APRIL IS HERE!!! TIME FOR PANCAKES!!!
Whether you call them flapjacks, griddle cakes or flat muffins, you're gonna want this short stack, so...
VOTE FOR BREAKFAST!!!
As for this comic...
What did Gertrude once say about ladies that doth protest too much? It might apply here.
Puck 698
APRIL IS HERE!!! TIME FOR PANCAKES!!!
Whether you call them flapjacks, griddle cakes or flat muffins, you're gonna want this short stack, so...
VOTE FOR BREAKFAST!!!
As for this comic...
What did Gertrude once say about ladies that doth protest too much? It might apply here.
I dunno. and about the question in the description… Sounds more like Bacon, from a Hammasaurus.
Hammasaurus Rex. Though I guess he never became a king, so Hammasaurus Princeps.
Doesn’t Tracee get dresses that have more windows than Klingon Kleavage?
Well, as long as there’s more ‘not dress’ than ‘dress’, she’ll probably wear it.
As long as she’s not babysitting Miranda.
Then they get covered in upchuck…
Man, that kid has a lot of strong opinions.
Well, she’s doing the best she can.
Who knew Satan could ask a difficult question?
She’s trying.
“It’s not that I like you!”
Definitely not.
Takes time to pack, especially if you pack the silverware…
Sadly, I doubt the big goons will give her a chance to get to the silverware now.
I assume her reaction is becauise she wants Satan to act a bit more sorry that she’s leaving.
Could it not be more?
Guilt, shame and caring about others besides yourself is a powerful motivator to get you to stay.
Precisely.
Oof!
I suspect… she actually has nowhere else to go.
Poor Tracee…
Even Persephone cared enough for Hades that she came back to him in the off season.
Exactly.
The way I heard it, it was the pomegranates that she couldn’t resist coming back for.
Let Tracee be Tracee. It’s a wonderful spring outfit with interesting lines and patterns. I’ve seen worse.
I like the idea of Tracee confirming her intent to leave just any second now. Got her things packed and gonna find that next new rock to dig for gold.
Hey, spring has sprung. Ugly dresses are in the air.
Tracee, are you leaving me?
Yes.
When?
Soon!
Obligatory.
Lord John Whorfin: Where are we going?
Red Lectroids: Planet Ten.
Lord John Whorfin: When?
Red Lectroids: Real soon.
Mad “Buckaroo Banzai” props, dude!
I think this is as simple as the fact she doesn’t actually have anywhere to go. I’m assuming the Demons have used magic to drain her bank accounts as well.
Well, I don’t think she had much to begin with. But more on this later…
And that’s why some girls love jewelry …
True. Tragic that she isn’t wearing any.
Also, her outfit is very much the song video “Somebody that I used to know”. Which seems fitting.
A subconscious inspiration, perhaps?
Oh dear, maybe she faked caring for Satan long enough to actually care for Satan . . . . . . . . well, it could happen. It did to Megaera!
These things happen. As Hamlet says, “That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat of habits evil, is angel yet in this, that to the use of actions fair and good he likewise gives a frock or livery that aptly is put on.” In other words, if you pretend to be good for long enough, it can sometimes result in you actually being good.
Kind of like Belkar’s fake charactor growth turned into real charactor growth. But in his case, he still needed the help of a small white housecat.
Really the only thing this comic is missing is a housecat.
Although … thinking back, Daphne may play that role, and I’m not referring to her fur: she enters Puck’s life, upsets everything, is completely self-centered, loving and chaotic.
She may grow into an adult humanoid and acquire primate social characteristics, but it’s a long evolution away from her roots.
I purposefully have kept animals out of this comic because they’re such a default component of newspaper comics. Nothing wrong with animals, but they have a way of taking over a strip.
Fair enough. Even when there is no housecat on stage, they tend to sneak into the comments.
Besides, there’s Emily. EMILY!!
Real nice of the guards to let Satan and Tracee have their spat uninterrupted. The cabal really knows how to pick ’em
Bob’s only deals in quality goons.
A couple of artistic choice questions.
I just noticed that Satan’s clothes are not black. He just casts a very short permanent dark shadow. I like the detail of his arm entering the shadow.
I also liked the very particular detail of the thug’s right hand on Satan’s white shoulder is a caucasian tone while the one on his shadowed shoulder is his skin color
Wait. That’s another guard isn’t it!
