Puck 669

Chapter: Short GirlsCharacters: Bethany Colin Emily the Cat GirlTags: cursed sonic tails wrong
SWIMSUITEMBER RETURNS! It's been a hot minute, but Swimsuitember is back with a bunch of fun ice cream-based themes! VOTE TO REACH FOR BEACH!!! As for this comic... Ugh. This one gave me headaches. For whatever reason, when I was nearing the end of the comic, the save corrupted. I lost a bit of work, but I'm used to this sort of nonsense, so I loaded up an earlier save. But when I went to save my progress, that save ALSO corrupted. It took me a good bit of investigation to realize that some element contained in the background of panel one was causing the problem. I never found out how to fix the situation, but by not editing panel one at all, I managed to generate a finalized comic without having the whole thing explode on me. While this sounds awful, it's pretty much standard fare for most digital artists. Everyone has had at least one of these nightmares. Honestly, I should count myself lucky because I was mostly able to save the comic.

58 Comments

  • Is the scary pushy broad gone? Is it safe?

  • rewinn

    The cursed element in Panel One exited, so we should be good?

    • ElectricGecko

      The cursed element, from what I can gather, is actually Colin’s speech bubble. Not the text, but the bubble. Weird, huh?

      • rewinn

        Weird indeed! But there may be an in-universe explanation: so often for Colin – and other men in relationship – the act of speaking is a mistake, regardless of what is said. Just don’t do it!

      • Frank

        I had a similar experience with a photograph I was trying to put in a book. It took a long time to figure out something I can’t remember what it was.

  • Pat

    Suddenly, I don’t think that code yellow is just about a pushy legalistic customer any more.

  • Pat

    Here’s what I’m curious about . Go back before the file got corrupted. Save it under the same file name twice, in addition to the original name add “A” and “B” to the end of the file name and save. Now there are three files that should be identical. Do the next step to each one, in progression. To see if and when the corruption appears. Because I’m wondering if it could just be a defrag issue.

    • ElectricGecko

      Nah, I did that. The issue is that I work in vector, so my image is constructed of thousands (sometimes millions!) of vector-formula objects. Sometimes just a single vector gets corrupted or breaks. It’s never predictable. I think, from experimentation on the file, that the broken asset is Colin’s speech bubble in panel one. Not the text, just the bubble. Altering that asset in any way seems to lead to crashing upon save and a corruption of the file. But if I don’t touch it, things seem to be fine. Weird? Yep. You bet it’s weird. But I’ve come to expect this sort of nonsense by now.

  • Aname

    Does this mean that Cy cosplays as Miles “Tails” Prower from Team Sonic?
    Does this mean that the girls name is Zooey? I see that you haven’t credited her in characters, methinks not to give it away too early.
    I don’t know though, she doesn’t act much like Zooey, I’m probably wrong.

    • Thisguy

      Considering Zoey has almost no personality beyond “nice girl who is mostly in the background” no, she doesn’t.

      And speaking of Tail’s girlfriends, She doesn’t act like Cosmo either, who was also a nice girl, but had more personality, even if it was mostly due to being the last of her kind and trying to live beyond that.

      • Aname

        Yeah, definitely not Cosmo who is either dead or a little sprout like Groot at the end of the Guardians movie.
        Why do kids cartoons have such dark themes nowadays, lots of death and loss.
        In my day (god I sound old) you would whack someone with a 16 ton weight or push them off a cliff or shoot them or blow them up and they would bounce right back up, right as rain.
        Now it’s all E-motional Damage.
        Weren’t cartoons supposed to be light entertainment, humorous and escapist.

        • Frank

          Bambi’s mother is literally killed by hunters in the first act of that movie. Who told you cartoons are light entertainment?

          • ElectricGecko

            Pinocchio stands as one of the more traumatizing animated movies of all time. No sugar-coating on THAT one. But I will agree with Aname that a large percentage of writers creating cartoons for kids have sort of lost the narrative. They’re frequently inspired by ‘peak TV’ dramas and want to emulate the grave stakes and continuous narrative of those adult shows. But I’m firmly of the opinion that kids often like things a little lighter. Too much entertainment is made today that caters to what some 40-something neckbeard guy like me thinks is ‘cool’, and not what actual kids find appealing.

