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As for this comic...
Some people predicted this Tracee back story with a fair amount of accuracy last week. I believe that is not a sign of horribly predictable storytelling, but rather a sign of incredibly intelligent and intuitive readers.
Puck 496
JUNE VOTING INCENTIVE UP NOW!
More bonus car wash comic stuff! Good times!
VOTE TO BE SO VERY, VERY KIND!
As for this comic...
Some people predicted this Tracee back story with a fair amount of accuracy last week. I believe that is not a sign of horribly predictable storytelling, but rather a sign of incredibly intelligent and intuitive readers.
Well, she has her reasons.
She does.
If I was “drafted” as a babysitter, facing “6 Against 1”-odds, it might make me a tad bitter too.
It doesn’t sound like fun?
[ElectricGecko]:
Fun for the 6, maybe, …
(if they decide that it’s fun to gang-up on the ‘1’)
… & fun for any ‘spectators’ …
… but NOT for the ‘1’, no.
Divide and conquer
Awwww – they’re BONDING!
Narrator: “This was to have consequences later. Much later.”
@rewinn
This could really work out well.
When Robin comes to pick Miranda up, Miranda will be SCREAMING to stay, and TRACEEE will be bawling to see Miranda go.
Robin will be pissed.
Everyone wins ! (except Miranda and TRACEEE – sad )
Oh, Robin loses too.
So …. correction … EVERYONE LOSES.
I’m looking forward to the look of shock on Puck’s face as Tracee informs her when next week’s playdate is.
@Lokitsu
TRACEEE would make an excellent MOM.
Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here….
You mean shock and horror
Hock and Shorror?
Hoëk & Stimpson
Not sure whether there’s any winning or losing going on here. More like lots of “huh.”
“Robin will be pissed”– only if he drinks enough, which he may very well do when he sees how matters have evolved.
The narrator for this comic is voiced by Daniel Stern.
Is he reading the “creamy” line?
Perhaps an unholy alliance?
Miranda should at least wipe the bottle before drinking from it!
That’s rude.
Why didn’t she remember how good she was at babying when Miranda was dumped in her lap?
Maybe she suppressed those memories?
Well, here’s a little secret: if you really want to avoid doing something like, say, taking care of a baby, the best way to accomplish that is by acting like you have no idea how to take care of a baby. This strategy works as long as there’s an audience. When no audience remains, though, and it is very obvious that you will be the one taking care of baby, then the façade becomes useless.
I wonder if she knew she was doing that.
On some level? Definitely.
O.K.
That is what I do with folding clothes!
We had guys at the post office who built careers around doing just that.
Believe me, it happens in the private sector, too.
Formula?
I can’t see Robin Goodfellow, Fairy of Blah blah blah, not providing her spawnling with anything but natural mother’s milk.
You never read that formula/breastfeeding arc right after the kid was born? Miranda is at least mostly bottle-fed.
Welp, that’s what I get for spouting off without checking the archives. Time to go for a little re-read.
The TDLR version: Puck struggled with the whole breastfeeding thing while being verbally assaulted by an aggressive lactation consultant. The end result was Colin freeing her from the hospital and them running away. If you want to read it, the whole thing isn’t that long and is contained in the ‘Lactation Frustration’ chapter.
I wonder if she’s still wanted. Is there poster of her someplace? Is that a thing in Canada?
I don’t think they declare you a criminal for taking off from the hospital. I mean, you pretty much always have the constitutional right to leave (in most cases), so yeah. No wanted posters required. Though to be clear, wanted posters are exceedingly rare in Canada. America loves wanted posters because they combine two of America’s favorite things: marketing and the justice system.
Jealous much? I mean if we go back to the front gates of Canada’s Funderland, would we see a reason for Daphne to shave posted on the wall?
“I don’t think they declare you a criminal for taking off from the hospital.”
But that’s not funny! True, though and at this point it would muck the narrative up.
I have a whole lot more respect for Tracee as a character now.
I mean, I guess it wasn’t that hard to do, but the backstory works for me, and tugs at my sympathies.
