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
2016-12-28
‹‹ First ‹ Prev Buy! Comments(31) Next › Last ››

2016-12-28

by shaenon on December 28, 2016 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Purple Waves
Comments RSS

Discussion (31) ¬

  1. Archeo Lumiere
    December 28, 2016, 12:24 am | # | Reply

    Reporting from the past… is Ira an elderly Mad?

    • OneUniverse
      December 28, 2016, 2:44 pm | # | Reply

      Living backward? Is this a timey-wimey non-linear experiential situation?

      • Archeo Lumiere
        December 29, 2016, 2:53 am | # | Reply

        Nah, like, how Tigerlily is from the seventies, or how that other mad was from the early colonial period, Ira is from some period in the past, but Alzheimer’s disease made him forget exactly when he’s from, thus, brain shenanigans.

  2. woozy
    December 28, 2016, 12:36 am | # | Reply

    Elderly enough to think leisure suits are what young folk wear.

    • Bruce Munro
      December 28, 2016, 12:56 am | # | Reply

      Assuming he was at least in his 40s when the leisure suits reached their 1970s US peak of popularity, that puts him at least in his eighties…is Ira a time traveler? Perhaps a frequent and inadvertent time traveler? Or is it just his mind, randomly drifting between past and future, Billy Pilgrim-style?

      (Of course, maybe he’s the same age now as he was in the 1970s, which would support my older “Ira is an Eldritch Abomination with memory troubles” theory. Isn’t Iog-Sothoth supposed to be coterminous with all time and space?)

  3. Proto Persona
    December 28, 2016, 12:47 am | # | Reply

    I suspect Ira is not mad or mentally infirm. I bet he is cleverly concealing his actual abilities behind an act of dementia for other reasons. The question is if we will we ever learn why.

  4. WuseMajor
    December 28, 2016, 3:13 am | # | Reply

    Keep in mind that he’s had his memory erased on a daily basis for many years now, so he might well still think it’s 1970.

    Well, assuming he isn’t either crazy, obfuscating stupidity, or both, anyway.

    • woozy
      December 28, 2016, 12:43 pm | # | Reply

      Well, that’s the point of the “Say, that’s a stylish outfit” joke. But it indicates that even in the 70’s he was old.

  5. Urlance Woolsbane
    December 28, 2016, 3:37 am | # | Reply

    Of course, if everyone got sent back in time, as supported by Manifesta smashing her car a few strips back, then this is just another predestination-paradox…

    • Sasha Honeypalm
      December 28, 2016, 12:31 pm | # | Reply

      If they got sent back in time, wouldn’t they run into themselves? At least, that’s why I think it’s gonna be the *car* that gets sent back in time.

      • woozy
        December 28, 2016, 12:40 pm | # | Reply

        Not if they were sent a few days before they got there. That would explain the dragon reference.

        If the car were sent back how would they know a dragon had sat on it.

  6. Jim
    December 28, 2016, 6:02 am | # | Reply

    HE CAN SEE THE FUTURE!

  7. Robert Nowall
    December 28, 2016, 6:58 am | # | Reply

    He didn’t know, he just dragged the dragon in.

    • Dr. Steve
      December 28, 2016, 9:55 am | # | Reply

      If only Tip were there, to drag in the dragon while in drag

      • Robert Nowall
        December 28, 2016, 2:22 pm | # | Reply

        It’s a real drag, dragging a dragon in drag.

  8. codebracker
    December 28, 2016, 7:06 am | # | Reply

    Maybe he fell into the portal when he was young, so they wiped his memory?

    • Shadowmehr
      December 28, 2016, 9:21 am | # | Reply

      So you’re saying Ira is Jonah, with a few decades attached? That would explain a lot.

      • chrisn
        December 28, 2016, 2:17 pm | # | Reply

        Where’s the wrench? Toolbelt?

  9. Pylgrim
    December 28, 2016, 7:44 am | # | Reply

    OMG Ira’s mind is unstuck in time! It all makes sense now.

