ANOTHER APRIL VOTING INCENTIVE UP NOW!
Just a slightly altered rehash of the last voting incentive, but hey, why not?
VOTE TO KEEP THE DREAM ALIVE!
As for this comic...
There were a number of readers who were rooting for Phoebe to slap Daphne at some point in this arc. And now those readers get their wish. (Well, kinda. They get their wish fulfilled to the extent that it could ever be filled by Phoebe slapping someone, which isn't very fulfilling.)
I should note that it is very, VERY hard to draw a still image conveying a weak slap. It may be impossible, really. So I kind of copped out and just drew a real slap with a really weak sound effect. It's the best I could do, given the situation. And as for the situation, well...
Here's the deal: this is one of the worst times of the year for me with my day job, and I have very little time to work on the comic. That means I'm trying to get as much as I can done as early as I can to free up time for later. And I ended up drawing this whole comic much earlier than usual, working on it through my lunch hours and evenings. But then, like the idiot I am, I left the page with the last two panels at my job over the weekend. And I couldn't get into the building. Believe me, I tried. That meant that even though the drawings were totally done, I needed to redraw the same drawings again in order to get this comic done on time. Which I did.
I'm not sure if the new pics are better than the original drawings or not. I'll post the first draft along with the redone versions on Patreon later this week, if anybody's interested.
Puck 489
ANOTHER APRIL VOTING INCENTIVE UP NOW!
Just a slightly altered rehash of the last voting incentive, but hey, why not?
VOTE TO KEEP THE DREAM ALIVE!
As for this comic...
There were a number of readers who were rooting for Phoebe to slap Daphne at some point in this arc. And now those readers get their wish. (Well, kinda. They get their wish fulfilled to the extent that it could ever be filled by Phoebe slapping someone, which isn't very fulfilling.)
I should note that it is very, VERY hard to draw a still image conveying a weak slap. It may be impossible, really. So I kind of copped out and just drew a real slap with a really weak sound effect. It's the best I could do, given the situation. And as for the situation, well...
Here's the deal: this is one of the worst times of the year for me with my day job, and I have very little time to work on the comic. That means I'm trying to get as much as I can done as early as I can to free up time for later. And I ended up drawing this whole comic much earlier than usual, working on it through my lunch hours and evenings. But then, like the idiot I am, I left the page with the last two panels at my job over the weekend. And I couldn't get into the building. Believe me, I tried. That meant that even though the drawings were totally done, I needed to redraw the same drawings again in order to get this comic done on time. Which I did.
I'm not sure if the new pics are better than the original drawings or not. I'll post the first draft along with the redone versions on Patreon later this week, if anybody's interested.
Daphne broke Phoebe
Well, you knew it was heading in that direction. It was only a matter of time.
Yes but not like this.
Does she even have bones or just a collection of air bladders?
I’m fairly certain she has bones. If not, she’d be able to slip under doorways and through many impossibly tight crevices. And that seems unlikely.
PUCK has officially become Canada’s most violent Web Comic.
HOORAY !
Ok, this is funny.
It’s not really Canadian until Phoebe apologizes.
The apology will be in panel one of the next comic, guaranteed.
Doubtful. “Goblins” is a Canadian webcomic.
As is Terra. Only about an interplanetary rebellion. Wee bit of fighting and killing goin on.
In fact, there’s a ton of incredibly violent Canadian webcomics. Canadians are low on real violence and high on fictional violence.
Well, we need SOME sort of outlet. Otherwise we’d make the Americans look tame in comparison.
True. We of the north are a savage lot.
Doom 6 Canadian Edition
Banned in America for excessive violence
“We of the north are a savage lot.”
Exhibit A: Wendigo.
@ Wyvern
Or Marvel’s Wolverine.
Someone needs to wash out Daphne’s mouth with soap. Someone named Puck, obviously.
Then the soap will become dirty
@JJR
YES !
Enh, that sounds like parenting. Not sure Puck would do that.
Okay. I’m surprised that good natured Phoebe slapped someone. I’m also surprised that she slapped someone. However, she is Elizabeth Taylor’s daughter. So she had to know how to slap someone.
Also, I’m surprised that Phoebe slapped someone. Oh woe, what beast hath Daphne released upon Canada. O Canada, we shall weep for those who hath suffered from the fury that has no snap in her slap.
Sooo…. no one I guess.
@pat
Phoebe – TIME TO STRANGLE.
Oh crap – there are probably laws against Cruelty to Jackals in Canada.
(tho daddy satan can just drop all charges. happens south of the border in America all the time)
Oh Salem… I know you have dreams, but honestly, how close (to the uneducated eye) do you think that Phoebe’s strangle technique will resemble hugging? I’m afraid that unless someone (I nominate you) goes North to instruct the lass in the ways of proper throttling, she will remain second best to a kitten in the arts of self-defense.
