A word on newborn babies:
Newborn babies are, in my opinion, rarely beautiful. They’re usually a funny color, wrinkly, slimy, and look more than a little like Yoda. They do have a certain undeniable cuteness (just as Yoda is, in his own way, cute), but few newborns are beautiful in the aesthetic sense. My wife says that this is a failure of the English language – that when people say a newborn is ‘beautiful,’ they really are saying that they’re awed by its newness and have no effective way of expressing that. Which sounds right to me.
But yeah. Newborn babies often look a little weird. Never, ever admit that to the mother, though. Ever.
A word on the name:
I originally thought about stringing you guys along further and not revealing the name until later, but then I realized that would just be mean. So it’s Miranda. And to be honest, I didn’t actually have the name fully picked out until about two weeks ago. There were a few potential choices kicking around in my head, some of them more fairy-like or extravagant than others. Crazy names like ‘Ariadne’ were actually in the running, but they were just too much of a muchness for them to work properly. Then I hit upon ‘Miranda.’ It’s Shakespearean, which is cool. It’s also a moon of Uranus, just like Puck. (Phoebe, for those interested, is a tiny outer moon of Saturn. Daphne isn’t a moon, per se, but there’s a sizeable rock in the asteroid belt named Daphne, so that makes the cast truly solar system-tastic.) So yeah. Miranda.
A word on the gender:
It’s a girl. That is all.
3RD September Voting Incentive! PAPER DOLL PHOEBE is TRULY OUTRAGEOUS!!! (Truly truly truly OUTRAGEOUS!)
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 the 80’s comes back to get you with crazy shoulder pads and pink hair.
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!
CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR PUCK!!!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! THE BABY!!! THE BABY’S HERE!!! AND IT’S A GIRL!!! Poor Colin, even more outnumbered, BUT STILL!!! EXCITEMENT!!!
We kinda knew Colin would end up even more outnumbered than before here. Well, I did. Because I wrote it.
I’ve always found Yoda to be really creepy looking. Especially in the original trilogy when he looked and acted like a puppet monster from Labyrinth. I kept waiting for David Bowie to show up and kidnap a teenage girl. Yes, I know The Empire Strikes Back came out before Labyrinth but being born in ’91 I didn’t watch a lot of 80s movies in the order they were released.
Calliope could have been a good name, but unusual names rarely work out for children. At least her name sets up a chance for Daphne to teach her about how important Miranda Rights are.
This is taking place in a version of Canada. The Miranda Rights mean pretty much nothing in Canada. The rights of the accused that the cops have to say are significantly different compared the various forms in the States. The Miranda Rights statements in New York and California (it varies state to state) are the ones we hear most often because that is where the cop shows are made. The Canadian version says nothing about Miranda vs. Arizona.
See this Wikipedia article for more information.
Yeah, in Soviet Canada, rights Miranda YOU!
ROF&PUL
rrr!
PUL = Pick Up Lint – to ensure JS integrity
Oh.
Not sure about the PU part, but I’m sure it’s a good thing.
According to the page you linked, Canada’s Miranda rights aren’t all that different. In America you have the right to counsel. And you have the right to remain silent. In other words, the 5th and 6th Amendment in the Bill of Rights. You’ll be informed of the charges unless you haven’t been officially charged in which case you can only be held for a brief period of time (usually 24 hours although it can vary). Those are pretty much the same as what that page lists as the Canadian Miranda rights.
In the U.S. your attorney is allowed to be with you during any interaction with the police or courts, in most states (as in I can’t think of any that don’t, but to cover myself, just in case). In Canada, your lawyer is not allowed to present during questioning by police. The Canadian rights require police to offer a toll-free number that they can call to talk with an attorney.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has many parallels and overlaps with the United States Bill of Rights, but they are independent documents with sometimes subtle, and perhaps surprising, distinctions between them.
The Canadian one also smells like maple syrup.
Hmm, looks like the information has been moved to another Wikipedia article.
How dare Wikipedia change stuff!
Dance, magic dance, you will, mmmm?
