I am sorry, sir madam, or otherwise. You have not filled out first post submission form 5j–4378iyhg-2. Please consider the consequences of your actions as you serve your fifty year jail term, which will most likely end in your death in an unpleasant and undignified manner. We hope you will stay on the line for a survey after the call.
Should you complete the survey which will take an hour and add 1 year of jail time to your sentence per minute, you will also receive a complimentary soap on a rope for your communal showers, a choice of either a shiv made out of a sharpened toilet roll or the top bunk in bubbas cell and finally a copy of prison slang in paperback for quality reading / toilet paper while on the inside.
GUARDS! Requisition me the forms to have this person taken away!
Forms Technician: I’m having trouble with the forms, sir!
Private blue! You were trained in this for the entirety of your 50 year term! Find it or I’ll banish you to your brother’s internet history!
Oy, try to set up a joke based on a Mel Brooks movie, and I’m being threatened to banishment to a place that hasn’t even been drawn yet. Or may just be facebook.
So the supernatural connections of the sisters Buckingham comes a little more to light…or Chris is setting up some funky sheaf of alternate realities. Welp…’tain’t boring! ^-^
NO I MEANT SPOILER ALERT ABOUT SISTER X. NOW I AM TRUGGERED YIU BASTARD. WHERE IS MY PLAYDOUGH!!!!
You want him to replace the banner at the top with “Spoiler warning: Today’s comic may contain a spoiler for the contents of the archive. Maybe not too. Hard to say for certain.”
I think he’s referring to the fact that Sister X is Terra since I don’t think that’s been explicitly stated outside of the comment sections until now.
I was wrong. Upon going back in the archive to check on something else I found that it this has been mentioned in previous…
I’m not sure what to call the section between the comic and the comment section other than the author’s comments, but given that Rusche comments in the comment section that seems inaccurate. Regardless in a least one of those sections it’s been explicitly stated that Sister X is Terra, unlike what the comment I’m replying to alluded.
You did say several times that no one was going to die in the Black Friday arc, so logically she had to live in some way, shape, or form.
Pity the poor sap who had to attempt to clean up the ratroaches then. They’re out There….
A lack of fatalities doesn’t require keeping all your limbs and avoiding hideously painful but not ultimately deadly poison. There’s still a lot of room for bad things to happen without dying. I felt more sorry for Sister X for not dying than I would have if she would’ve. Though if she is escaping, then perhaps not so much (she was already somewhat insane, so more of that isn’t too out of hand).
If the title is relevant, I’m not certain that Damien counts as being alive. Styx is technically the border, but when you’re in the middle of it I’m not sure you have a choice any longer about which shore you get to go to.
True, though Sister X might have plans for him anyway.
And I guess if he is where the title says he is that might look like a better alternative than the inevitable.
Because I think if one even sees that river, they pretty much know where they’re going.
Trust Tarra to find a way to flout the laws of this place and turn them to her advantage.
OTOH, wouldn’t the ‘real’ river Styx might be a touch more ….populated…. at any given time?
Perhaps this alternate reality is normally reserved for magical creatures then, that tend to be more long-lived. I’m thinkin’….Pixie Styx!
I’ll just get my coat and see myself out now, sorry.
So Dheu’s stomach leads to the same place as Durkin’s pile of ash. Now that’s an unexpected twist.
I gotta hand it to you, you are always pushing your art to the next level. Sometimes strips like this can take a bit of extra time but they are well worth the wait. It still boggles my mind to compare the newer strips to the first ones.
Yeah. For some reason figurehead didn’t seem right to me, and masthead kept pushing through. I just don’t spend enough time around old ships for all the right terms to stick (I still remember port & starbord though, no forgetting them)
This is a pirated version of the HMS Victory. Whatever that mechanic is sticking out of the sides of the ship, it has. So I repeated it for looks. I tried researching what it’s for, but I cn’t find anything, nor what they’re called. I figured the parts where like the spines on the side of the Graboids from the Tremors movies. Maybe it helps it move underneath the ground. XD
Ten points for the auto manufacturer’s name of a recycled engine below deck used in a movie. 20 if you provide the name of the character who most likely did it, why as well along with the actor’s name.
