It’s their own damn fault no one takes them seriously, talking all weird like that!
Out-of-Placers
A story of inconvenient changes
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OOPs now has a Russian translation which updates shortly after the English pages are posted!
Now also in French:
And Ukranian:
What happened to his glasses?
Not being critical. That was just the first thing I noticed.
Good catch! I have this thing where if I crunch out a lot of work on the day the comic’s posted, I have one detail that I forget until I’ve posted it, and quickly re-edit it. The biggest offenders are yinglet eyebrow whiskers and Isher’s freckles.
Wow, you fixed that fast.
Ze continuity! Zat zhing strikes again!
So how come “zhing” and “zhis” keep their “h” but “ze” doesn’t?
It all depends on how hard they’re trying to sound authentic. When they get frustrated, snappy, impatient, etc. they tend to not make the extra effort to sound off those H’s.
Love the comic, though I do want to offer a bit of a warning. Nothing bad, and you haven’t yet fallen into this trap, though you have skirted it.
When writing a webcomic you need to be careful about showing ‘everything’ going on, else it will bog down a scene and slow it down. Another comic I enjoy I have basically stopped reading because they let the pacing slip a bit. Other reasons too, but nothing related to this topic.
And I have other comics which took years to cover one to a few days.
I love the world you built, and the races. I just want to warn you against spending twelve comics showing one or two scenes is all.
Yeah, that’s something that’s been on my radar for a while now. One of the biggest advantages of “strip” style comics like this (as opposed to standard comic book style that is meant to be read as a whole all at once) is that one scene doesn’t have to start right where the last one left off.
This chapter’s been fairly condensed that way though, as there’s some info that needed to be dropped before moving the story on.
Poor Kassie she deserves to keep some of her dignity. But no the universe in general won’t allow that.
And jerk move Ran!
Alright Lopin the only thing keeping you alive is what you know, if you can’t tell Lady Kassie what she wants to hear, well you will have a shorter lifespan then the average Yinglet and that’s saying something. So I hope you know something cause if you don’t your a dead fancy boy. Unless of course you can make yourself god dame useful to Kassie and sacrifice what little dignity you have for her amusement.
Hey, Ran’s just tellin’ it like it is! They are funny little things.
Not that you can’t tell the truth AND be a jerk about it.
Don’t be mad at Lopn, Kass. At least Ran’s not bringing out his “special dolls” now!
And did Ran jump to the “boyfriend” conclusion now that Kass knows all about yinglet sex?!?! Is zhat ze zhing he zhinks zhey’re arguing about? It might explain a bit of his snark.
Oh yeah! Good ol’ “God Dammit Ran.”
Won’t Kass’s other friends get jealous from not having their own cute yinglet assistant?
That’s kinda like saying, “What, you get a small street hobo that follows you around and I don’t!?”
They can be cute, but boy do they have a reputation.
The punchline inspired me to read the comic out loud, and oh my goodness, that made it made twice as hilarious. I should read scav lines out loud always.
You know, I do have a habit of saying these lines out loud while writing them, to make sure they sound authentic… maybe that means reading them aloud would have a greater effect by default.
I spent an hour doing an impression of a yinglet a while back. It can get laughs or annoy everyone else until they give you the last cookie…
OOOH NOOOOOO! The Kaspin or Lopssen or Kalopining! Next ship sales in two weeks!
LoppRan, it is inevitable.
They both share in the Fancy Hat life.
Such things do bring us together.
“Hat Life”
I’m now imagining Lopin and Ran dressed in hazard suits standing inf front of a Lambda symbol.
Or Hat Life can be a Yinglet fashion mag. Think about what the cover would look like. Ya, let that sink in.
So, have you ever found yourself copying the accent of someone you were talking with? It’s so weird when I catch myself doing it. It’s not often, but after spending long enough with someone with a notable accent (particularly the various British ones) I’ll sometimes find myself doing that. Such a strange phenomenon…
Oh, I’m sure there’s some deep psychological explanation for that; you’re far from the only one who does that.
I think it has to do with mirror neurons.
I do this all. The. Time. I can’t help it.
Okay, nobody else is saying it? Panel 4, I ♡ the expression on Lopin’s face! Val really nailed it!
So anyone want to take bets on if Lopin actually in on the conspiracy, or is the man who knew too little? After all, it’s hard to play dumb if you’re not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Although previous behavior is a good indicator of future actions, and he has shown an above average intelligence (for a yinglet) in the past… hrm…
Yeah, that one was a lot of fun to draw.
Hmmm… so, there was some speculation in the comments on the previous page regarding thenature of the orbit of the “travelling moon,” and it would seem, here on this page, that the we have been given a diagram explaining it.
Yindeed! But that’s one hell of an unstable system if it’s accurate…Sooner or later the world is likely to get moon-in-the-face syndrome.