That’s another guard. There are two guards. But in my infinite wisdom, I decided to NOT frame the establishing shot of this comic to clarify his existence. This was not smart.
In the previous comic, it’s clear that both guards have one hand on him.
Is there a latex cat holding her legs in place just outside the panel?
Tracee’s slowly turning out to be a keeper despite her fascade.
Was there ever any doubt?
On this, there was initially no doubt… that she was someone you’d rather keep away from than keep around. Then there was the revelation that there is a bit of depth to her character, that there is a backstory that contains some signs of hope for her as a person not entirely malicious… not to mention that she could successfully babysit.
Now there is reasonable doubt that you’d want to keep away from her, as she is in this very strip for what I think is the first time showing that she actually does care about at least one relationship, at least enough that she wants the other party to acknowledge some amount of care. Before they go their separate ways? Or maybe stay together, I’m guessing both of them have a really hard time to find someone they might care about at all.
On the thought that she has nowhere else to go: she could go to Puck’s place, at least temporarily, but I guess that’s the only place Satan can really go as well so it’s not a very effective way of leaving.
IIRC, she’s the eldest child in a large family that was essentially the caregiver to her siblings from a young age. I am fairly certain that going back to living in a trailer park is NOT on her radar…
You remember correctly.
Looking back, most of what I saw then as Tracee’s faults concerned her playing the cards that life dealt her, without apology.
What did some literary character say in some book about walking a mile in someone’s shoes? I remember it being important.
Nicely analyzed. And accurate.
She’s just figuring out what else to take with the lamp, the chair, the remote, and the thermos.
I don’t think the goons will let her get within reaching distance of any of that stuff.
Oh Gecko, it’s not about the vase you’re about to grab, it’s about the jewelry you’ve already swallowed.
Oh my god… she grew a conscience!
I think it’s more a case of a repeating infection that flares up every now and then.
“I’ve grown accustomed to his face
He almost makes the day begin
I’ve grown accustomed to the tune he whistles night and noon
His smiles, his frowns, his ups and downs
Are second nature to me now
Like breathing out and breathing in
I was serenely independent and content before we met
Surely I could always be that way again and yet
I’ve grown accustomed to his looks, accustomed to his voice
Accustomed to his face”
Good song. Good Rex Harrison.
But I hate that adaptation of Pygmalion.
It’s better than the black and white one with no singing. She went back to the bastard! Ugh!
Agreed to both. It is to be hoped that she ultimately went with Freddie (who loved her for herself, not for his achievement) or found a way on her own, as she had before the Higgins Experiment.
“My Fair Lady” may be an unintentional commentary of the status of women.
…or, could there be an even better story to be drawn from Pygmalion, one not founded in the assumptions of musicals past …
“At first Galatea innocently complies with Pygmalion’s desires; she knows no better and after all has been literally made to love him. Gradually comes to realize that he has crafted her for himself, not for her. She observes the difference between lovers who consider themselves to be equals, and wants that. She ultimately requires him to accept his new status as a parent figure, not a lover, which is hard for both of them, but she is strong … literally made of stone … once she got over her inner conflict.
Does Pygmalion accept the situation, or does he try to craft another Galatea more compliant, which she must rescue?
But I digress…
Pygmalian was an entirely intentional commentary on the status of women.
“ ‘At first Galatea innocently complies with Pygmalion’s desires; she knows no better and after all has been literally made to love him.’ ”
Just to be clear, I mean Pygmaian, the play by G.B.Shaw, not the Greek story.
Shaw was about as close to a committed feminist as you could get from a man in the late 1800’s. And his play’s complex gender power dynamics really do hold up even today as a nuanced and honest depiction of that power imbalance. Oddly enough, the musical version from many decades later is far MORE regressive and doesn’t hold up today, but I guess that’s it’s own commentary on mid-century values.
“Oddly enough, the musical version from many decades later is far MORE regressive and doesn’t hold up today, but I guess that’s it’s own commentary on mid-century values.”
My mom was born in ’39. I don’t find it a bit odd. It’s disappointing.
Aww…
TRACEEE is really in love.
Or really in … something? That approximates emotion of some kind?
Come on Satan !
TRACEEE is dying for a hug !
Uh, he’s a little restrained at the moment.
Tracee has no friends! That’s why she hesitates to leave Old Scratch.
Nah, she’d know that. She may not ADMIT it, but she’d know it.