Chapter 3, Page 48

Still I’d say both are doing a good job of surviving so far.

Nothing else for now, other than there will be a Patreon stream on Sunday anddd oh yeah one more update probably up tomorrow morning. Thanks for reading~

 

31 Comments

  • HandwashBigpan

    Yooooo whaaat is happening here?

  • Oh man what’s going on??

    Also, I love how you drew the Milky Way in the last three panels! Can’t wait for the next update!

  • Oh heck. I think”You were there” means LEVi, and we’re flashing back to before LEVi was lost….

    This is going to be heart-breaking.

  • Itkovian

    I believe the second panel is from the first page… where Mike is holding himself up by gripping his mattress, before trying to hang himself.

    I think, in this page at least, we are sailing Michael’s troubled mind… and it is both wonderful and sad.

    • Itkovian

      Can’t edit, but I want to add that this is bloody good work. I just re-read the first pages, and, well, thank you Shing. This is absolutely wonderful.

      • corvideye

        You said it perfectly. Wonderful and sad.

    • David

      Awesome- I didn’t pick up on that until I read your comment, but you’re right. In the second panel, his arms are bare, as they were in the first scene. At the “present time”, sitting by the lake, his suit has long sleeves. So, the second panel is a flashback.

      One question- at the beginning of the comic, he calls himself a coward. Does he say that because he’s afraid of killing himself, or is it because he’s afraid of going outside and living?

  • Lilian

    Excellent. And I’m hoping for more excellence.

  • Izari

    HOLY SHIIIIT

  • Kjerstie

    I read this earlier and didn’t really understand it very well, but after a long, very empty and lonely day I came back and read this page again and now I’m tearing up some. I had been trying to understand Michael’s perspective, and couldn’t get what he was saying. Now I’m understanding by relating. The last two years I’ve had to deal with some hard stuff without my friends and family nearby, and just kind of skunked around in this circle of no motivation- no productivity- no motivation. I could have called people and tried to make better connections and talked it out, but it was easier to turn off? Just kind of not ever pay attention to what was hurting me, how I was feeling about being alone and struggling, lots of things. I found it a better relief than the exhausting prospect of talking about it and getting my feelings out in the open. I’m getting better at it, but yeah.

    Side note, I’ve been following this webcomic since the beginning, but I’m usually too exhausted and timid to say anything in the comments. I love it to death, and it’s always the first comic that pops into my head when I give recommendations. I even talked about it for 10 minutes in a presentation for my cartooning class! Stunning, beautiful pages like this and heart-wrenching dialogue are only a few of the reasons of why people love it so much. Keep at it!!!

    • shingworks

      Thanks so much for reading, and for your nice words! And yeah, it’s sort of a difficult feeling to explain unless you’ve felt it yourself… then it’s a bit easier to recognize. I still have a hard time expressing negative emotions. Much easier to put it down in webcomic format even if it takes a few years XD Hope your own personal stuff keeps getting better too.

      • David

        Yeah, I think it would be hard to write this unless you’ve experienced mental illness yourself. You do a brilliant job capturing it. Glad you pulled through and are doing okay.

  • James

    Y’know, a thought occurs, though mayhap it is simply reading too much into things: What if Kalla and Levi got merged by the processor thingie? Killed both in the process but brought them back in the form of Kalla with added memories, or somethin’.

    Kalla knows things from Levi that would be difficult to relate unless Levi had a holoprojector (which would be an odd feature for a robot meant to explore places too hazardous for humans). I suspect Mike might have figured it out, hence this exposition.

    S’ my guess.

  • Luces

    Was grumbling to myself because on Saturdays there are no updates anywhere (Sundays are even worse). Of course, artists need their recreational pause. Grumbling isn’t rational. Still.
    Found this new page, wonderful mysterious. Thank you so much, and get a nice weekend!

    • shingworks

      Never, haha. New page tomorrow

    • Evan

      FWIW, I’m subscribed to a couple conventional comics (like dilbert) that update on Saturdays and Sundays just to fill that gap. SMBC also updates 7 days a week, and it is great.

      Thanks shing for being my best weekend update! Always exciting to see mare internum on my feed.

  • JepMZ

    Oh dang. Please don’t make it that weird Space Odyssey ending!

    • shingworks

      Thrip appears, turns into a gold monolith

      • AGV

        Lots of blue thrips surround it with awe, and inspired by the Monothrip they discover the use of Kalla’s cooking tool, which blasts their species progress

      • corvideye

        All hail ThripGod!

  • Hima

    I’ll begin by saying that I am ASTOUNDED by the emotions of this comic. Most stories with aliens are all about guns and how to kill an alien OR how to make friends with the aliens.
    THIS one though!!! The actual, amazing, 100% true emotional connection!! The feelings!! The depth!!! It is a work of art.

    The second thing that astounds me is how well Mike is handling all this. I had made the assumption that, when a person who is already dealing with mental issues gets thrown in a crazy, intense, horrific situation, they’d reach their limit and break down. I was expecting Mike’s hallucinations to increase tenfold and him to fall into a catatonic state.
    Now I realize that it’s the people who have always had healthy, balanced lives who are more likely to break down, simply because they never had to deal with anything extreme. People who have suffered so much and struggled to even find the will to get up in the morning? Them being thrown in an alien hostile environment with a weird animal for a friend? “Meh, ‘ve been through worse.”

    Work of art. Keep up the good work.

    • David

      Mike seems to shine best when he’s providing inspiration to someone else. Like, when Bex told him that her kid was a fan, he immediately pulled himself together and took her exploring. He wanted to be a hero to the kid.

      Here, when it seemed like Kalla was the strong one, he was like “F*ck you, get away from me!” But then, when Kalla is revealed to be lonely and trapped, too frightened to leave, he tries to give her hope.

      • Hima

        I think you’re right.

      • Hima

        Yes you’re right. He did the same with thighfriend too, as soon as he realized it needed water.

        What a guy!!!!

        Shing, Mike is one my all-time favourite characters!!!

  • Min

    This page is beautiful. I think that people who have been to this place before will understand straight away what this page is about.

  • Vert

    Decent metaphor for his whole journey to Mars, too.

  • Retterhardt

    I love all the visual parallelism–Mike’s hand gripping the side of the cot, his hand in the water; the blue glowing light in both that first scene, and in these scenes by the sea (also I notice that the blue is particular to Mike’s room, not just weird lighting at the base because Bex’s room is not blue all over the place); the dots of bioluminescence of the cave, paired with the starry sky (which also reminds me of Mike’s door hanging in his teenage-years room)–awesome! Also I was just going through the archives and realized one of Bex’s pictures was of her kid in the pool and that’s where Mike pauses flipping through the photos aaahhhh. It’s great when there are all these kinds of echoes that keep resonating like this through a work ~literature nerd flails~

  • Shunka_Warakin

    Yet another crying reader. You’ve conveyed this so well.

  • Purplefelix

    Here, here! That feeling of being lost and empty, and how it’s so easy to just let it take you. Love the comparative imagery.

  • pastry

    I teared up… this webcomic does such a beautiful job of conveying emotions and mental illness… I can’t really think of many other things I’ve read that do it so well!

  • Revil

    I remember when this page first came out and it took me until now to realize he’s talking about their mutual depression…

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