Chapter 1, Page 3

Take the shot already!!

45 Comments

  • gotlandskorv

    I’ve heard talk about insects as food-supply in connection to solving problems related to over-population and it’s a really fascinating concept! In theory at least. Let’s just say yes Fong(?), I hope Mike lights a candle for you XD

  • gotlandskorv

    Also, does Greg’s shirt say “World’s best dad”? O_o

    • shingworks

      Haha, yes… The odds are technically in his favor.

  • Arianwen

    Panel 3 should be “entomological”.

    I once went to a toy & joke shop which sold wee boxes of dried caterpillars, earwigs etc. And dried maggot chocolates. I might have tried one, but £3 for 100g of chocolate? I don’t THINK so!

    • shingworks

      Thanks! I’ll fix that in a sec.
      And yeah, modern-day insectophagy is either treated like a gross novelty or limited to non-“Western” countries. This is kind of my pet thing to get annoyed about because insect protein is great, has the potential to be cheap/ abundant (compared to like, raising meat vertebrates) and should be utilized!!!
      My dream is that in the future, the practice is so well established that Bex’s job would be totally unremarkable, but for the sake of the today’s audience I’ve written it otherwise.

      • corvideye

        A company in my area (Oregon) is selling cricket flour and cricket energy bars. I’ll admit I haven’t tried them.

        • Meran

          And the cricket flour et al is prohibitively priced. TBH, it’s hard for me to see them as food… I feed them to my lizard. They smell pretty nasty. And those exoskeletons/carapaces…. they stick weirdly to my fingers. I ~don’t want to know they’ll catch on my teeth or tongue.
          I suppose I could add the flour to my gluten free bread doughs. (Not a joke. I’m celiac.)

  • Steve M

    So Mike not suiciding out of being stuck on Mars then? Either the trip back *really* sucks or presumably more likely he’s got things left on earth he isn’t happy about facing?

  • Mouse

    I would totally eat bug protein…provided it was given to me in a form that did not look like bugs. Future generations could get used to eating bugs outright, I’m sure, but I’m old and set in my ways :P

    Change is scary–cover it in chocolate first.

    • I agree. Honestly its the crunch on the exoskeleton that creeps me out the most, a dislike that’s always made it hard for me to eat fresh vegetables like peppers unless they’re cooked in something.

      Which makes me wonder if it’d be possible to make a cricket enchilada? I’d probably eat that.

      • Mouse

        The exoskeleton wouldn’t be too much of a problem for me–sometimes I like to eat shrimp tails.

        It’s the…legs…I have an issue with. So tiny and scuttley…just makes me think of spiders no matter what creature they’re attached to.

        Bug eyes kinda wig me out, too.

        I’d eat a cricket enchilada. Ooh! Caterpillar enchilada! I’ve heard there is a type of caterpillar in, Africa, I think, that is supposedly pretty delicious.

        • shingworks

          Here’s that dish! http://goo.gl/ySP4au
          Southeast Asians also eat caterpillars… you can sometimes find them in cans at our local Asian market. Also witchety grubs, which I’d link to but they terrify me, so no.

          • Mouse

            I googled your witchety grubs and was expecting something horrifying. I think they’re kinda cute! I’d eat ’em. I bet they’d be kinda good breaded and deep fried (so I could remain blissfully unaware of their adorable-yet-creepy lil grub faces).

            I’ll just leave this here (Futurama Popplers episode jingle):
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onBTNPOkTxI

          • shingworks

            I think I hate them a lot because there was an episode of Survivorman where he pulls a few out of a tree, and they were each like, the size of his man hands. That scarred the shit out of me lol

          • Lennier

            The MIL went to Cambodia a few years back on a “mission” tour. They eat anything that moves. Anything that doesn’t is a garnish.
            On the flipside, they thought the MILs bowl of Spirulina for breakfast was the most disgusting thing they’d ever seen.

          • corvideye

            In various parts of Asia they eat also the silkworm larva that are inside the cocoons (you have to kill them anyway to get the cocoon, and hey, why waste the protein?). I remember seeing a big wok full of stir-fried larvae in a National Geo article on silk.

    • Madeleine

      Eh, we haven’t gotten accustomed to eating whole vertebrates; instead, we chop them to pieces (or have them chopped for us by others) and cut them to slices so they don’t look like animals to us anymore.

      I’m sure the food industry will find ways to make every insect look and feel like not-an-animal for the picky customer. When we don’t recognize it anymore, it’ll be like any other fancy processed food made from vertebrates, roots, shrooms, fruits etc.

  • Cricket meal is supposed to be very meaty in flavor, almost too much for some people.

    The noises of a cricket farm, otherwise, could either be welcomed or maddening.

  • Kira

    I think the “lets” in panel 2 should be “let’s”.

    Also, I’m amused at how formal the commander is, given that she’s addressing all of four people.

    • shingworks

      She likes to maintain a professional distance from everyone for the sake of not becoming, eventually, too relaxed with protocols (based on a prior bad experience). Result: everyone thinks she’s a giant bitch~

      • Mary in LA

        Ah! So she’s Captain Horatio Hornblower, then. Cool!

