Final Mailbag
Shaenon: This week of Skin Horse will be the last. Thank you so much to everyone for following us this far. It’s going to be very strange to have these characters absent from my daily life.
If you’re interested in regular old paper books of the strip, check out the campaign to fund the final two volumes on Zoop. You can get all the other Skin Horse and Narbonic books as add-ons. Or click back to the beginning of the archives and read again!
Channing: I’ll miss these most of all! Way back when Shaenon first proposed Skin Horse to me, one of the things that sealed my acceptance of the idea was the realization that I might get Shaenon to draw an an author character for me for occasional fourth-wall-violating interjections. The reality has never disappointed.
wow. I can’t believe it’s really over
I was thinking the same thing!
Sooner or later everything ends, and Skin Horse has certainly been later, but I’ll miss checking it every day. Thank you for many happy moments. Looking forward to your next projects!
Here’s a story of a lovely lady
Who made Hitty a robot with a beau
She was so sweet, they couldn’t kill her
‘Cause she loves Moustachio
Here’s the story of a handsome fellow
Put a water cooler in a robot gal
So she took charge and lived her own life
With an angsty cobra pal
When the fellow wrote a fanfic for the lady
They knew telling their tales would be a dream
They got Pancha to give them color
And that’s how the three became the Skin Horse Team
The Skin Horse Team
The Skin Horse Team
Thank you for the years of joy dear Skin Horse Team
*Applause*
I encountered “Skin Horse” midway and quite by accident via a link from “Freefall”. The wit and wisdom embodied in the strip captured my heart and I remember the awe I felt feverishly reading through the archive for the first time.
Shaenon, Jeff and Pancha, your magnificent effort created a wonderful world filled with magic, madness and mayhem which has brought joy to so many people for over 14 years, spanning a decade which has seen our world grow ever.more Shadowed. I know I have grown more tolerant and perhaps wiser for visiting with you daily all these years. I’d go so far as to add your names to the list of Shadow fighters mentioned in “A Wrinkle In Time“!
So thank you. The words are inadequate but their simplicity best expresses my gratitude for the many years of joy you’ve so generously given me.
Thank you as well to the legion of fans I’ve so enjoyed interacting with here in the comments section. You too have left me speechless and made me laugh with your “Skin Horse” inspired filks, shared life experiences and pithy wisdom. I will miss all of you too and wish I could meet you IRL.
With humble gratitude,
– Dave Huber
Great!
;w; oh no its ending
One thing I *am* curious about is if the two of you will do Skin Horse: Directors Cut (after vacations, obviously), like you did with Narbonic. I’d be up for slowly rereading all of Skin Horse with snarky commentary added…
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY
Jeff’s been doing week-by-week commentary for our Patreon, and he’ll continue that after the strip ends. Don’t know if we’ll ever do daily reruns.
“Life, I love you! All is groovy…”
Well, I’ll be waiting for whatever comes next, whenever it does
I think they could livestream themselves doing shadowpuppets while drunk and we’d watch it.
I’m confident you’ll stick the landing, and I can’t wait to watch. Thank you for everything, Shaenon and Jeffrey.
So that’s the “much better character” that Tip was originally going to kiss in “Sure as You’re Born, instead of H. T
No, H. T. kissed Tip, not the other way ’round. Tip did have it dialed up a little high.
It’s been such a fun ride, with wonderful characters (the lovables as well as the deplorables) and delirious (but never unhinged) adventures.
You know you’re having fun when you find yourself with the need to tell someone about The Joke, and you have so many layers that you need to rip bits from to even get to the point where the point of the joke is visible in the distance.
“You see, sometimes they stick in gags where they appear in person discussing the strip, and the writer comes up and is concerned about this character who is a psychologist and always ends up in bed with someone, anyway he’s concerned that the character is naked, and the artist tries to get a way with ‘I’m the greatest artistic genius since the guy who invented painting swimsuits on naked women’ but the writer is still concerned so she bargains with ‘if you let me have this I’ll draw Sweetheart in a harness later’, Sweetheart is the team commander, she’s a Canadian sled dog, and then the story just continues, get it?”