I’d go out with a girl that wore a leopard print blouse and purple jacket. As long as she had on blue jeans and anything BUT flip flops and high heel wedges.
But a SPARKLY purple jacket? That’s going too far, man. TOO FAR.
yesss a girl
yessss excellent…
(I’ve been rooting for a girl all along)
Baby girls are great. Primarily because they don’t pee directly in your face.
Just wait until Miranda gets her first crush.
5 bucks says it’s Tyler. I can definitely see a story there.
That … would be dangerous.
Hmm. Explain this to me. How might it be dangerous exactly?
I dunno. I think Tyler’s claimed by Daphne, and I think Daphne is territorial.
Of course the daphe is territorial. It’s a well documented fact that all soulless were-kangaroo-dog-girl things from the Island of Dr. Moreou with blasphemous lower lips are highly territorial. AND furthermore……SotiCoto’s been slacking on the Daphe hate. It takes alot of energy to be the avatar of hate for someone else’s avatar …. that …. hates …. Daphne ….. BTW. EG. Dude. You suck SOOO hard. More Tracee. I hate a sausage fest as much as anyone does, but if this comic gets anymore estrogen in it it’s gonna start having its very own menstrual cycle. And get mad cuz I left the toilet seat up, or ‘forgot’ to take the trash out. Or just start making $h!T up to get mad about every so often just to keep me on my toes. And then it will cry and tell me that I SHOULD know what’s wrong. Then I havta sleep on the couch. That makes my back hurt. Do you really want to hurt me? Do you really want to make me cry? If so then you’re not an ElectricGecko. That would make you a …. Karma Chameleon! (See how upset I am? A Culture Club joke of all things fer crying out loud.) TRACEE ( • )( • )
I make a Culture Club joke in a few strips. So you’ve got powers of premonition.
Who knows? At the rate I’m progressing story-wise, I’ll be seventy-five by the time she’s in grade two.
LET’S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN!!!!!
it’s just a jump to the left.
You’re doing pretty good on pacing. Over at Grrl Power, the last three years are almost all happening on the same day, except for the first 4 pages or so.
Thanks for the vote of confidence. It’s hard with a weekly update to balance the real-life pace while also making the thing not race through at top speed when you’re reading the comics in sequence. I try.
Nothing wrong with that David.
YAY UNE FILLE! une autre fille n’a de sens. but i thnk collin will be fine puck lives forever so thts a li….now tht ya thnk about it will puck let collin die and leave her with tht disater? or will their daughter be a blessing? im on the disater side. i say expect the worst it would be boring if suddenly everythng goes right and everyone lives happily ever after… and taylor and daphne have a purebred human who poops and pees in the house everywhere, chases cats,hates his reflection, and now back to puck
It’s like you can see into the future…
Yayz — a girl! “Son of Puck” sounds kind of scary (although Daughter of Puck probably WILL be)! Miranda’s a great name.
I dunno, I’m biased. When my daughter was born, I was the first one with her and I didn’t see Yoda. I really did see beauty, and I still do. Not being stick-in-the-mud, just offering opinion. 😀
Parents are not allowed to have valid opinions on their own children. My wife still insists that all the OTHER babies in the mat ward were the funny-looking ones, but our babies were perfect. Of course.
From “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long” by the Late, Great, Robert Anson Heinlein. (1907 – 1988):
“Delusions are often functional. A mother’s opinions about her children’s beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.”
That’s … pretty accurate, I feel.
remember when puck tried to get bigger boobs way back when? I think it’s finaly gona catch ip to her 🙁
Yeah, careful what you wish for.
As I came late to the comic, I remmember that one too.
Just searched for it:
//www.puckcomics.com/?comic=puck-64
Wasn’t it Scott “Dilbert” Adams who said somethng like “Can’t we all agree that babies are ugly and move on?”
Hear, hear! Wisdom from the master.
Well, that quote is now on the front of the bing search page.
Totally agree with you on the baby-looks thing. Having been the mommy here 3 times though, Daphne pretty much nailed it on the head. Danger zone until shes getting a solid 4 hours of sleep again.