  • Jade

    I think panel 1 should be “absence”

    I’ve always been curious about eating bugs. Maybe like a bag of crickets you could pop into your mouth, like beef jerky or something.

  • shingworks

    ITT: I realize I need use a spellchecker v__v;; Thanks for correcting me, guys, I have learned my lesson.

    • DOING IS LEARNING!
      KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!

  • carbonfixation

    WELL THEN. I need to give myself a kick in the balls for missing out on the hype of this comic before it started up. I wish I didn’t stop checking on the Meek last year… Anyways, just wanna say that Mike reminds me a lot of Bruce Willis, especially in that fake intro.

    Mother-flipping bookmarked.

  • Lew

    hope we won’t end up like “terra formars” with the crickets XD

  • Ben

    I was in St. Louis for the 13-year cicada emergence in 2011, and somebody gave me a paper cone full of fried cicadas. They were delicious—like kettle chips, but good for you. What do I have to say to make people understand??

    • shingworks

      Replace all the food in their homes with honey-nut cicadas, obviously.

    • Ceceoh

      Deep fried bugs I could probably eat. I just don’t want any of those cricket jell-o blocks like they had in that movie Snowpiercer.

  • Ellie

    Is this scene taking place immediately after the intro, or some unspecified amount of time later? The change in lighting makes it seem like it’s a different time of day, but he starts in the bedroom both times.

    • shingworks

      Yeah it’s directly sequential. The spatial orientation will be clearer in a few pages, but for the sake of explaining the habs a bit, he was in his (windowless) room in hab 2 during the intro, crossed through the connecting tunnel (with windows that face away from the sunrise) to hab 1, and now is in the main hab with much more access to the morning lighting. You can see the layout of the base on the cover page of the chapter :)

  • Eating insects and the like would be my worst nightmare ;_;
    But Bex looks like a really nice person :3 She has that feel about her.

  • Lee M

    I saw a documentary a while back about African wildlife. There’s one lake in central Africa where millions of flies breed, and when they hatch huge black clouds of them hover above the water. The local people go out in boats, catch a few thousand of them in sacks, mash them up into pates and fry them for supper. Fly burgers. Probably won’t be seeing them at your local BK for a while, but…

    • shingworks

      That seems gross if only for the fact that fucking horsehair worms exist… I do not want to eat eggs of that thing T__T

  • Unclever title

    “Your absence will be apparent.”

    That’s a funny way to say, “We’ll miss you.”

    • Wong Zhou

      Almost 2 years later, re-reading the comic, I find this part really funny. “Your absence will be apparent” and “A word of acknowledgement” … GG Goto! Way to let your employees know how appreciated they are.

      Although she obviously doesn’t like Michael very much. Perhaps for the others she’d kick it up a notch like “Your absence will be READILY apparent”

  • Hashura

    Well insects are very nutritional :D

  • Dr. Barton

    Glad that I decided to check your web comic out today. I’ve been involved in the periphery of entomophagy for several years now and am slowly trying to steer myself into the area as a career.

    I don’t know where you’re taking this culinary sidebar or even if you’re taking it anywhere. Here’s hoping that you do.

    As for the taste of crickets: Simply salted and dry roasted, think of the best savory seasoned potato chip that you’ve ever eaten and you get an idea of the flavor. If you don’t like the legs and antennae, You can kind of brush / shake them off after they’re roasted.

    On a technical note, there are some issues with rearing crickets in space or on Mars. The first is their fine frass (poop). You need to make absolutely certain that the rearing chambers are properly filtered or you will have problems. The second is smell. Mealworms are relatively low in volatiles. Crickets, on the other hand, are quite stinky. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing (especially when one considers the human body odor issues that arise in a circulating environmental system) but it is a consideration. On the other hand, as with many a good cheese, stench is a sign of excellent taste. Again, a properly designed rearing system would deal with most of that issue.

    A big advantage to using crickets as part of the food system, is that their frass is highly desired in plant-rearing systems and more ready-to-use than human manure.

    Keep up the good work.

    • shingworks

      Very cool! I love that cricket farms are becoming a more acceptable and established thing; you hear about them popping up all over the place nowadays.

      Thanks for the great info too. The comic probably isn’t going to get into technical specifics re: rearing but that is very good to know~ Also I want to call my poop “frass” now, it sounds so much fresher on the tongue, haha. And best of luck with working your way into the field professionally, I think it’s a noble cause for sure :]

  • Jonboy

    Bex is a total cutey! And I’d totally eat her crickets.

  • w00tist

    Murderer.

  • Acetaldehyde

    I know this page is years old now, but upon reread I like the detail of Ross having asian flush at a party… I feel you there buddy

  • foducool

    awww yiss
    mutha
    fuggin’
    grasshoppers

  • ✩ Helen ☽

    i love bex already!!

  • Meli Martinez

    OMGOMGOMGOMG I loooove that Bex (such a cute nickname!) has a gap in her teeth! I’m totally obsessed with them I think they’re so GORGEOUS. My friend has one and he hates it but I don’t see why! It’s looks soooo nice on him. Anywho I love that first panel and Bex’s color and look. Goto’s so blunt and I love that. Lol

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