See what you made me do.
Jeff, was _Skim Horse_ a proposed lower calorie version of what became _Skin Horse_?
Oh, a wise guy, eh? Nah, that’s just a product of me working way too late at night, on a touchscreen keyboard, without my glasses on. It’s a wonder it was legible at all. I have now corrected the typo.
(innocently)
So is “an an author character” similar to an Ur-Gerbil?
Admit it, Jeff! It’s hard to proofread with tears in your eyes…
I’ll miss you most of all, Mailcrow.
Wow, 14 and a half years… It really feels like the strip was first announced a year ago… Time does fly, and it’s a testament of the quality of the comic. I’m gonna really miss it from my daily routine.
So take your well deserved rest! But know that if you ever decide to start another strip again, all of us will come back. Because after all these years, this, reading your comics, feels like home.
Nonsense! I’ve been reading this comic since the very beginning (being a fan of Shaennon’s since early in Narbonic’s OG run), which means I’ve been coming here since before I had my kids. Seeing as how they’re 7 now, it’s been at LEAST 3 or 4 years since Skin Horse launched!
Y’know, back in the Before Times, when we merely worried about the forthcoming apocalypse, instead of watching it unfold around us like we were all Sam and Frodo on the side of Mount Doom after Gollum took the Ring into the Fire, watching the lava flow around them, relentlessly encroaching their crumbling refuge as they whether the heat, poison fumes, or dehydration would kill them first. Also like them, we are wearily amazed that we’ve even survived long enough to wonder such a thing, since we always thought The End would play out faster. On the other hand, there’s a certain relief in that unfathomable burden of anticipation finally lifting from us.
Of course, I kind of doubt we’ll be rescued at the last moment by the metaphorical giant eagles.
Congratulations!
This may be the only webcomic I’ve read from its beginning to its end in real time, and it’s certainly the longest and best!
Well, I’d probably be uneasy talking to any of the characters…though there are things I’d like to say to some of them, they would probably take that badly.
Last week, huh?
Good luck, and enjoy your vacations!
nooo not the last! I don’t want it to end!
I discovered Skin Horse after Narbonic, and opened a GoComics account so I could read it and Endtown every day. I’m going to miss it sooo much..
Thanks for answering my question!
*Lifts a glass* Thank you for taking us on this wild, wacky, magical ride. Wishing you all a future of relaxation, fun, and just the right amount of shenanigans.
ONLY 14.5 years?! Or maybe, Wiw! Time flies!? Anyway, words fail me.
Yup! Close to entering high school and getting a driver’s license!
Skin Horse has been the first comic I read in the morning for more years than I can remember. This will leave a gap in my day.
The way they freaked with hats,
The way bees offered tea.
The memory of all that,
No, no, you can’t take that away from me.
The way that Ira schemed,
The way they rampage-spreed.
The way they let out screams,
No, no, you can’t take that away from me.
We might never never read again,
It’s a lumpy road to take.
Still, I’ll always-always feel a bitter ache.
The way they lived their life,
The way it filled with glee,
The way they dealt with strife,
No, no, you can’t take that away from me.
No, you can’t take that away,
No, you can’t take that away,
No, you can’t take that away from me.
—from “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, sung by Fred Astaire in “Shall We Dance.”
Bravo!
Even the silverfish would be cheering, Robert!
Aw, they like Italian opera. I could sit through anything in French or German, ’cause I have a little, but Italian is beyond me.
I am very sad to have Skin Horse leave my daily rotation BUT one of the reasons Narbonic is one of my favourite comics is because it is a complete story, it reached its conclusion and ended.
Thank you for knowing when to give us the Happily Ever After, and for the last decade-and-a-half of love and entertainment!
+1
+2
Whatever your creative process may actually have been behind the scenes, Skin Horse never felt directionless or haphazard. I didn’t always know where the story was going, but it always felt as though it was going somewhere–and as though it was going to the same somewhere all along, whatever detours (planned or unplanned) it may have taken along the way. And as though it was going to wrap up when it got there, rather than stumbling around in search of another place to go afterwards.