So, you know, great job.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Tracee. I’ve known a lot of people like her over the years: from the wrong side of the tracks, desperately wanting to distance themselves from that world but forever carrying the marks of that background. That might be because a huge section of my city falls on the wrong side of the tracks.
You can take the girl out of Hamilton, but you can’t take the Hamilton out of the girl…
To be specific, you can take the girl out of the north end of Hamilton, but you can’t take the north end out of the girl. Though Hamilton has a rough reputation, and said rough reputation is at least partially earned, there are some nice sections of town.
I like Miranda’s smile at the end. She’s learning that it’s nice to share.
🙂
It’s a hard lesson for babies to learn, really.
I really appreciate what you are doing with tracee. Her nature as rhe vapid beauty queen and obsession with living the high life makes so much more sense with a background of hard thankless work. Turning a 2 dimensional character into one with even some amount of depth is great.
As long as there’s not too much depth. We can’t ruin the fun with depth. Just a little depth.
She’s like a cheap Cinderella!
Trashy. NOT cheap. She doesn’t like that word.
I think it’s less predictive storytelling and more good storytelling, because if the fans can tell what’s coming, it means you’re good at leading them.
There’s a great breakdown by Roger Ebert of a joke from ‘This Is Spinal Tap’: Ebert describes how the whole joke (involving the tiny model of Stonehenge for a concert prop) lets you know exactly where it’s going, reminds you where it’s going multiple times, and lets you see exactly where said joke will land. This, as Ebert noted, flies entirely in the face of comedy rules because usually comedy is found in the unexpected, but somehow knowing exactly where everything is going can also be equally satisfying.
I think this is mainly too small pages. Like, sure we were able to see what’s coming, because this is still continuation of the surprise on previous page.
A little back story on a characters history is always interesting, especially when it explains so much about that character.
The key word, of course, is ‘a little’ back story. It’s good to flesh out characters sometimes. But I never really like it when a TV show or comic does the ‘prequel’ thing and decides to spend an inordinate amount of time fleshing out a needlessly complex back story.
So this is probably all the back story we’re getting for Tracee. It’s all we need, really.
Next you’re going to tell us how “Solo” was a completely unnecessary prequel that no one ever really asked for.
No, I won’t tell you that. Though I will readily tell you that I didn’t ask for it.
@Lokitsu
“SOLO” was honestly worse than the Star Wars Christmas Special.
Usually when they are running out of ideas prequel is still better than sequel. Especially if they already did a sequel and it was bad.
Tol’ ya. 🙂
And, not being impossibly smug, that was a well-done reveal. Very in-character. And I think there’s a pleasure in sometimes being able to see where the ball is going to go. It makes the surprises more interesting.
🙂
Well, some readers are just geniuses. That’s not my fault.
Not even a little bit your fault.
But even if it were, it was well done.
They’re bonding . . . . . . . be afraid, world. Be very afraid.
Why is everyone afraid of the bonding?!?
I can answer that in one word, Gecko!
“JOPESCHI”
Only Miranda can say that.
Miranda has= A fairy for a mother, a survives-anything for a father, a budding arch-criminal for an older sister, an ‘aunt’ who is the literal daughter of Satan, now she’s bonding with Satan’s lover, a woman (we have now learned) with boundless drive and determination. Plus, Miranda is totes cute! Result= yes, be afraid, world, of ever causing Miranda distress! You can’t hide, and you won’t get the chance to run!
She will almost certainly grow up to be a sweetie.
Thank goodness, I’d hate to think what Daphne would do to you if you messed with her sister.
Oh no she is starting her formula habit again.
It’s hard to kick, man. So creamy. So good.
I looked at the voting incentive. I think Phoebe should have a much nicer ass.
She looks like she has a long back.
Well, I’m sorry I failed you. It’s a poorly kept secret that I’m really not very good at drawing.
I don’t think it’s bad drawing as much as other’s image (or head-canon) of Phoebe isn’t the same as yours. Personally, I like the way you draw. Remember, it’s still a cartoon.