Well, it’s “just a theory”, according to the chart. Like gravity is a theory to explain why objects attract each other.
If that’s a spy-satellite type polar orbit, it’s making my head hurt. Maybe it’s being stabilized by some agency like Larry Niven’s Ringworld. (artificially)
Mmmmm. Remember that in science, a theory is a tested, well-substantiated, unifying explanation for a set of verified, proven factors. Hypothesis is a suggested but untested explanation or a thought-out but untested prediction. I think you’re confusing theory and hypothesis. Gravity is pretty well-substantiated, verified and proven at this point. Do we know everything about it? A good scientist never insists that they know everything about anything…But at least by what we know from studying gravitational interactions and orbital mechanics to date, that moon is an impact crater waiting to happen.
That aside, if the larger moon were somehow in a stable polar orbit, then the ‘wandering moon’ would describe pretty predictable ovals around it and I imagine it probably wouldn’t be called ‘wandering.’ If the pair of them make a two-body system, it seems like they’d both eventually get dragged out of orbit, though… And then you’ve got a couple of serious Chicxulub-style events.
I haven’t seen any solutions for three-body systems where one of the bodies outmassed the other by that much.
Yeah, I was being maybe too subtly ironic about those that discuss evolution as “just a theory”. It’s an observed fact just like gravity; we have theories to explain how it happens.
I think science is pretty okay too
Lopin and Ran should trade hats, just to learn about each other’s culture.
But hats are so personal! May as well trade underwear if they’re going that far
So i just discovered this comic yesterday and I’ve already caught up. I read quite a bit of webcomics and this quickly climbed to the top. Interesting and adorable races, interesting lore, hilarious characters, it’s just fantastic. I eagerly await more pages.
Ey, awesome! Glad you found this comic; it loves you too.
REMEMBER!! *x files music* …why does it say remember?
Because otherwise, he’ll forget to remember!
how could i be so blind?! OFCOURSE…i feel silly lol but what must he remember?
Lopin’s lashes in panel four are killing me. We absolutely need a comic with Kass making her best evil face while tying Lopin across the railroad tracks, and another of Ran in a Canadian mountie hat.
Lovely eyelashes are important to any self-respecting salesman
I love the characters in this comic so much. It’s so sad, though, that yinglets apparently don’t live very long. I think someone said 20-30 years? That’s a bummer. That’s a big lifespan hit for Kass, especially.
We can hope their potential life span is greater–most humans don’t live too long in cultures that match the yinglet’s current state of development, either. Maybe the 20-30 years is just an average.
Or healthy-healthy juice could be rediscovered.
Imagine if our world somehow got access to the yinglet’s and found out about the juice. We’d spare no expense in doing molecular and DNA analysis of any its leftover traces, and taking apart every plant and animal in those marshes until we could duplicate it. A panacea that also extended lifespan would be priceless.
True, though at this point if a human reaches 50, they’re considered to be a super-old man. Less medical/nutritional knowledge and development means that everyone takes a hit!
Nice professionalism there Ran, you should be used to squeaky hysterical voices by now. Also, you might not want to alienate your research assistants, especially when they are sleep deprived.
Professionalism is for the lower ranks!
I may have mentioned this before, but I have considered the possibility that there are no, or at least very few, natural Yinglet females, and that they’ve instead got some secret means of transforming members of other races to keep their numbers viable.
That is to say, though they already make the claim that females are very rare, they may in fact be even rarer than that, necessitating extraordinary means to ensure a viable population.
Or, artificially creating females may be a ploy by a cabal of unscrupulous males to break the power of the matriarchy…
I’d better stop. I could follow a thread like this all night.
If the “Ends and Beginnings” story is canon, it shows a female younglet, as well as saying the original matriarch was naturally hatched. But then there’s the transforming goop “because the the old Matriarch thought I might help popping out eggs?” (paraphrased), which would support at least one conspiracy theory.
Well the important thing is that there are no lack of conspiracy theories at this point.
I hope this will lead do some further exposition about “zat zhing”.
I also predict that Viracroix knows of a way to transform Kass back into a human, but is strategically withholding this information. (Look at that sly smile in Prologue #36. The man knows something!)
Well I mean they know it’s a thing, and probably came from somewhere and did something???
I dunno what else there is left to learn
Ha! You are right! All of this has indeed been revealed already.
I should read more carefully next time.
Damn, I know you’ve addressed how things change as your art develops and you refine your style but Kassen’s ears have gotten a lot bigger since (s)he first became a ratbird.
Yup! Turns out that scavs are at least like, 28% better with bigger ears.
I personally prefer the original proportions better. Not just the ears either, Kass’ snout keeps getting longer too. Perhaps his inherent manliness is pushing through the transformation.
