Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2020-05-11
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2020-05-11

by shaenon on May 11, 2020 at 12:01 am
Chapter: The Dreadful Future
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Discussion (39) ¬

  1. Robert Nowall
    May 11, 2020, 12:39 am | # | Reply

    Nick changed shirts. “Nuttin Atoll?”

    • s854
      May 11, 2020, 1:39 am | # | Reply

      Robert Nowall: Monkey Island, according to tvtropes.com

      • M. Alan Thomas II
        May 11, 2020, 3:25 pm | # | Reply

        It’s in Escape from Monkey Island, and it’s also the site of Hellbeard the Unrepentant’s Puppet Theater (relevant to Tip).

    • wizard4169
      September 6, 2021, 4:00 pm | # | Reply

      Nick changes shirts pretty regularly. It’s always an in-joke, if you’re paying attention.

  2. Aardvarker
    May 11, 2020, 12:43 am | # | Reply

    Er, someone care to explain the “rolling donut” bit? I’m feeling a bit thick today.

    • Efogoto
      May 11, 2020, 12:46 am | # | Reply

      “Go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut,” murmured Paul Lazzaro in his azure nest. “Go take a flying fuck at the moon”

      ― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

      • Aardvarker
        May 11, 2020, 12:52 am | # | Reply

        I’ve never read Vonnegut, so that explains my confusion. Cheers!

        • Andy4Hire
          May 11, 2020, 7:37 pm | # | Reply

          Neither have I, so I was just as perplexed. Thanks for asking that one for us, Aardvarker!

        • awgiedawgie
          May 11, 2020, 8:46 pm | # | Reply

          Nor I. But I know how Nick’s mind works, so I inferred pretty much the same thing.

        • Terry Hunt
          May 15, 2020, 7:27 pm | # | Reply

          It’s not confined to Vonnegut. I first encountered it (in the form of “. . . running fuck . . .”) in the 1967 novel ‘HMS Leviathan’ (an aircraft carrier) by John Winton, an ex-RN writer of 20th century naval fiction (often humorous) and general naval history books. I inferred that it was generally current in the services.

      • jdreyfuss
        May 11, 2020, 8:02 am | # | Reply

        I can’t believe I didn’t catch that.

      • Storm Saxon's Gall Bladder
        May 11, 2020, 8:37 am | # | Reply

        a fairly common insult in the early eighties. i did not know the Vonnegut origin.

        • Efogoto
          May 11, 2020, 10:14 pm | # | Reply

          I remember it from high school in the late seventies.

          • Clifton
            May 16, 2020, 8:27 pm | #

            Same. Nick must be a true connoisseur of half-forgotten and under-used insults.

            I think there used to be a whole series of possible targets for “Go take a flying fuck at…”

      • Xerxes Aragon
        May 11, 2020, 10:10 am | # | Reply

        Or the extended version: Go take a flying Philadelphia fuck in a rolling doughnut.

  3. Ogden Wernstrom
    May 11, 2020, 12:55 am | # | Reply

    This reminds me of the scene where some soul devouring demon thing can’t find Cerebus’ soul.

  4. David B Huber
    May 11, 2020, 1:37 am | # | Reply

    Tonight’s episode of “CSI: Dead People” – Guilt Remains Sacred

  5. s854
    May 11, 2020, 1:49 am | # | Reply

    Tip should definitely try to psychoanalyse himself again (even if he has never been trained in psychoanalysis). The fact that he sprained something last time he tried is a good sign. It shows that he can’t actually disappear up his own fundament – he doesn’t fit.

    • Sailorleo
      May 31, 2020, 6:47 pm | # | Reply

      Could have sworn we already knew his ego was too big to fit up his arse.

  6. Dorcus
    May 11, 2020, 6:33 am | # | Reply

    Tip always seems to vacillate between strong empathy and narcissistic lack of empathy.

    • D. Walker
      May 11, 2020, 7:47 am | # | Reply

      I sort of suspect he doesn’t actually have real empathy.

      Being good at analyzing other people’s thoughts or motivations doesn’t automatically mean you can empathize with them. The former is a kind of pattern recognition – the latter is emotional resonance.

      We’ve seen Tip -sympathize- with others, but I don’t think we’ve ever seen him feel anything on anyone else’s behalf. All his emotions appear to be his alone.

      If you told him a terribly sad story about your troubles he might try to cheer you up, but I don’t think he’d ever break down crying over it. He understands things on a logical level, and tries to shape events as he thinks fits by talking to people to alter their mood or thoughts, but we’ve had very little evidence that he ever really shares other people’s feelings in a truly empathetic manner.

