Chapter 2, Page 17

NO get your mind out of the gutter, that little extended thingy in the 1st panel is where a corrosive comes from… These guys do a portion of their digestion externally, since many of the food items need to be softened up first. Unrelatedly, they are VERY territorial.

I’m sure you were all excited as I was about the fantastic Mars news yesterday :D It’s awesome that we get to be alive for some of the early exploration and confirmation of these theories! I know some of you were also impressed because the comic has addressed some of these points, but this research has been around for decades. (I will wait a few more months before confirming that the wildlife in this comic are based on a documentary sent from the future).

And more fanart :D I gotta share them because I get super thrilled every time I see this stuff, haha… This one by thatonepaperphoenix and another by Skippercifer. If you’d like your art linked here, just tag it “Mare Internum” or PM me, and I’ll throw it up in a future update :]

Also, gonna update the Facebook soon with vote incentives from the past… well, 2 months, I forgot to update last month. I’ll have those up soon. For today’s bonus art: some lineart, since this page is full of slamdust.

And now, back to working on Patreon rewards! If you pledged in Aug for a September reward, you’ll be receiving it today or tomorrow. New reward slots will be opening up in October, as well as info about the newly unlocked monthly wallpapers.

Thank you again for keeping this comic updating, and of course thank you for reading.

53 Comments

  • Evan

    It seems that Mike could sell his thighfriend as the world’s fastest (and most impressive looking) first aid for compound fractures.

    • shingworks

      SELL HIM?? They’re practically attached at the hip!

    • Fridge_Logik

      I think it’s a little premature to start hawking thigh-fungus rejuvenation products.

  • Cheri

    I think Mike is handling himself pretty ok all things considered.

    &I would really love to play Mare as a video game holy shit.

    • DukeBG

      It’s a boring videogame so far, though. Or maybe it will have complicated game mechanics on falling through the caverns and water for thousands of meters.

      • shingworks

        It’s a mix of a platformer and QWOP, then the rest of it is GIRP

        • DukeBG

          Ah, how could I’ve forget about GIRP!
          Yes, I take my words back

          • Hansontoons

            Good thing, Duke. Wouldn’t want to get all John Wayne on you now… :)

        • Fridge_Logik

          Every time you get to safety there’s a chance Mike tries to kill himself so optimum play involves keeping Mike just barely ahead of death.

        • SotiCoto

          [ Thighfungus will remember this… ]

  • HandwashBigpan

    Infatuated Legfungi, which begin life in a larval state known as an Amorous Thighfish, have only one natural predator: the Indecorous Thwakhead.

  • TwistedKestrel

    I don’t really understand what’s happened in the last three pages, including this one

    • shingworks

      Me neither

    • shingworks

      jk, this part is supposed to be kind of disorienting/ confusing. We can both come back later and see if it makes sense in context~

    • Evilbob

      It’s all very simple.

      You see, Mike is actually dead or dying. Most people hallucinate the afterlife or see memories of their life flash before their eyes… Mike?

      Mike gets this. Amorous thighfish and underground water.

      • Evilbob

        (crack canon FTW!!!)

    • Charles81

      I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the arrowheads are just here to eat him and have nothing to do with thighfungus. A second arrowhead shows up and since they’re territorial they fight and Mike gets away while they do.

      No idea on thighfungus’ purpose. I suspect he punctured his suit with his thigh bone when he hit it and this exposed wound was infected/infested either by spores in the air or something which found him and dropped the spores which were glowing around him. It’s probably at least a partially symbiotic relationship since it’s healed him which suggests it wants him to live and be healthy, not merely die of wounds. Could be normal if it always requires a wound to initially grow in.

      • Ceceoh

        Judging from how ATF behaved when it saw the Thwackhead (love it!), I’d say ATFs are on the menu, when Thwackheads can’t get Earthlings, that is.

    • Windwalker

      My guess is that arrowhead is whacking at the wall, which created an exit for Mike. I’m also guessing that arrowhead did this on purpose, instead of in a fit of passionate jealous rage over thigh-fungi claiming Mike already.

  • Draug

    Fighting aliens!! :D
    More rebirth imagery!! :D

  • I’m not sure I get it they are… both fighting ? but the main body of both (?) should be in the water, right ?

    And damn those things looks really strong. I had assumed it was more… vegetal-like. They’re shattering rocks :o

    Now I still wonder, tho. Can Michael feel the lower half of his right leg anymore ? He *seems* to be able to control it, seeing he used that leg first while climbing.

    • Oh, also. Turns out it wasn’t his Air canister, guys ! It was the arrowhead’s p..p… pretty digestive system ?

    • shingworks

      It’s just sedimentary rock XD So maybe not too difficult to break.

      • Willinwoods

        Yeah, I think I heard something about some types of martian rock being kind of porous and brittle.