            Some shows get it right, though. ‘Teen Titans GO!’ was a show that 40-something neckbeards despise, but you know what? It was wacky and funny and little kids LOVED it. I didn’t mind it myself.

          • Aname

            The story that Bambi came from,
            “Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde”
            was a brutal book and Disney significantly softened it.
            Disney’s adaptation still got a lot of stick from reviewers.
            From the New York Times: “In the search for perfection, Mr. Disney has come perilously close to tossing away his whole world of cartoon fantasy.”
            Even Disney’s daughter Diane complained, saying that Bambi’s mother did not need to die. When Walt claimed that he was only following the book, Diane protested, saying that he had taken other liberties before and that Walt Disney could do whatever he wanted. {Wiki}
            I’m not saying that cartoons cannot approach sensitive subjects but I feel that they shouldn’t rely upon them. If you look at Bambi and Snow White for two examples, there is a lot of humour amongst the pathos with Thumper and the dwarves.
            “Punch” coined the term “cartoon” in 1843 to define a humorous illustration.
            Humour -> Comedy -> Light Entertainment.

    • ElectricGecko

      That’s definitely not her name. And if we were going for a Sonic equivalent in terms of her character traits, this one would be more an Amy.

      • Aname

        It was a bit sexist of me to assume SWMNBN’d was cossing a female character. Nothing saying she couldn’t cos Sonic himself.
        My apologies.

  • willis

    I think that schnookette in Panel 1, was the reason why this comic nearly went kaputski on ya.

  • Thisguy

    Ok… from that comment I deduce we’re probably dealing with an unwanted admirer/ex girlfriend.

    And Cy’s rapid exit shows that either he’s a jerk who just refuses to talk, or that she’s so deluded that she refuses to listen so it’s easier to avoid her. Probably the second.

    That’s the problem with certain fans, they tend to be obsessive about their fandoms. If that obsessiveness crosses over into their relationships, there’s trouble.

    I wish him luck.

  • She could’a said that first.

  • pattoo1234

    So when will you give the Pikachu Girl an actual name and put her on the character list?

  • Justin

    Yay Emily comic. Yay Emily votey.

  • Frank

    O.K. There’s history here. The kind of history that causes . . . Pikakarens. Poor dumb Cy. What did he do?

    • LaughingDemon

      I believe Michael Jackson’s advice about not going around breaking young girls’ hearts would apply.
      Tangentially related, since apparently he did some of the tracks on the Sonic 3 soundtrack. (Based on the customer issues regarding the re-release).

      • ElectricGecko

        I really wish we could get any real confirmation on that Michael Jackson Sonic 3 thing. Because I’ve heard that so many times, but I’ve always seen it presented as a ‘rumor has it’ kind of thing.

        • Aname

          Not absolute confirmation, but I’d say it has a pretty high confidence factor.
          “https://testkitchen.huffingtonpost.com/michaeljacksonsonic/#2/”
          Buxer was credited on S3 and did work with MJ at the time.
          And a more recent one
          “https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/06/brad-buxer-reconfirms-michael-jacksons-involvement-with-sonic-3s-soundtrack”

    • ElectricGecko

      Some dumb guy thing probably. Us guys are always doing that.

  • LaughingDemon

    Oh… it’s “that” kinda problem.

  • JustSumguy

    Huh… Overall she’s an interesting combination of Nerdy girl and consumer Karen, very aggressive and territorial. I’ve never come across such a phenomena. Are they common to come across in the nerd spaces of maple land?

    • ElectricGecko

      Well, I doubt she’d be this domineering in another store, but she feels like she owns this place. So that makes her bold.

      • Frank

        She’s not an investor, is she?

        • ElectricGecko

          Not in a formal sense, no?

        • rewinn

          She seems pretty invested in Cy.

          I *have* seen in other fandoms (and outside of them too) people who are all “that person loves me and we are perfect together, I just have to remind them of it so we can be so happy”.

          If they are lucky, the other person doesn’t take advantage of them, and Cy seems a decent sort. Not necessarily strong enough to set her straight, but that would be a conversation to make the stoutest heart quail.

  • Demarion

    “Of all the gin joints in all the world, she–” Naw. Casablanca this ain’t!

  • Badeyes

    “Lady Sonic” is Puck’s cousin… Future family reunions will be even more awkward than one expects.

  • thisguy

    Sonica references

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