Interlude 1, Page 2

White lipstick is sooo 2050’s

OH YEAH it’s a new month!! I’ll be uploading all of May’s voting incentives to the Facebook, in case you missed any of them.

But for today’s bonus art: …hot mom

64 Comments

  • Natalie

    No one’s mum is that hot! I was on board with the space travel, but this is too far :P

    But joking aside, I’m loving Mare Internum so far and of course The Meek as well – so happy that you’re doing comics again!

    • shingworks

      She’s reaching the upper age limit for trophy wife though!

  • skellagirl

    So the “where’s your mom” guy is different from the “sorry, I’m here” guy, right? Who I’m assuming is Uncle Brian (Incidentally, I too have an uncle Brian)? Because they seem to have different clothes? I’m guessing that’s Mike’s dad, who… doesn’t seem to be a super nice guy so far…?

    also dang, idk what Mike’s dad looks like, but on his mom’s side he’s got some fiiiine genes.

    • Lennier

      I too have an Uncle Brian.

      Are… are you me?

      • skellagirl

        BREATHES HEAVILY……

        • kittenears

          If it’s my uncle Brian you can keep him

      • Diem

        It’s funny ’cause I have an Uncle Bryan. :D

      • Arianwen

        I have an Uncle Bruce. Does he count?

        • shingworks

          No. Get out

        • Lennier

          I have an Uncle Bruce.

          You are an Honorary Australian.

          We’re thinking of making William change his name to Bruce. Might even please the Scots. ;)

      • Moddey Dhoo

        I too have an uncle Brian. And a stepfather Brian. I swear they’re not the same person, it’s just that my mom and her sister apparently both have a thing for Brians.

    • shingworks

      TIL everyone has an uncle named Brian

      • My dad is named Bryan. He’s my cousins’ uncle haha.

      • Brian

        I do not have an uncle Brian, but I am an uncle.

        • CrazyLady

          I don’t have an uncle, but I know a Brian.

  • LeDayz

    Thank God his dad showed up so Uncle Brian could actually watch him. Usually this would be where the mom gets so caught up with being a drama queen that the kid drowns…

  • anameer

    So I guess it’s safe to say Mike has mommy (and daddy?) issues, huh. Or if not that, at least resentment. She did ask Bex if she was a good mother. I wonder if this affected him in any way while growing up.

  • madock345

    No ugly people in Mike’s family, huh? XD

    Mike’s supposed to be 8 here? His proportions are very adult-like, so he looks a good bit older than that, maybe eleven or twelve, but I suppose finding reference photos for shirtless children is a dangerous business.

    The art on this page is really nice, it looks great all the way around. The last two panels especially, with that great expression from Mike and the cool water effects.

    • shingworks

      Well, I’ve taught/ tutored enough kids to know that they’re all freaking different, haha. So I’m just going with it.

      And I’m definitely on an NSA list or two by now v__v 2 weeks of “young boy swimwear” open, whoops

      • Jojo

        He reminds me a lot of a few of the kids I watch and they vary in age (from 6 to 10) so I agree. Kids are really different. This works for his body type and how he looks when he is older. At least in my mind.

    • fox-orian

      Considering the proportions his nose is going to grow to, I’d say he’s looking just about right at this age.

  • Lennier

    White lipstick is sooo 2050’s

    And so are spray-on hot pants, I see. :)

    And what’s wrong with Uncle Brians toes!?

    • shingworks

      Finger-like toes: truly the worst of toes

  • Sue

    Ugh, stop breaking my heart! (jk, my heart will break even more if you take this heartbreaking comic away from me)

  • DukeBG

    That’s not uncle Brian’s feet on the last frame? He’s still arguing with Jes, I believe.

    (could it be Legschilla?)

    • shingworks

      Nah, it is (you can see him taking his socks off in panel 3)… he’s just escaped from the awkward fighting.

      • DukeBG

        Hm, so it was him saying “right, cry about it”. Kinda a huge jerk. Kinda, everyone [but Mike] is a jerk on this page at a various degree. I imagine how much that sucks for him.

        • shingworks

          Well Legschilla is okay, but he wasn’t invited to the party because nobody likes him.

          • DukeBG

            http://funkyimg.com/i/XFRM.jpg

            Here’s a 4 year old’s impression. I’m terrible at drawing. I’m sorry.

          • shingworks

            :C oh nooo so sad haha

  • Snow Grey

    Oh god, his ribcage is disturbingly wide in the third panel. It’s like he has a huge tumor deforming his whole upper back.

    • shingworks

      Haha, maybe. I’ll take a look at it again later after I’ve cleared my memory.

      • Nah looks fine to me, non artists sometimes flip out at pefectly valid anatomy because they don’t understand what they’re looking at. His shoulderblades are popping out because his arms are resting on the ground.

        So mom’s 25 with an 8 year old kid? Someone got teen pregnet!

        I don’t quite get what the spat is about, he’s gonna swim with uncle Brian, which is adult supervision, which is what he was supposed to do. Moooom!

