Chapter 3, Page 47

HEY I’M TALKIN HEAH

Nothing else for now, other than there will be a Patreon stream sometime in the next few days, meow~

 

 

41 Comments

  • RemusJames

    I can’t handle not knowing how this comic will end, I don’t want it to, but I don’t want to wait either. Someone invent the time machine needed to sustain my selfish existence!

    But if it ends with Kallakore getting to spend a life on Earth is supremely better beaches, I don’t know how it’ll work but i would buy that story hardback, and read it to my kiddos for generations.

    Not to try and sway your creativity, o dear creator. Im just happy to have a good book at the end of all this.

    • The Mars colonist physically do not have the available machinery to go save Bec and Mike.

      • ceceoh

        I’m not sure how it would be possible to get Kallakore to Earth, but the M.I. would make a heck of a base of operations for the Earth scientists. It wouldn’t bring back Kallakore’s family, but at least she wouldn’t be alone any more.

        • Chrontius

          Heavy tranquilizers and a nuclear rocket (I’m imagining at least the cruiser from “The Martian” is available for this trip) make a year’s slog into a night of bad sleep.

          If Kallakore is wrong, and she’s part of the system enough to be cloned by the system…

          What if she’s reverse-engineered? What if the answer to a happy armshark is to beam terabytes of memories back and forth, to synchronize two clones’ memories, a world apart, so roughly every time each one sleeps they gain a new day’s memory of the other Kallakore? Seven light-minutes, plus one day for reintegrating memories of the clone while each copy sleeps… For them it’d be like remembering work yesterday, like living 24 hours, 37 minutes on call, then 24 hours on break. With perhaps a 24 hour delay to be sure that memories are backed up during sleep, then transmitted, then yesterday’s data reintegrated… It’s not a pleasant work schedule, in the same way that drone pilots suffer from the alienation of their on-shift and home lives, but firemen work shittier shifts until it destroys their cartilage, so… Psychologically, such a thing is bearable. Physically, I’m worried about an armshark in 4x martian gravity, however.

  • Edmund

    Too afraid to die is not a place I have been, but I can understand the familiarity present in this circumstance?

  • Katy Newton

    I love this comic so much.

  • CosmicStresshead

    OH MY GOD THE FEELS

    SHING

    THE FEELS :[

  • Javi

    HAHA, “torturous”!
    Classic armshark.

  • Ingrid

    …and suddenly “internal sea” takes on a whole new meaning.

  • weezact7

    I know the feeling shark-martian-dinosaur-thing.

    • weezact7

      I mean, not being literally trapped in an underground ocean on Mars, of course, but a similar feeling.

      • Pat

        I dunno what you’re talking about, but I k ow the exact feeling

        • The Wing

          Should we be sending help, Pat?

  • mano

    WHY IS THIS COMIC SO GOOD WHY ARE YOU SO GOOD AT COMICS

  • Nik

    Last panel, the noses, now–I finally see the resemblance. ;-)

    • Weirdough

      I saw it too…
      Shing could it be? No need to answer, heh any answer that matters is probably spoilers anyway. Though I could just take that presumably-intentional perspective in the last panel as at least heavy foreshadowing.

  • Lord Hideous

    “Been here before” Not in the literal sense, but in the sense of a lonely, torturous, pointless existence he won’t leave behind because it’s all he has?

  • Shakespizza

    So, dear Shing, do you have a clue about characters voices? Just in my headcanon Mike have a Tom Hanks voice and Kalla have a feminish Habringer voice. Interesting to know your viewpoint.

    • shingworks

      Haha, no I’m terrible at imagining voices, except for Kalla’s. I don’t know what a Harbinger voice is but I was thinking sort of a wheedling trumpety noise, like a high-pitched, speed up whale noise? It would probably be pretty annoying irl

      • Shakespizza

        Harbringer from Mass Effect trilogy
        https://youtu.be/OaRdcVYTjRw

      • Vert

        Like a dolphin speaking English?

        I imagined her mid-range, genderless or even child-like, always speaking in a calm, measured tone, even when stressed. She learned to speak from an AI, after all.

        It’d be funny if she really did imitate, and spoke to Mike in his own voice. That would probably piss him off.

    • Lar

      Fem Shep’s “reaper” voice?

    • spottedspeck

      Speaking of Tom Hanks, I saw this on facebook a few days ago:
      https://pics.onsizzle.com/one-thing-i-will-never-do-travel-with-tom-hanks-3624027.png
      I’m 95% this would apply to Mike as well.

    • I always hear Mike as a very tired, wry Russian.

  • shmingus

    I LOVE the characters you’ve created here, it’s not easy to build a story around two people in a confined space. You’ve really built something special!

  • Fawkes Rinzler

    I appreciate Kalla’s expression so much in the last panel. I too get that same look on my face every time my dramatic speech gets interrupted! Come on, Mike. Let an armshark finish their speech, eh?

  • Ash

    I love this page. It warms my heart.

  • The expression of Mike in the last frame is epic. How many times did he smile in the whole comic?

    • Lauren

      I think this actually might be the first time he’s smiled in the entire comic! (Not counting LEVi’s memory of him on page 35 of this chapter, which was really heartbreaking to see specifically BECAUSE he’d never shown positive emotion until that panel.)

      • shingworks

        Haha, I think I slipped one in over here too.

        • Esn

          There’s another one over here, too: http://www.marecomic.com/comic/ch1-page-19/

          So… the only times adult Mike has smiled so far has been in a flashback with Levi, twice with Bex (before he knew she’d abandoned her kids), and now with Kallakore.

        • Chrontius

          Smirk and snark.

          It could be all amusement without actual happiness. Regardless, this may be the most sincere, compassionate empathy he’s felt in *years*.

  • ZeroID

    Some beautiful artwork here, a fascinating and intriguing storyline and insights to some real situations.
    Armshark is a big fellow, I imaging a low soft voice, he is not used to noisy environments or prolonged dialog. Tom Hanks for Mike seems about right, wry and laconic but hard and emotional when needed.
    Keep up the good work Shingworks, it is obviously appreciated by many including myself.

  • Shakespizza

    that Kalla’s smug face on the fourth panel, adorable ^^

  • Luces

    He is not only smiling, this is the first time that Mike shows concern for another beings feelings, while talking complete rationaly. Whatever they will get done or not, this is a positive development!

  • Luna

    Damn. Seeing Mike smiling here is rather heartwarming. Even if it doesn’t last, it’s beautiful because over the course of this whole comic we’ve seen how much he is struggling to stay alive . . . and here at least, if just for a couple seconds, we see him with purpose and the ability to be genuinely happy again. To me, coming out of two years of depression and codependency, that last panel is especially momentous because I can relate with his finally smiling again.

    • pastry

      :’) ah, yes.

  • StClair

    With respect to the last two commenters above – I dunno that he’s “happy” so much as amused by the strange ironies of the universe that put him in this situation – this big, externalized (yet self-contained) metaphor for his own life, “inner” and not.

    • Luna

      To me, him being amused by the irony of the universe and the situation can be counted as him being genuinely happy. Sure, he’s not dancing around with joy (he probably couldn’t anyways, what with the injuries and thighfriend’s weight), but he is able to smile and laugh without showing any sarcasm, bitterness, or anger. As someone who’s been in such a place, Mike’s attitude here counts as real happiness.

  • SotiCoto

    … Is Kalla doing the =3 face in the last panel?

    Kalla Armshark is totally doing catface.

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