Also, big kudos to the creative team for knowing when to let the strip shape itself instead of shoehorning in elements that, however good they might be, didn’t fit the characters or the plot.
I had discovered and read Narbonic and was disappointed that it had ended when found that you had started a new comic. I’ll miss the daily updates! Thanks for bringing in Mell at the end, I was hoping for some sort of Nod to your first crew of characters. So are you guy’s going to get real jobs now? :p
We have real jobs! Jeff is a government bureaucrat and I’m a manga editor. We’ve been doing a daily strip on top of that because we’re amazing.
I, for one, still would like to see more of what went on at Willowweep Manor.
Christopher Baldwin says “Simon & Schuster commissioned a sequel,” and that he has begun his part of the work.
“Jeff is a government bureaucrat and I’m a manga editor.” This. This right here explains EVERYTHING. You guys didn’t have to make anything up. You just wrote what you lived. Perfect.
Miss you already.
Trust us, we never doubted you were amazing. You two have 100% pure AWESOMESAUCE running through your veins!
Shaenon: Manga editor, wife, mother, daily webcomic illustrator.
Wonder Woman: Sunbathing, eating sandwiches and herding cats.
I know who’s the superhero in MY book! 😉
Skin Horse follows in the footsteps of Sgt. Schlock and Stand Still Stay Silent in bringing its long story to an end. One less comic to read, but there are so many, many more out there that I haven’t started or even heard of.
Cheers and a Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster to the authors.
I want to support the campaign on Zoot, but they require that I let them save my credit card number. 🙁
This is from the faq:
“Zoop does not store or keep your credit card info. Stripe simply holds the credit card info until the end of a successful campaign and then charges it. It is strictly for this one time use and won’t charge it ever again.”
Did they tell you something different, or does it say something else somewhere?
Wow. So this is it, huh? I’ve really enjoyed both Narbonic and this comic – thank you for making them!
I will miss the whole ever-lovin’ thing. I hope all the critters and entities in the basement of Annex One got off safely.
I’ve been reading Narbonic and Skin Horse daily for over two decades. Thanks for all of the adventures! And I hope you enjoy some delightful new adventures of your own in the years ahead.
It’s the very last Mailbag digestion. Our forum for oddball suggestions. They’ll be no more of them, no matter we loved them—maybe I should have asked them a question.
I’d be nervous about talking with my own characters. They’d probably complain about what I’d done.
Say, maybe that’s why God is so elusive.
Assumes a lotus position, slows heartbeat and respiration …
prepared to….wait……………….
Gosh, it really is coming to a close… I’ve wanted to say something profound about it in the comments so far but I just don’t know what to say!
Skin Horse has a been a constant in my day-to-day for so long, and Narbonic before it, I’m so happy to see it coming to a resolution with the characters where they are but I’ll miss it…
I’ve identified with both Dave and Nick as a “nerdy white (jewish) computer guy” and… both of them gave me Funny Gender Feelings before I figured out I’m a nerdy white computer girl, haha. I’ve identified with both Sweetheart and Unity for being neurotic/anxious and impulsive and having “fleeting” intelligence, before I realized I’m autistic and have ADHD (and gay). I’ve grabbed screenshots of Skin Horse to show to friends and say “LOOK AT THIS” when something new happens or even compiled a bunch of comics to say “I love this character, here’s several reasons why” (for Bubbles, Sweetheart, Nick, Aimee, Tip, Artie, the list goes on…..).
I also got a lot of comfort from the story as I’ve recognized my own “otherness” over the years (being queer and neurodivergent) and realized it’s always been about the marginalization of the “other” and how redemption can’t come from waiting for the authoritative hand of the greater system to grant you rights and autonomy, but it has to come from solidarity from other marginalized groups and recognition of our shared struggle despite our disparate needs and experiences.
