Leebot Thumbnails
Shaenon: Now that we’re in the Skin Horse endgame, I might as well share thumbnails for ideas we didn’t end up using. Here’s a scenario where the crew was going to distract Ira at a crucial moment by having him seduced by an android duplicate of Dr. Lee piloted by Nick. This made sense in my head at one point.
Channing: Even after over a decade there were still things I didn’t get a chance to do before the story naturally concluded. Still a little bummed that we never got the Europe episode that I had at one time seriously considered.
Wait, was it ever revealed that Ira Green was Goldbug? Not that it surprises me.
I don’t remember if it was ever actually confirmed, but it was certainly implied pretty hard.
I don’t think it was, like, explicitly stated, but yeah, early in Railway Children, ‘Violet Bee’ told Nick that “After all, Nick, I’m the one who removed your spectacles.”, and then there’s the heavy implication/outright stating that ‘Violet Bee’ was operated by Mr Green/Ira.
On the trollish hand, we have seen that various people can operate the ‘Violet’ drone, so there’s no guarantee that the operator at the time, who claimed to be Goldbug, actually was Ira.
On the gripping hand, economy of characters and the established color theme for Mr *Green*’s pseudonyms means that Ira *Rose*nkranz, *Gold*bug, ‘*Violet* Bee’, and Dr *Ao* (Japanese for blue/green) probably are the same person.
Ira personally confirmed that he was all of the above people when he kidnapped Nick. http://skin-horse.com/comic/2018-08-15-following-this/
At least some of the dialog depicted above actually made it to the strip.
TY
Ira, in the guise of Violet Bee revealed he was Goldbug towards the beginning of “Railway Children”; later in that chapter, Dr. Lee deduced that her boss was the one who’d controlled the Violet-drone
A European vacation / Interpol interlude sounds like a great stretch goal for the next Kickstarter, Jeff!
The Lyon’s Interpol seat is not in the most beautiful place of town, it’s dull enough not to get any feeling worth of situating it in europe. On the other side, the (beautiful) old town is filled with neo-nazis (for real).
Aw man, I’m so sad that this didn’t make the cut! Great jokes here.
Same.
It still makes perfect sense in my head. If the current storyline wasn’t making Ira redundant, I’d say go for it.
I wouldn’t count Ira out as redundant just yet.
You can say that again.
I wouldn’t count Ira out as redundant just yet.
Jonah has probably seen this tangential reality. I have a little bit of envy now.
aww, this is a great sideplot! If only for letting us see Ira’s face
I’d love to see “mirror” eps of Narbonic and Skin Horse… all the unused, un-canony bits… Over the Rainbow, as it were… She needs a good long rest, maybe with time she’ll feel like brightening Sundays or something…
I can see Virginia pulling this off to fool Ira into thinking she’s just a droid. The only problem I’d foresee is if Ira pointed a gun at her to test her, she’d break out of “Nick” mode and revert to herself.
I think she would play it to the end. she can be a real hard nose.
on the other hand if it were a droid (instead of her) some of those curves
would be hi-explosives
I sympathize that you cut it… but I gotta give you credit, these are some *solid* gags you had there. Makes me wonder just how many chuckles *don’t* get into the final product!
OMG – this is so good even in just rough-sketch form! Thank you for sharing it. It’s kind of a shame it never got a proper use, but nice to see it anyways.
Totally agree.
I’m really intrigued by Nick’s comment “Gotcha away from the trial, didn’t I?” in panel 3…
Remember how SHIELD could make a Life Model Decoy that passed for human? In the SIXTIES? We can’t do that yet!
And, some of those decoys had super powers…..
Instead of Clark Kent proving that he is not Superman’
How about Proving that someone else is.
Much as I love how the story’s progressed, I am so sorry this isn’t canon. Thank you for sharing it anyway.
But what would have happened to the drone after?
Self-destruct device.
Cruel.
Oh, I’m sure Nick and Virginia would have found… creative uses for her.
A droid of Virginia, on auto pilot wouldn’t be as much fun.
You would need a pilot who could multi-task….and that’s Nick.
Those control helmets need to be more compact
Some thumbnails that will never be. Nick driving a drone Dr. Lee. This marionette is the closest he’ll get to fulfilling his dark fantasy.
Shaenon: while I expect you have your post-SH project lined up after a suitable vacation, you could always take the unused material and do Skin Horse Alternate Universe….
Just sayin’. There might be a couple of people who would be interested.
I -did- buy the full set… There’s support! 😀
My dream is that other people draw licensed Narbonic/Skin Horse spinoffs and Jeff and I collect the money. I have so many good life plans.
No,…once the original creators leave, the hacks would run it into the ground.
All In the name of profits. and to fulfill their own vision.
I’m content to get a few specials now and then
Hmmm, I can see it now:
– Further adventures of Baron Mistycorn by Jennie Breeden
– A comic about Artie and Sergio by Christopher Baldwin
– John Allison does a strip about Nera and Jonah
– More Victorian Narbonic stuff by Dylan Meconis
– Virginia and Nick are chronicled by Carla Speed McNeil
– Jenn Manley Lee covers Sweetheart and Unity
– And a series about Mell by Matt Howarth
Simply awesome!
But who could handle “Zerhakker and Wilson Investigations”?
The weird part is that these thumbnails felt oddly familiar? Like my brain was sure this had actually happened for some reason…
You’re simply remembering the alternate timeline from your original reality. 😉
That could be interesting, an epilogue in a way, with Jonah visions of what could have been, or what is in others possibilities.
Thank you so much for sharing this outtake with us! It’s a beautiful and hilarious story thread, even if it no longer fits with the overall epic.