We need an animated series with the yinglet enclave as a dysfunctional Smurf village, with Vizlet as Mama Smurf. They both share a chronic lack of females, right?
And unlike OOPs where it’s just a fan theory, Smurfs really do have to resort to magical transformation to create females.
When you think about it, it was Gargamel that created her, so the all-male Smurf village was doing fine until a villain created a woman to place among them, and society began to break down.
WHAT’S BEING SUGGESTED HERE
Just wanted to say; This comic on “comicrocket” no longer shows that it is being updated. It stopped at page 68, and thats the way I access this comic, so if you could clean that up, it would be awesome!!
Val may not even be aware OOPs is on that site. I checked it out and it seems to me like it steals webcomics without permission for their own profit; I doubt they’re giving Val a cut of their ad revenue.
Until Comic-Rocket gets the author’s blessing, I discourage the use of that site.
Haha, wow! I had no idea this comic was on any lists other than TWC.
It’s not just a list, they actually copy and archive your comic and website onto their server. When people view the comic through their site they are reading it on their servers. I know this isn’t a big issue for you right now because you havent monitized your comic but you might want to in the future, and regardless it’s still theft and copyright infringment.
Imagine if a book publisher started selling print copies of your comic without your consent and you never saw a penny of their profits. Even if you’re honored to be worth stealing from and get credited as the creator, you should still be outraged.
Oh man… I had NO idea!!
Now I have to find 14 comics from another site. Don’t want to be supporting something like that..
There is a positive part of websites like that, that archive a copy of a webcomic: posterity.
Many a webcomic has eventually been abandoned and their website taken down, for various reasons (e.g. the creator died). When this happens its great to have archived copies stored elsewhere, so that the comic can still be shared and enjoyed for years or generations to come.
Still, it’s bad when they’re profiting off of someone else’s work when that person is still working on it. Even if the creator does abandon the work, copyright law still technically applies for some 50 or 60 years after the creator’s death (though most non-corporate-overlords generally agree that’s excessive and harms creative progress).
Do male yinglets sound like Ren?
There’s a tiny bit of similarity in the accent, but their voices are much higher. Check out the “Ask the Average Yinglet” flash in the Art & Extras section.
Something that’s been bugging me…
While it makes sense that the ratbirds would turn the hard “th”such as in “they” or “that” into a “z,” wouldn’t it be simpler to pronounce the soft “th” (such as in “think” or “thirsty”) as an “s” sound?
Because way back, some big shot decided that it sounded better!
But now they can’t make any sense when they try and sing
It don’t mean a thing
if it ain’t got that zing! ٩(͡๏̯͡๏)۶ ???
We need some UTF8 yinglet emojis, too. Get on that, Lopin.
They could stick to just the instruments and go for more of an electro-swing vibe.
And when Ran starts in with the Zhis and Zhat, it just sounds patronizing as heck. Especially to someone who’s heard him do that repeatedly with other races, and has only been a yinglet herself for a day or three.
“I’m doing the best I can getting the plosives and glottals out – You have lips, use them, pronounce it right.”
I have a new theory about the “traveling moon”: it is in a polar orbit. When the moon is over one of the poles, there will be a continuous low tide around the equator and low latitudes which could last for many days or weeks, depending on the moon’s orbital period.
When the moon is near the equatorial plane, however, there will be two high and two low tides daily.
Hey, that fits in with the drawing on the wall. So now we just have to start new crazy theories on how it got into and maintains that unstable circularized orbit as depicted. I think you know I’m leaning toward sufficiently advanced technology; less towards the gods playing moon Jenga.
Given what Val’s said previously about the fantasy/sci-fi balance of the comic I’m going with sufficiently advanced technology.
“Can YOU explain zhat?”
“I can’t explain zhat.”
“Can YOU explain zhat?”
“I can’t explain zhat, eizher.”
“NO ONE CAN EXPLAIN ZHAT!”
Mel Brooks’ Dracula: Dead and Loving It has relevence to this comic. Who’d a thought?
NOT ZAT ZHING
Heh, Ran in panel 2. “I see you are not wasting any time, Kass,”
“Just be sure to document EVERYTHING. In vivid, lurid detail. Inquiring minds want to know, Kass.”
I think “God … Dammit Ran” is the phrase I quote most in my mind… Partly because there is some one at work I sometimes have to deal with… But mostly that exasperated emphatic pause. And that it’s much shorter than his tirade to Galen
This is what the comic was based around, wasn’t it? You were thinking of these creatures you were working on, and you were thinking about what magical force or power created them, and you started saying “zat zing” to yourself in your head in their high pitched voices and then you knew you had to make a webcomic about it.
You know, this really just makes me question why a mouth fixture isnt just used, probably dont need much more then a leather band to wrap around the top half of the snout to hold a curved bar in place to make TH sounds.