It’s the Underground! You remember this place, right?? We saw it in Exchanges, which was posted over…10 years ago…hahaha webcomic time am I right??
The year is drawing to a close and that means it’s time to get a new calendar for 2025! Lucky for you, I have one for sale! It’s a 13-month risograph calendar featuring a bunch of extinct animals and plants! Makes a great gift!
47 Comments
Wait… Anthony is that you…
That poster on the left of panel 2 could well be showing him and Blanche in a joint gig …
Also, “HELP WAN…”(ted?) on the pinboard. If that’s a job within the LA announced right besides the uninitiated humans’ entrance, applications could get awkward fast! 8-]
Is that a bugbear amulet/sticker on the right, or a very well-camouflaged (and -behaved) Alec Hyde keeping an eye on the people getting in, like it was announced way-back-when … ? ;-)
The advertised job may be just in the Underground (waiter/waitress? bartender?).
Alec was supposed to keep newbies from getting out into the L.A. from the Underground, so I would expect him to be lurking near the /other/ door…
TONY TONY TONY!!!!! good to see he’s doing so well a year after his whole life changed omg…
if he’s singing, I wonder if he’s also playing anything? Can’t tell if that’s a guitar strap or a shirt pattern. :eyes:
Two years* (!!!) even, I got the timeline mixed up lol
Where do you find out how long the time skip was?
All the major chapters have a little box at the start saying when they take place. Exchanges was August 2004, and Reunions was roughly a week or two later. This arc starts at the end of October 2006. Therefore, Tony’s been a harpy for a little over two years.
Anthony!! Agh I’m so happy for him, his story was the first thing I caught up with on the comic
I still find it wild that obverse reverse started over half a decade ago. Feels way more recent than that, but it isn’t!
This is the first time we’ve /ever/ seen Tony looking so happy. And performing his music in public(-ish)!
We only get partial views of him in the first two panels, but that satyr looks like the guy from RQ141 (of the latest batch) with the newly-Turned faun daughter.
1 – TONY!
2 – That looks like the satyr from 2024 Reader Question #’s 141 and 152!
Those are two different satyrs. The one in RQ#152 is a rare female satyr. The one in RQ#141 is a male with a “human” wife and a newly-Turned faun daughter.
They do have similar horns.
They’re the same satyr. When Kory created the family for RQ #141, she really liked the family and started to pad out their stories. By the time RQ #152 came out, that satyr has an established story. The satyr is trans, which is how we get female satyrs. Cis female satyrs literally doesn’t exist.
Anthonyyyyyyy!!! He’s doing ok!!!! (sorry I left this same comment by mistake on your pin club page or something!)
Omg can I say as well that I LOVE the way you did the music/lyrics, showing the direction and sound
TONY?! Tony! You re-learned how to play! Aw mate that’s brilliant! I’m glad you’re feeling better about your new self!
Or he just has a medallion now.
His sideburns are still feathers.
Could be a half-form.
I don’t think we’re there yet. I think that’s the end game decision Michelle has to make: Make everyone a medallion, or let the humans know.
Both would be nice. Even if human society knows about monsters, there will be prejudice for genetations, and human hands are required for accessibility of many basic objects. It’s 2006 here, so touch screens are going to necome very prominent in the next ten years, and a lot of these folks have claws.
Claws actually work just fine on touchscreens, they just scratch the shit out of them.
So what, Bloodcarver’s just been hanging around in dragon form for two whole years?
No, pretty sure Michelle’s already made that decision by this point.
Making a decision and knowing how to execute that decision are two different things. She said she would make him amexalluon, but she needs tge know-how and resources to actually do it.
Michelle supposedly has gained access to the entirety of Sphinges’ magic and knowledge back in Illumination II, and there’s been a RQ saying that it’s essentially only the magic that makes the medallion. But that still leaves experience / “magic muscles’ memory” as a possible cause for delay, I guess.
(Can you imagine how many folks Tim et al. would have to fight off at the Underground’s entrance if there were rumors that there’s a medallion maker in the LA!?)
Looks like Anthony’s finally found his footing. (:
Would you say he’s found his WINGS?
OMG Anthony!! It’s been ages, man! Happy to see some of our previous acquaintances are back in the picture!
I’m so. Happy. For Anthony. Looks like he finally was able to pick up what he loves again.
THE BOY RETURNS
Anthony!!! He’s singing and playing guitar and having fun!! Good, he deserves it!!!
If that’s Anthony, when did he get the orange feathers?
Kory said, long ago, that Tony’s avian features are based on a frigate bird. (They’re tropical sea birds known for spending most of their lives soaring for weeks or months at a time.) Male frigate birds tend to have prominent inflatable throat pouches that are bright red or red-orange. If a few brightly-colored cheek feathers are the only trace of such a pouch that Tony has, he can be grateful.
If you’re asking why the cheek feathers aren’t dark like they were back in Exchanges, I have to point out that it’s been two years. Mature male frigate birds have the bright gular pouches, but Tony must have had juvenile (immature) coloring when he was first revealed as a harpy guy. He has presumably molted a couple times since then.
[imagines the drama when Tony found that he has molted into some even more noticeable plumage]
Antony could also dye his feathers
Hmmm … I guess he’d have to bleach them first, as they’re black-ish from the get-go … according the a web search, it is otherwise possible to dye (a live bird’s) feathers, however. (Though I note that, even with plucked feathers, the preference seems to be not to use human hair dyes, which are quite reliant on getting underneath the hair surface’s scales by shifting the pH way off to have a long-lasting effect, but food coloring.)
I believe there’s feather/bird friendly dyes, they don’t stay long and don’t destroy the flight ability of a bird (and do not use on free flying bird as it is like putting a target on their back for birds of prey or some hunters). But for a harpy repeating a dye weekly or monthly to keep his feathers healthy wouldn’t be a problem.
Wow! These are all really cool answers and speculations! Thanks!
ANTHONY!!! So happy to see him doing so well!!
Just love the raw feel in all this. Makes me miss having a hole-in-the-wall joint near me to go soak up now and again.
Am I the only one that suddenly has the critters song from the movie Hoodwinked stuck in my head?
I’m not aware of that song, but I am enjoying what is evidently an epic breakup celebration song.
Apparently, this song is part of the soundtrack of the Nickelodeon show “The adventures of Pete& Pete”. The title? “The Monster’s Loose” (by Polaris).
I had to look up both songs. This is definitely the Polaris number. The Meat Loaf song of the same title has entirely different lyrics, and a dramatically different tone.
I’ve never encountered such a celebratory break-up song in the genres I usually listen to.
YEAH ANTHONYYYY!!!!! wow its been forever since I’ve seen him !! can’t wait to see his cool grown up plumage (and blanche?? hopefully he and blanche are on better terms and are bros again ??? I can dream)