled in their own circles and I in mine. So I’ve felt somewhat unwarranted in my hostility.
Daphne can’t win at the prom, but someone might pat her on her head and say “Good girl!”, and give her a doggie biscuit. 😉
Some kindly soul who doesn’t know her at all
Someone who’s fixin’ to lose a finger.
@ChrisH
😛
The fact they’ve been best friends for 19 years but are still in HS means that it’s either amazing, or something doesn’t really add up.
However, due to heat making my brain unable to, well, brain, I won’t comment on it.
That or they’re just held back a *lot*. Hm…
I think something doesn’t add up. Just the same as Bart Simpson has been a kid through six White House administrations, many of those two terms in length. Tyler and Daphne do age. Just … slower. Much slower.
It’s called “Comic Book Time”, a sliding timescale that allows characters to age at a slow rate despite experiencing events years or decades apart. Like how Spider-Man, despite being introduced in 1962, is only in his mid-to late 20s.
Happens elsewhere. When Agatha Christie introduced Hercule Poirot, he was probably somewhere in his late sixties or early seventies. By the time he died, he must have been a hundred and thirty or a hundred and forty.
I love the way that Dorothy L. Sayers made fun of Poirot’s little quirks by making Robert Templeton (fictional Harriet Vane’s entirely fictional detective) a loud and flashy dresser. Lord Peter vocally regretted Templeton’s sartorial choices.
The way I look at social situations regarding sports or music or whatever in my adult life is this; pretend to listen when people talk about stuff that doesn’t interest me, and expect the same with them. And when it comes to a party situation, those who want to talk to you will talk to you, otherwise, free food.
That said, I was more like Daphne when I was younger; that whole “hate the game of life because I sucked at playing” caused me to miss things like dances and sporting events and all that. I event went “so?” when someone from a rival school saw me and tried to do the whole “school rivalry” thing with me. Looking back, it was funny. 🙂
The whole ‘shrug and ignore’ response is something that comes with age and maturity. As you noted, it’s harder to pull that off in your teenage years.
I know what you mean. I’ve been out of high school for a few years now and I still don’t feel like I fit into my own generation, although it gets better with every year
Why would the only girl in school covered in actual fur with long ears and a puppy nose suddenly worry about competition at a prom? How is she not already the center of all attention everywhere she goes?
That is a question no one has any decent answer to.
It all started when she stole the money that the cheerleaders raised for them to go to cheer camp. They found out, beat her up, got it back, and thereafter ignored her. Since the cheerleaders were ignoring her, everybody else did, too 😛
@Scott
I believe Daphne’s personality was stunted, long ago (see Puck – the Prequel) when she had her Tail DOCKED.
At least that’s MY excuse.
I think I told you about how when I was restarting the comic, I was drawing Daphne and I thought to myself, “Daphne has a tail, right?” And then I hunted through the original comics and found, to my shock, that she’d never been drawn with one. Not sure what I was thinking there, but it seemed odd to suddenly give her a tail at that point.
@EG
Regis chopped it off because Gosh-Kosh overalls with a TAIL-HOLE cost an extra fitty cents.
And for Susan’s benefit, I’m going to postulate the amputation was performed with a dull, nicked, rust-ridden hatchet, bereft of anesthesia, by a blind-drunk Regis, and required dozens of blows to fully accomplish the cruel deed.
It would explain much.
GOSH-KOSH
On the other hand, I had a tail.
I got sorta’ excited – and HUNGRY one evening, and accidentally bit it off.
I was tasty, tho.
Some sports are fairly simple.
TRACK: You run
ARCHERY: Hit the Target
WEIGHT-LIFTING: Need I even explain ?
But American FOOTBALL is a complicated array of calls, plays, strategies. It is far more than simple physical strength.
Choreographed DANCING is also a Sport. A complicated series of moves to be accomplished in unison with other Dancers, requiring Physical Agility and more than a little Mental Effort.
People are DIFFERENT.
Very few can excel at a wide variety of skills.
I, for one, am totally lost at playing Musical Instruments, and certainly could never aspire as a Composer.
But I am quite skilled at eating and sleeping.
Also, dancing gives you good legs and a nice butt. I recommend it.
So THAT’S why I’ve lost my girlish figure. Oh well. Better hit the club more, I guess.
“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth.” -William Purkey
And, yes, I am aware that some bubblegum queen sings a song that is a ripoff of that.