Additional: The movie was “Hot Rod Mania”, a spoof of 50’s hot rod movies with the female lead played by Kelly Flambeau, the red head from Ames, Iowa. Released March 1972.
The things you have sticking to the side of the ship appear in some pics of the ship when the ship’s anchors are hoisted out of the water and tied to it… I believe what you have included is the crosspiece of the anchor that is attached at the top of the shank, known as a “stock”. These appear to be wooden, so there are bands around them. You have left off the shank, arms and flukes of the anchors (since you added three stocks, there theoretically would have been three anchors.) The anchor chain would attach to top of the shank (just above the stock) and the arms would be attached at the bottom of the shank (at the crown) and have flukes at the end. I suppose the shanks and arms and hoisting stuff might be some sort of transparent material, that we can’t see it… I guess…
In this case though, since this is NOT the Victory, and is NOT on this planet’s ocean, they are probably some sort of collector of the negative energies of the water used for motive force for the ship… (Save the artist!!!)
Great, now I’ll have to have three tables at any convention I go to. Wolfman Pat’s Stickers and sh!t, Mr. Blue’s house of wings, and a table for Robert Wolfman’s Rules for Webcomic Motions and asking others out on a date guidebook.
You don’t have to have a table for the book. You can just offer the book at every table with the wings.
I need to know what Jessica would have to say about that.
Damien is very lucky to have found a piece of wood to cling to in the afterlife. I’m guessing other people Durkin has done this to weren’t as fortunate.
As always the art is amazing. One thing I’ll comment on that I don’t believe anyone has yet is how Damien’s shirt is darker near the water. Assuming he wasn’t banished directly on top of the plank this leads me to believe that he’s been floating there long enough for the top of his shirt to dry out. Also, in panel six he appears to be lower in the water. I’m assuming this is due to him cowering in the presence of X, although I suppose it could be the result of the ship’s wake washing over him.
You actually did a pretty good job of capturing the HMS Victory’s forecastle. I Had to look it up and found out about the battle of Trafalgar and admiral Nelson. What an insanely heroic person. Dammit Rusche, if you make me learn anymore, I’m going to have to call the PC police and have you put down for um indiscriminate and Insensitive truthtelling!
“Whoa!” Said I when this strip I opened, ocean, ship, coming out of the mist, the sound effect (it triggered the sound in my head), Cap’n X …. everything is awesome. I have no idea what’s going on, but I certainly like it.
151 thoughts on “Styx”
what, am i first!?!?!
Jubilations Abounds!
I am sorry, sir madam, or otherwise. You have not filled out first post submission form 5j–4378iyhg-2. Please consider the consequences of your actions as you serve your fifty year jail term, which will most likely end in your death in an unpleasant and undignified manner. We hope you will stay on the line for a survey after the call.
Should you complete the survey which will take an hour and add 1 year of jail time to your sentence per minute, you will also receive a complimentary soap on a rope for your communal showers, a choice of either a shiv made out of a sharpened toilet roll or the top bunk in bubbas cell and finally a copy of prison slang in paperback for quality reading / toilet paper while on the inside.
GUARDS! Requisition me the forms to have this person taken away!
Forms Technician: I’m having trouble with the forms, sir!
Private blue! You were trained in this for the entirety of your 50 year term! Find it or I’ll banish you to your brother’s internet history!
Oy, try to set up a joke based on a Mel Brooks movie, and I’m being threatened to banishment to a place that hasn’t even been drawn yet. Or may just be facebook.
My bad. Continue!
No, you’re clearly hallucinating.
Additionally, around these parts first comments that are only commenting on being first do not actually count as first.
So you could’ve been, but you robbed yourself of the distinction.
So the supernatural connections of the sisters Buckingham comes a little more to light…or Chris is setting up some funky sheaf of alternate realities. Welp…’tain’t boring! ^-^
SPOILERS ALERT NEXT TIME PLEASE!!!!
What do you mean, spoiler alert?
He means trigger warnings before I appropriate pirate culture. :P
You ho ho, sooo….
Fourteen more people then?
NO I MEANT SPOILER ALERT ABOUT SISTER X. NOW I AM TRUGGERED YIU BASTARD. WHERE IS MY PLAYDOUGH!!!!
