NOVEMBER VOTING INCENTIVE!
It’s Thanksgiving for 90% of my readers, so that means weird Phoebe cosplay! If you’ve ever wanted to see a devil girl dress up as a sexy pilgrim, then, well, I think it’s safe to say that this is your only chance. Better vote while you can!
VOTE FOR PUCK! SAY YES TO THE BLUNDERBUSS!
As for this comic…
Many of you took part in the sport of judging dresses last week, with the general consensus being that Puck’s classy number topped Phoebe’s ‘half-peeled banana’ ensemble. In the same spirit of competition, I humbly present the Academy with another dress this week: Tracee’s outstanding little number here. Judge away!
I don’t know, I thought that it was cold birth that was cursed. But babies and turkeys can do just that. All unknown.
Well, stupid phone. Child, not cold. But then this comic tales place in Canada, so maybe a chilling birthing room could have the same detrimental effect that our little PR babel is espousing?
Childbirth is only part of the equation, chilly or not. Just look at your average dad for proof. The ‘before baby’ and ‘after baby’ photos are always terrifying.
I dunno, dad was in the military and had a 100% medical discharge. His wrinkles were more distinguished rather than the other way around. He also seemed to have been getting back to what was better shape.
Doesn’t the change start at the announcement of conception, though?
Ooooooo…..
TRACEEE my love, all those lust-filled posts I have made about Phoebe and Emily – I was sadly misguided.
TRACEEE !!!
Um, EG
Keep it under wraps, but I do actually prefer EMILY THE CAT GIRL as a Christmas Bonus.
TRACEEE doesn’t have to know.
Emily is perfect as is. She needs no special costume for the holiday to bring joy to the heart. Not the joy as Phoebe or Puck In Red, but joy nonetheless.
Your secret is safe with me.
…and we thought phoebe´s outfit last page was already near naked – somehow, tracee manages to look less dressed then someone wearing a bikini, while technically wearing (marginally) more fabric.
still, seeing all those cut-outs, all i can think of are miranda´s legendary wet burps. with so much skin exposure, she could truly shower the b#&!
last but not least, what horrendous crimes did sigmund commit in a former life to be stuck in a job that sucks worse then actually being in hell?!
Tracee is the kind of girl, who with just a comparing glace allows Phoebe to rise to unfeigned position of elegance and grace. Just ask Tracee’s lawyer.
Well, I love having Tracee in the comic because it allows me to find new lows. To plumb the depths, as it were, of the fashion universe, and see just how ridiculous I can go. My wife, for the record, was quite disturbed by the dress and very vocal in her dislike.
That dress is the tackiest damned thing yet, and the color is hideous.
Perfecto! 🙂
I really do try.
Your good lady wife is a wise woman. Please convey my regards to her. ^_^
I shall.
Finding new lows without actually drawing…well, a word that would get flagged by your filter. 🙂
Well, yes. But that’s the sport, see? There’s a line that must not be crossed, but the sport lies in getting as close to that line as possible.
Whether deliberate-or-not, I notice that your “Primary” lady-characters are prom-dressed in Primary colors (Red/Blue, & some would argue to include “White/Black” as “All/Nothing”), while this page shows Tracee in a decidedly SECONDARY color…
… I’m hard-pressed to believe that this is accidental.
It’s kind of accidental, but maybe subconsciously intended? I wanted Tracee’s dress to serve as a real counterpoint to Puck’s dress in particular, in part because they’ll both appear in their dresses together in the next few comics. And to that end, I wanted Tracee’s dress to be a reddish color, but not the same red as Puck’s. And so we ended up with this.
Phoebe grew up in the home of a “man of wealth and taste”.
Tracee grew up on the wrong side of the track and is basically a nightmare version of those women from the Jersey Shore-series. (No hate towards actual people from Jersey; I don’t consider people from ‘reality’-TV to be accurate depictions of real people.)
You know the difference right there. It’s a cultural divide that may seem insignificant, but it’s huge.
Well, if anyone thinks this dress is going to last long once Miranda arrives, they’re nuts. And we’ll never know how or why Sigmund became relegated to his terrible position, but you’re right. It must have been something bad.
Soo.. you may be saying that Tracee’s dress is going to go from the eye of the beholder to a black and blue eye?
Well, we’ll see…
Really you have to have one of your own. But a night of babysitting will take its toll.
