Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
  • About Us
  • Cast
  • Store
  • Extras
  • Sponsors
  • Original Art for Sale
  • Our Patreon
RSS
2020-02-13
‹‹ First ‹ Prev Buy! Comments(49) Next › Last ››

2020-02-13

by shaenon on February 13, 2020 at 12:01 am
Chapter: A Life in the Woods
Comments RSS

Discussion (49) ¬

  1. Robert Nowall
    February 13, 2020, 12:08 am | # | Reply

    I hope H. T. can pull himself together before his next adventure with Skin-Horse.

    • Ken
      February 13, 2020, 10:35 am | # | Reply

      If not, H.T. can now stand for Half-a-Tiger.

      • Clifton
        February 17, 2020, 4:28 pm | # | Reply

        Eric the Half-A-Tiger

    • Seph
      February 13, 2020, 2:36 pm | # | Reply

      The Biomass has shown itself to be capable of creating simulacra of whole human bodies; if it can do that, it can do part of a tiger.

      • Derin
        February 14, 2020, 12:12 am | # | Reply

        What’s the bet HT’s already a fake, and they’re gonna have to team up with the real HT to take this biomass down? I mean, there are bones in there, but it’s not hard for a violent wandering forest to find cat bones.

  2. Moe Lane
    February 13, 2020, 12:10 am | # | Reply

    Don’t f*ck with the talking monkeys, kitty-cat.

    • Frank
      February 13, 2020, 6:56 am | # | Reply

      but it was a talking helicopter!

      • Seph
        February 13, 2020, 2:38 pm | # | Reply

        I’ve been wondering: Shaenon and Jeff, did you come up with the idea for Nick before or after the advent of boring transphobic jokes involving attack helicopters? Because it’s a brilliant skewering of the whole thing.

        • M
          February 13, 2020, 3:01 pm | # | Reply

          Yes.
          http://skin-horse.com/comic/arms-being/

        • awgiedawgie
          February 13, 2020, 8:38 pm | # | Reply

          The answer is “before”, not “yes”. Scroll down the comments on the comic M linked to, and Shaenon answers it for you.

  3. Alphaghoul
    February 13, 2020, 12:18 am | # | Reply

    H. T.’s brain is gone, hopefully this improve the group mind. Unless his mind is already downloaded into the whole thing, that and his influence already happened. If he’s going to replace his body parts he could steal a zombie brain maker, or just make a plant brain like his duplicates.

    • Candace
      February 13, 2020, 12:23 am | # | Reply

      I suspect H.T.’s mind is already part of the gestalt. Absorbing (or duplicating) H.T. is most likely what turned the Biomass evil in the first place.

    • shenhibikiShen
      February 13, 2020, 4:55 am | # | Reply

      Yeh, this H.T. is made of plant matter. His original body must be long gone, as fertilizer for… his.. own new body? … hm. Ew. Hmmmm… ewwwww….

      • Alphaghoul
        February 13, 2020, 8:06 pm | # | Reply

        Nah, we can see his skeleton, the duplicates break apart into plant matter.

  4. David B Huber
    February 13, 2020, 12:54 am | # | Reply

    Yay Nick! (although I suspect he stopped *because* their WiFi went down, and feels pretty guilty about it)

    • kiralamouse
      February 13, 2020, 10:20 am | # | Reply

      I really don’t see Nick feeling guilty about taking out an enemy’s WiFi. Nick’s pragmatic enough to recognize that WiFi =/= life&health, however important it may be, and he’s ruthless enough to enjoy causing property damage. If taking out the WiFi helps stall the gestalt trying to create yet *another* Wilkin, Nick might consider even more drastic measures.

  5. Owlmirror
    February 13, 2020, 1:24 am | # | Reply

    Didn’t HT+plant-gestalt just try to pull shenanigans a few panels back that wasn’t really fair play, with Plant!Tip?

    Live by technically-abiding-by-the-rules, not technically die by technically-abiding-by-the-rules.

  6. RANdom
    February 13, 2020, 1:46 am | # | Reply

    …this is my first filk.
    Time for a new genre!

