Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2014-02-01
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2014-02-01

by shaenon on February 1, 2014 at 12:01 am
Chapter: My Brother Sam Is Dead
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Discussion (59) ¬

  1. Corye
    February 1, 2014, 12:16 am | # | Reply

    aww, he needs to talk to gerda!

  2. Eddurd
    February 1, 2014, 12:28 am | # | Reply

    Damn you, Shaeffrey … I’ve used that tune from “The Wizard of Oz” too many times already. Let me sleep on it, I’ll come up with something else.

    Which, of course, won’t stop me from singing it to myself all day. Argh.

    • Seth
      February 1, 2014, 1:30 am | # | Reply

      May I recommend Queen’s “You’re My Best Friend” or Jefferson Airplane’s “My Best Friend”?

    • Seth
      February 1, 2014, 1:35 am | # | Reply

      Or perhaps “If I Needed Someone” by The Beatles?

      • lacuna
        February 1, 2014, 11:41 am | # | Reply

        or perhaps Weezer’s version

    • luciferlordofpride
      May 5, 2016, 3:26 pm | # | Reply

      As long as we’re recommending songs…

      Somebody to Love (Queen)

      You Belong With Me (Taylor Swift)

      Slow Down (The Beatles)

      Can’t Fight This Feeling (REO Speedwagon)

      I Hate Myself For Loving You (Joan Jett)

      I Wanna Know What Love Is (Foreigner)

      The Girl From Ipanema (Frank Sinatra)

      You Sent Me Flying (Amy Winehouse)

  3. BG27
    February 1, 2014, 1:01 am | # | Reply

    What the heck? He FRIEND ZONED her?!? (Even though he may not have thought that was what he did…)

    There are very few scenarios that could go worse than that…

    • Jon Perry
      February 1, 2014, 6:54 am | # | Reply

      I dunno, I’ve always thought of the “friend zone” as a sitcom cliche that doesn’t necessarily occur in the wild. But then my wife and I were friends before we hooked up 14 (oh god!) years ago, as were my sister and brother-in-law, so maybe my data is biased?

      • irdburns
        February 1, 2014, 9:49 am | # | Reply

        Yep. Happens in the wild all the time. Ah well. Friends are still good.

      • equisetophyta
        February 2, 2014, 2:00 am | # | Reply

        Weeeeeeell, “friendzoned” is an attempt to turn “I have an unreciprocated crush on a friend” into “my friend is clearly a bad person for not wanting to bone me.”

        People believe in lots of things that don’t exist. Please continue to not believe in this one.

        • Darekun
          February 2, 2014, 7:14 pm | # | Reply

          It’s probably even worse than that — I, for example, only date friends. The shortest I’ve been friends with anyone before dating them is about seven months.
          I think the friendzone was invented by pickup artists to mark women like me as “not up for one-night stands”, and widely misinterpreted.

          • Kanta
            June 12, 2014, 12:25 am | #

            “Friend-zone,” was invented by Joey, from the show Friends, to explain why Rachel wouldn’t want to date Ross again after being friends with him for too long.

        • Dave Harmon
          February 3, 2014, 8:40 pm | # | Reply

          equisetophyta: I like that phrasing, may I quote it?

          On the flip side, Darekun: Back in my bad-old-days, one person I knew commented “well, if I’m not having sex with my friends, who *am* I having sex with? People I meet in bars?

        • irdburns
          April 14, 2014, 5:01 am | # | Reply

          It CAN mean that. It can also mean people who specifically don’t date close friends even if they otherwise would, because of social complications. There’s a school of thought on this subject which leads people to act in many nonsensical ways.

        • Erebus
          January 22, 2017, 3:00 pm | # | Reply

          I can’t help but consider that a hideously trite response to complex emotions that is entirely lacking in any empathy at all. Yes it can be about blame, but it can just as easily be lamentation.

    • SotiCoto
      August 22, 2014, 8:31 am | # | Reply

      The “friend zone” is contentious topic with a misleading name. The difference being that not all friends are equal. Some are friends with the potential for transference. Others are “sorry, but I don’t think of you that way” friends. The latter is what is generally referred to as the “friend zone”.

      Sidenote : Averting complete breakdown of communication in the latter case can be considered quite a feat…

  4. John Campbell
    February 1, 2014, 1:24 am | # | Reply

    Your best friend who is totally responsible for you not having a schvantz in the first place.