(Miranda, we’re counting on you. Hold up your end of this.)
Well, with the whole Daphne prom night, I’ve often said that no one knows where it’s going. But with this babysitting subplot, EVERYONE knows where this is going. And it’s going to be fun.
I think most of us know where the prom is going. But then it goes in several directions after that. So we’re back to being amused as it does.
Well, let’s talk after the prom arc’s done and see if it went as you expected. I’ll be curious to see.
Counting down to “I just bought this dress!”
Tracee can never not be sexy. That’s a law.
But she can be creepy. Her holiday outfit’s bilaterally symmetrical oval cutouts are disturbingly like eyes, making her. It’s fitting garb for Satan’s girlfriend.
And again the scripting is wonderful, although I don’t know if “It’s perfect!” helped. The laugh was the repeat of “old and ugly and unstylish”. I especially liked “unstylish” coming last as the worst thing anyone could be!!
I personally thought the cutouts resembled more the scales of a snake’s belly, which I felt was very appropriate.
@EG
@rewinn
You are BOTH right.
The cutouts should be eyes – SNAKE EYES.
Sew in some black slit pupils and see how evil it gets.
Goat eyes for the evil.
Well, she won’t be able to say “Hey! Eyes up here!”
Let’s see… Sigmund is currently more evil than his boss, but less evil than Tracee, so…
I’m still getting the heebies about this arrangement. =_=;
The idea Tracee’s biological clock might start ticking when she first sees Miranda isn’t helping.
That’s the real danger: the threat of this initiating something even more terrifying. It’s too terrifying to name. Though to be honest, I don’t think I’m going to go down that road any time soon. I already spent two years on a pregnancy in this comic.
thank the gods for small mercies! i´m not sure what terrifies me more, the thought of tracee breeding (never mind her on hormone overdose!) or her genes mixing with those of the devil. i´m not sure our world would survive the resulting spawn!
…a pregnancy scare would be hilarious though. any chances daph would be up to pranking tracee?
I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to prank a woman like Tracee. If the prank goes bad, it could go really, REALLY bad.
Hell, it’d go very, very bad if it went right.
Because the thing with a prank is, sooner or later the mark finds out someone’s been messing with them…
@EG
Although most males do not enjoy being pranked, some do.
I don’t think ANY females like it.
Yeah, I’ll agree with that.
Who said anything about a pregnancy? With that snake-belly dress and the demonic genetics involved, I wouldn’t be surprised if Tracee laid an egg. Her ‘pregnancy’-duties would be limited to keeping it at the right temperature until it hatched at some later date.
While I agree VEHEMENTLY with the above sentiment, consider the potential of how various characters would-&/or-could react to:
— incorrectly deducing that Tracee’s pregnant (when she’s not).
— Tracee, locked in epic battle with herself, between the “biological clock” in her ovaries & the “anti-baby” attitude in her head, while Satan is subjected to the resulting horrific “teeter-totter” of her mood-swings.
— Phoebe’s reaction to Tracee’s (supposed) pregnancy. Will she see this as competition for Daddy’s attention, or will she explode into “Doting Auntie Phoebe”-mode & perplex Tracee with smothering levels of attention, with Tracee not realizing WHY this is happening to her (because Tracee KNOWS that she’s not pregnant)?
The list of possibilities just goes on-&-on-&-on …
Honestly, honestly, I’m in EXACTLY the same boat as you with this scenario. There are so many possibilities, and the concept is just inherently really funny, that I am super tempted to head down this path. But I consider it a path that I headed down already, and I’m not sure that I want to tread that ground again.
Part of my hesitation comes from another factor as well. When I restarted Puck, I made her get pregnant because I thought it was a fun story concept that unlocked a lot of comedy potential. I did not make Puck get pregnant because I wanted to do a webcomic about a pregnant chick. But many, MANY readers with, uhm, unique interests believed that’s what Puck was: a comic about a pregnant girl, not a comic about a girl who happened to get pregnant. And those ‘readers with unique interests’ flocked to my comic, only to suddenly abandon my comic when they realized (SHOCK AND HORROR!) that the pregnancy stuff ended.
I really don’t want to encourage those ‘unique interest readers’ to come back.
I don’t blame you Gecko, all those bad conversations about pickles and ice cream.