  10. Ashonai
    December 28, 2016, 10:41 am | # | Reply

    Would somebody find a link to the comic referenced here? I can’t find it in the archives…

    • Josh L.
      December 28, 2016, 1:26 pm | # | Reply

      Previously on Skin Horse

      • chrisn
        December 28, 2016, 2:10 pm | # | Reply

        http://narbonic.com/comic/august-4-9-2003/
        And here’s someone getting unstuck in time.

        • Pylgrim
          December 29, 2016, 9:38 am | # | Reply

          Itself a reference to the classic and brilliant Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

  11. graspthenettlehard
    December 28, 2016, 11:29 am | # | Reply

    laughing…so…hard…right now…

  12. Smithnik
    December 28, 2016, 12:20 pm | # | Reply

    I wonder…if you erase someone’s memory on a daily basis, will they forget to age? That seems to be what’s happening to Ira. Either that, or they hired him when he was just entering the job market, and he’s only aged physically ever since, which would be cruel even for a government black ops agency.
    I mean, consider that he can’t even have a home life or relationships, unless they’ve set up a group home for people whose memories have to be erased every day. Even then, you’d have to have a reminder notebook given to you at the door, after the driver comes and picks you up at work and takes you “home.”

    • GammarayCanon
      December 28, 2016, 5:33 pm | # | Reply

      I honestly would be surprised if “Group home for those with wiped memories” wasn’t an organization that Skin Horse had to deal with at some point.

  13. Marisa Mockery
    December 28, 2016, 1:59 pm | # | Reply

    I’d think Ira was 40-50 when the 70s hit full steam. The difference between the “under 30” was staggering. He’sstill very old but he could be in his late 90s to very early 100s–so plausibly still mortal.

  14. AndyW
    December 28, 2016, 3:25 pm | # | Reply

    I hope, and trust, that Ira shall forever remain a wonderful mystery. Explaining him would only spoil his magic 🙂

  15. Kent Paul Dolan
    December 28, 2016, 8:23 pm | # | Reply

    A seer, a sear, a future, a flame, there’s lots in a spelling, but what’s in a name?
    A present, a past, a gift, half-daft, we think we know, but what of it lasts?

    Once upon a time, I acquired a bunch of free avatars of Skin Horse characters from among these pages, several of which I used a time or two, one of which I have been using for years now as my Facebook profile image, but now would like to have a couple of female ones for my partner’s use, but I cannot find the set of avatars here anumore.
    If they are still available, can someone tell me where to look, in a reply?
    If they are gone, could someone tell me so, and let me stop looking?

    Thanks for any help.

    /s/ xanthian.
    Kent Paul Dolan, very old guy with modest needs, but unreasonable expectations.

    Ah, and now I remember why I never used an avatar here.

    Who ever thought that Gravitar was a good idea?

    Millions of people, perhaps, but making it the standard for a site removes any other choice.

    Has social media really become that bereft of individuality?

    Gravatar requires a pointless membership in WordPress, not something I am likely ever to use, wasting some few bytes of the world’s large but at any time finite supply of data storage, potentially until long after I am dead.

    Gravatar, tries to reuse a set of “global” avatars, as if a personal image trying to convey ones ideal reality or fantasy based personality bereft of personal errors or personal choice should be attractive to a creative type.

    If one creates and uploads an avatar image of ones own, the problem reverses; what one creates to uniquely represent oneself, is thereby automatically inappropriate for use of anyone else, yet Gravatar seems to intend to share it around, destroying the avatar designer’s sense of ownership and uniqueness.

    For those who are unable to scrawl something, anything, acceptable to themselves, I suppose Gravatar is better than nothing, but, how sad that anyone would find oneself that inadequate to ones own needs.

    I tend to rant a lot, and am sure no one notices.

  16. Kanta
    February 10, 2017, 12:21 pm | # | Reply

    Or maybe disco is going to come back?

  17. Mister Steel
    July 30, 2020, 10:33 pm | # | Reply

    Didn’t Ira’s shirt used to be light gray?

Leave a Reply to Dr. Steve 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 ↑