  5. Jay
    February 1, 2014, 2:15 am | # | Reply

    Oof, now there’s a thought. Nick was a hikikomori when he was human, and his in-person social circle hasn’t gotten that much wider since then. She literally is his best friend; depending on how he sees his cow-orkers, she may be his only friend! Not that I *want* to see the ‘ship sink, but that’s not a great basis for a healthy relationship…

    • Jacob Haller
      February 1, 2014, 9:10 am | # | Reply

      He and Marcie and Chris hang out a lot.

      • Rick Kerrigan
        February 2, 2014, 6:32 am | # | Reply

        he’s pretty tight with the department of irradiation and possibly friends with that time traveling boy among others. He just doesn’t really feel the need to make more friends.

        • Dave Harmon
          February 3, 2014, 8:48 pm | # | Reply

          What time travelling boy? Did we get a crossover with PS238 or something? (The Shaenonverse does have a time-traveling girl wandering about…)

          • JET73L
            March 8, 2015, 7:30 am | #

            Jonah Yu? I remember that they were online rivals before Nick got geeknapped, but I think Nick only knows Jonah from one single-question phone call in this timeline, if even that.

    • GammarayCanon
      February 2, 2014, 6:45 am | # | Reply

      “Cow-orkers” may just be the best typo ever.

      • Peter Eng
        February 3, 2014, 1:29 am | # | Reply

        Why do you think it’s a typo?

        Cow-orker is a standard way of describing a co-worker who is barely competent at the job.

  6. Manifesta
    February 1, 2014, 2:26 am | # | Reply

    tune: “Do I Hear a Waltz?,” Richard Rogers & Stephen Sondheim, Do I Hear a Waltz?, 1965, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcSWZM-PuFc

    If I had a schvantz
    I’d bang her if I had a schvantz
    She took it away
    But in my book she’s still A-OK

    If I had a schvantz
    Standing tall and straight like a sconce
    I would show her the man I had become
    Then I’d get me some

    Loving her would take a miracle
    She’s become
    My best friend
    Our situation’s satirical
    Guess my dream
    Has to end

    So there’s my response
    Say “my best friend” with nonchalance
    But oh, I would show my emotions, if I had a schvantz!

  7. wykstrad
    February 1, 2014, 2:57 am | # | Reply

    COWARD!

  8. GammarayCanon
    February 1, 2014, 5:42 am | # | Reply

    You’d think a designated “sane” scientist would be a little more genre savvy, huh?

    • daibhidc
      February 1, 2014, 7:45 am | # | Reply

      The mad scientists are the genre savvy ones, execpt when they have contractual genre blindness. The sane ones are convinced this is reality and it doesn’t work like a film/tv show/webcomic.

      • GammarayCanon
        February 1, 2014, 1:29 pm | # | Reply

        Even so, stories reflect how people think. In Nick’s case, cliched stuff (especially that of the almost-disney movie genre) should indicate how he’ll think pretty well.

  9. butting
    February 1, 2014, 6:23 am | # | Reply

    Man if ONLY they’d both use the resources around them to learn how to *properly* have heart to hearts.

    Well… if ONLY the resources around them weren’t Tip and Unity… (okay, bound to be hi-larious either way, really, and oh goodie it’s a weekend cliffhanger)

    (aside: this may just about be the prettiest strip I think I’ve ever seen from Shaenon. it’s *gorgeous*, and with Pancha’s touch and with the curve-ball of the pink dating sim there’s just so much here to WUV IN ALL CAPS. alsoplus, belatedly realised where she was in panel one, and oh the *feels*…)

  10. John Smith
    February 1, 2014, 9:08 am | # | Reply

    ahhhhhh why.

    I realize that this is not an unrealistic outcome given nick’s personality, but it’s also the least satisfying ending to the arc you could possibly have used.

  11. Eddurd
    February 1, 2014, 9:21 am | # | Reply

    (TUNE: “You’re The One That I Want” from Grease, John Farrar)

    Ginny’s a friend, but we’re not dating
    ‘Cause I don’t have a bod!
    If I did, then we’d be mating …
    Do some copulating!

    The way it is now,
    We can’t go to far …
    I’m a disembodied brain!
    Can’t do her nohow,
    ‘Cause I’m in a jar
    In the cockpit of a plane!
    (It’s insane,
    It’s a mother-loving pain!)

     If I just had a schvantz!
     Yes, if I had a schvantz!
     (no more failure!)
     If I just had a schvantz!
     Yes, if I had a schvantz!
     (ge-ni-ta-lia!)
     If it could hang,
     Then we could bang!

  12. Shadowmehr
    February 1, 2014, 10:15 am | # | Reply

    Cue the background violins . . . .