Solid four hours of sleep? Well, that’ll take at least another eight months to occur.
I’m still reeling from you dropping a Jem and the Holograms reference and the fact that I knew what it was without looking it up.
How could you NOT get a reference like that? My world is constructed solely from references like that. Drives my wife crazy.
Mine are Star Trek and 80s music-related, with an occasional Ren and Stimpy…
Gem? I remember that cartoon. I think someone on DA is doing a webcomic version…or maybe it’s a real comic? These days, who knows? o_0
I’m still trying to figure out “Dark Avengers” (Limited Time Only) and “Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H”
Gem=Jem. *drinks morning coffee*
How DARE you spell it right!
Don’t figure too hard, man. Figuring can damage the brain.
Hurrah! Well done, Puck! She beat my stepmother to it; little sister Lilly still hasn’t been born yet. But apparently only 5% of women actually give birth on their due date, so that makes sense.
I love the way you snuck Colin’s beard into the third panel.
Never put a bet on the actual due date in a baby pool. It’s like a ticket to losing. And yeah. Beard. I do try to actually sometimes pay attention to what should actually appear in-frame. Other times I forget it. Other times I ignore it because I’m lazy.
My mom says that I tried to pop before fully developed, and they had to give my mom something to stop it. But whatever they gave her made them have to induce labor two weeks after my due date. So my parents got to choose my birthday. 🙂
That’s some baby-stoppin’ wonder drug.
Musta been, if it was that effective back in 1982. 🙂
There is such a thing as “ugly-cute”. A baby is ugly cute.
Exactly. Ugly cute. Cugely, perhaps?
How the frak do you pronounce that?
Cue-geh-lee is how I do it.
Cue-glee.
Coyote Ugly.
Ugly like fox.
Coyote Ugly is “You’d rather chew off your own foot than be around them”. Doesn’t make sense in this instance.
i was told due to birth trauma i was born orange 14 pound scream head off boy
Your poor mother.
Happy Birthday, Miranda!
I find it amusingly coincidental that I’m playing Mass Effect 2 right now, and one of the companions you get is named Miranda.
And yes, newborns look ugly. But considering that they have been squished all to hell in the birth process and are slightly dehydrated, it’s understandable. I met my oldest nephew the day after he was born, and again about two weeks later, and in that time, he had “decompressed”, so to speak. He looked more like a person, if that makes any sense.
Even a few weeks after, the babies are way cuter. That’s why Hollywood never uses REAL newborn babies. They just throw some goop on a six month-old.
We are the misfits,our songs are better. We are the Misfits we’re gonna get her.. Gah I has the song in my head! ::Ish an 80’s child.::
We are a cursed lot, we 80s children.
I always thought they were singing “bitter”, not “better”. But “better” makes more sense, now that I finally think about it. Better late than never.
Bitter late than never too.
BUTTER!!!
Congrats Colin, you are one more lady bullet into bossing you around. Just hope she’s a daddy’s girl and doesn’t take after her aunt Daughter-of-Satan-*cough*-I-Mean-The-Mayor or her adopted older sister.
Chances of her being a whole new and entirely unique brand of crazy are high.
Its a girl and she has a normal cute name! As for her appearance…conehead shall pass as well as wrinklyness. But now all the wonders of post pregnancy shall hit Puck like a freight train!
Yeah, post-pregnancy sucks even worse than pregnancy most of the time. And guess what? It’ll suck here too!
Yay foreshadowing!
Heh. The first thing my mum said when she saw me was, and I kid you not, “Oh dear!”
Scarred for life I tells ya! Scarred for life!
Anywho, congratulations to the fictitious couple on their fictitious baby girl!
We can fictitiously celebrate good times! Come on! It’s a fictitious celebration!
Let’s all smoke fictitious cigars in fictitious congratulation!
Apparently, the first time my grandmother (Mom’s mom) saw my brother, she said he looked like a chicken she would not buy. I was there, but I was only 2 years old at the time, so do remember it directly now. This is from my grandmother and mother telling me years later.