        At least I hope by 2050 the whole “Can’t swim after dinner or you will die” myth has been conclusively set to rest

        • shingworks

          Sometimes I flip out and I still know what I’m looking at. Have you ever held your arm out straight and looked in the mirror before? The elbow bends in this fucking godawful angle… It bothers me so much but I can’t really argue with the mirror.

          • Aleph

            Yeah it’s freaky when real life looks off model :O

    • Asterai

      I really liked third panel. My teenaged cousin is lanky as all hell, and he went through a phase looking a lot like that.

      • shingworks

        Yeah, I was going for the “ultra-protruding shoulder blades kid” look, but sometimes I like exaggerating shapes too much.

        • Madeleine

          Nah, he looks perfect.

  • freddie

    ok I love this comic so much actually! The art is absolutely gorgeous and wow, can we talk about the awesome representation so far??
    But oh gosh this page ;-; poor babby!!!! he just wants to go swimming!

  • Captain-Delirium
    • shingworks

      omg XD

  • What…what is that thing?

  • Ahh…oh…many memories of fights like that. Even one involving a pool. Issues? Come see my back issues (Hey, where are you going?)

    And I got prehensile toes like that.

    All this and Mars too. No wonder I’m hooked!

    • grenli

      Me too! Snatchy grabby toes. And a love for M.I.

  • grenli

    Woah. *…Mikey’s mom has got it going on…*

    But only in the physical sense.

  • Cyanilurus

    Okay, after a couple days it’s still itching…

    What on earth are patties?

    • shingworks

      Lol, just hamburger patties…

      • Cyanilurus

        Aaaaand those are? Some kind of spice? Or meat or cheese or the dough part of hamburgers? :B

        • Broreale

          Th-they’re the meat…
          In patties of ground beef.

          • DukeBG

            darnit, i thought it was a sort of pastry. should’ve googled more too.

        • Cyanilurus

          Ummm… sorry, sooo stupid… after a few hours it dawned that probably google would know the answer. ^^;
          I only knew the nickname of “Patricia” as Patty.

          • shingworks

            LOL, that’s fine XD you can’t know what you haven’t learned yet!

          • Stig Hemmer

            Please don’t fry Patricia.

  • Corbie

    How are helicopter parents called in 2050? Surveillance-drone parents? Mike’s mom is sure a pain like a whole dozen of drones.

    • Stig Hemmer

      Being protective is fine. Being a nag about it is not.

      Mike was sitting there quietly and obediently waiting for adult supervision when she started yelling. Bad parenting.

  • Luces

    He really got his looks from both parents. Good work, Der-shing! But at his age, shoudn’t he be at home in the water?
    I learned to swim when I was around five, and we hadn’t have a pool right behind the living room!

    • skellagirl

      Lol, well I dunno about Mike, but I’m 23 and I still can’t get the hang of swimming. :(

      And I know some parents (Like my mom) are very protective – even if their kids know how to swim, there’s always gotta be parental supervision JUST IN CASE.

  • Sadeyedartist

    Is this plot ever going to move forward? I feel like we’ve been stuck on this page for two weeks.

    • shingworks

      lol, I have no idea what to say to that. There’s a timestamp on each post, and a pretty clear explanation of the update schedule in recent posts, if you need to refresh your memory.

      • Sadeyedartist

        I don’t know that I ever saw the time stamps. Webcomic culture is new to me. I like the comic and have read it’s summary, characters, “about”, but not generally the blog portion. I just remember this updating like twice a week and we’ve been hanging out with this bikini mom image for like two (or more?) weeks straight. I never saw whatever time stamp explanation you are referring to. (Sorry.)

        • shingworks

          Since you’re new, I’ll give some further explanation: the journal section is where a lot of info is shared, and it is my responsibility to share schedule info with my readers. It is your responsibility as a reader to look at it. If you had, you’d have seen that I am updating two comics right now, and that I am extremely busy with my dayjob on top of that. Each week I spend over 30 unpaid hours working on webcomics on top of my real life commitments. It is extremely arduous work and I choose to do it and share it for free for personal reasons. It is in extremely poor taste to come to me complaining that I am not going fast enough when I am, in reality, killing myself to do as much as I am right now. Further, it’s insulting for you come to my page to say something like “where’s the plot, this is boring” when I am writing a complex plot that requires lead time, establishments, etc. I’m doing my job, literally all you have to do is show up and eat off my table, please don’t demand more. In the future if you need a question answered I will be happy to answer it as long as you avoid that entitled tone.

          • Kass

            Tyrannosaurus REKT

  • bleh

    When I first read this, I thought it was Brian and Jessica arguing in the last panel, but it always felt weird to me because Brian wouldn’t have had much time to argue with her + start getting in the pool

    Then when I read the other pages and realized that this was Brian’s house and that it was Mike’s dad asking for Jess and then getting into a fight with her made more sense, bc then Brian could just leave

    ANYWAYS good comic, happy family time all around

  • jimbob

    Damn, she has hairy ankles.

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