  • DukeBG

    I really really loved the bonus art. It helped understanding the dark webcomicsing of cave darkness tremendously. I, for one, vote for line art to be the default “bonus art” in cases you don’t have time/ideas for anything else.

  • Jones

    I’m guessing that dark grey bit…is probably a tubular mouth from the arrowhead alien thing?
    [just hoping]

  • VainVillain

    I just love panels three and four, Mike has such a great expression going on!

  • Aidan903

    Me: “Hey, there are more of them! Cool!”

    Mike: “Hey, there are more of them! Shit!

  • Jojo

    Fourth panel is gorgeous. I love the lighting.

  • Spav

    Mike’s face in the center panel is perfect.

    You’ve flawlessly captured the very essence of “NOPE”

    • StClair

      and/or “**** this, I am OUT (of here).”

  • Tindi

    Mike has the best expressions. His “Oh SHIT” face (seen frequently recently) is one for the ages.

    Yeah, no, my mind wasn’t in the gutter until you told me to get it out, and now I can’t get it to come back out.

  • mootstrap

    Is the first link in the description intentionally patrons only?

    • shingworks

      Yeah, there are enough Patrons reading to warrant a direct link for their convenience~

  • DukeBG

    To the array of fan-made names: some of russian readers see these creatures to be crazy predatory gas pipelines.

    • shingworks

      Lol XD I love it

      • shingworks

        I’m already pretty well acquainted with the untranslatable word for “thighfish,” lol

        • DukeBG

          Thighfish would be бедрорыба [bedroryba], recently the thighfungi (бедрогриб, bedrogrib) has been on eveyone’s lips!
          Yeah, autotranslators are unable to parse compound words and any neologisms, really.

          There has been a lot of discussion about wether our amorous/infatuated friend is actually able to be symbiotic to Mike, like how exactly does it emit goods (e.g. oxygen) into Mike’s blood, how could it break though the suit and how is Mike running around with a fractured bone.

          • charles81

            On Breaking through the suit, It’s my theory that Mike punctured his own suit with his broken thigh bone when he hit it and passed out. So Thighfungi had a nice open wound which had made a nice opening in the suit right over it.

  • Anvil

    Do the mechanics of external digestion work underwater as well in case of the arrowhead worms? I know nothing about this process, but its fascinating and I’m just trying to wrap my head around it!

    • shingworks

      They use it in the case of large, hard-bodied food items (think a big crab or conch or something). Just set it and forget it and next you know, you have a tender meal that won’t tear up your stomachs.

  • Vert

    Now I know why Mike was glowering at you in the Patreon video.

  • Zhivago

    I have a question regarding the location he is in. Didn’t he say it’s highly sulfuric? I was just wondering how much so. I work with sulfuric at work and it seems like if it would be causing a lot more damage to both his eyes and nostrils by this point. Hell, I’m not even sure he can keep his eyes open, I’ve gotten the fumes in my eyes before and couldn’t open them without immense pain until I washed them clean.

    • shingworks

      Hi! Yeah, it’s sulfuric (as in, “sulfurous” and not necessarily “sulfuric acid”), so it would be causing a lot of irritation to the eyes and mucosa. As you know, in higher concentrations it can be deadly, but right now we don’t have specific information about the concentration or about the ventilation of the chamber he’s in. He was coughing up some pink stuff a few pages ago which didn’t look too good, but circumstances have changed slightly since then.

  • Angelina

    GOD i just watched the Martian & it was like, the beginning was so eerily similar to yours !!! obvs your is better tho lmfao

    • shingworks

      lol, despite really wanting to, I haven’t watched the Martian (nor read the book) because I was trying to avoid unintentional similarities or influences. AND YET!!!!!!!!!!!

      • Vert

        In all seriousness, you should read, listen to (the audiobook is excellent), or see it. It obviously goes a wildly different direction than Mare seems to be going, and it’s the ultimate Mars/space program geek-out story. Unless Mare suddenly turns into a wilderness survival story that takes place on the surface, I doubt you’re going to overlap with The Martian much, even by accident :)

        You DO want to avoid the Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy, though. They’ve already solved a lot of the problems your colonists are still struggling with.

  • sweet_gardenia

    Dang Mike, outwardly he seems to be taking this pretty calmly I can only imagine the internal screaming.

    Mike: This is ok. I’m ok.
    Mike’s Brain: 8[_________________________________________]

  • Lar

    I love Mike’s face throughout this entire page.

  • squidlifecrisis

    I feel obligated to plug Scishow’s episode about the water confirmed on Mars (!!!!) for any interested parties: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsaJ7ZvCjmY

    • squidlifecrisis

      I changed my mind. Can I delete this comment? I apologize for my lapse in judgment. I should know by now not to ever say things. It won’t happen again.

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