I’m … glad I didn’t notice those “special onterests”… 0_0;
Tracee’s dress is the kind of dress that makes me question how fashion even works; it looks like it was a dress someone stuck a knife into like 37 times to create a bunch of holes and then patched up said holes.
Seriously, how *do* fashion work?
As for the comic, I laughed so hard that my girlfriend woke up and went “WAIT DID YOU READ PUCK BEFORE ME???”
I sense I’m not allowed to do that anymore… Hm…
Please do not mistake anything in this comic as real fashion. The ‘fashion’ in this comic is mostly just the manifestation of my id running rampant. And it doesn’t work. It really doesn’t.
And for the record, the exchange that you related with your girlfriend warms my cold, disenchanted heart.
@Kaiser
37 !!
Not only can you see TRACEEE’s posterior view, but there is ONE lonely little hole that is mis-matched and has no twin.
Curiouser & Curiouser
I love babies. But I was never stylish.
The love of babies is pretty much a direct indicator of a style-free existence. There are few to no exceptions.
Santa loves babies. And he’s pretty stylish. Well … perhaps “jolly” is the word I mean. Jolly and fat. But Father Christmas images through time are rather spiffy — be they robed in gold and white, or be they in the Nordic-inspired red, white, and sometimes green.
That dress wow. A stripper would be embarrassed to ware that.
To be honest, though, I really do kind of like this design. I’m not saying that it’s a good dress, but I’m proud of its trashiness.
No, there are women who will wear for more risqué crap. Google milf-thot in a ribbon dress at military ball dance. The best that I can remember is that it wound down diagonally around her.
https://goo.gl/images/zu4nzn
This may be the one dress to make respectable men cover their faces and collectively groan for the morals of the human race. It’s definitely not the one dress to rule them all.
And here I figured that Salem Would have been all over this link.
I knew it! Sigmund is Satan’s butt-boy! (Satan can now get revenge for Sigmund just sitting there as Puck beat the Lord of Darkness to a pulp!)
😉
Well, we’ll see. Best laid plans, you know…
@EG, Yes I know, but what I wonder is how old Miranda is? Isn’t she a toddler by now? They talk about the “Terrible Twos.” Is that why Tracee looks so nervous?
Miranda’s age is nebulous, but she seems to be in the ‘first words’ phase and a little unsure on her feet, at the ‘cruising’ stage. So my best guess would be that she’s between the 12-16 month point. Which stretches plausibility for a kid born in 2013 real time, but whatevs.
Sigmund does have style. Just one style but he has style.
True. He wears that one suit with class!
I imagine that it was a nice full dress until the Devil’s claws gave her a little hug. I am thinking Freddy Kreuger or Edward Scissorhands style. Or maybe Phoebe left some clothes at home when she moved out? Now you need to show us the back of the dress, for proper analysis, of course.
The dress actually has some similarities to the creatively slashed hair metal shirts of the 80’s. At the time, it was all the rage to take a razor blade to your shirt, often in patterns much like this. So you might be onto something.
Do you think TRACEEE could hire Phoebe to stitch her up an outfit or two ?
She would never deign to wear clothing made by a … um … friend? Can we call her a friend? She wouldn’t do it, whatever we call her. She is strictly a ‘buy insanely expensive designer products’ kind of lady. Though I’m not sure what insanely expensive designer sells this trash.
The kind of guy who would never hit the drive through for two Filet O’Fish, Big Mac, three cheeseburgers, chocolate shake and a large fries after going to the gas station for pickles, ice cream and getting only one oatmeal little Debbie sandwich for himself.
Like Barney Stinson, Dan Fielding or their creative horn dog namesakes.
@EG
But But…. Phoebe has worked for TRACEEE before.
And both have always gotten along pretty well.
The only actual issue is that Phoebe is a bit freaked out that TRACEEE is sleeping with her dad.
Which, sad to say, is pretty petty of Phoebe.
TRACEEE is loyal to Mel (Canadian Satan), and keeps him very happy.
@EG
Phoebe really has been unfair to TRACEEE.
After the passing of her mum, did Phoebe want Mel to be lonely forever ?
If she made a heartfelt overture to TRACEEE, if nothing else it would certainly please her dad.
What better time to grow closer as a family than Christmas ?
A – Remember that Tracee supervised a redecorating of Satan’s house that involved purging it of all objects related to Phoebe’s childhood. Kind of a low blow.