You want him to replace the banner at the top with “Spoiler warning: Today’s comic may contain a spoiler for the contents of the archive. Maybe not too. Hard to say for certain.”
I think he’s referring to the fact that Sister X is Terra since I don’t think that’s been explicitly stated outside of the comment sections until now.
I was wrong. Upon going back in the archive to check on something else I found that it this has been mentioned in previous…
I’m not sure what to call the section between the comic and the comment section other than the author’s comments, but given that Rusche comments in the comment section that seems inaccurate. Regardless in a least one of those sections it’s been explicitly stated that Sister X is Terra, unlike what the comment I’m replying to alluded.
We çąļł įţ ťhə MÆŤŘÎX.
It’s typically called ‘the Rant’
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheRant
Vat vast zat?
Just use monopoly money instead of play dough.
Rosebud is the sled. Vader is Luke’s Father. And Snape kills Dumbledore.
Have fun with that :p
Anyone else kinda just hope the next strip is her silently sailing past leaving him to die?
No, he’s one of the lost boys. Maybe the first.
Nah, pirates need flunkies and he’s a built in flunky. Just give him a bull horn.
Awesome ship, Chris. I bet you’ve been wanting to figure out a way to work that in for some time!
Thank you much. Not so much the ship, but that Sister X was still alive.
You did say several times that no one was going to die in the Black Friday arc, so logically she had to live in some way, shape, or form.
Pity the poor sap who had to attempt to clean up the ratroaches then. They’re out There….
A lack of fatalities doesn’t require keeping all your limbs and avoiding hideously painful but not ultimately deadly poison. There’s still a lot of room for bad things to happen without dying. I felt more sorry for Sister X for not dying than I would have if she would’ve. Though if she is escaping, then perhaps not so much (she was already somewhat insane, so more of that isn’t too out of hand).
Hooo boy. Are those ‘X’ cheek markers?
Yes, those are. But what could be more worrysome could be the hilt of said sword. It looks like it has two lights lit.
Maybe this is where Dheu sent her.
Looks like! Super glad he’s not dead I always rather liked Damien.
Yeah, that connection makes me wonder if Durkin can banish cheeseburgers for Dheu if he gets hungry and that’ll work out just fine for him or not.
Wow that is some beautifully drawn water in panel two.
And in four. Horry sheet.
Agreed!
At one point everyone wanted that airport as wallpaper. Can I place a request for the ship? Holy cow, that is a beautifully done piece of art.
I too, would like this.
Yeah I’ll try.
Damn is the art on that ship both beautiful and epic at the same time. I would love it as a poster
You got that right Joe.
Why did he banish him though? o.O
Clue in the title. :P
The banishing is all a Grand Illusion?
GOOD REFERENCE!!
In which The Renegade is a Lady.
The River Styx seems to be the were, but no idea on the why from the title :/
Some place way out in the styx.
Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with meeeee…..
I didn’t do it! !!!!
BAD ASS!!! :D
ty
Hey he is alive!!
Second to last panel reaction: Holy crap…Sister X!?
sorry, meant the third from last panel.
If the title is relevant, I’m not certain that Damien counts as being alive. Styx is technically the border, but when you’re in the middle of it I’m not sure you have a choice any longer about which shore you get to go to.
True, though Sister X might have plans for him anyway.
And I guess if he is where the title says he is that might look like a better alternative than the inevitable.
Because I think if one even sees that river, they pretty much know where they’re going.
Trust Tarra to find a way to flout the laws of this place and turn them to her advantage.
OTOH, wouldn’t the ‘real’ river Styx might be a touch more ….populated…. at any given time?
Perhaps this alternate reality is normally reserved for magical creatures then, that tend to be more long-lived. I’m thinkin’….Pixie Styx!
I’ll just get my coat and see myself out now, sorry.
So Dheu’s stomach leads to the same place as Durkin’s pile of ash. Now that’s an unexpected twist.
It can be assumed Dheu taught him this.
The nautical figurehead on the front of the ship is super freakin’ sweet.
It reminds me of Juniper for some reason.
The hair, methinks.
Where Styx is a river / and not just a band / though they’ll play our reception / if all goes as planned / unless you surrender / MY HANDS!!