Your grandmother had a rather cutting yet accurate way with words.
I’m probably a minority, I don’t find any babies cute. And children make me nervous. The worst 2 weeks of my life was when I was guilt-tripped into babysitting 4 year old twins (She didn’t even pay me for the second week).
Babysitting four year-old twins for two weeks? Most Hollywood horror movies don’t come near matching that sort of nightmarish scenario.
Some comedian (don’t know who, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Sam Clemens) once said “It takes three adults to track one two-year-old. Unfortunately, they come equipped with only two.”
This is why I cannot comprehend parents who actively choose to have five or six kids. I mean, by the time they choose to have kid three, they already know the chaos they’re inviting! And yet they invite it anyway!
My brother lives with four (five every summer), and his oldest son’s mom has four as well. I love visiting both families, but after a couple of hours of chaos, I’m ready to go home.
The older kids help with the younger kids.
The birth of my son was arguably one of the happiest moments of my life but I’ll be damned of he didn’t look like an alien.
Glad my wife shaped that noggin up. Looking at Puck’s baby’s face made me laugh…no newborn looks cute after what they have to pass through to get here.
Yeah, I’ve generally heard most fathers report a certain mild level of shock at the weird appearance of their child. Most are good at hiding it in the presence of their wives.
Honey I love you very, very much. You’ve just given birth to a lizard.
My oldest is 2.5yrs old now. I expected the baby to look funky and slimey and I had very low expectations on hue/color, too! That’s from watching a bunch of birth-centric tv shows with my girlfriend.
What DID surprise me is all the places they can have hair on!
I’ve heard that, but mine didn’t have weird hair. That’s a ‘sometimes but not all the times’ kind of thing, I guess.
I think that Miranda will be a cheerleader when she’s a teenager in high school.
Try spending a couple of months packed in a sac, breathing your own urine, and look so good you will not. Especially if, at the end, you’re forced out through a hole smaller than your head.
Well said.
My thought on this “labour” process is from the mother’s point of view. You are trying to push something the size of a football, but nowhere near as aerodynamic, through a hole that is normally about an inch in diameter; why would you ever think that there could be a little pain during the process? Yeah, and the Niagara is a nice little creek.
I think for most women (and fetal skulls), it’s not the soft tissue that’s the real problem, episiotomies notwithstanding; it’s the pelvis. Note that the pelvis actually has some flexibility that tends to be lost after age 30, which is one of many reasons not to wait too long to get pregnant the first time.
For what it’s worth, my kids weren’t coneheads.
When it comes to babies and their newborn looks…. Bill Cosby always comes to mind and his bit about his kid’s birth. Basically goes when he sees the kid after delivery in the room : “I went to my wife and kissed her tenderly on the forehead and said, ‘Honey, I love you very very much. You have just had… a lizard.”
Also, I tend to envision the human/alien hybrid baby from the original tv series of V from the 80’s. have a look. skip to bout 2:50 if ya in a rush. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvwfdLdEdVA
Ah V. Forever providing obscure 80’s sci-fi trivia. How we love you.
So glad you resisted the temptation to use a directional name (like North West Kardashian)
Someone has to take the naming high road. And it’s not going to be Kim!
I wonder what kind of life Miranda’s going to have.
Yeah, nothing prepares you for what your first kid looks like. Purple to nearly black, covered with this white crud, pruned up, cone-headed, and then everyone looks at you like you’re a monster when you ask, “OH MY GOD, WHAT’S WRONG WITH HIM/HER?!” Seriously, there should be a warning, or something.
Agreed.
I think that Daphne will be a great big sister to Miranda and stick up for her if and when she gets bullied.
I agree. May God (or whoever) have mercy on whoever is stupid enough to bully poor Miranda. ‘Cuz Daphne definitely will not. ;-O
First off, I have seen many new born babies. I had busy friends. And then there was my own son. Not all babies are beautiful. One looked like a tomato. One looked like they got beat up on the way out. But others looked kinda cute. One was even darling looking. Which surprised me, since her ultrasound image made her look demonic. She saw horns. So when my son was due, I was a bit worried. But it all worked out. I love telling him this, and others: He was clean looking. Not red. A bit icky from “stuff”, and he looked just like Yoda with human ears. Awesome!!! And the cord. Purple-red and not easy to cut. No one told me to cut with the very back of the blades. Eww. But anyway. I’m really enjoying this comic that I just discovered today. A lot of catching up in one morning. Keep up the great work.
