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
  • Original Art for Sale
  • Our Patreon
RSS
Prologue
‹‹ First ‹ Prev Buy! Comments(29) Next › Last ››

Prologue

by shaenon on December 30, 2007 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Prologue
Comments RSS

Discussion (29) ¬

    • Apropos of Nothing | KellanSparver.com
      February 5, 2013, 10:21 pm | #
    • True-Life Adventures: Emerald City Con, 2014 – Sat/Sun | Herdthinner's Happy Place
      April 14, 2014, 12:46 am | #
    • True-Life Adventures: Emerald City Con, 2014 – Sat/Sun | Herdthinner's Storytime Theatre
      November 10, 2014, 12:47 am | #
    • Just another WordPress site
      December 16, 2018, 4:52 am | #
  1. Kay Gilbert
    August 24, 2012, 5:19 pm | # | Reply

    A.G. Hopkins (blackbyrd2) says: I can haz Seekrit Projekt?

    Jeffrey Channing Wells (channing) says: Shh. 😀

    Leeds Main (forever) says: woot! yeah. Catz

    Dan Knapp (dankna) says: Oh my god, I can’t believe I didn’t catch the reference in the title before seeing this quote. Wow. That is so awesome.

  2. Web
    March 1, 2013, 3:56 pm | # | Reply

    My Feed reader lost my place on this comic. So…. TIME TO RE-READ!

  3. erosathena
    February 10, 2014, 10:34 am | # | Reply

    Velveteen Rabbit! Love that story.

  4. Dorcus
    March 23, 2014, 7:55 pm | # | Reply

    I still don’t understand what the moral of the story was, or if there even was one.

    • Barking Monkey
      April 2, 2015, 6:50 am | # | Reply

      “Don’t love your toys too much or they’ll come to life and turn on you.”

      • Shadowkey392
        December 3, 2016, 11:55 am | # | Reply

        So it’s a horror story then?

    • Kristan Overstreet (@RedneckGaijin)
      October 13, 2022, 7:37 pm | # | Reply

      Don’t allow other people to define your reality (or your validity), is how I interpreted it. The whole problem with the Skin Horse (from Velveteen Rabbit)’s definition of Real is, you could only be Real on someone else’s terms.

  5. Shadowkey392
    December 3, 2016, 11:54 am | # | Reply

    Ah! Nice quote to start off with.

    • Jothki
      December 12, 2016, 12:50 pm | # | Reply

      And a nice extension to it if you keep reading.

  6. Leslie Piper
    April 15, 2018, 8:53 am | # | Reply

    I sure would like to have a different way to read Skin Horse than that damn Go Comics BS. Somebody please help.

    • awgiedawgie
      April 15, 2018, 9:37 am | # | Reply

      You’re already here.

  7. The J is Silent
    February 26, 2019, 3:40 pm | # | Reply

    So, I figure with the story kind of sort of starting to wrap up, now’s a good time for a reread.

    • awgiedawgie
      February 26, 2019, 4:20 pm | # | Reply

      It’s always a good time for a reread.

      • Seph
        July 1, 2022, 8:43 am | # | Reply

        The kind of reread that goes from the start of Narbonic.

    • Bill Marcum
      July 19, 2022, 6:51 am | # | Reply

      It started to wrap up in 2019? I just started rereading from the beginning, now I want to see what was going on in 2019.

  8. sweetuncleLESLIE
    May 25, 2020, 12:28 pm | # | Reply

    ‘Wrap up’? I ain’t ready. There’s more FUN LIFE further on, right? Right? (a certain leonine character)

  9. TauCeti
    March 24, 2021, 10:11 pm | # | Reply

    Here I stand at the other end of time, filled with the same thoughts I had when I first saw this panel so many years ago.

    This looks, so very strongly, like it ought to be that panel in Narbonic. The one that I still think is the single greatest panel in webcomic history, not for a grand vista or impossibly complex scene, but for all the panels that came before it.

    And yet, I do not understand. There is something deep that is beyond my grasp.

    Addendum for those who come after: if you do not know the panel of which I write, I implore you to read Narbonic. (Or, if you already have, use this as a ready excuse to read it again?)

    • Mooring
      March 25, 2021, 1:30 am | # | Reply

      It’s sorta an… inverse? a reflection? Of that panel, also — that panel in Narbonic was the echoing climax of little things adding up, that we’d slowly been piecing together over the comic, and this was the final confirmstion and outcome of that.