  13. Martin G Diehl
    February 1, 2014, 11:38 am | # | Reply

    I hope that your readers have (or can find) a copy of, “Yiddish for Yankees;: Or, Funny, you don’t look gentile”

  14. Wdot
    February 1, 2014, 11:56 am | # | Reply

    Not exactly the outcome I had imagined. Color me surprised.

  15. Pygar
    February 1, 2014, 12:32 pm | # | Reply

    Did they ever say what was done with his OEM body? If it was frozen…

    • rasufelle
      February 1, 2014, 12:42 pm | # | Reply

      MRE’s.

    • Manifesta
      February 1, 2014, 8:03 pm | # | Reply

      Someone,I think maybe Violet Bee, said that it was disposed of.

    • Tetra Valent
      February 1, 2014, 10:18 pm | # | Reply

      “You really don’t want to know.”
      http://skin-horse.com/comic/when-you-are-so/

      • Caelo
        February 2, 2014, 9:07 am | # | Reply

        i’ts people soylite is people

  16. The Occupant
    February 1, 2014, 2:28 pm | # | Reply

    You know, if they can make hyper-realistic drones in female form, surely they can make male ones as well. Nick may not be programmed in multiple techniques, but surly something fully functional can be procured.

    • GammarayCanon
      February 1, 2014, 3:05 pm | # | Reply

      That one apparently cost millions. Then again, it’s been built before, so even without Anasigma’s help, she may be capable of building a drone. And if she’s as capable as she seems, she can probably find or otherwise create a source of funding to use.

      • rasufelle
        February 2, 2014, 12:35 am | # | Reply

        But in a male model, where would the gyroscopes go?

        • GammarayCanon
          February 2, 2014, 5:59 am | # | Reply

          Presumably, slightly, well…lower.

          • The Occupant
            February 4, 2014, 8:23 pm | #

            It’s not like the gynoid had very big gyroscopes to begin with. Just make the android model a little huskier if you have to.

  17. jdreyfuss
    February 1, 2014, 2:33 pm | # | Reply

    Isn’t “my best friend whom I want to share my life with and bang” a pretty apt description of love anyway?

  18. Diana
    February 1, 2014, 4:14 pm | # | Reply

    Nick, I swear to God. You were never cautious or diplomatic before–why now?!

    • irdburns
      February 1, 2014, 6:52 pm | # | Reply

      Because now it matters.

      • mnementh
        February 2, 2014, 12:57 am | # | Reply

        That, and because he’s slightly bang-impaired. 😉

        ‘course; treating her right is probably the only way he’s ever gonna have a chance at fixing that.

        On the other hand, ESPECIALLY with Ginny’s history… it is most likely Nick’s very unavailability which makes him so attractive to her. All of us fixate on an unattainable mate at some point in our lives; she merely “connects the dots” with them…

        mnem
        *Passes out face-down on keyboard; will wake up with waffle-face*

  19. Michael Brewer
    February 2, 2014, 3:48 am | # | Reply

    Nick really needs to get that simulated internal environment fixed. Or a drone that’s “fully functional.” I’m reasonably sure Dr. Lee could assist with either or both of those.

  20. DanD
    February 3, 2014, 11:31 pm | # | Reply

    Am I really the first one to point out that control over internet adult toys exist?

    (To be fair, I only know this because a different web-comic referenced them, specifically with respect to their utility for a disembodied human mind living in a computer)

    • Kitirena
      May 13, 2016, 4:46 am | # | Reply

      You mean “teledildonics”, nyao? I hear that they’re kinda overrated…

  21. maarvarq
    January 17, 2016, 7:18 am | # | Reply

    Virginia blushes – 25

    • KA$H
      March 6, 2016, 7:30 pm | # | Reply

      27

  22. Darkstarr
    May 13, 2016, 4:45 am | # | Reply

    I think this is more what Nick had in mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaZpZQG2z10

  23. Hielario
    March 14, 2018, 11:47 am | # | Reply

    I bet Dr. Lee could actually BUILD you a schwantz.

  24. Ellie F.
    June 6, 2018, 11:51 am | # | Reply

    It’s time to accept the hard truths in life, my dear.
    Yes, you’re in love with a military helicopter.
    An honestly cute one, too.

  25. WJS
    July 11, 2019, 9:39 am | # | Reply

    Well damn. It looks like that ship just hit a reef.

  26. Knuckles
    January 25, 2022, 1:17 pm | # | Reply

    Get you a man who is literally over 15 tons and still thinks they aren’t enough man for you.

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