Chapter 4, Page 30

In highschool when we were writing our college essays our teacher at the time told us “there’s no second chance at a first impression.” Personally I think approaching with a monster fish in your mouth is a memorable way to introduce yourself (decapitation, not so much).

I read this neat pitch? comic? I have no idea? this morning, really enjoyed it, thought I’d share.

TheĀ Mare Internum pin Kickstarter continues to chug along! The unlocked tiers are sold out, but there’s still about 20 remaining LE Kalla pins available to grab (out of the original 150 or so posted). Probably going to go ahead and order everything this week to try and hit my speediest fulfillment ever

Gonna aim for one more update here and one Meek page this week in addition to getting that new Tutorial about story pacing or Patrons fleshed out, wish me luck!

 

51 Comments

  • Mal-L

    I wonder if Kalla is going to tell Bex to eat Levi… <_<

  • Mallow

    I’m sure Bex needed that nap, unexpected as it was.

  • Rev

    I love how Kalla’s attempts at making impressions with humans is to present them with food, apparently.

    • shingworks

      Can’t make canapes without martian fish filets

    • Dennis C.

      Works well with me. If you ever intend to kill me, your opportunities will be fourfold if you present a plate of sushi

  • Treesart

    Canape?

    • brokenidealist

      Exactly what I was going to post – you beat me to it!

  • ObservantWolf

    Oh my, is that just a smudge or is Bex developing a face-toaster too? Kalla was quick to catch on that a way to a human’s heart is through their stomach, much easier than going through the ribs! ;D

  • Brushtail

    Bex must be going though some serious mental gymnastics right now. I do not expect that she knows Kalla is the one she killed, so she’s probably wondering if she killed Kalla’s friend or family, and now she’s in Kalla’s power, yay.

    • shingworks

      Haha, exactly. She has zero reason to think this is the same beast she killed earlier, but for whatever reason Threvi is on the level.

      • shingworks

        Unrelatedly I can’t believe his canon name is Threvi now, you guys overwrote my characters with your great names, haha.

        • drake

          wait I thought his name was thrip? when did this change happen
          what is happening to my reality!!!!

          • Pylgrim

            It was Thrip until it was revealed that he was Levi “incarnated” by the Martian eco-system. Then, the inevitable portmanteau happened.

        • AGV

          Good, good…
          Let the fans nicknames flow through you…

        • DukeBG

          TBH, I don’t like the name Threvi. I prefer either LEVi, or Thrip. Threvi just doesn’t roll off the tongue.

          • Brushtail

            I agree that it’s awkward, but it’s a nice way to know that everyone is talking about LEVi after he became a gold bug, and not just golden bugs in general.

  • okno

    man, I’m just thinking about how amazing it was when we see Bex for the first time in her bush thing and then see she killed Kalla. Amazing, as in great story-teling/storyboarding, not amazing as in I’m glad she killed Kalla. It was so devastating in the best way – Kalla being killed unexpectedly by someone we didn’t get to see the side of the story from, so her appearance was completely intriguing and almost scary in a way – it was just so great story-wise!!

    anyway i glad Kalla is back ^___^

  • Spen Cyrrh

    That’s the best single panel I’ve seen in any comic for a good while.

  • Mustachio

    What am I looking at in the final panel?

    • shingworks

      A big friend approaching, bearing gifts (we’re looking head-on, the cylinders to the side are arms/ shoulders).

      • strannik

        She brought back fish. yeah, fish, not Fish. wonder where that latter went. Fish. not fish.

      • Ceceoh

        I’m really enjoying separating fish from face. Thought the shoulders were dorsal fins, though.

  • Charles

    Bex: no thank you. I’ve already eaten… something…

  • Bex: *noises of utter terror*

  • Fawkes Rinzler

    Oh my gosh… okay, I have to be totally honest, when I first saw the last panel, I thought it was Kalla’s super misshapen back for some reason, and I was staring at it for a few minutes like “….emo armshark?” XD And then I saw the fish in the mouth comment and I kept staring at it and then, and THEEEEN, I finally realized my mistake! XD *Giggles* I dunno why I had such a hard time interpreting the panel at first…. I probably shouldn’t read this with a migraine.. ^^; XD But it did make for a good laugh~!