Loving the pirate ship. What was your reference for it?
Its a pirate ship version of the HMS Victory.
HMS We Lost it Biggie Big Time?
My mind went to Der fliegende Holländer. But then I’m a weirdo who likes opera.
But der Fliegende Hollander was a great opera.
Indeed. Tragically, a great opera about a ship that is not this one.
So the rest of the comic becomes pirate adventures in the alternate dimension with Tarra-X and great rejoicing was had by all!
I would not mind this.
Noooope.
We are not going to have a multi-year story arc with brand new vharacters like Sluggy Freelance where Bun-Bun was in Timeless Space.
We will come back to the Shuffleverse to find Quinn married to Pumpkin, both of them pregnant by Dehu, and Ellie as both the President and the Pope.
Pls no.
I don’t recall the use of Exploding Kittens, so
Nope to your nope.
Please that would never happen. Obviously Fatfat would be Pope.
Many jokes about booty ABOUND!
But the treasure CHEST has been plundered.
Hey. It was cancer…. so….
She did it to herself. Times Beach style.
Gasp! We meet Sister X again!
And great job with the backgrounds, that water must have taken forever! It looks great!
Holy Jeez Chris and Jessica! That water and that ship! Just awesome!
“Styx”? I was thinking more “Kansas”…
If we’re taking alternate bands for the name of a destination someone might be banished, “Boston” has to be my first thought.
I like Bachmann Turner Overdrive.
Takin’ care of business, eh?
What else?
Daaaaaayum!
I gotta hand it to you, you are always pushing your art to the next level. Sometimes strips like this can take a bit of extra time but they are well worth the wait. It still boggles my mind to compare the newer strips to the first ones.
We don’t speak of those strips… XD
Wow, coolest plot twist of the entire comic…
Tarragon is a tragic figure.
Future-not-quite-Tarra-but-is-totally-Tarra (otherwise known as Sister X) is back! Glorious!
This page was quite the surprise, and I’m happy to have received it :-D
Also, that masthead (I think that’s the right term?) is looking a bit more sentient than most…might that be one of D52?
Do you mean the figurehead, the carving on the bow?
Yeah. For some reason figurehead didn’t seem right to me, and masthead kept pushing through. I just don’t spend enough time around old ships for all the right terms to stick (I still remember port & starbord though, no forgetting them)
Motion to suggest that all wallpapers be used as voting incentives as well as banner ads. Props the marketing committee deal with this.
Also, I think that Minna S. Would be impressed by this water.
Sister X: Badass enough to wear high-heeled boots on the deck of a pirate ship.
Beautiful page. I am floored.
How is the ship moving if all the sails are furled? And what are those three odd long rectangular pieces sticking out of the side of the hull?
1) Artistic license on physics
2) Aesthetics
This is a pirated version of the HMS Victory. Whatever that mechanic is sticking out of the sides of the ship, it has. So I repeated it for looks. I tried researching what it’s for, but I cn’t find anything, nor what they’re called. I figured the parts where like the spines on the side of the Graboids from the Tremors movies. Maybe it helps it move underneath the ground. XD
In my headcanon, they’re rocket boosters, thus answering both issues ^.^
Do not forgets, the Bounty was sunk by Sandy, vas it knot?
Styx is a river. Rivers have currents. Problem solved!
Additionally inertia will keep a ship moving after sails are furled.
There is a recycled automobile engine under the deck.
Ten points for the auto manufacturer’s name of a recycled engine below deck used in a movie. 20 if you provide the name of the character who most likely did it, why as well along with the actor’s name.
1948 Ford hemi-head as done by Clint Eastwood.
Additional: The movie was “Hot Rod Mania”, a spoof of 50’s hot rod movies with the female lead played by Kelly Flambeau, the red head from Ames, Iowa. Released March 1972.