      Whereas this — while it seems like it’s just serving as an epigraph, introducing the name “Skin Horse” and the general tone of the story, it’s actually a very specific opening bell, that looking back at it is clearly echoing FORWARD in the comic in very precise ways.

      ROT13 (rot13.com) for Skin Horse spoilers:

      Gur boivbhf bar, bs pbhefr, vf Negvr’f cbvag gb Gvc — “Jung unccrarq gb gur barf jub qvqa’g orpbzr erny? Gurl ohearq.”

      Ohg V’z cerggl fher vg’f nyfb rdhnyyl gurer va Qe. Pbyybqv’f fcrrpu — Obgu znwbe boyvtngvbaf ur oevatf hc, “Lbh, nyy bs lbh, arrq gb ohvyq lbhe bja gbzbeebj.” naq “Lbh qba’g vagrtengr jvgu hf, jr vagrtengr jvgu lbh.” zveebe noq qverpgyl qvfnterr jvgu gur nffregvba bs Gur Fxva Ubefr: gung ernyarff vf fbzrguvat lbh TRG, sebz gur puvyq, naq gung vg vf gur gbl gufg punatrf sebz orvat ybirq, engure guna gur puvyq gung punatrf sebz ybivat.

      Va gur bgure zbfg qenzngvp fprarf, Avpx’f cnegf — obgu uvf ebznapr jvgu Qe. Yrr (naq ybbx, gurer’f “Ybir” ntnva) naq uvf hfr ol Ze. Terra (naq gurer’f “whfg cynl”) nyfb qverpgyl qvfnterr jvgu vg. Ur vf Erny (“abj gurl jnaan gnxr zl erny obql, gbb”) orsber nalguvat ryfr, rira orsber ur trgf n “zber erny” obql (gur qebar), juvpu unccraf ORSBER ur vf Ybirq, Ernyyl Ybirq ol Qe. Yrr.* Gung orvat ybirq qbrfa’g znxr uvz nal zber “erny”, naq yvxrjvfr gur orvat “whfg cynlrq jvgu” ol Ze. Terra qbrfa’g znxr uvz yrff.

      Gurer ner cebonoyl bgure fprarf V’z sbetrggvat. Jryy, jr’yy trg gb gurz ng fbzr cbvag va guvf ernq-guebhtu.

      (* JNVG UBYL SEVPX AVPX’F ARJ SYRFU-NAQ-OYBBQ OBQL. GUR OENVA. Gur genfu urnc jnf tbaan or vapvarengrq, jnfa’g vg?? Gurl cynlrq gur fgbel ibzcyrgryl fgenvtug NALJNLF, NYFB. Bu zl TBQ Wrss&Funraba. JUNG.)

      • TauCeti
        March 25, 2021, 8:07 am | # | Reply

        Bu jbj V qvqa’g pngpu nal bs gung gur svefg tb nebhaq. Guvf er-ernq vf tbvat gb or njrfbzr!

        Nyfb, V yvxr ubj guvf vf n erqrzcgvba bs gur bevtvany Iryirgrra Enoovg.
        (Naq abj V’z snprq jvgu jnagvat gb fcbvyre gnt zl pbzzragnel bs vg juvyr jvguva n ebg13 fcbvyre oybpx).
        Evtug, fb, nf n xvq V arire yvxrq gur Iryirgrra Enoovg, orpnhfr va gur raq gur enoovg naq xvq arire trg gb frr rnpu bgure ntnva. V nyjnlf haqrefgbbq gur inyhr bs sevraqfuvc naq orvat ybirq, naq arire ernyyl haqrefgbbq jul fbzrbar jbhyq jnag gb or “erny”. Gur enoovg jnf gnyxvat sebz cntr bar, nsgre nyy.

      • Seph
        July 1, 2022, 8:38 am | # | Reply

        By the by, it’s pretty funny that WHAT rot13s to JUNG.

  10. Graham
    April 1, 2021, 6:34 pm | # | Reply

    Seven and a half years before this comic appeared, this part of the book was the reading at our wedding. My wife loved the bit about your fur being loved off.

  11. Sweet Uncle Leslie the Hammer
    February 15, 2022, 1:25 am | # | Reply

    I have no idea of what’s next for you amazing people. Please know that I and many, many other folks love, appreciate, and are grateful that you are. May the best be yours now and forever.

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
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.

©2007-2022 Skin Horse | Powered by WordPress with ComicPress | Subscribe: RSS | Back to Top ↑