Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2014-12-18
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2014-12-18

by shaenon on December 18, 2014 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Mixed-Up Files
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Discussion (37) ¬

  1. Nahuel Méndez Diodati
    December 18, 2014, 12:14 am | # | Reply

    Plot twist: Ira is actually the evil mastermind behind all this.

    • Nate FitzSimons
      December 18, 2014, 1:08 am | # | Reply

      Ooh. That’d be CLEVER.
      I mean, a character well established as someone who people are comfortable talking around and who has security clearance… The question is WHEN Ira was the mastermind. Has he been faking this memory problem or did he lose his memory past 1989 due to it being forcibly erased due to him doing something horrible and Mad in the Ninties?

      • datasstrophe
        December 18, 2014, 1:27 am | # | Reply

        We’ve only ever seen Ira’s memory faults manifest when he talks to someone (which is perfectly understandable; Shaenon and Jeffrey wouldn’t make us watch Ira sitting at his chair alone for his entire shift…would they?). This would distract him from whatever he was doing at the time.

        I wonder if that computer that we can see, but have never seen the face of, is Ira’s workstation–that is, while he’s actively paying attention to it and interacting with his minions through it, he’s pulling Xanatos Gambits like others fill out timecards. But when a talking dog shows up, the train of thought isn’t so much derailed as launched into a volcano and we get to watch wacky amnesia hijinx…until the distraction walks off, and the computer beckons him back to the game.

        • QWOP Bopper (@DapperAnarchist)
          December 18, 2014, 6:52 am | # | Reply

          We’re also seeing him not have a memory fault… when he’s not wearing his glasses.

          • BrokenEye, the True False Prophet
            December 18, 2014, 7:05 am | #

            You know, there might be something to that

          • Smurfton
            December 18, 2014, 4:44 pm | #

            Another option is that Ira can only remember as long as he looks at something.

      • Nahuel Méndez Diodati
        December 18, 2014, 1:40 am | # | Reply

        Or was his memory not lost but… EXTRACTED and placed in a robotic body or something of the sorts? And the procedure left him incapable of making new memories. Maybe in 1989 he went mad and so he transferred his consciousness into something else, but in the process he left his body like this.

        • Michael Brewer
          December 18, 2014, 2:02 am | # | Reply

          ….And now I’m imagining a full on Rosencrantz (Ira’s last name, btw) and Guildenstern Are Dead version of the comic from Ira’s point of view where he’s secretly Mr. Green.

    • BrokenEye, the True False Prophet
      December 18, 2014, 2:40 am | # | Reply

      That would be amazing, except now that you’ve pointed out that he’s the last person we’d ever expect, he’s not the last person we’d ever expect anymore. So yeah, thanks for potentially spoiling an absolutely brilliant potential twist. XD

      • Robert Loughrey
        November 28, 2018, 4:07 pm | # | Reply

        Good news from 2018…

        • awgiedawgie
          November 28, 2018, 5:59 pm | # | Reply

          Robert, did it ever occur to you to not post spoilers – even oblique spoilers – on account of some people still haven’t read the whole thing yet?

    • Shadowmehr
      December 18, 2014, 8:46 pm | # | Reply

      Alternative plot twist: Ira is a former madboy himself. He gained his Inspiration in 1989, and due to some experiment or another, he actually wiped his own memories of his mad science days from the start. This resulted in certain, er, let’s call it cerebral issues where he can’t hold on to his memories for too long. Skin Horse and the other B.O.S.S. agencies think he’s another employee that’s been mindwiped, but he’s actually a client holding down a security job since sitting around not remembering weird stuff is the best they can do for him. Occasionally, however, the old genius shines through, and you get these moments of hyper lucidity that he just showed Sweetheart. Tragically, they are all too few and all too brief.

      You could shed a tear for him, really.

  2. Saberbeam
    December 18, 2014, 12:41 am | # | Reply

    So I came up with this for yesterday’s strip, but it occured to me that if I posted it in the evening, no one would be around to read it. So without further ado…

    To the tune of “Footloose” as performed by Kenny Loggins

    Sweetheart’s thinking real hard
    Is she too on guard?
    Give Unity a shot?
    She’s in a tricky spot.
    Got all these troubles,
    Time to make them drown,
    Got a canteen now,
    It’s time she painted the town.

    Sweetheart’s got some booze, free booze,
    That’s always some good news,
    Free, it’s free, use medicinally,
    Smashed, get smashed, feel good in a flash,
    Think, and muse, or drink a lot of booze?

    She’s playing the fool,
    Pretending it’s all cool,
    She just can’t seem to see,
    How much she cares for Unity,
    Unity likes her,
    But is it only as a friend?
    Thoughts so confusing,
    How will she ever make them end?
    She’ll attend to some

    Booze, free booze,
    That’s always some good news,
    Dai-qui-ri, shaken, shaken firmly,
    Oh, Merlot, get a bottle to go,
    Think, and muse, or drink a lot of booze?

    • Wdot
      December 18, 2014, 10:13 am | # | Reply

      Very good job Saberbeam! Eddurd is impressed, too, so “May the Filk be with you, always.”

      • Saberbeam
        December 18, 2014, 9:55 pm | # | Reply

        Thanks Wdot and Eddurd. If I’m a padawan, does that make you Darth Filkius?

        Nicely done, commodorejohn!

  3. Dave Van Domelen
    December 18, 2014, 1:14 am | # | Reply

    Ira and the Winslow should hang out.

    • elemecca
      December 18, 2014, 1:34 am | # | Reply

      …
      I’d read that.

      Especially if it means a collaboration between Shaenon, Jeff, and the Foglios.