Sad thing is, the person best suited to coach Daphne in this upcoming war is Colin’s Sister, who I think would rather get root canal then set foot back in this house!
Nah, she’s too upscale. Prom requires a slightly different pitch…
If you practice anything, you may not get GOOD but you will get BETTER. This is the lesson that school sports could teach and it would be a useful lesson, but I don’t think it does teach that often enough, as a result of which people like me wasted the first halves of our lives convinced we could never be good at physical activity and disliking those who were. This was an error.
I don’t know whether this lesson applies to prom tho.
But what’s the point in getting better when there are so many others around you who started out much better than you could ever be, even after years of practice? That’s the real catch. I mean, if it’s just for physical fitness, fine. But sports are generally structured as competitive games, so I think that the disappointment and disillusion that you (and many others) felt when young is sort of coded into the experience. The kids that are good at sport get praise. The kids that are bad at sport get jeers. The kids that are bad could get better, but what’s the incentive? From what I experienced as a kid, if I just didn’t play, I was left alone. If I tried to play, I was mocked and tormented and told to get off the field. The worst was always phys. ed. class, because I wasn’t allowed to get off the field.
Not sure how any of this relates to prom either. But it’s interesting.
That’s a good point, and why most competitive sports in schools aren’t really good games. A good game (per Raph Koster’s “Theory of Fun in Game Design”) teaches you things — even if it’s how to put a ball through a hoop or guard an edge — that you can learn before the game loses interest for you either because it has become too easy or has proven too hard. If the game is to beat your own score (run a mile in better time or lift more weights than you did before) then it can be fun all your life, if the game is to beat someone who starts off with loads more natural talent, it’s just not fun because you don’t have a fair shot … and so the lesson is learned not to try, in which case no learning at all occurs.
I’m not sure how this applies to prom, but then, I went to an all-boys high school. I know darn well some of the boys would have been happy to dance with some of the other boys, but it was another era and would not have been allowed. Thus Tyler’s prom will be the first I attend. Please make it memorable!
Well, the one thing that everyone finds about prom is this: prom is always kind of underwhelming. So I’m not sure this is going to live up to expectations…
And now we’re getting to the core of her objections.
Like many teenagers who do not fit the average mold… Daphne suffers social anxieties.
As someone who’s been there, prom has been the most overrated experience during all my high school years. I went because I didn’t want to explain to my parent why I wouldn’t (and also curiosity). Socially, there was nothing for me and I had more fun talking to the teacher chaperones (although I had great teachers that year).
Looking back, my social anxieties were mostly baseless. All you need to have fun at prom (or any social event for that matter) is a few good friend. That’s hard to cone by when your a fishin a room full of frogs, but it wasn’t because everyone hated me like I thought back then.
Prom is … interesting. My relationship with the concept of prom is … interesting. As a high school teacher, I’ve opted to supervise prom every year at my school. I have thus attended more proms than any one human ever rightly should. I, like you, was a kid who didn’t really get the prom concept at the time. I still don’t really get it, but I understand more now as a sort of modern ritual celebration of youth and the transition to adulthood and all that. It’s meaningful because the kids think it’s meaningful, and that’s all that matters.
To be honest, I go to prom at my school every year mainly so that I can be a friendly face for the students who don’t really belong at prom. Someone has to rep for the nerds at my school, and I’m happy to be that guy.
Prom is an event where you get to make a grand entrance, show off your date and your dress and jewelry, find your friends, admire their date, dress, and jewelry, and giggle
& gossip. It was fun.
I remember it being less fun. Prom was an event where I entered awkwardly in an ill-fitting suit, didn’t even have a date, found my friends (who also didn’t have dates) and sat around for a few hours watching other people have fun.
I remember the food was bad, and they played “The Macarena”, because it was 1996 and there was no earthly way you could avoid playing “The Macarena” in 1996. Hell, they STILL often play “The Macarena” at proms today. It’s a cursed song, but I kind of like it. Not enough to dance to it, mind you. I leave that to other people.
I enjoy watching beautiful people dance the macarena, but then I enjoy watching beautiful people dance to pretty much anything. ^_^
Me, I know the quickstep, not the macarena. On occasion, I have found opportunity to use it — and gotten some very positive responses. Not because I’m a master at it, but because ladies appreciate it when their dancing partner is actually competent at a basic dance and doesn’t waltz all over their feet.
