BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND! NEW OLD VOTING INCENTIVES POPPING UP ALL MONTH!!!
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As for this comic…
The key to a functioning relationship is to know your role. Colin is a slow learner.
Uh, on the whole mules are smarter than the average cow dog. Which is in my experience way smarter than the average human. 😉 Sterile means you have more fun.
Every mule has a little ass in it, as Colin amply demonstrates.
Sounds like you’re on Team Mule.
Well, at least the fighter has her hands free now.
True. There is that.
But she doesn’t have the backpack of grossness!
Yeah but I wouldn’t call Colin a mule. He’s more of a jackass on hind legs.
The best kind of Jack there is!
I was gonna make a snarky comment, but your alt-text beat me to it! Pretty much exactly what I was thinking…
I always try to beat you to the punch.
So how old is Miranda now? When will she do her share of the walking?
She is … some months old. Probably around 18 to 20 months, give or take. Meaning she walks, but kids that age aren’t known for their stamina. Or their predictability.
I’m curious, do infants grab on to their parental units continuously, or do they slowly grow comfortable and relax as the parental unit continues to provide protection? Being from Italy, I know nothing about live.
Varies depending on the kid. Some are inherently clingy. Some can’t wait to escape.
Well, I used to like sitting in the grocery cart seat, my legs sticking through, and my mother would push me around.
I don’t fit in the seat anymore.
Have you tried lately? Bet you’d still fit.
Getting in isn’t the problem. Getting out is.
She called me a noble steed.
That’s one take.
Re: alt-text. Colin is only HALF-sterile… lol
During our travels, it has, rightly or wrongly, fallen on me to do the car loading and unloading. My lovely wife has nicknamed me “Sherpa” because of this, after I mentioned that I felt like a Sherpa hauling supplies up-and-down mountains…
“Sherpa” is a nicer title to bestow.
And interestingly, losing one of the boys does not in any way affect fertility.
At this point in life, Panel Two Colin should have learned that there are some arguments that you just can’t win, so give in graciously to earn extra points – but I didn’t, so why should he?
The wise man learns from his experience and changes. The fool just keeps on hoping the world will change for him.
Luckily, there was enough fools in history to build our civilization.
Remember, the meek shall inherit the Earth. The rest of us are going to the stars.
Curse those fools and their interplanetary tomfoolery.
There’s a sci-fi story about that. In it, the Meek indeed do. Not the humans; the Meek! (Aside; an accurate translation is ‘the wise will inherit the Earth.’ Any time NOW would be good!)
I’m not holding my breath.
Wait. They’re on a trek toward terror? Do they know that?
Well, not necessarily. But it’s a fair guess.
C’mon, Coll. You won’t be able to carry her forever.
You’d think Puck’d be gracious enough to carry the diaper bag. Or . . . not. I forgot who I was talking about.
I’m with the person who stated that now the fighter has her hands free. But unfortunately, she doesn’t also have a weapon of mass grossness.
Slow learner? It’s a good thing Puck has lots of time.
I think Puck’s combat skills are hampered by darkness, spookiness and general unease. She’s dangerous when she’s angry, not when she’s scared.
Oh really! Interesting. Let’s see what happens.
Well, her hands were deemed a deadly weapon by the police weren’t thru?
True.
Colin the Talking Mule, Francis’s Canadian cousin. (In the book, Francis could also fly; is Colin about to demonstrate? After all, he is holding the future Empress of Earth, surely her protection and safety requires he be equipped with all possible methods . . .okay, at least enough so she grows up healthy, strong, intelligent and happy. I want my future Empress worthy by nature and nurture, by birth and by choice, not a distaff Palpatine!)
The future Empress has Puck’s genes, so some variety of Palpatine is likely…
Eh, she also has Colin for a father; result, she tries for Palpatine, she’ll achieve . . . . Lord Emsworth.
I must be missing something. Didn’t puck carry her for 9 monthes INSIDE?
That didn’t tire her arms. And she wasn’t walking down a deserted road in the middle of rural Ontario looking for help to get to a convention she needed to get talked into in the first place.
And she was STILL miserable!
Babies are much smaller at that stage. At the stage Miranda is at now, she’s transitioning to the “giant sack of potatoes” kind of burden.
Truth
Ok, understood… mostly.
I never had children of my own, but I have/had four nephews, three nieces, five grand nephews and (soon) a grand niece.
My (admittedly slight) experience says Mark Twain was correct when he said “it takes three adults to keep track of one two-year-old child, but they come equipped with only two adults.”
Thus, the “sack of potatoes” should be a “bundle of energy”.
Depends on the kid, and depends on the mood. My depiction of Miranda is definitely a modification of the real experience in service of the story. Miranda is largely quiet and cooperative unless the narrative requires her to not be. This is certainly not a real toddler. But real toddlers make for bad narratives, which is maybe why there are so few stories with parents of toddlers in the wider culture.
If this were real, Miranda would vacillate between endlessly trying to run off into the woods and flaking out in comatose bouts of sleep. All of Puck’s time would be spent just trying to corral her, and we’d never get to a single punch line.
That said, there ARE quiet, largely obedient toddlers who don’t take off much. My son was one. Maybe not quite as well-behaved as Miranda, but close.
Nothing else of interest….except for Phoebe. Hummina, Hummina Hummina!
Yep. Nothing at all.
I have been reading Puck since day one and I have to ask: There’s a main story line? It has been a tremendous romp looking through the window at one small piece of the immortal life of Puck and I have enjoyed every word and every comic (well most of them — we need more Tracee). I look forward to each new strip and could not be happier with it (except that it needs more Tracee). In the current arc we have the adorable Miranda whose cuteness has no bounds and the rest of the cast is fabulous as are their outfits and that all too awesome van. The tension of wondering if they will ever get to the convention is what makes this arc work for me. Is the main arc watching Daphne grow from a little girl on the doorstep to the thieving maniac we know and love today? I know that someday the hammer will come down that the entire comic will be revealed to have just been the fevered delusion of an elderly woman named Betty, sitting in the padded room of a pysch ward with her little stuffed dog named Daphne and the kind but slightly evil and nurse Phoebe that looks in on her every couple of hours along with the intern Colin who brings Betty her meals. I apologize for ruining the end of the comic for anyone but there it is.
This comment section needs to be editable. Take the word “and” out before “nurse” and change “main arc” to “main story”
“There’s a main story line?” is perhaps the most prescient question ever asked of this comic. And the answer is, “Maybe?” I guess it’s more just a slice of life sort of experience. It just ‘is’, like life. It’s not going anywhere in particular. And when it ends, it will likely just end. Not because it reaches a goal, but because it ended.
And your spoiler for the potential ending may be the closest thing to an ending the comic ever gets, so … potentially canon?
It will go on, we just won’t see it unfold. I have always wanted to make a webcomic but I can’t draw, thank you for letting me feel like I did something. One day in the distant future feel free to use it, draw it as described with the text and you’re done! Or just draw the single panel with no text whatsoever and everyone can leave wondering “What the….”.
Wouldn’t her name be Paula instead of Betty? Or is that the sister who stopped visiting her?
Mules are stubborn too, or so I’ve heard. 🙂
The stubbornest. Or so I’ve heard too. My IRL experience with mules is limited.
I might have argued, “I carried her for 9 months, you can handle it for a few seconds” 😀
She was a lot lighter then, though.