Yeah, cutting that cord is very, very ‘Eww.’ That’s a good word for it. Glad you’ve enjoyed the comic! It’s thankfully not very hard to catch up on due to my slow updating schedule.
*She had horns( in image)
Is the incentive a jem I think it was reference
Yep. Good old Jem.
Naming her Rainbow Dash would have been 20% cooler ^_~
Unfortunately, this comic leaves Ponyville hangin’ at least 9 times out of 10.
> Unfortunately, this comic leaves Ponyville hangin’ at least 9 times out of 10.
That’s just, like, your opinion, man.
The truth is, you rock harder than anyone could put into words. We are just afraid of telling you.
I try to consistently leave Ponyville hanging as often as I can.
Rainbow Dash?
plz.
Everyone knows that Rarity is best pony.
I refuse to get into a heartfelt discussion on the merits of various ponies. It’s hard for me to resist the temptation, but resist I shall.
CALLIOPE! that’s a good one.
Uncommon nowadays, for sure.
I think I may the only person who immediately went to Miranda from Serenity, the Firefly movie.
You know, Miranda? The planet on the other side of Reaper space, the planet that MADE the reapers that terrorize entire regions of space with their cannibalism? To quote Zoe “If they take the ship, they’ll r#$% us to death, eat our flesh and sew our skins into their clothing. And if we’re very, very lucky, they’ll do it in that order.”
…so, yeah, Puck’s kid. Huzzah and such, lol
I’ve personally avoided everything that was ever a part of the Whedonverse, up until the Avengers. So Miranda stays, for me, primarily the excessively innocent girl from The Tempest. It sounds like it’s better that way.
It is disturbingly appropriate.
God, how I have longed for the opportunity to call something disturbingly appropriate.
And I’m a sysadmin, so I have lots of opportunity to call things disturbing… =D
Is it weird that the planet Neptune has two moons, called Puck and Miranda? It’s weird, okay. Still. Just saying.
Moons of Uranus, actually. But they named them after this comic – fact.
Eh eh eh eh eh You said Uranus.
I love how she went from screaming in pain to blissfully joyful.
It really happens that way, I find.
The grossness will probably wear off eventually.
Hopefully sooner than eventually.
I do not like human maggots. I really don’t.
That baby sure looks ugly to me. Of course, I would never tell a mother that. I suppose I could try to be evasive and say things like: “That baby is special! outstanding! amazing!” but it’s probably better to go along and tell a white lie. BTW, Raymond Carver wrote a short story about parents showing a friend their baby, which happened to be extremely ugly. It’s hysterically funny. (Sadly, I forgot its title.)
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I say, there goes your proof. 🙂
@ChrisH
Babees are creepier than Klownz.
Stephen King killed an entire industry.
I think your wife is likely right.
I think I know why we always ask about the baby’s sex. What else is there to talk about? It’s not like they’re working on a novel or anything. They eat, sleep, excrete and grow. It’s important work given the amount of growing they have to do, but it’s a tad repetative and is kind of boring, gross of both.
I once wrote a poem that takes place after the end of the Tempest. I won’t bore you with it, but the upshot was that there were no survivors in Prospero’s wreckage. The whole play was something he put on for the island’s spirits so they’d finally let leave.
I like that Tempest concept. Almost makes me like the Tempest. Almost. But not quite.
I’d ask why not, but it does sound a bit like Shakespear’s spending hours scolding his daughter for marrying a jerk, so I get it.
I like it, but it’s not for everyone.
Thank you by the way.
This man predicted baby yoda people!
Babies predicted baby Yoda. They really do look like that. Though I suppose they don’t have the pointy ears, so … yes. Yes I did.