True. Even with instruction, I doubt she’d manage. Though Salem might be up for a little casual hugging practice.
I’m going to correct you and say that Detroit, Michigan is physically north of Windsor, Ontario. So… there is U.S. style satanic corruption north of the U.S.-Canada border.
Spanking and strangling. I don’t really know which road this comic is undertaking, but it seems interesting.
NO SPANKING!!! Why does everyone always want this comic to devolve into spanking?!? (Okay, I know why, but still. Come on.)
I too am surprised that Phoebe slapped someone. It wasn’t in the script.
“Plab.” The sound of a slap when it’s got a bad cold.
Well, it was either “plab” or “blap”, and plab seemed stupider to me. So that’s the one I went with.
As for me, “plab” worked perfectly. When I saw it I immediately thought, did Phoebe just weak slap her.
The sound effects are always critical, I find.
I rather thought it ought to be “plap”
Plap is more forceful. Plab is wimpier.
Really? I kind of thought Plab implied being hit with something thick and rubbery, like a hot water bottle, while Plap is a lighter sound, and seems more like an attempt at a slap.
You might be right.
Hmm… I’d say force of the slap in a still image is best conveyed not so much by the arm position of the slapper, but by how much it turns the head of the slapee, and perhaps the follow-through of the slapper’s arm.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/telecommunications-mobile-cell-wap-txt-roam-cgo0246_low.jpg
In this case, I’d say “almost none at all”, and so good job conveying a lack of force… although the fact that they’re suddenly standing sideways to each other kind of muddles the issue.
Yes, as a comic strip artist with limited real estate in every panel, I reserve the right to rotate characters to best suit the frame as much as I want. So two characters directly facing each other in one frame will suddenly be facing in slightly different directions in the next frame. Also, I reserve the right to move characters closer together or further away depending on the size of the frame. They’re not continuity errors, exactly; rather, they are complete continuity abandonment. Only with purpose!
And I agree with you about the slap factor. The initial draft of the slap pic in this strip looked even less forceful because Daphne’s hair wasn’t reacting like it had moved. That first draft, though, barely even looked like a slap, so this one is a better middle ground.
I’ve voted on TWC, but again I only saw a broken link in place of the incentive image 🙁
Instead of Blonde Puck, it’s Original Puck in the same dress, I think.
Don’t know what happened. It’s working for me. I tested on multiple machines.
It’s working for me now, and just call me a Traditionalist I guess, because I adore Original Puck!
Seconded.
Good for you, redrawing the comic so we could have it on time! That’s some dedication. And the curtains in the background are bloody lovely!
Well, glad you’re happy with the results. Nothing drives me crazier than doing work I already did. And this was even more infuriating because the work was done and was right there, behind locked doors. Even MORE infuriating was the fact that there was a guy working on the building hanging outside for a smoke break. “Can I go in?” I asked. “I work here. I just forgot some stuff on my desk.”
“Nope,” he answered.
“Please? Here, I can prove that I work here! Here’s my parking pass, and my-”
No. If I let you in, I could get fired. And looking at you, let me tell you: you ain’t worth me getting fired.”
True story, yo.
Phoebe would have gotten in. So the next time this happens, just put on you holographic Phoebe disguise while using a Darth Vader voice changer with the wires crossed.
If I had one of those, life would be easier
NOW I’m wondering what the wife said about THAT Gecko.
Don’t know. Didn’t ask.
Your life in four panels, yo!
Congratulations, EG. You found the only security guard in Hamilton who isn’t Canadian polite. He could at least have said he was sorry he couldn’t let you in.
Well, he did say sorry. I just cut that. And he was a contractor, not a security guard. Canadian schools don’t have security guards. Because we’re nice.
She just made the point that you’re going too far, Daphne. You’re being unreasonable and ungrateful.
Especially after all the trouble she went to for your makeover.
You’re lucky she didn’t bop you on the snout with a rolled-up newspaper…
Man, where’s a good newspaper when you need one?
Isn’t that something that you download to your tablet?
Smacking people with tablets isn’t as satisfying.
I disagree – it makes a much louder THWACK
You need one of the reinforced ones, the tablet equivalent of the Toughbook. THEN you’ve got something.
They were bought by Rupert Murdock and are now USAToday clones.
If Phoebe would have just let Daphne simmer in her own self pity. Daphne may have learned a lesson.
Now she got her wound up and now she is back on the attack.
Well, you’re about on the right track. Wait and see.
It occurs to me, belatedly, that a slap (no matter how lightly delivered) from the daughter of the devil himself might bear some long term consequences, such as oh, like, the mark of Caanan, or something, making her the target of bad luck, or demon tricks, etc.