I enjoy watching large groups dancing the macarena mainly because there’s always that one section of the group that has no idea what they’re doing. Watching them stumble through the routine is great.
I go back far enough that it wasn’t the macarena, but rather “The Hustle” – and “YMCA”, where I always got my letter wrong. And any large group line dancing offers great amusement, as my high school class demonstrated at our 10-year reunion.
We didn’t dance “The Macarena”. My Senior Prom was in 2002, so it was old by then . Though I seem to remember the band played it once. That may have been when I was talking to Ginger Plessala about Miriam Roadie’s hair. We mainly danced line dances and waltzed. Alternately. I do remember stomping on Scott Chesny’s foot when he tried to unhook my bra.
Line dances? BAND? You prom was very different from prom ’round here.
Well, you know: Texas and Canada. Opposite ends of the same continent 😛
And that reminds me of the guy I went to high school with who went to the senior year prom with a blow up doll. Made the yearbook because of that, I’m told.
There is always a kernel of vulnerability inside even the toughest of nuts.
I have not a clue how the food was at any of the proms I went to, because I was afraid it would make my tummy bulge (also, I might spill something on my gown and be labeled “a big dork”. The drinks, on the other hand…
yea Mario edge guarding is Luigi’s master zone! take that noise elsewhere.
.
.
Also i need that shirt i have so many friends that would love it.
I can put the shirt into production. I had a better-looking version of it that really didn’t work in the comic, but I might consider putting it out as a published design.
Ok, this takes place in canada, so use some of John Hughes’ movies for a frame of reference. Most of these high school clique girls will more than likely use the mall as a central location as part of their preparation for the prom. Their dress, makeup, hair, what have you. And I’m sure that Victoria’s secret is no secret up north. But then again, their may be some upscale boutiques that some of the girls would use then step into a Victoria’s Secret.
What with that said. Daphne could command an army of nerds who could come up with a temporarily disfiguring look for those girls that would appear very subtle until they get under strong light of flash photography or black lights.
Like a nice camouflage cure patterns a’la Joker style binary compounds along with a jock itch substance that is time released from when their articles of clothing are appliedm
This is very, VERY complicated. It’s also assuming that Daphne commands an army of nerds. The nature of nerds is that they’re socially fragmented and hard to unify due to their poor social skills.
Daphne to Nerd Army: “The beatings will continue until morale improves”.
Susan, the implication was for a Joker style long range, long time plan in which the combination of items purchased at the mall that would elicit a “Revenge of the Nerds” style attack.
Now as far as coordination, Daphne would only have to have the Farmer Ted of each group under her fingertips.
@Salem: Good one!
@Pat: Nice try. but I got ready at home and my date took me to the prom in a limo that had a lighted mirror in the back, and that was pretty much true of all my friends..
This outfit reminds me of the one she wore in the beginning! Also wow, I just binge read of of this in one day. I’m starting to wonder at my social life after all this lol
Yep. Puck still sometimes goes back to wearing the old sweater vest and white shirt combo. Note that the vest no longer has a big bow on the front, though. That’s mostly a concession to my wife who always insisted that the bow was dumb.
And reading through the whole archive in one day is a true act of courage. I salute you.
Alas, I can’t snark on this, though I have binge-viewed “Puck” several times, because I just got through binge-reading “Millie and Ozy” last night.
She could always do what I did when prom rolled around my Junior year. Throw an Anti-Prom party. It was fairly fun, and I didn’t have to wear a suit.
Daphne . . . your stepmother is the fairy Puck of legend and lore . . . her best friend is the hot-looking daughter of Satan . . . Satan is shacked up with the shallowest blonde on the planet who nevertheless knows how to crush competition . . . you have your own exotic good looks . . . frankly Daph, the only reason you couldn’t ‘win prom’ is deciding somebody else needs it more!
And the last time Daffy thought about somebody besides herself was back when the Greeks reckoned time by the Kalends, right?
@Susan
Kalends ?
Were they Doctor Who VILLIANS ?
They looked like Robots, right ?
@Salem. I wouldn’t know. Dr. Who is way too nerdy for me. Maybe they are. But that was a quote from Robert A. Heinlein’s Glory Road.
EXTERMINATE – EXTERMINATE
@Susan
Oh, not you.
I just love to take any opportunity, no matter how off-topic, to “TALK DALEK”.
Has anyone ever pitted a Dalek vs R2 ?