Well, sometimes it’s a bad drawing. I’m not always on model.
This got me thinking about something Stephen King said. People would come up with concepts of how areas looked. The way the set pieces would be arranged so to speak, to let the fan show King how and what the areas looked like in their mind.
I think that he threw that stuff out without looking at it as he felt that it would corrupt how the story’s form in his own mind’s eye.
I could see that with novels and the like, where it’s not a visual medium. For me, with comics, it’s … more complicated. I AM directly showing people what things should look like. The problem is that my artistic skills always fall drastically short of my vision. So everything looked way better in my head before I drew it. Really, I kind of hate working in a visual medium due to my lack of drawing talent, but no one’s ever given a moment’s notice to my text-based writings, so I’m kind of stuck with the comic format and my failed drawings.
And so it is revealed that even the seemingly most shallow and awful of people in this story has some actual depth and is perhaps not quite as awful as we had believed. Looking back, it absolutely makes sense. Very well done!
I may be a voice of one here But just because there are reasons for a person being an awful person, It only excuses it if they are trying to NOT be an awful person…
(I will go stand in the corner by myself now with all my “Repent” signs…
This is oddly prescient for upcoming comics. Keep your statements in mind.
OMG, now I’m wondering what’s prescient in my statement… the trying to not be a awful person, or the “Repent” signs!!!
No need to answer, I look forward to finding out when the time comes!
Could you predict a good outcome for my nation? I know it doesn’t work lie that, but I think we could use all the help we can get.
Very insciteful. I think something like that came up in the Roy Greenhill evaluation arc.
I’m glad it makes sense. It has to feel right, I guess.
Not much to say, except… I really like this version of Tracy.
Good! We will see more of this Tracee. Not always, but periodically.
This is easily my favorite comic of this particular storyline so far. Tracee’s face in panel two as she finally gets to speak about this with someone who is too young (for now) to tell anyone else is so expressive, one of the few times you see that anger of hers going toward where it belongs.
Miranda’s expression in panel 3 is also amazing. She’s clearly never seen one of the Big People drink her food, and isn’t sure what to make of it. Then her reaction to Tracee’s love for it is (at least I believe) an adorable “I know, right?”
Also… Super creamy. That is spoken like someone who’s definitely tried it themselves. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence…
I have casually tasted formula, mostly by accident due to getting the junk on my hands when making it, and I can say that it is (contrary to what Tracee reports here) disgusting. It’s powdery, like dehydrated milk, but grossly full of fat, so much so that the fat often separates into clumps of yellow grease on the sides and tops of the bottle. The warm temp (not hot, not cold) also screams ‘gross’ on so many levels. In short, I do not recommend.
I’d wondered if they’d changed it since I tried it… I have no offspring, but I’ve definitely cared for babies and ended up trying it. The texture is like a bad hot cocoa that never quite dissolves, and the flavor is basically just sweet with that undercurrent of “cereal” taste. Same thing goes for kitten formula, which I used when raising orphaned wild bunnies.
Yeah, definitely that bad hot cocoa texture. Nicely described.
So what was her mother doing at the casino?
Gambling. It is what one does at casinos.
Six siblings in a family headed by two mentally ill adults? Yea, I can understand why she would so strongly avoid having kids, but it is inevitable. The baby rabies get all the ladies. All of them.
Not all. But some.
I have a question for you Gecko, but it doesn’t relate to Puck. I thought I remembered the site having forum(s), or a link to forum(s), but I can’t recall where to find it.
I don’t have any forums, but you could email me. It’s just the site name only replace “.com” with “@gmail.com”
I’ll put “Asking Advice – Buggle” in the subject line so you know it’s me.
(watch out EG. Buggle has a Timeshare she’s looking to unload)
Not quite – more like 200 gallons of questionably-acquired absinthe.
well… as long as they all really DID fall off the back of a truck…
You watching hockey, Gecko?
I do not. I am a terrible Canadian.