In any other universe, I’d think you’d be very warranted in thinking that. With this daughter of the devil, I highly doubt it.
Oh Phoebe, much as I loathe trite saying, I think this one is most apt for the occasion.
“If at first you don’t succeed, TRY, TRY again.”
Turn that plab into something more worthy of the daughter of Satan and Liz Taylor. (Newbie here: Seriously? offspring of Liz Taylor? Girl ought to have knowledge of ‘bitch slap’ hard-wired into her DNA.
Well, never has that trite saying been more apt. And part of the joke with Phoebe is that she inherited almost nothing from her parents. Well okay, she got her dark hair, her purple eyes and her beauty from her mom, and her tail and horns from her dad, but everything else was weird recessive genes of kindness and empathy.
Daphne . . . you have just crossed over into ‘most annoying character’ territory. That guy you spy in the corner of your eye? That’s Chuck Cunningham, right next to Mrs. Warbucks and Barney Google, and that little girl next to them is Charlotte Braun. FYI, seeing them is NOT GOOD!
You forgot my favourite annoying character, Linton Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, the only sick invalid child in literature whose death you cheer for.
Daphne has become too much even for Phoebe. How sad!
Well, she’s been going off the cliff for some time. It’s only inevitable that she would reach the edge.
pahahaha
The “p” at the beginning of he laugh makes it special.
It seemed appropriate.
Looks like Joe-Joe the dog face girl just has to ruin someones prom. Because it is clear her main target moved out of range.
True dat.
Wonderful, just what was needed.
Many seem to think so.
That sound also means she wasn’t distributing her weight properly during that slap. There’s nothing behind it.
Well, that’s part and parcel of a terrible slap. Which makes sense, given the fact that this is probably the first time she’s ever slapped someone.
No, Daps, the weakest, limpest slap in history would be all fingers. That slap involved the palm, too. 🙂
But you gotta put FORCE into the palm. And I don’t really consider a slap with only the fingers a slap. That’s more a tap.
Re-reading panel 2, it strikes me that Daphne did not merely insult Phoebe; she insulted Phoebe’s art. “Trashy” dress? “Ridiculous” look? These are things Phoebe puts her soul into, her babies so to speak. Not wise to attack them!
I also recall Phoebe dances professionally. It’s possible that she’s in very good condition and, if properly coached, could deliver a pretty good punch – but she just will not, which you have to respect.
Indeed, this is an attack not only on her person but her art. But Phoebe doesn’t dance professionally. She waits tables, but she does not dance. She dances recreationally, and is (from what we can gather) quite good at it, but it’s only a hobby.
Ah! thanks for the correction. I misunderstood the nature of Howlers. I must go do field research. In the name of science!
They don’t dance. Nor do they remove anything. They just wear revealing little outfits and serve wings. That’s it. Kinda sad, really.
@EG
Do “they” make EYE CONTACT ?
I’m so shy I’ve neva’ even been to a Howlers.
“Kinda’ Sad” describes me to a T.
Sometimes, the best thing to do is to do nothing. If I were Phoebe, I would just walk away from Daphne, and let her “simmer in her own juice.” Daphne is old enough to have some independent thought, and she really needs to get her head together, and really think about what she’s doing, and it’s possible consequences. There’s no use in arguing with her, it would just make her defensive and possibly irrational.
You are wiser than Phoebe.
Finally! Caught up!
I don’t know how you do it. I applaud you.
Oh, I think that no one notices Daphne because she, Puck, Satan and Phoebe have lived in that town for a long time. They’ve gotten used to it.
And I think that Puck hasn’t argued with her brain since the beginning because, well, she’s not alone. You only do that when there’s no one else.
I do it very, very slowly. Slowly. Very.
Well, given all the other stuff you do, I’m still impressed.
You know, the more I look at Daphne’s dress, the more I like it. I know I said it looked like Phoebe designed it, and it’s true, it does. But it’s still good.
@EG, I may be wiser than Phoebe, but that ain’t sayin’ much, is it? 😉
Perhaps it’s time for She Who Is The Title Character to intervene? Or would that just make things worse?
Hey Gecko, just wanting to say that April is Sarcoidosis awareness month.
Well, given that I don’t know what that is, I would agree that it needs more awareness.
Did you look it up yet?
I did. And I still don’t understand it fully.
Neither does my current pulmonologist. It’s got more facets than the Hope Diamond, more concealing than Tracee’s dresses and hides better than a chameleon.
Damn! Slapped into humility. Well she deserved it.
Gotta love a slap as the best way to develop character.
Not enough, Phoebes.
Not enough.
Yet.
Getting close?