The things you have sticking to the side of the ship appear in some pics of the ship when the ship’s anchors are hoisted out of the water and tied to it… I believe what you have included is the crosspiece of the anchor that is attached at the top of the shank, known as a “stock”. These appear to be wooden, so there are bands around them. You have left off the shank, arms and flukes of the anchors (since you added three stocks, there theoretically would have been three anchors.) The anchor chain would attach to top of the shank (just above the stock) and the arms would be attached at the bottom of the shank (at the crown) and have flukes at the end. I suppose the shanks and arms and hoisting stuff might be some sort of transparent material, that we can’t see it… I guess…
Yeah I see the rope and anchor next to it in a few pictures. Makes sense. :)
In this case though, since this is NOT the Victory, and is NOT on this planet’s ocean, they are probably some sort of collector of the negative energies of the water used for motive force for the ship… (Save the artist!!!)
Today marks My first comment aboard this comic!
Which is pretty fun.
Welcome aboard :)
And with the ten word minimum, you have captured the first first comment for this strip in an official manner of statement and/or fact.
Welcome fellow anonymous commenter.
ANOTHER first? Oh man. We’re running low on welcome baskets. Um…we got….
…half an apple…
…and a mostly completed punch card for Mr. Blue’s House of Wings. Buy…one, two…four baskets and get a complimentary domestic schooner free.
So…welcome!
Great, now I’ll have to have three tables at any convention I go to. Wolfman Pat’s Stickers and sh!t, Mr. Blue’s house of wings, and a table for Robert Wolfman’s Rules for Webcomic Motions and asking others out on a date guidebook.
You don’t have to have a table for the book. You can just offer the book at every table with the wings.
I need to know what Jessica would have to say about that.
Damien is very lucky to have found a piece of wood to cling to in the afterlife. I’m guessing other people Durkin has done this to weren’t as fortunate.
As always the art is amazing. One thing I’ll comment on that I don’t believe anyone has yet is how Damien’s shirt is darker near the water. Assuming he wasn’t banished directly on top of the plank this leads me to believe that he’s been floating there long enough for the top of his shirt to dry out. Also, in panel six he appears to be lower in the water. I’m assuming this is due to him cowering in the presence of X, although I suppose it could be the result of the ship’s wake washing over him.
the ship looks amazing
One artist to another, that panel with the ship looks great.
Thanks. Do you do a comic?
My only problem is that the Flux capacitor seems to be missing. Does Dehu eat technology as well?
Never mind, it’s probably that pouch on her butt.
It is in the jewel on the handle of the sword.
Good lord that middle panel is effing beautiful.
The word “boned” comes to mind.
is she telling him to grab the sword to lift him up? ouch….
The art on this strip is fantastic.
FILLER PAGE
It’s critical to the ending, actually. XD
DTFX or TDFX? Tarragon seems like the type who’d see it as petty to demand top billing.
Demanding top billing, possibly. Being “very persuasive” is another matter entirely.
(see comic Is this the one you never mentioned?, currently post date of November 22, 2013).
Good point. Hm.
… so maybe TDTFX?
Ellie aimed that during black Friday, remember? It wasn’t Tarrakin but Pumpagon.
You actually did a pretty good job of capturing the HMS Victory’s forecastle. I Had to look it up and found out about the battle of Trafalgar and admiral Nelson. What an insanely heroic person. Dammit Rusche, if you make me learn anymore, I’m going to have to call the PC police and have you put down for um indiscriminate and Insensitive truthtelling!
So the vamp, the shade, and the cat all have the same powers just with different aesthetics?
Oh hey, got jelly Ashliii this time.
Was there a new avvy rotation? What did I get this time?
Man, I don’t know why I even take my chances with this thing…
I don’t think that there was a new rotation.
Little slow on the uptake as usual, but thank you Chris for sharing that video, I’ve never seen it before.
“Whoa!” Said I when this strip I opened, ocean, ship, coming out of the mist, the sound effect (it triggered the sound in my head), Cap’n X …. everything is awesome. I have no idea what’s going on, but I certainly like it.
The sword and boot are so epic that the panel couldn’t contain them
Sister X’s expression says so much.
Oh man. I love Pogo’s stuff so much!
She “Minecrafted” that boat out of a single tree, carved with the sword she made from a single rock that she forged using only her left fist.
Okay, really late with this comment, but did anyone else notice that Durkin says that he can’t banish MORTALS to a specific place? Implying that:
A) Durkin is not mortal
B) He can possibly banish Immortals to a specific place.
Verrrry interesting , Chris.
That sword girl is so cool <3