    Tune: “Battery”, Metallica

    Split up into factions
    Diplomatic actions
    Everything’s in disarray!
    Anasigma’s scientists
    Really, really like this
    Free wi-fi helps them to stay!

    Wilkin’s trying to leave them
    Hungry Tiger’s found him
    Threatens him with greenery!
    Nick is a pacifist
    But that doesn’t stop his
    Shooting of the greenery!

    Cypress is a new seed
    That’s all Skin Horse really needs!

    Greenery!
    Green-er-y!

    • David B Huber
      February 13, 2020, 2:47 am | # | Reply

      *Applause*

    • Jeffrey C. Wells
      February 13, 2020, 9:25 am | # | Reply

      Loving it! Nice work!

    • Robert Nowall
      February 13, 2020, 10:03 am | # | Reply

      Good job.

    • RANdom
      February 13, 2020, 11:44 am | # | Reply

      Thank you very much!

  7. BMunro
    February 13, 2020, 2:15 am | # | Reply

    As Prometheus could tell you, being immortal is a pain at times.

  8. thedoctor55
    February 13, 2020, 2:37 am | # | Reply

    Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha (Looking at half-HT)

    • David B Huber
      February 13, 2020, 2:45 am | # | Reply

      And H.T. took the stale bagels as a slap in the face! 🙂

  9. awgiedawgie
    February 13, 2020, 5:56 am | # | Reply

    H.T., you dolt… Never underestimate someone who has spent the past ten years as a glorified brain in a jar with unlimited and nearly constant access to the entire world of information. There is no way he’s not smarter than you.

    • Barking Monkey
      February 13, 2020, 6:30 am | # | Reply

      ‘Access to’ is not the same as constructive use of. This is Nick, so unless your definition of smart is “better at online rpgs and action movie trivia” I doubt Nick is smarter than HT/Gestalt Entity.

      • awgiedawgie
        February 13, 2020, 4:22 pm | # | Reply

        You think that’s all Nick ever did online? Think again.

        And intelligence is not just a matter of amassing knowledge. It’s a matter of knowing what to do with said knowledge. Nick has proven time and time again that he’s pretty smart.

  10. Seph
    February 13, 2020, 5:59 am | # | Reply

    How did plants create WiFi in the first place?

    • martinbentleymtb
      February 13, 2020, 6:25 am | # | Reply

      Ever seen one with wires? How else will they get internet?

    • 5-tons-of-flax
      February 13, 2020, 7:06 am | # | Reply

      The same way they made the headsets.
      Organic technology.

    • Schismatism
      February 13, 2020, 6:33 pm | # | Reply

      Oh, they’re just piggybacking off cellulose phones.

      • David B Huber
        February 13, 2020, 9:07 pm | # | Reply

        I think you win an Internet! 😉

  11. ducksandwaddler
    February 13, 2020, 9:10 am | # | Reply

    *flings pens*

    “Noooooo! Tip, if you leave, you can’t comfort him and stare deeply into his eyes!”

    *flings more pens*

    XD

  12. jdreyfuss
    February 13, 2020, 9:32 am | # | Reply

    So Nick won’t kill, but he’s not above using violence to further his own ends. Not really much of a pacifist, especially if shooting HT wasn’t his last resort. It’s more like the Biomass got bad intel on him than he’s acting out of character.

    Still, one reason for someone who forswears violence to refuse to carry a weapon is that the temptation to use it is much stronger when it’s easily available, and it becomes easier and easier to rationalize using it once you do. Like Vimes once said, if you’ll break the rules for a good reason, you’ll break them for a bad one.

    • Dave
      February 13, 2020, 10:32 am | # | Reply

      “Bad Intel” makes sense to me. If Nick were a true pacifist, as in whole non-violence, he wouldn’t have been involved in the robot gladiator battles previously.

    • Owlmirror
      February 13, 2020, 1:02 pm | # | Reply

      And let’s not forget that we’ve seen Nick use giant rotary saws against mindless plant zombies.

      As a plant-entity, the gestalt should have been a lot more cautious about threatening to devour Tip and/or Nick and/or anyone else.

