I had a GREAT time at Furry Fiesta! Thanks to everybody who showed up! Y’all made me feel like a rock star! I also have a handful of Borogove decks left, and if all my dreams come true I should get the rest this week! I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope I hope.
My next convention is Wondercon in Anaheim! I hope to see you there!
44 Comments
poor michelle :)
Kory,
It’s great to hear that you had fun with us at Furry Fiesta, and I hope that means you’ll come see us again sometime. I’m impressed that you were able to get a comic up even with us keeping you busy while you were down here.
Speaking of “impressed,” there’s a lot to be impressed with in this one. You somehow managed to give the gray floor and walls a sense of depth, and also gave the background that almost hazy feeling attics can have sometimes. Also, great job on the expressions and body language on this one. I can tell that you did some thinking about how paws and claws might work on someone used to making human gestures.
Oh…and though it’s been noted before, Michelle’s mom rocks.
Great facial expressions, very expressive hand/paw gestures….. and showing the apple does not fall far from the tree in a shared sense of snark….. shows why Michelle can be the way she is and how with more experience and support she may add that extra level of calm acceptance her mum has shown….
Pity everyone could not be as lucky to have a Mum with this level of calm…….
Look at me! With my big, scary teeth! Listen to me! As I growl and snarl and gesture angrily with my claws unsheathed! Stroke meeeee! Pleeeease!
Now go fullform, Michelle, and let her give you a belly-rub. I’m sure you could do with one right now.
She is in full-form
Got to love the expressions though..
Not full- enough. She’s still got clothes extant on her – a blue, belly-rub-obstructing top to be precise. How is one supposed to give a quadroped feline a proper belly-rub with a garment like that in the way? Or scritch her between the wings for that matter? I’m sure that that inconvenient long-sleeve is the only thing dissuading Janis from delivering a comforting belly-rub right now. >:=)>
She’s always kept her shirt in full-form. It’s the pants that go missing.
True, from what we’ve seen so far. Whereas all the guys (and Rhonda Phelton on Sheana Molloy’s character sheet) go completely bare-furred in fullform, and thus can garner belly-rubs aplenty. Which is just unfair. But there is hope for her. She hasn’t yet displayed the deep and non-humanoid chest that all the other quadropedal fullforms have, and indeed, was unable even to get her top half furry at first. So perhaps she needs to make an extra transformational push in order to achieve a fullform like the others have, and with it full belly-rub-ability. And since said form wouldn’t have been so good for loft-rummaging… well, we can but hope.
Michelle is a Grecian Sphinx with a woman’s head and chest, lion’s arms, lion lower body, hawk wings, and funky powers that she hasn’t figured out yet. She’s about as full form as she can get. She doesn’t know how to go mid form. The felines from Liverpool Avalon are either Bohemian or Nemian Lions. They have full forms of lions because that is what they are.
Kory has been playing around with Michelle’s Character design (taken from blogs) so she looks a little more liony in the face.
… bummer. If that is so, then… Janis is going to have to work AROUND, or UNDER, Michelle’s top in order to dispense that much-needed belly-rub. Horrors. But we shouldn’t give up hope yet – Michelle probably has some wriggle-room here. Her human form was also wearing a green short-sleeved cardigan, which vanished in its entirety when she transformed. So perhaps, with the selection of an appropriate tank-top (or similar), and a suitable longer top to go over it, Michelle would be able to open up a usable length of rubway in fullform. Yay! I wonder if she can purr. Actually, I must remember that for the next Readers’ Questions: are any of the feliformes in Skin Deep prone to purring, and if so, who has the nicest purr? >:=3>
Well, given sphinxes are part lion, and lions can’t purr, I’d put my money on Michelle not being able to purr.
Also… In my experience, cats are not fond of belly rubs. Also given we are talking sentient people/monsters with more social barriers than most non-sentient animals, I think a belly rub would be even more undesired.
I think the best thing Michelle could use is a good scratch behind the ears :3
My cats sometimes like belly-rubs! Generally it’s the good-ol’-boy ones, though, not the females. (The current belly-rub-luvvin’ one acts very doggish. The prior one loved his belly-rubs so much that when one queen was weaning her kits, he would let them nurse him because they’d knead his tummy!)
That said, I think a mom-hug would work better in these circumstances.
“Anything above the level of a field mouse likes having its ears scratched.”
– Larry Niven
Okay it’s time to stop talking about this. It started off creepy and has just gotten nothing but creepier. You are way too interested in having a mom give her daughter belly rubs by lifting up her daughter’s shirt and that is creepy! It’s starting to come off as some weird incestual molesting fetish and I am not comfortable with it! : )
Agreed. I always thought of the characters in the story as people not talking animals, they just look different. This talk of bellyrubs is getting really creepy. I don’t want and furry fetishes becoming part of something I like.
Er… what?
