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Currently On Hiatus: Please Enjoy A New Reader Question Every Weekday!

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Either he died, he cheated on her, life got complicated for him and he left her OR Anthony was born a harpy and he freaked and left.

That is a skeptical face there in panel 2. Very, very skeptical.

Teenage attitude. Love at first sight is completely Disney fairy tale BS. It Does Not Happen In Real Life.
Until of course it does happen to them. ;)

I agree, but people tend to believe that nonsense. In my mind love is an organic thing, growing with the relationship. What she had was naivete, infatuation and a headstrong desire to stick her head in the sand. People want it easy, just having it plonked down into your lap. Not the working to find a person you can trust and care about.

I’m thinking he wanted to return to his life sailing around and wasn’t ready for a omitted relationship?

Mrs. Gillis’s expression in panel 4 kinda creeped me out… She was REALLY obsessed…..

Consider that she admittedly spent her whole life to that point stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere. If some swarthy gentleman swept me off my feet and took me on a whirlwind trip of some of the most beautiful places on Earth, I’d have stars in my eyes too!

Also, this all leads to me wondering, why is Anthony such a past white boy? Heheh love how this is like a Disney movie gone bad. Her expression really parallel the mindless happy looks of many a Disney princess–especially Ariel.

My guess is that Anthony’s Liverpool-native father is pasty white himself, by nature. Here, we’re seeing him with a tan built up from months under the tropical sun. Just wait til next spring!

Ze wist het… ze wist het vanaf het begin, dat hij er op een dag mee te maken zou krijgen. Wat ik me afvraag, zou het toeval zijn dat Blanche en Anthony vrienden werden?

“She knew … she knew from the beginning that he would have to face one day. Along What I wonder, would it be a coincidence that Blanche and Anthony were friends?” That’s a good question. While it specifically says that Blanche and Tony met in grammar school, that doesn’t mean their mothers didn’t know each other before then;they certainly likely connected via their sons and the school -apparently the Blue Coat School.

Hey, if she visits Madam Wu’s shop, she could go back to her friends and family.

I think that only worked for Anthony because the magic used to make his mother human was strong enough to make her permanently human but it became far weaker when it transferred down. This from human to freaking out harpy.

We have no idea if Ophelia has ever been Tested by Vadona.
If Vadona or Tim still has that Nokk Medallion though, maybe it could break the spell on Ophelia, if Anthony was to give it to her.
https://www.skindeepcomic.com/archive/october-reader-question-12/
The reason why I’m thinking this is because Vadona gave it to Anthony to Test him, and it did break the spell keeping him human. So going by what is known about Medallion Magic, that Medallion might not work for anyone else, until Anthony gives it to that person.

Only if it bonds with him. Which only happens if it is the right medallion for him. In this case the medallion magic just broke the original spell, likely by trying but failing to interact with him. My impression of medallion magic is it is pretty potent and complicated stuff.

Who is ‘Madam Wu’, which shop does she operate, and where is it located?

In that second to last panel, ophelia looks like she is holding her tummy the way pregnant ladies seem to, suggesting she is.

Maybe Tony was born a harpy and hia dad freaked, maybe just the sheer thought of a family life made him leave, we won’t know untill kory says so, but I’m still eager to find out why he left such a lovely young lady behind.

I hope Tony wasn’t born a harpy and that’s the reason his dad left. Can you imagine dumping that – the fact that he drove his dad away – on top of everything that’s already happened? I mean, even if he was born human (which I believe), his dad still potentially left because he didn’t want to deal with a family. So Tony might still blame himself :/
That’s all we need; more self loathing

I can’t see how that would be. Particularly because how the hell would she hush it up? Wouldn’t more people know? But I can see her trying to create ties with the local Avalon and her hubby found out. Imagine how that level of freaky would get to him.

I don’t think Tony was born a harpy. After all, the medallion broke an old or weak spell. If he was born a harpy, to become a human he’s have to have a similar spell performed on him, and for something described as “permanent”, sixteen years isn’t a lot of time and unlikely enough to make it “old”. It would make more sense for his mum’s spell to break, losing potency with time and being passed down rather than being the original receiver of the spell.

Your comic popped up on Groovy, Kinda’s list of comics he recommends, and I’ve been reading the archives ever since. I really like your underlying theme that people are people, no matter what they look like–“Skin Deep”, indeed. I also like your sense of humor, and your fine ear for dialog. Count me in. :)

Question: She said she’s never met a human before, but there are no such thing male Harpies? So what Does happen when a Harpie has a male child? Does it take after it’s dad if he’s another beastie, since they’re more then one species on the island or do they only have daughters?

I suspect the females are harpies and the males are, if breed with a human, human. Otherwise the males are whatever critter the harpy breed with to make babies. Of course it could be harpy baby making always ends in females too and thus making a male one extremely valuable to the harpy community.

It seems pretty natural that he’d take on the race of his father. After all, harpies have to mate outside of their breed if there are no male harpies!

He doesn’t really look like he cares about her at all. He looks possessive at best, but she’s too in love to see it. Everything about that man’s body language says to me he just sees Ophelia as some pretty thing to hang off his arm until she’s too much trouble or something prettier comes along. Considering the last picture we see him in she was pregnant, I think he left because of the pregnancy. She had become more trouble than she was worth to him.

[I’m not saying all men are like that, not by a long shot, but a few are, and I get bad, bad vibes from Tony’s father. Given the strong implication that the relationship didn’t really go the way Ophelia remembers it, I think that’s deliberate on Kory’s part.]

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