B – In this universe, Phoebe’s mom is an immortal being, still very alive, and currently married to zombie Richard Burton.
@EG
A: Every woman wants to decorate her home according to her tastes. I don’t believe TRACEEE had any animosity towards Phoebe at all. Of all the stuff, only one or two paintings in the entire room were of Phoebe.
Some were of Satan and his Puppy Dog (with horns – Cerebus ?). Satan certainly was not offended. when those were removed.
And that mounted Antler Head ? Yukk !!
I think it is very healthy on Satan’s part to let go of the past – especially the Elizabeth Taylor episode.
B: Even Satan gets lonely. Phoebe’s mom dumped him; he owes nothing to her.
It’s time to let bygones be bygones, and TRACEEE and Phoebe to give each other a BIG HUG !
Well, this “looking after baby” thing could be looked at as an olive branch, right?
@EG
TRACEEE may surprise us all by becoming a second mother to Miranda. She’d probably raise Miranda better than Robin raised Daphne !
I know TRACEEE did not raise Phoebe, but Phoebe turned out pretty well in Satan’s household.
And Daphne is not a lost cause – yet.
The Prom will either cure Daphne, or drive her even further into a future behind bars (zoo bars or otherwise).
During this episode, when Robin was pregnant, and Phoebe and Daphne moved into Satan’s mansion, TRACEEE’s reactions are telling.
TRACEEE was displeased to see Phoebe moving in, certainly. BUT I don’t think it was because TRACEEE dislikes Phoebe.
On the contrary.
TRACEEE realized, rightfully, that Phebe would react badly to her new relationship with Phoebe’s dad. TRACEEE knew it would drive a wedge between them.
And it saddened her.
You give Tracee the benefit of the doubt. A lot. Almost suspiciously so.
But to be honest, I’d tend to agree with you. Tracee seems like an awful, trashy, manipulative woman who only cares about money. And while she is at times awful, trashy and manipulative, she cares for more than just money. Don’t get me wrong; she cares A LOT about money, but she cares about people too. A lot like Satan, she is – deep down – a good person in spite of herself.
@EG
Well, as PRESIDENT of the TRACEEE Fan Club, it is my duty to defend the poor dear.
AND, considering I’m only a foot tall (25cm), it is difficult for me to LOOK DOWN on peebles 🙂
Either Phoebe and Trashee, er I mean Tracee, are frenemies, or they’re enefriends, I can’t figure out which. 😉
@ChrisH
If they are not friends, it seems to me to be entirely Phoebe’s doing.
To all of us Yanks, Happy Thanksgiving!
And to our Canadian Neighbors, THank you for loaning us Pheobe for the day! Much appreciated!!!!
Merry turkey day to all, and to all a good post-turkey coma.
@EG, thank you! Happy holidaze! 😉
UNSTYLISH? Tracee, have you seen Puck in her new outfit?! Lady, you could take style lessons from our favorite merry wanderer.
PS. I take everything back that I said about Phoebe’s outfit, her dress is very classy compared to Tracee’s stripperific ensemble.
See? Whatever the lowest common denominator is, I am always capable of going a little lower. It’s a gift of mine.
However, anyone can make a mistake. Reba McIntyre has wearing a gown to the CMA awards show in 1993 that everyone (including Reba) thought was quite demure and stylish until the spotlight hit her. https://youtu.be/YrysupaaQSs?t=13
Yikes. Though I just cant stop looking at the hair. That era had cursed hair.
@Lokitsu,Puck has uncanny fairy powers, that’s how she manages to stay stylish and even sexy. Phoebe is the daughter of someone who has no sense of style at all, but is also the daughter of Elizabeth Taylor, who certainly did. 🙂
What do you mean Phoebe is the daughter of someone who has no sense of style? He’s a man of wealth and taste!
Sigmund wouldn’t have been around as long as he has, if he was some dope. He’s probably fully prepared for such surprises as this. Either that, or he doesn’t mind kids.
Likely the first option. Just wait.
@EG, oh, that line is some propaganda by a rock band, who were just trying to sell more records! (Evidently, they succeeded.) 😉
Keeping it real classy there Satan.
Always expect the best. And always be disappointed.
“Tracee’s outstanding little number here.”
[pause] Ugh.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t like her. I mean, the design suits her to a T. You did a good job there. But she’s just awful.
She is awful. That’s why we love her.