  • dreampiper

    The last panel is confusing only because of the way Kalla’s face symmetry comes off! XD
    For some reason I registered her eyebrows and snout as three different objects @_@
    Then when someone mentioned fish in her snout, I was able to grasp it! XD

  • ikabubu

    As I see things come full-circle, I can’t help but think:

    Great stories deserve great closure. Good things can’t last forever, and the longer something lasts, the longer it has the chance to suck.

    For as much as I am intrigued by the mystery, you can’t let the mystery steep for too long. Tension, release; build-up, denouement.

    I do enjoy the pacing of Mare Internum. It’s more of “peeling away layers of an onion” rather than “bolting more things for longevity”. The former is symptomatic of a pre-conceived story, and the latter is “complexity for complexity’s sake” as padding.

    Yet, I find the allure of the unknown better than most revelations, since answers COLLAPSE the “possibility space” of the fiction into fixed canon. Such is the story teller’s conundrum.

    I wonder if Der-shing has thought it all the way through conclusion, yet.

    • shingworks

      For a story like this, you really have to, or else get stuck with some “it was all a dream” or “they were dead all along” bullshit ending XD The whole story is basically complete, just a matter of building this thing brick by brick.

      • Ben

        True.

        Sinfest changed out of all recognition, a while ago.

        Questionable Content has morphed into some sort of SJW tract about robots and people “coming out” completely unrelated to its original theme.

        Girls With Slingshots had the sense to stop at a logical break in the story, and kept the running joke about the talking cactus where it belonged, as a silly side joke about one character’s drinking.

        • Wong Zhou

          In the defense of Questionable Content, I always saw it as more of an episodic comic with continuity by way of storylines, rather than a full-on graphic novel like Mare, Meek, SSSS, etc.

          With those kind of comics I find the evolution of style and theme to be intriguing.

          With graphic novels where you’re telling a single story, I definitely agree that you need to plan everything out ahead of time to keep things consistent or you get into crazyflakes territory pretty quick.

  • That last panel is so good ;A; I want that as a desktop background, haha

  • Luces

    I KNEW IT! Ha! Kalla couldn’t be gone forever.
    Three cheers for the power of the creator!
    Poor Bex will suffer a stroke when she’ll discover what she really killed…

  • AGV

    For Hylia’s sake, u ok there in the first panel, Bex?

    I love how the fish resembles a placoderm

  • Jojo

    I think I missed something. Didn’t Bex attack Kalla?

    • Thrawcheld

      Sure, but what’s a little murder among friends?

    • Bradford

      The MI Living System regenerated Kalla. She probably only remembers stuff up too the last time she touched water before being murdered, so she doesn’t know Bex killed her.

      • Jojo

        That makes sense.

  • Sane

    So good to have Kalla back! Can’t wait for Bex to have that awkward realisation.. oooh so that was you I murdered without a second thought..

    Also, thanks for the link to Labs, really enjoyed reading it!

  • Pylgrim

    Landsharks confirmed to be highly evolved cats.

  • Tia

    Kalla’s back!

    Also…a thousand thanks for pointing out the Labs comic. My gosh.

    • Quad

      I second this! That was a very cool read, I hope to see more.

  • ZeroID

    I think Kalla recognises and remembers Bex and is bringing her alternative food. ie ‘Please don’t kill me (again), eat this instead.’
    Could make for an interesting conversation afterwards … dining with your victim/murderer.
    But it’s all logic anyway …
    Nice to see you again Kalla, welcome back.

  • datdat

    At first I thought the last panel was a “Gotcha! It was rocks that look like Kalla.” But it was actually a fish and Kalla.

  • Kyle

    I’ve been wondering what Kalla eats since her introduction. I suppose this is the answer.

  • Kyle

    Also, thanks for sharing that comic. It’s not every day that you read something that good!

  • Spav

    I’m getting Godzilla vibes from the last panel. It’s that pronounced, distinguished brow.

    (do the brow folds smoosh when you poke them?)

  • Jac

    DANG, Der-Shing, that last shot is OUTSTANDING. LOVE

    • TorgueRND

      That last shot will be my next tattoo.
      Across my face.

  • Hmm~ Is that a toaster growing on Bex’s face?

  • TorgueRND

    Good shark
    Best friend

  • Ponyhome

    Kalla being with Bex begs the question, “Where is Michael, and without Thrip or Kalla, who is keeping him from doing dumb, self-destructive crap?”

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