Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2021-07-12
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2021-07-12

by shaenon on July 12, 2021 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Space-Bat-Angel-Dragon
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Discussion (41) ¬

  1. David B Huber
    July 12, 2021, 12:14 am | # | Reply

    The NHS can only be glimpsed out of the corner of one’s eye…

    Is that K.T. chatting with Unity in the background of panel 1?

    • Robert Nowall
      July 12, 2021, 6:53 am | # | Reply

      K. T….Leo…Kay…it’s good to see old friends again. Maybe especially at a distance.

      • Robert Nowall
        July 12, 2021, 9:46 am | # | Reply

        Oh. And is that robot on the left Gorgoth the Dominator?

    • Jay
      July 12, 2021, 9:07 am | # | Reply

      For a sec I thought you meant the National Health Service.

      …I wonder how well Black Ops Nursing pays? If you’re already used to feeling like nobody else wants to see the problems…

      • David B Huber
        July 12, 2021, 10:04 pm | # | Reply

        Sadly, *that* works, too… 😉

  2. Frank
    July 12, 2021, 12:16 am | # | Reply

    Wait, so reality blindness prevents him from seeing the tents as well?

    • Daibhid C
      July 12, 2021, 7:48 am | # | Reply

      Reality blindness is a funny thing. I think if the nonhumans weren’t there, he’d probably see the tents and wonder what they were for. As it is, his brain has identified the nonhumans and the tents as all part of the same thing, so nope.

    • awgiedawgie
      July 12, 2021, 11:11 am | # | Reply

      Take Dave’s brother Bill, or even Clone!Dave. They couldn’t see Artie at all, even though he looks like an ordinary gerbil. And Bill couldn’t see the androids either, even though there’s nothing inherently bizarre about androids. It’s what they were doing that made them unbelievable, so Bill just blocked them out entirely.

      Some people might be able to see the tents, but still not see the NHS’s. Others might see the NHS’s, but might interpret them all (even the robots) as circus animals.

  3. Emily
    July 12, 2021, 12:18 am | # | Reply

    He can’t even see the TENTS, that’s hilarious. I wonder, if he had to walk around the “empty field”, would he subconsciously avoid any obstacles? Or would he be stumbling around bumping into things?

    • jdreyfuss
      July 12, 2021, 8:45 am | # | Reply

      My understanding is that the subconscious still registers what’s going on, so he would instinctively avoid bumping into anything, lest it shatter his worldview. If one of them reached out and tripped him he’d probably just chalk it up to a protruding tree root.

    • wizard4169
      September 16, 2021, 9:50 am | # | Reply

      I imagine it works something like an SEP field. People can SEE weird stuff, they just refuse to consciously acknowledge it. So he would carefully avoid walking into any of those impossible things, even as he denies that they’re even there.

  4. thejoemoose
    July 12, 2021, 12:24 am | # | Reply

    As funny as the situation is, now I’m wondering if A-Sig and Pavane made a deal. They get to blot reality, she gets to chart them away.

  5. TheWreck
    July 12, 2021, 12:52 am | # | Reply

    Yeah – looks like the “making them feel seen” part isn’t going so well…

  6. BMunro
    July 12, 2021, 1:47 am | # | Reply

    Something definitely has to be done about the reality blindness plague imposed by A-Sig, but how many people were reality-blind already before they did it? I don’t think we ever got an actual percentage…

    (This seems like a particularly bad case. One would think most people would mistake it for a circus/carnival with people in costume, floats, and decorated animals. Or is it simply that there’s so much weirdness piled up here that his protective mechanisms have become entirely overloaded and his perceptions have essentially gone Blue Screen of Death?)

    • Trivena
      July 12, 2021, 6:13 am | # | Reply

      I think Sweetheart gives an estimate in the filename story, from memory it’s about 20%. But that was people who just couldn’t hear her. I don’t think there was any information on more severe “can’t even see weird at all” cases, or even if they existed before. I’d say this guy is an extreme case even by current standards though, the guy at Leo’s hotel could still see a lion wandering around where there shouldn’t be one.

      • Daibhid C
        July 12, 2021, 7:53 am | # | Reply

        The weirder something is, the more reality blindness blots it out, as exploited by H.T. earlier (and when do we learn if he’s shown up here, and what his angle is?) Normally, reality-blind people react to him as if he were a normal tiger. If he wears a silly hat and deely boppers (or whatever, I don’t recall exactly), people don’t edit that out to see a normal tiger, they refuse to see him at all.

        In this case, the guy’s brain has identified Leo as “part of this whole thing that I;m refusing to acknowlege,”

      • awgiedawgie
        July 12, 2021, 11:15 am | # | Reply

        We know from Dave’s brother Bill that naturally-occuring extreme “can’t see weird at all” cases did indeed exist before this.

    • Shadowmehr
      July 12, 2021, 1:29 pm | # | Reply

      Think of Douglas Adams’ description of the S.E.P. (Somebody Else’s Problem) field. People instinctively edit out things they can’t understand or cope with, and just mentally file it as “Somebody else’s problem”. Paint a mountain pink, and people will walk around it without noticing. Here, the tents are visible, but so are all the creatures coming out of them, so the delivery guy lumps them into the same category of something he doesn’t have to deal with.

  7. Robert Nowall
    July 12, 2021, 6:56 am | # | Reply

    Pavane invited them all there. *She* should sign for the booze and the port-a-pots.

    • jdreyfuss
      July 12, 2021, 8:46 am | # | Reply

      As long as it’s pre-paid, who cares?