Seriously, what on earth are you reading into my comments? I can assure you and everyone else here that, since this is the comment board on a PG-rated webcomic, the comments that I make are likewise PG at most. I don’t claim any sort of credit for filtering my comments in this way, but then again, I didn’t think I’d have to. In this case, I was talking about something no more untoward than the hair-tousle in the last panel. If anyone is picking up anything else from this, it is in their minds, not mine.
The only thing anyone is reading, is exactly what you are saying — mother rubbing her daughter’s belly. Sure, if we were talking about pets and other non-sentient animals, it would be no different than a hair tussel.
But Michelle isn’t an animal. She is a sentient person, and physical contact applies to her as it does to a human being, and belly rubbing a human being is sexual, and certainly not something a mother should be doing to her daughter.
…now I want to see how Michelle reacts to warm sunbeams in full-form. Jim too, for that matter.
I just love the little tussle in Michelle’s hair at the end.
Michelle’s mom does rock.
Just a quick question, I found out about the Borogove card game after I caught up… a few weeks ago. Would I be able to order a deck online eventually? My SCA group loves card games and I have a feeling this one would be a hit.
Of course! I am still waiting for my full shipment to come in, and then I will get the decks to all the Kickstarter backers, and as SOON as that is done they are going up in the store! I will make a huge announcement about it because I am so excited, you won’t be able to miss it!
Yes! That makes me excited everywhere!
I enjoyed your panels Kory! I’m glad we helped you with more world building and ideas! :P
Michelle has never looked more leonine! Classical Grecian sphinxes always retained a more human female face. I wonder if she is just able with her medallion to look this way or if there is not a more feline strain somewhere in her genealogy. But she does retain her human boobs, so that is consistent with the statues I am aware of.
Perhaps it is just that she is sooooo like one of my fomer students, but Kory you make Michelle so real, that in her moments of angst, I wish I could just give her a big hug and tell her that she has in herself what it is going to take, that things will work out!
Thing is, the statues of classical Grecian sphinxes were probably carved by humans, and humans tend to humanize things. They were trying for beauty, and to human eyes a sharp-toothed leonid face wouldn’t be nearly as beautiful as the standard classical feminine ideal.
Me, I want to give her an ear-skritch. ^__^
… More amazing points for Mrs. Jocasta for not fleeing when Michelle went all rage mode. I certainly would flee at the sight of Michelle on panel 4 o_O Those teeth!
Damn, Michelle, watch it with those claws! You’re gonna scratch something if you’re not careful.
DISNEYLAND?! :D Sfe’s going with you, right? Hope you two have fun there!
I adore the facial shading on this one; it really shows a study of faces and helps one get the emotions of the situation without the words.
Michelle’s mom really IS taking this well. But it’s good that she’s being so frank in the last panel. Perhaps such acceptance comes with age.
Perhaps Michelle could visit a local Avalon? Surely some wise totem spirit could help her… if she could only remember ;P
I can confirm that the older you get, the less fluster-able you are. Being an educated person also helps a LOT. The more you know/see, the less weird anything is.
Argh! Panel five reminds me of that scene from Phenomenon! /watch?v=O0QUiudAGSM
@1:26, this is all I can think about when I see this page.
These creamy mysteries are so confusing!
Great update–Janis is terrific!
So glad you had a good time at Furry Fiesta!
Angry Michelle looks soooo cooooool.
Hahahaha her mom is awesome
And holy shit nostalgia on those Nes games… I remember playing each one of those when I was kid. Hahaha
The medallion must be running CP/M (Command Program/ for Magic-users)… to get it to do something, you have to input the right commands — somehow. Wonder what the magical equivalent of the “C>” is, a tingly feeling?
Am I the only one who expected her to have a magical outburst like she did in Orientations?
Dear Kory,
I just thought of an awesome question regarding your comic, even though you have stopped with the Reader’s Questionnaire.
This is something that came up when I was driving and going to college and ultimately made me think of a bunch of scenerios.
You don’t have to answer it, though I would consider you THE MOST-ULTRA-SPECIAL-AWESOME-COMIC ARTIST in the world if you did.
It may not be that great of a question for you though… But here it is:
Magical creatures have always been in existence (I am presuming in Skin Deep)
So it is possible that they have influenced historical events (again presuming)
With this in mind, do Magical creatures have their own sort of special history and historical records?
If this is true, do they learn this in their own (if they have) magical education?
IF this is true, then they have to learn not only THEIR history, but also HUMAN history as well? (especially if they are taking human education after all)
Just a thought.
Valid thought.
I love how her claws come out when she gets angry. XD
Poor Michelle and her Mom.
And, based on my experience of college-age guys, Greg will either eat half the contents of the fridge or die of hunger if those two don’t go downstairs soon!
I like how someone else reads “Anaheim” as “Disneyland”. I was just there, and realized for the first time that there is a big convention center just south of The Park. Have fun in Anaheim, Kory!
I remember taking my kids to the 1996 Worldcon in Anaheim. Plus Disneyland! Both parents and kids had the time of their lives.
After reading this I actually asked my folks how’d they feel if I suddenly turned into a sphinx. They said they’d still love me, fur and feathers and all.