And yes, I want a DALEK at the Prom.
The theme of this particular prom will be “Enchantment in the Forest”, so unlikely.
3CPO could come. He would be great serving canapes and would wait patiently while yakking girls (like yours truly) ignored him. “Are you sure you would not like a pig in a blanket, your Graces?”
“And then Miriam Colmstock walked in and *screamed* ‘What are you two doing?’, and I then I went, ‘Duh!…” Gosh, this is making me nostalgic.
The uber-joke is that the Greek calendar didn’t have “Kalends” – that was a Roman invention – so the “Greek Kalend” is basically “never”.
@rewiin
Which reinforces my observation they must be a Doctor Who thing.
Even when I’m Wrong, I’m Wright.
Well, just watch where this goes. You make some good points.
This Prom Arc could be a deadly error.
Proms are FULL of people – thus much drawing is involved.
A Full View could involve ALL FOUR PANELS drawn as one. A Puck first !
Can we suggest Prom Folk we’d like to see as Cameos ?
Let’s see: Emily, umm, Emily, umm, Emily, and there’s Emily….
ALSO …. Papa Snorf, Satan, Ched, a Boy Jackel-Hybrid, Regis Philbin, and TAMMY !
Just leave Dap home. DAP ??
One of the suggested cameos will appear. I won’t say which.
The thought of drawing crowds is causing me much stress. Though I have a few cheats that I might need to employ in this. No matter how I do this, though, it’s going to be work. And that’s okay. I can’t have characters hang out in their living room forever.
Why, it worked for Friends, and they got a mill an episode.
UPCOMING FAN ART ALERT
Have you, dear reader, while struggling over Wm. Shakespeare’s masterpiece, A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, come across the following lines,
“And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And on her wither’d dewlap pour the ale.” Act II, Scene i, ll. 415-18,
and tried to picture it in your mind’s mythical but unfortunately inadequate eye? And failed? And despaired?
Well, DESPAIR NO MORE!
for I, Susan Anne Schroeder, have done your imagining for you! Being stuck at my church waiting for a funeral to start at which I *modest cough* sang a song, took my newly-acquired sketchbook and set of Conte chalk pastels and captured it for you! No imagination required!
Coming NEXT WEEK, or whenever I can get to a scanner. (Nuts, I ran out of exclamation points)
My anticipation cup runneth over! (You see what I did there.)
@Susan
I am certain to luv this.
(It has Daphne experiencing agony, right ?)
In the immortal words of Keith Richards, you can’t always get what you want. You do remember how much trouble EG gave me about the last one, don’t you?
@Susan
As I recall, EG wrote that a good spanking was the very least DAP deserved.
And that good session with a PADDLE would more nearly approach justice.
I’m certain EG ‘members this, and will back me up.
Whew! I had to look up that quote because a crustacean in the punchbowl seemed odd. Praise google! I can see how a cooked crab-apple floating in the punch for flavor could have lead to spillage, I am delighted to learn of another way that Our Ancestors Screwed Up Same As Us, and I anticipate with dread and anticipated amusement [Lachenvorfreudeangst?] both Susan’s and EG’s visions of Daphne’s Wrath Visited Upon Humanity.
DISCLAIMER: My current fan art does NOT include Daffy. I am starting a new one, though, so no promises!
Hee hee, yes. And you have in advance my full, unequivocal permission to use it as a visual aid in your English class. 🙂
Also, I’ve got the feeling that Daphne would prefer wearing a smoking.
Okay! I have scanned and uploaded not one, but TWO fanart pics (with a teeny-tiny bit of help from my bf and my mother’s neighbor. Practically nothing really, except sketching in Puck’s body in an, um, unusual position and showing me the right way to use dry pastels.) But I did the rest! And I have gotten positive feedback from those two curmudgeons, especially on #2, Tune in about midnight (the witching hour, right?) and SEE! 🙂 🙂 🙂
In the as for this comic… section you mentioned the term Lone Wolf and Daphne is wolf like aha! 😀
Glad someone noticed.
Zoe My God! Just noticed the teapot, is that a reference to the previous comic and Puck 114?
The teapot is always there, in all shots with the couch. So I guess it is sort of a reference, but I think it’s likely a different teapot. Puck has a bunch of them.
So…Daphne bleeds afterall… I like that character flaw.
Like all incredibly prickly people, she has a bruised soul.