For a long time reading Skin Horse I wondered about the meaning of starting with the Velveteen Rabbit quote. “When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” I don’t know if this is the intent but the way I’ve come to understand it is that it was the mission statement of the Skin Horse Project… a project which turned out to be a lie. Nobody is made real because of a greater authority deciding to *really* love them – we’re real because we are real, all on our own. And loving ourselves and loving each other is what we need, not to be patient and passive and uncomplaining until someone else decides they *really* love us enough. And as we’ve seen at the end of the comic, the idea that it’s a binary choice between waiting for an authority to grant us full personhood or separating from and writing off the majority society is also a lie… we don’t have to Become Real and then immediately leave forever, never to see the ones we do love again. We can make a better world for everyone.
I don’t know… I’m rambling, I haven’t really tried to put all my thoughts on Skin Horse down in one place, and I don’t think I could really ever could. Thank you, Shaenon and Jeff, for breathing so much life into these characters and the story of this world, full of wonderful weirdness and life in many splendid forms. You definitely deserve to take a break, you’ve earned it.
I think this is pretty profound, actually. Thanks for sharing!
+1
Agreed!
Thank you for a wonderful ride!
WAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!
After a nice, long rest, when you’re an outpatient again, I hope you take up another comic. If it stars Eydie, the future I.T. genius, so much the better…! I suspect she’s E.D. and the D stands for Davenport! Doomed to a weird life…
I’m sad to think Skin Horse is wrapping up, but happy to think it’s being completed. (And a little weirded out to think of the timing: the concluding strip, assuming it’s posted on Saturday, will appear on my birthday.)
Thanks to the creative team for lots of hard work and fun ideas and a great story and great characters and great art and a great comic–and also for fostering a warm, congenial, and creative fan community in the comments, whether you meant to or not. Best wishes to you all for whatever you’ve got coming next. And please keep us informed if you have any other comics or stories or art or anything else coming up. There are a lot of people here who’d be interested to partake of your next projects.
Shaenon, Jeff: It’s been a blast! Thank you!!!
Thank you both so much for this story and art. (And for the decades of work between Narbonic and Skin Horse.) I will miss these characters so much.
Thanks for all the years of Skin-Horse! When it started, I never imagined it would run this long – I figured it would be more on the order of 7 years, like Narbonic. Perhaps there is a multiplying effect of having more than one creator. It never got stale – the comic was intriguing and funny to the last.
They didn’t take that time from you, Shaenon, you gave it to them, and to all of us. Thank you for nearly endless entertainment. What ever is next, I’m sure it will be grand.
♥
Thank you for this brilliant adventure.
I’ve been following you since the first Narbonic and probably haven’t written you even a dozen times, so I will now thank you for a great couple of decades and for an actual planned finale rather than an amputation.
14½years? But it feels like only yesterday! (Stands up from chair)
Ow! Wait, wait, no it doesn’t.
Congrats both! An amazing ride!
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
I only discovered Skin Horse after Dominic Dengan ended. Any suggestions what to follow next? I’m already following Girl Genius and Sluggy Freelance.
Thank you for creating Skin Horse and persevering for 14 years! When I first spotted it, I was so put off I couldn’t help reading ahoy it, after which I was hooked. I enjoyed this strip so much, and hope there will be other projects your loyal fans can follow. And please pass along my belated thanks to Artie for helping get a Green Party candidate on the Minnesota ballot. As a past national secretary for the party I actually know how dang hard that is.
Best wishes in whatever you all plan to do next.
I’ve never really felt compelled to comment here, but I feel I may as well now.
Skin Horse has been part of my daily routine for a significant portion of its run. I found Narbonic from TVTropes some years ago – close to a decade, if I had to guess – and it hit me like few works had at the time. I can’t say Skin Horse has had quite the same effect on me, but I’ve enjoyed it the whole time, and it’s going to leave a hole.
I wish you both the best, whatever you do next.
Just give her a year or two of rest and then suggest lots of cool ideas to her. ]:)
No! No! I want Skin Horse to last forever! I want Shaenon to sacrifice the rest of her life to provide me entertainment! …Yeah, okay. I’m grateful for all of this. Thank you, Shaenon and Jeff.
It has been one hell of a wonderful, wonderful ride!
<3 <3 <3
I always wondered if giving Bubbles the drone was planned from the beginning or a spontaneous decision. Looks like the latter, and oh my goodness did it ever pay off.