    • D. Walker
      July 12, 2021, 10:03 am | # | Reply

      Having worked for a parcel company, signatures are basically just a way to cover the delivery-person’s ass if a package goes missing / gets stolen.

      It’s basically a way of ensuring the delivery-person (and thus the company) can say “Hey, don’t look at me, I delivered it as instructed, if you have a problem, talk to the person who signed for the package. It was successfully delivered, whatever happened after that isn’t our fault.”

  8. Robert Nowall
    July 12, 2021, 9:36 am | # | Reply

    “On Lovetron, there is no beer.
    That’s why they drink it here.
    And when they’re gone from here
    Tip Wilkin will be paying for the beer.”

    • Ken
      July 12, 2021, 11:13 am | # | Reply

      There may be no beer, but I imagine there’s lots of mead. It’s just hard to know if they’re willing to share any.

    • awgiedawgie
      July 12, 2021, 11:19 am | # | Reply

      Beer! Beer! Glorious beer!
      Fill your steins right up to here!
      Don’t be afraid of it,
      Drink ’til you’re made of it!
      Drink to our old lager beer!

      (No filk, just great lyrics)

  9. bergerjacques
    July 12, 2021, 9:43 am | # | Reply

    Looks to me like a beer keg driver needs a severe shock to the system…. Calling Dr. Jones

    • Shadowmehr
      July 12, 2021, 1:23 pm | # | Reply

      She’d be more likely to ignore the guy and swipe the beer for her disco.

  10. Robert Nowall
    July 12, 2021, 10:11 am | # | Reply

    When they got the beer today,
    They didn’t know how to pay.
    So Tip just signed for the spawn
    In this Kansas mutant fair.
    Getting the humans to care.
    Others can’t see they’re really gone.
    When they leave for Lovetron.

    So they’re gonna stay right here
    On this spinning sphere.
    Then watch the big crowd disappear,
    And drink a beer.

    Funny how this all played through
    Too bad, but there’s things to do.
    No reason for, they guess.
    Pavane’s cosmic plans are kinda tough to understand.
    Right now it makes no sense.
    They can’t make it all make sense.

    So they’re gonna stay right here
    On this spinning sphere.
    Then watch the big crowd disappear,
    And drink a beer.

    So long, their friends, looks like this is the end,
    They won’t forget you.
    And some other time they’d like to

    Stay right here
    On this spinning sphere.
    Then watch the big crowd disappear,
    And drink a beer.
    Drink a beer,
    Drink a beer, yeah.

    —from “Drink a Beer,” Jim Beavers and Chris Stapleton, sung by Luke Bryan.

  11. Jim Janney
    July 12, 2021, 10:49 am | # | Reply

    Beer and port-o-pots naturally go together.

  12. Robert Nowall
    July 12, 2021, 11:31 am | # | Reply

    Sign for twenty good kegs of the beer. The humans can’t see what is near. It might be so dotty, but with Port-a-Potties, there’s something to fix right down here.

  13. Regret
    July 12, 2021, 12:51 pm | # | Reply

    20 kegs and 50 portapots? Depending on the keg size that is quite the mild party.

    • awgiedawgie
      July 12, 2021, 2:09 pm | # | Reply

      Most of those in attendance can’t consume beverages and don’t use the toilet.

    • Robert Nowall
      July 12, 2021, 3:45 pm | # | Reply

      Well, you had to order some snacks, too.

  14. paulagee66
    July 12, 2021, 2:34 pm | # | Reply

    I’m just loving Tip’s outfit

  15. Kyle
    July 12, 2021, 2:41 pm | # | Reply

    Loving the background work for these empty fields.

  16. David B Huber
    July 12, 2021, 9:59 pm | # | Reply

    I’ve forgotten – was it established that Reality Blindness is an application of the mind control tech Anasigma purchased from Whimsy?

    • Robert Nowall
      July 12, 2021, 10:30 pm | # | Reply

      Apparently part of it, but they assembled a number of [mad] technological advances to deploy and create it. There was a summary of them somewhere in the strip, but I forget just where (or what.)

      • David B Huber
        July 12, 2021, 10:38 pm | # | Reply

        Did Dr. Lee contribute? Or maybe derive a cure?

        • awgiedawgie
          July 13, 2021, 12:15 pm | # | Reply

          I didn’t get the impression back then that Virginia was working on the Cure, although the next strip really does look that way.

          Artie’s remark in that 3rd panel was overlooking Unity. Or maybe Artie was truly unaware that Unity’s brain was cloned from Mell’s DNA, which was sold to them by Helen. That’s the principal reason for Virginia knowing Helen’s name.

          • Robert Nowall
            July 13, 2021, 4:15 pm | #

            Found what comic I was thinking of, http://skin-horse.com/comic/the-popped-con/ though it just mentions one.

          • David B Huber
            July 13, 2021, 11:11 pm | #

            awgiedawgie, from what I’ve seen Artie being unaware would require direct intervention by Helen, would it not?

            Robert, thank you SO MUCH for that link! Now I wonder how Anasigma is using the mind control software…

          • awgiedawgie
            July 15, 2021, 1:36 am | #

            Unity was created in secret. So it’s doubtful that even most of the people who were part of that project knew of the origin of the DNA. They may not even have known that they were using a cloned brain rather than an ordinary human brain. Virginia is the brain specialist, however, so it’s a safe bet that she knew all about it.

            On the other hand, Artie’s just a super-genius. He’s not all-knowing (no matter how much he’d like people to think that he is). Apart for her penchant for wanton destruction, Unity doesn’t really exhibit much outwardly that Artie would recognize as being “Mell-like”.

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