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
2022-02-18
‹‹ First ‹ Prev Buy! Comments(53) Next › Last ››

2022-02-18

by shaenon on February 18, 2022 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Space-Bat-Angel-Dragon
Comments RSS

Discussion (53) ¬

  1. Robert Horton
    February 18, 2022, 12:02 am | # | Reply

    Could someone moderate my reply from day before yesterday?

    I hope this is teasing Sunday’s art, btw.

    • Robert Nowall
      February 18, 2022, 7:20 am | # | Reply

      If you’re a Patreon, you might have a pretty good idea.

      As for moderation—“?”

      • Jeffrey C. Wells
        February 18, 2022, 7:33 am | # | Reply

        Sometimes the comment filter snags comments that contain hyperlinks as spam, and it waits in a pending file. Unfortunately, I don’t get any kind of email notification that this is happening, so we have to remember to manually look for it (or it gets drawn to our attention, as was the case here!) Thankfully, it looks like Shaenon got it early this morning. Cheers, both Roberts!

        • David B Huber
          February 18, 2022, 9:39 am | # | Reply

          Good morning, Jeffrey!

          FWIW, it happens to me whenever I embed more than one hyperlink, even though they are both Skin Horse strips.

        • Frank
          February 21, 2022, 11:31 pm | # | Reply

          oohhh, so that’s what happened to all my comments way back when

  2. dvandom
    February 18, 2022, 12:03 am | # | Reply

    Ira, you’re out of your depth.

  3. thejoemoose
    February 18, 2022, 12:10 am | # | Reply

    Keep it up, Nick! Keep it up!

  4. Rex Vivat
    February 18, 2022, 12:26 am | # | Reply

    Part of me likes what he’s doing. The other part worries he’s giving him intel.

    • Jim Janney
      February 18, 2022, 1:43 am | # | Reply

      Never soliloquize. No matter how tempting it is.

      • Shadowmehr
        February 18, 2022, 1:17 pm | # | Reply

        “You son of a gun! You got me monologuing!”

        It works against heroes and villains alike.

  5. Ray Radlein
    February 18, 2022, 12:56 am | # | Reply

    Big Lebowski / Phoebe Bridgers reference FTW

    • mnemex
      February 18, 2022, 3:43 am | # | Reply

      With a bonus shout-out to the FCC. Nick’s taking his self-censorship to a new level.

      • Daibhid C
        February 18, 2022, 5:39 am | # | Reply

        I had to google it, but yes. The filter has referenced memetic wrongswears before (I think there was a “melon farmer”) but this is the first time Nick’s done it himself.

        • Robert Nowall
          February 18, 2022, 7:19 am | # | Reply

          Used to just fill in the swear with the appropriate syllable count.

        • awgiedawgie
          February 18, 2022, 9:25 am | # | Reply

          Nick has been self-filtering for years. Pretty much any time he’s around Virginia. Some of them are more well-known, and some aren’t. He did some when he still had the filter, and a lot more after Virginia removed it. Here’s a prime example.

          • Daibhid C
            May 4, 2022, 3:31 pm | #

            Sure, I didn’t mean he hadn’t been self-filtering, just that he hadn’t used wrongswears from other media before. But your link shows I was about that wrong too.

          • Daibhid C
            May 4, 2022, 3:32 pm | #

            Okay, don’t know how I managed to get that sentence like that. Wrong about that too.

          • awgiedawgie
            May 4, 2022, 8:10 pm | #

            Hey, it’s May the Fourth. Allowed you are to about that wrong be.

    • jdreyfuss
      February 18, 2022, 8:29 am | # | Reply

      I want to believe that Nick was sitting on that one, just waiting for the perfect time to pull it out. I think he made the right choice on when to unleash it.

  6. Nick
    February 18, 2022, 1:21 am | # | Reply

    I’m worried that Ira has some sort of super Blueberry Waffle phrase that he’ll unleash on Nick

    • awgiedawgie
      February 18, 2022, 9:26 am | # | Reply

      Virginia removed Nick’s overrides.

  7. Arkutt
    February 18, 2022, 1:56 am | # | Reply

    YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS, LARRY? YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FIND A STRANGER IN THE ALPS?

  8. Peter Lewerin
    February 18, 2022, 2:09 am | # | Reply

    And so it could be that the main story of SH is bookended with a bang. Specifically, of Dr. Virginia Lee.

  9. Gfrogs
    February 18, 2022, 2:21 am | # | Reply

    UwU

  10. BarGamer
    February 18, 2022, 4:41 am | # | Reply

    Is it bad that I would pay good money on like, Slipshine or whatever, for Nick and Lee on their honeymoon or that previous time when Nick and Lee waxed poetic about their love for each other while they were banging inside of Nick’s helicopter body? Just a suggestion.

    • Robert Nowall
      February 18, 2022, 7:13 am | # | Reply

      Those images don’t scrape off your brain so easy.