    • Robert Nowall
      May 11, 2020, 7:55 am | # | Reply

      He’s the kind of psychologist who worked with animals in mazes and such. No real empathy, just intellectual curiosity. A latter-day “Psychologist Who Wouldn’t Do Awful Things to Rats.”

    • jdreyfuss
      May 11, 2020, 8:08 am | # | Reply

      He’s a narcissist. He has cognitive empathy but no affective empathy. He’s very good at recognizing people’s feelings and diagnosing problems but no sense of how to respond to them appropriately and doesn’t consider events that don’t involve himself to be important.

  7. davidbreslin101
    May 11, 2020, 7:04 am | # | Reply

    “… jelly or ring?”

    • D. Walker
      May 11, 2020, 9:30 am | # | Reply

      ¿Porque no los dos?

    • jdreyfuss
      May 11, 2020, 2:10 pm | # | Reply

      Better question: cake, yeast ring, or cruller? What about a bear claw?

      • awgiedawgie
        May 11, 2020, 8:47 pm | # | Reply

        Tip’s not averse to orgies… why not all of the above?

  8. David B Huber
    May 11, 2020, 10:05 am | # | Reply

    This suggests the “Dream of your parents” spell manifests in humans as the person who raised them. Anasigma involvement less likely.

    Perhaps our “CSI: Dead People” team should consult with Aimee?

    I wonder if Lovelace has been affected?

    • D. Walker
      May 11, 2020, 10:18 am | # | Reply

      There’s still a little wiggle room, in that if Anasigma are specifically picking individual targets, they might consider both Nick and Tip to be non-human (Nick for his helicopter conversion, and Tip for his werewolf infection), but yeah, less likely.

      • Shadowmehr
        May 11, 2020, 1:12 pm | # | Reply

        In the other hand, this does seem to lend credence to the “blanket effect” theory, that they are within some field that covers the area. Given that it even gave Bubbles a nightmare , it might be hidden inside one of the zombies. (Insert your own joke here.)

    • Robert Nowall
      May 11, 2020, 3:10 pm | # | Reply

      So far, it’s only in the immediate area: the Habakkuk and their present location (Bad Island?) Maybe it’s something with some specific area-connected goal.

      • awgiedawgie
        May 11, 2020, 5:24 pm | # | Reply

        Except that the Habakkuk is nowhere near their current location. They had to head north because of the weather on the east coast being too warm.

        It seems to be focused on the NHS’s that are close in proximity to the Skin Horse gang (including the SH gang themselves). It could be a ruse to keep them all preoccupied, while A-Sig actually targets someone in an entirely different location.

        Makes me wonder if A-Sig could somehow be using Nick’s Osprey body as a transmitter of some sort.

        • Robert Nowall
          May 11, 2020, 11:54 pm | # | Reply

          That was several adventures ago…they could’a shifted south again…and Nick might need to conserve fuel, being cut off from his paying supplier by Skin-Horse going rogue.

          • awgiedawgie
            May 12, 2020, 7:29 am | #

            Fair enough. But even with normal weather, the Habakkuk wouldn’t be able to sail close to Florida. The water is far too warm there.

  9. mickeyjf
    May 11, 2020, 3:20 pm | # | Reply

    Everyone else is upset/disturbed. Tip is merely surprised.

    • D. Walker
      May 11, 2020, 3:23 pm | # | Reply

      More evidence that he is, in fact, a psychopath.

  10. Robert Nowall
    May 11, 2020, 3:41 pm | # | Reply

    Nobody’s any better.
    Makes me feel bad for the rest.
    Nobody’s got it half as good as me,
    Baby, I’m the best.

    Everyone’s lookin’, they’re always around me.
    I’ll try to shine my inner light.
    It’s like heaven around me
    The eyes that found me
    Are creepin’ out my beauty day and night.

    And nobody’s any better.
    Makes me feel bad for the rest.
    Nobody’s got it half as good as me,
    Baby, I’m the best.

    The way I behold me
    I just want to hold me
    I’m fascinatin’ wonder, through and through.
    It keeps me confessin’
    And keeps me cross-dressin’
    Can I psychoanalyze the thing I do?

    Oh, and nobody’s any better.
    Makes me feel bad for the rest.
    Nobody’s got it half as good as me,
    Baby, baby, darlin’, I’m the best.

    Baby, I’m the best.
    Darlin’, I’m the best.
    Baby, I’m the best,
    Oh, oh, oh…

    —from “Nobody Does It Better,” Carole Sager / Marvin Hamlisch, sung by Carly Simon.

  11. Robert Nowall
    May 11, 2020, 6:18 pm | # | Reply

    Oh, yeah. Tip Wilkin doesn’t say whether his dream was a dream or a nightmare. And what was he and his mother doing in the dream?

    • D. Walker
      May 11, 2020, 7:23 pm | # | Reply

      …spraining something?

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