Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2022-06-15
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2022-06-15

by shaenon on June 15, 2022 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Phantomwise
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Discussion (57) ¬

  1. Moe Lane
    June 15, 2022, 12:03 am | # | Reply

    BRANDING!

  2. Moe Lane
    June 15, 2022, 12:05 am | # | Reply

    …I’m going to miss the filks.

  3. Alphaghoul
    June 15, 2022, 12:07 am | # | Reply

    Wait, we never found out what the real Lovetron plan was.

    • woozy
      June 15, 2022, 12:22 am | # | Reply

      That seems the natural conclusion to the big reveal fro when the mothership returns, methinks.

    • Simberto
      June 15, 2022, 3:21 am | # | Reply

      The real Lovetron was in our hearts all along!

      • Duane B.
        June 15, 2022, 11:31 am | # | Reply

        And, you were there, and you, and you.

        • Robert Nowall
          June 15, 2022, 3:36 pm | # | Reply

          He sits there all day long, in his own world, staring at that toy. What’s he thinking about?

  4. thejoemoose
    June 15, 2022, 12:40 am | # | Reply

    Anyone else gonna comment how cute they look with sunglasses?

    • Acoustic Rob
      June 15, 2022, 8:09 am | # | Reply

      The kid putting on Chris’s sunglasses was cute AF.

      • gyrre
        June 15, 2022, 10:07 am | # | Reply

        Agreed

      • Frank Hightower
        June 15, 2022, 10:07 am | # | Reply

        any similarity to actual kids is purely coincidental

        • Duane B.
          June 15, 2022, 11:32 am | # | Reply

          Never happens in real life.

          • awgiedawgie
            June 15, 2022, 7:34 pm | #

            Is this real life, or is this just fantasy?

  5. Jerry Aethers
    June 15, 2022, 12:43 am | # | Reply

    It’s like the top is only made up of people who are determined to keep up with the Joneses, but never Mr. and Mrs. Jones themselves.

    • Shadowmehr
      June 15, 2022, 1:45 pm | # | Reply

      More like they had the Joneses shot, and are now determined to keep the top slot for themselves.

    • Daibhid C
      June 15, 2022, 2:02 pm | # | Reply

      The secret nobody wants to admit is that the Joneses are also trying to keep up with the Joneses. This is what makes it futile; it’s a Red Queen race where every time you get something exclusive because the Joneses have it, the Joneses have to get something even exclusiver. (See also: Star-Bellied Sneetches.)

      • BMunro
        June 15, 2022, 6:30 pm | # | Reply

        And at the very top, you’re left with claiming you’re going to create a colony on Mars in a decade or so.

  6. Jerry Aethers
    June 15, 2022, 12:45 am | # | Reply

    Also: More Kids!

    • Robert Nowall
      June 15, 2022, 7:17 pm | # | Reply

      I’m waiting for Artie and Sergio’s kids to show up. How big is a gerbil litter?

  7. Freezer
    June 15, 2022, 1:07 am | # | Reply

    Hey! It’s (not really) Robin!

    • OneUniverse
      June 16, 2022, 6:19 pm | # | Reply

      That was my first reaction, too!

  8. theysabet
    June 15, 2022, 1:38 am | # | Reply

    Man, *I* want a job where I can call my boss my ‘Corporate Overlord’ and get away with it…

    • woozy
      June 15, 2022, 12:24 pm | # | Reply

      Nitpicker here. Marcie is calling herself the “corporate overlord”; there is no indication the employees are allowed to call her that… although knowing Marcie she’d be okay with it. Which raises the question: would a job where the boss calls themselves your “corporate overlord” be a decent compromise or would it be worse?

      • LuckyCheshire
        June 15, 2022, 4:44 pm | # | Reply

        I guess that argument hinges on whether Marcie is technically self-employed or not. If the former, she *is* talking about her boss, who is herself :p

  9. Robert Nowall
    June 15, 2022, 4:50 am | # | Reply

    So where did the formerly extirpated prisoners go? ‘Cause I had the impression extirpation involved brain extraction…

    • John Schilling
      June 15, 2022, 6:58 am | # | Reply

      Cloned bodies are a thing in this universe, as are mental up- and downloading. If A-Sig doesn’t have those technologies in-house, their boss knows a guy who knows a guy…

    • David B Huber
      June 15, 2022, 7:00 am | # | Reply

      Good question, Robert! I’d expect Dr. Lee reverse engineered Dr. Jones’ Clone-O-Mat to allow reintegration, which would explain why Chris leads with a status update.