      • BarGamer
        February 19, 2022, 4:06 am | # | Reply

        I’ve survived the Pain Olympics, Goatse, 2girls1cup, tubgirl, Doug Winger, and much more, while eating public school cafeteria food. Bring it.

        • Robert Nowall
          February 19, 2022, 6:29 am | # | Reply

          William Shatner singing “Rocket Man.”

        • awgiedawgie
          February 22, 2022, 9:44 am | # | Reply

          In the words of Dr. Helen Narbon, “Picture Ernest Borgnine and Ralph Nader naked with a bottle of baby oil.”

          Now there’s a picture that doesn’t scrape off your brain so easy.

  11. Robert Nowall
    February 18, 2022, 6:57 am | # | Reply

    When did they go to the Poconos?

    • Duane B.
      February 18, 2022, 9:47 am | # | Reply

      Not yet, ….that will be the honeymoon.

    • Rex Vivat
      February 18, 2022, 11:49 am | # | Reply

      I have no idea what the Poconos are, but if I had to guess I’d say here.

      • Robert Nowall
        February 18, 2022, 12:17 pm | # | Reply

        No, that’s Boston, strictly speaking, the bridge at one end of the Boston Public Gardens. The Poconos are some mountains in eastern Pennsylvania, just west of the rivers that make up their borders with New York and New Jersey—come to think of it, not far from Carbondale.

        • Rex Vivat
          February 18, 2022, 12:32 pm | # | Reply

          Yeah… I’ll be real with you: those are all names to me. US geography and landmarks are, well, foreign to me. I just thought that, since they were taking time to go on a trip together away from the others, it’d make sense they could be anywhere. Even if on that particular panel they’re somewhere else, they could’ve easily gone to the mountains at any time in the same way, you know?

          • Robert Nowall
            February 18, 2022, 12:40 pm | #

            Well, my personal experience of Boston is limited to a great familiarity with a hospital parking lot in 1968, and I don’t even know which hospital…but I’ve seen a lot of picture and knew I recognized that bridge.

            That being said…the Poconos are the traditional “the mountains” vacation and / or honeymoon spot for denizens of New York City and Philadelphia—Nick is from Philly, originally. So maybe they’re about to go to the Poconos, rather than having been there already…

  12. bergerjacques
    February 18, 2022, 9:54 am | # | Reply

    Do Jewish weddings include a “speak now or forever hold your peace” moment? I foresee Ira getting desperate enough to play the “Object to this union” gambit.

    • D. Walker
      February 18, 2022, 10:53 am | # | Reply

      There are… many… kinds of Judaism, and presumably equally many kinds of Jewish weddings.

      As far as I can tell, “speak nor or forever hold your peace” is a relatively recent Christian tradition, first attested in 1549, in the Book of Common Prayer, originating from England (and by extension, the Anglican Church). Since then, the practice has spread into other denominations.

      Given how much cross cultural influence exists in modern weddings (particularly in America), it seems a very safe bet to assume that someone, somewhere, has had a Jewish style wedding where this phrase was employed. How widespread the practice is? I dunno! It’s not “traditional”, but that’s relative – traditions change.

      That said, my understanding is that the entire point of the objection is based on the possibility of things like already being married, or having an incomplete divorce, etc. For example, the Catholic church requires you to not only get a divorce, but also get an annulment of the original marriage before you can remarry. (Interestingly, this ruling only came into being in the 1560s – AFTER the Anglican church had begun using this above phrase.)

      Regardless, Ira wouldn’t have any sensible grounds to object. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t show up and just be a jerk for no reason, but…

      • Robert Nowall
        February 18, 2022, 12:55 pm | # | Reply

        Since, in the Roman Catholic Church, marriage is a sacrament, breaking them is a cardinal sin. You can get a civil divorce and remarry—but in the eyes of the church you’re still married to someone else.

        And, far as I can tell, there’s no place for objecting in traditional Catholic marriage vows. Dunno if there’s any change after Vatican II.

        (Took me on a good Internet search to find the Catholic vows. Wikipedia was unhelpful here—“speak now etc.” directed me to a Cheap Trick song.)

        • D. Walker
          February 18, 2022, 3:43 pm | # | Reply

          Again, the Catholic doctrine of “indissolubility” regarding marriage only came about in the 1560s with the Council of Trent. That’s less than a quarter of the time that the Catholic Church has even existed.

          And even then, I already mentioned that the Catholic church wants you to get an annulment of the marriage – basically arguing that it was never a valid marriage in the first place, and thus everyone can just pretend it never happened.

          (I personally think it’s all a bit silly – an excuse to ignore an inconvenient bit of doctrine that was only introduced relatively recently, for largely political reasons as response to the Protestant Reformation – but who cares what I think, eh?)