    • awgiedawgie
      February 13, 2020, 4:37 pm | # | Reply

      As has been pointed out many moons ago in the comments, there are different levels of pacifism. Nick most definitely is a pacifist, and he is very firm in his stance against killing. But he’s not an extreme pacifist that is against violence of any kind.

      And yes, H.T.’s intel was bad. It wasn’t wrong, per se. He said “You won’t kill us”, which is true. But his intel was bad, because it apparently didn’t include Nick’s recent gratuitous, but non-lethal, use of guns at the A-Sig base where they reunited him with his helicopter body.

      • jdreyfuss
        February 14, 2020, 9:23 am | # | Reply

        That’s my mistake then. I guess I was using a definition of pacifist that means “does not use violence to further his own purposes, with the possible exception of absolute necessity,” rather than “does not kill but is willing to use violence if it is nonlethal.”

  13. Robert Nowall
    February 13, 2020, 10:04 am | # | Reply

    Be careful with those guns, Nick. You can put an eye out with them.

    • jdreyfuss
      February 13, 2020, 4:16 pm | # | Reply

      I was way too happy to find out Daisy really does make a Red Ryder model air rifle with a compass in the stock and a sundial.

  14. Seph
    February 13, 2020, 2:39 pm | # | Reply

    HT seems to be down a brain. I assume his consciousness persists elsewhere in the Biomass.

    • jdreyfuss
      February 13, 2020, 4:20 pm | # | Reply

      Seeing the kind of damage he did to HT without completely blowing him apart, I’m guessing he hit him with a minigun, because if it was a Vulcan or a GAU-8, HT would basically be a set of sentient feet right now and nothing else.

  15. Guesticus
    February 13, 2020, 4:46 pm | # | Reply

    Do not be confusing ‘pacifist’ with ‘non-violent’

  16. DarknessShallFall
    February 13, 2020, 6:33 pm | # | Reply

    I think H.T. Looks better this way. Less annoying, Though I wish Nick could’ve shot his mouth too, I mean he didn’t need his brains anyways.

  17. JET73L
    February 13, 2020, 6:47 pm | # | Reply

    “You won’t leave that easily!” rumbled H.T. “We’ll eat you up, I love you so!” His eyes flared with the rage that he used to protect his heart from the fear of losing Tip.

  18. D. Walker
    February 14, 2020, 1:33 pm | # | Reply

    Arguably he already was a simulacra of a whole tiger body.

    H.T. is clearly dead – all that is left is the skeleton. He lacks a brain, meaning his ego is gone. The plants seem to have copied his memories and personality at least, and perhaps even his consciousness, but the actual tiger himself is gone.

    At best he’s a sort of “clone” of himself. At worst he’s a convincing forgery.

  19. D. Walker
    February 14, 2020, 1:40 pm | # | Reply

    That’s not really accurate.

    An autocannon’s large caliber rounds are great at tearing through muscle and organs, but those are dense structures with only so much pliability.

    The exact same bullets would do a whole lot less damage to something like a bush – less densely packed vegetation, with a lot of sway and give to it.

    It’s like the difference between shooting a watermelon and shooting a bedsheet hanging on a launry line. The former is going to send shockwaves through the inelastic body of the melon, causing it to rupture in chunks. The latter is going to punch a small, neat hole through the sheet, and leave most of it intact.

  20. D. Walker
    February 14, 2020, 1:41 pm | # | Reply

    Gah, my replies aren’t lining up properly as “replies” for some reason! This is a response to “jdreyfuss”.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

More by Jeff

  • The Scrivnarium

More by Shaenon

  • Horror Every Day
  • Li'l Mell
  • Monster of the Week
  • Narbonic
  • Shaenon.com

Other Good Comics

  • A Girl and Her Fed
  • Dicebox
  • Endtown
  • Family Man
  • Girls of Monster Paradise
  • Phoebe and Her Unicorn
  • Rock and Riot
Creative Commons License
Skin Horse by Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.skin-horse.com.

©2007-2021 Skin Horse | Powered by WordPress with ComicPress | Subscribe: RSS | Back to Top ↑