      • Robert Nowall
        June 15, 2022, 12:39 pm | # | Reply

        Then there could be a bunch of former prisoners wandering around, all of whom look like Nick…

        • David B Huber
          June 15, 2022, 4:18 pm | # | Reply

          Nah. Insert brain, dispense copy cloned from brain tissue.

          Although there are copies of Nick and Baron Mistycorn running around VR Whimsy World somewhere…

  10. Duth Olec
    June 15, 2022, 8:10 am | # | Reply

    I can’t wait to see what Moustachio and Hitty’s kids look like.

    • gyrre
      June 15, 2022, 10:08 am | # | Reply

      You joke …

      • Frank Hightower
        June 15, 2022, 6:59 pm | # | Reply

        but we already know Hitty thinks in litters

    • Duane B.
      June 15, 2022, 11:40 am | # | Reply

      they’ll be a chip off the old block.

  11. caelomius
    June 15, 2022, 10:33 am | # | Reply

    So lead lined undies I’m guessing.

  12. Ken
    June 15, 2022, 11:40 am | # | Reply

    “Elite VR Retirement Shelving” sounds way better than the nursing homes we’re all likely to wind up in someday.

    • David B Huber
      June 15, 2022, 11:57 am | # | Reply

      Just put me on an ice flow and wish me luck! 🙂

    • Robert Nowall
      June 15, 2022, 12:56 pm | # | Reply

      Sounds like a crypt in a mausoleum. But enough about “Ms. Garrity and the Graves.” (Been waiting years to slip that in.)

      • Forrest M Davis
        June 15, 2022, 3:19 pm | # | Reply

        Wow, I haven’t seen that one! Sounds good based on the IMDB synopsis though, I’ll have to track it down and watch it. Assuming Robert is referring to the episode titled “Mr Garrity and the Graves”, anyway. If not then I’m even more curious…

        Side question: as a fellow Heinlein appreciator, have you seen the Japanese adaptation of “The Door into Summer” movie that’s on Netflix? Might just be the best movie version of his work that I’ve seen yet, even though they had to simplify the plot and relationships a bit for brevity.

        • Robert Nowall
          June 15, 2022, 3:31 pm | # | Reply

          I just heard about that adaptation a few days ago. I’m leery of some adaptations—for instance, reports of changes made in a recent adaptation of Asimov’s “Foundation” were pretty offputting. I’ve been told that the adaptation of “Starship Troopers” involved them working on a similar story and then buying rights and incorporating names to avoid a lawsuit. That one was awful and none of the others were particularly good (though I haven’t sat through all of them).

          But the proverbial good adaptation could be out there, and this could be it. Hollywood, or some independent production company, can make good movies of books in other fields, though science fiction has its own difficulties.

          ****

          That episode of “The Twilight Zone” has been on my mind since I came here—it seems an obvious pun—but it took years to find a place to slip it in.

          • Candace
            June 16, 2022, 12:40 am | #

            The recent “Foundation” TV series was actually a pretty good original science fiction series, just not a very good adaptation of Asimov’s “Foundation” series. If you can pretend you’re watching something new and original, instead of something supposedly based on Asimov, then it’s possible you might be able to enjoy the series for what it is. (If you’re not able to forget that it was supposed to be based on the “Foundation” series, of course, that’s totally understandable. Everyone’s brain works differently.)

            I do wish when TV show runners want to put on an original show, they would just create an original show, and not try to shoehorn their ideas into a pre-existing work. They could even include some kind of attribution in the credits, saying “inspired by” or something to that effect, but just please don’t use the name if you’re not even going to try to do it reasonably faithfully. (I get that written works have to be adapted for visual media, but some don’t really seem to even try.)

          • Robert Nowall
            June 16, 2022, 8:59 am | #

            Well, I don’t think Asimov is particularly “filmable”—a lot of his stories involve characters sitting around chewing the fat, which can be interesting but isn’t particularly visual.

            True of a lot of literary works. What would the Council of Elrond have looked like if Peter Jackson had filmed it straight up? Flashbacks within flashbacks, and lengthy discussions of what to do about their problem.

            I’ve been told—you might guess I tend to avoid these things—that the recent adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s “The Man in the High Castle” chucked Dick’s carefully worked out back story in favor of one of their own that was nastier.

            Science fiction is a field of speculation, and that involves a lot of talking things out, with less action. So the classics might be better suited for a half hour of “The Twilight Zone” than a two-and-a-half hour movie or an open-ended streaming series.