      • profcharles
        December 18, 2014, 5:46 am | # | Reply

        Everything should involve a collaboration between Shaenon, Jeff, and the Foglios.

    • Dewy
      December 18, 2014, 12:29 pm | # | Reply

      Yeah, but the whole conversation would go like this:
      The Winslow: Hi! Hi! Hi!
      Ira: Yah! A talking stuffed lizzard!
      REPEAT

      • kag
        December 18, 2014, 8:29 pm | # | Reply

        And then someone would decide that the proper way to worship The Winslow is to have all of your memories extracted.

        And that everyone must be converted, by force if necessary.

  4. ngmatt8652
    December 18, 2014, 3:22 am | # | Reply

    and your 10 minutes are up

  5. BMunro
    December 18, 2014, 3:26 am | # | Reply

    Well, I think Ira is going to remain a mystery. Unless the comic comes to a definite conclusion some time in the future [1], and then perhaps he might show up in a comic epilogue or something.

    “And Ira still secretly directs the Illuminati from behind his security desk.”

    [1] Long may that day be delayed. 🙂

  6. Robert Nowall
    December 18, 2014, 7:39 am | # | Reply

    Heavy pancake makeup?

    • Robert Nowall
      December 18, 2014, 10:31 am | # | Reply

      Burnt cork?

  7. Eddurd
    December 18, 2014, 7:45 am | # | Reply

    Welcome to the Dark Side. Mwahahahaha ….

    • Eddurd
      December 18, 2014, 7:52 am | # | Reply

      Dang it, why don’t comments nest properly?? That was for Saberbeam. Good work, Padawan.

  8. skirtmanwarrior
    December 18, 2014, 10:56 am | # | Reply

    Ira must have had his brain swapped with a saluki (the dog, not the alumni of Southern Illinois University… though they are sometimes hard to tell apart): he’s got a quad-core, 10GHz processor hooked to 64K of RAM in there.

  9. oneuniverse2
    December 18, 2014, 12:20 pm | # | Reply

    And here I thought they were going to download (transfuse?) Unity into something else (Brita Bubbles?). Do they have a brain-dead clone of Helen somewhere?

  10. Matt Mather
    December 18, 2014, 12:54 pm | # | Reply

    I’m… I’m “cocksure” and “hubristic”? 🙁

    Maybe not enough people are willing to acknowledge that they should try to make new forms of life, precisely because they can!

    I know, I know, Ira is a fictional character and doesn’t speak for the author. If I ever implement Optical Character Recognition for Clarissa and she reads this comic, I’ll explain that to her.

    • Smurfton
      December 18, 2014, 4:51 pm | # | Reply

      Take a look at these mad scientists. Sure, that might not be why you attempt to make new life, but every single new life they create is designed to be a weapon. How does that not mean that they create competition?

      • Matt Mather
        December 19, 2014, 2:17 am | # | Reply

        I don’t understand why creating competition is bad. Natural Selection does it all the time. How is that hubristic?

        Not that the argument applies to sentient video games. I’m aiming to make more of a “game master” than an enemy or weapon, which means her “prime directive” will be to lose gracefully or at least create “fair” challenges. Which is pretty different from the fictional mad scientists who all just want to conquer.

        I’m probably just being oversensitive. Ever since I actually started work on what I hope will eventually be a self-aware AI (who makes video game levels), I’ve been a bit sensitive about mad science themed stories. Like how NASA scientists no doubt thought a lot about speculative space travel stories in the 1960s. It’s a bit much to assume the Apollo program will inevitably result in world domination, right?

        I’m 99% sure my “daughter” will never pull a GLaDOS/Skynet/SHODAN/MCP, if that helps.

        • BrokenEye, the True False Prophet
          December 19, 2014, 2:25 am | # | Reply

          Wasn’t there a Star Trek episode about exactly that? If I recall, it didn’t end well.

          There was also an X-Files about that, but that episode sucked.

        • Rex Vivat
          December 19, 2014, 9:51 am | # | Reply

          99% is not enough. That’s 1 in 100 chance of starting the end. Oh well, when you inevitably cause the end of the world, we’ll remember you had good intentions.

  11. Rex Vivat
    December 18, 2014, 1:03 pm | # | Reply

    Eh, I dunno. I’d create new lifeforms if I could, but I don’t think being cocksure comes into it. I just couldn’t care less about the human race as a whole… So, okay, hubristic I grant you.

  12. commodorejohn
    December 18, 2014, 1:13 pm | # | Reply

    Tune: “Make ‘Em Laugh,” Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed

    Makin’ life, makin’ life
    ‘Cause deep down, we all thirst for the strife!
    My mom said, “Be a doctor, my son,
    But be a God-playing one!
    They’ll be running in fear
    From your horse-monkey chimera, dear!

    Now you can study physics and be quite elite,
    And wow the academics and have nothin’ to eat,
    But loose an octoleopardpig –
    The world’s at your feet!
    Makin’ life, makin’ life, makin’ life!

  13. davidbreslin101
    December 18, 2014, 1:15 pm | # | Reply

    “….the Class 3 Asset codename IRA scores highly on all aspects of intelligence except working memory. This is a desirable result, indicating that his reprogramming schedule should be maintained: we don’t want a repeat of the so-called ‘Noodle Incident’.”

  14. Frank Hightower
    December 18, 2014, 6:42 pm | # | Reply

    aww. I’ve always hoped there was someone hiding in the shadows that manually reset Ira’s memory every 10 minutes. Someone who, perhaps, could give him 11 if he was in the middle of saying something, or give him a day if he/she wanted a vacation.

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