          Also – while strict Catholic weddings don’t include the line “If anyone knows any reason why these two should not be wed, let him speak now, or forever hold his peace”, there -is- a common Catholic practice of publishing notices of up-coming weddings specifically so that people who wish to raise objections have time to do so before the actual ceremony is underway.

          Regardless, the original question was about Jewish weddings, and I think the same answer applies there as with Catholics – I’m confident plenty of modern “good Catholics” and “good Jews” have included the line, or something similar, in their weddings, despite it not being traditional or officially endorsed by their churches / temples.

          The organized religious bodies can turn their noses up at the idea, but they’re just sticking their heads in the sand. Syncretism exists and has always existed, and there has never been a “pure” or “proper” or “correct” form of any religion, ever.

        • awgiedawgie
          February 18, 2022, 6:58 pm | # | Reply

          I used to work with a guy who had been married in the Catholic Church. He later got divorced. In the eyes of the Church, however, he was still married, but that didn’t really matter to him. …Until… He decided he wanted to get re-married some years later.

          Then he had to go through the process of getting the original marriage annulled before the Church would allow him to get married again. And it wasn’t exactly an easy process. It took him a good 6 months or so to get it done. And they weren’t too happy that he had waited several years to do it. You have to have a really good reason for the annulment (like because his first wife was cheating on him). “Irreconcilable differences” doesn’t cut it.

          • Robert Nowall
            February 18, 2022, 9:33 pm | #

            Here’s a link to an article that’s clear on Catholic annulment. http://www.beginningcatholic.com/catholic-annulment

          • Candace
            February 19, 2022, 12:48 am | #

            Well, technically, he could have remarried in a civil ceremony, or even in a church of another denomination, but I gather someone must have wanted a Catholic wedding. And yes, they do like to make people jump through hoops in cases like that. I guess they want to make sure you really mean it.

  13. Jeffwik
    February 18, 2022, 10:56 am | # | Reply

    OH NO THE POCONOS!
    I forgot they don’t exist any more, the biomass ate ’em.

    • Duane B.
      February 18, 2022, 11:42 am | # | Reply

      Wide open spaces…no crowds….fun ruins to explore..lots of runways.

    • Dalben
      February 18, 2022, 8:36 pm | # | Reply

      I mean the poconos still exist, they’re just presumable a lot more barren dirt and rocks and less trees and tourist towns than before.

  14. thedoctor55
    February 18, 2022, 3:21 pm | # | Reply

    Can’t Nick take over Ira’s ‘copter and bring him in to face some sweet karma?

    • D. Walker
      February 18, 2022, 4:39 pm | # | Reply

      Nope – it’s a standard helicopter, with manual controls. There’s nothing to hack and take over.

      He can hack a drone, because a drone is designed and built to be flown via remote control. But you can’t hack something that requires manual control.

      Hacking isn’t magic – it’s just tricking a computer into thinking you’re someone with permission to access and use every part of a system, when you actually aren’t. If it isn’t something a legitimate user could already do, then it’s not something a hacker can do, because a hacker is just an illegitimate user.

      • Rex+Vivat
        February 18, 2022, 5:04 pm | # | Reply

        And even putting that aside, this is Nick. All you have to do is read Wednesday’s strip again to be reminded he wouldn’t do that.

      • awgiedawgie
        February 18, 2022, 6:42 pm | # | Reply

        But now I’m wondering… Does Ira’s helicopter have any sort of auto-pilot? I’d be surprised if it didn’t. Even a hover mode could be hacked and made to direct the helicopter wherever you wanted. So the question then is whether the switch to engage such a mode of operation is a hard switch or a soft switch (i.e. a manual toggle or a momentary push button). If it’s a soft switch, it can be hacked. It’s only “Nick proof” if it’s 100% manual, with no computer at all. And even then, I’m not too sure. I don’t think we’ve seen the full extent of Nick’s abilities yet.

        • Robert Nowall
          February 18, 2022, 9:37 pm | # | Reply

          Probably a primitive one…and, also, remember that Dr. Engelbright *stole* this helicopter. If it’s sentient, it might be open to reason.

          Remember, too, Nick’s pacifist leanings. He blew up the drones because they weren’t sentient. Ira, Dr. Engelbright, and maybe the helicopter, whatever you might think of them, are sentient.

      • Trivena
        February 18, 2022, 11:40 pm | # | Reply

        Hacking can also refer to making a system do things it was never designed nor built to do, legitimate user or not, so all the stuff awgiedawgie’s listed also counts as hacking. It can still LOOK like magic to the unknowledgeable watcher.

  15. Robert Nowall
    February 18, 2022, 9:47 pm | # | Reply

    Ooh! Almost forgot my daily limerick. Let me think…

    Nick Zerhakker called up to brag. He’s teasing the wrinkled gasbag. But photos he’s sending of his time he’s been spending with Lee in the Poconos—drag.

  16. Candace
    February 19, 2022, 12:51 am | # | Reply

    I like it!

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 ↑