          • Forrest M Davis
            June 20, 2022, 4:32 pm | #

            I was pretty leery of watching “The Door Into Summer” as well. My first reaction was excitement, immediately followed by a sense of preemptive dread after seeing so many horrible adaptations of R.A.H. stories, but found myself quite enjoying this movie. So very few SF or Fantasy stories get treated well by the film industry so it was nice to see one that felt right and respectful.

            They managed to keep in (almost) all of the primary story points and kept the character personalities pretty much intact. The biggest changes were bringing the two protagonists slightly closer in their birth ages and altering the specifics of their original relationship a bit; and improving our hero’s treatment of the scientist he works with in the second act.

            I’ll be quite interested in your opinion of the movie if you do get around to giving it a try.

  13. Robert Nowall
    June 15, 2022, 1:22 pm | # | Reply

    Got the last brain from AI
    And begun repatriation.
    We were working down and dirty,
    ‘Cause it ends all extirpation,

    So we go,
    Oh, no-no-no!
    Oh, no-no-no!

    ‘Cause our project’s near the finish
    But we broke off for our friends.
    We’ll be moving in the old board
    When we’ve picked up the last brain,

    We’ve gotta go,
    Oh, no-no-no!
    Oh, no-no-no!
    But we couldn’t miss the saucer comin’ home.

    Got the last brain from AI
    We’ve begun repatriation,
    We’ve got time for cake with hummingbirds
    And some parent consultation,

    Oh, no-no-no!
    Oh, no-no-no!

    Got the last brain from AI
    We must fire up the clones,
    But with Skin-Horse staff disembarkation, we are home,

    We’re in the know,
    Oh, no-no-no!
    Oh, no-no-no!
    But we couldn’t miss the saucer comin’ home.

    Oh!

    Got the last brain from AI
    And begun repatriation.
    We were working down and dirty,
    ‘Cause it ends all extirpation,

    So we go,
    Oh, no-no-no!
    Oh, no-no-no!
    And we couldn’t miss the saucer comin’ home.

    Got the last brain from AI…
    Got the last brain from AI…
    Got the last brain from AI…
    Got the last brain from AI…

    —from “Last Train to Clarksville,” written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, sung by The Monkees.

    • Daibhid C
      June 15, 2022, 1:55 pm | # | Reply

      Excellent.

    • Candace
      June 16, 2022, 12:46 am | # | Reply

      Well-done!

  14. Daibhid C
    June 15, 2022, 1:57 pm | # | Reply

    Eee! Marchris kid!

    And I, for one, welcome…

  15. Bernerlb
    June 15, 2022, 3:13 pm | # | Reply

    Is the little copter Nick’s offspring as well?

    • Robert Nowall
      June 15, 2022, 3:32 pm | # | Reply

      I think it’s the one that just dropped Chris and Marcie and their unholy spawn off. No idea of it and Nick are related.

      • Duane B.
        June 15, 2022, 5:09 pm | # | Reply

        It looked like a Kill-bot to me

  16. Robert Nowall
    June 15, 2022, 7:15 pm | # | Reply

    Chris and Marcie put in an appearance. At A-Sig they’ve run interference. They’re three now, no pair—and Chris cut his hair—a matter of hard perserverence.

  17. awgiedawgie
    June 15, 2022, 7:43 pm | # | Reply

    Wait… “AG-I prisoners”? I thought they would be A-Sig prisoners.

    • David B Huber
      June 15, 2022, 9:10 pm | # | Reply

      OOhh… Good catch, awgiedawgie!

      • Robert Nowall
        June 15, 2022, 9:41 pm | # | Reply

        Thinking they were the enforcement arm of Anasigma. But it might not account for everybody in the extirpation walnut farm—looked like some of them accepted it without putting up a fight.

  18. Rose H
    June 15, 2022, 8:18 pm | # | Reply

    I am so sad to be getting to the end, and yet also so happy that I only happened to start reading Skin Horse with perfect timing to finish my binge now of all times.

    This and Narbonic are such beautiful comics, both art-wise and emotionally.

  19. Paul Lee Burks
    June 15, 2022, 11:58 pm | # | Reply

    I found Narbonic just before it ended and have followed Skin Horse since strip one. It’s been a delightful ride.

    Which is why I hope they rug pull us and no resolutions happen. It would be the cruelest, longest planned troll ever.

    • OneUniverse
      June 16, 2022, 6:21 pm | # | Reply

      Say it ain’t so!

  20. Clifton
    June 16, 2022, 4:22 am | # | Reply

    Babies all around!

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Skin Horse by Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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