Voluntary exchange of goods and services is the foundation of Capitalism. Last I checked indentured servitude wasn’t a thing anymore, yet Capitalism still is.
Stephen P.
2 years ago
I like how his eye color shifts throughout the conversation, and now we have blue instead of purple!
Panel 1 is definitely on the redder end of the spectrum. Not pink, because pink is red + white, and this definitely has blue in it, so maybe more of a fushia? Panel 2 and 3 look to be a more even mix of red and blue that we would call violet (or maybe magenta? but it’s light so let’s stick with violet), with Panel 3 slightly more on bluer end, and Panel 4 has even more blue, making it more of an indigo.
We DO complicate things an awful lot. But even ZK’s previous, cursory glance at humanity’s patterns should’ve made it clear to them much earlier, that we need this complication for very practical reasons. Mainly, not falling into chaos or abuse every time something unfair happens/is done to someone.
At least ZK’s fast on the uptake. Prone to fits of rage, but able to assert rationality back in place soon after.
Last edited 2 years ago by Rolando
foducool
2 years ago
last panel, zeke went down to DEFCON-2 to 3
Rolando
2 years ago
I’m guessing ZK will want to perform the repairs themselves, once the hardware is procured. In fact, they’d probably also want to search for the parts themselves. And pay them with Ethan’s money, of course.
“Them” has become both plural and singular. But still, ZK = singular entity -f = singular; -ves = plural, therefore “ZK, themself”, not “ZK themselves”. I’ve always thought that they/them was to avoid the “not-a-person” and “subhuman” implications of using it/it … Am I wrong? Is the motivation to transform allsingular forms of non-binary personal pronouns into the plural?
… or maybe my grammar-naziish correction was just too curt. That’s probably it.
Last edited 2 years ago by Freddie
Mike the Limey
2 years ago
When the latest episode hadn’t appeared by lunchtime (UK) today, I was concerned Zeke might have squeezed too hard…
wysiwtf
2 years ago
Did anyone take into account Ethan actually can’t die?
Yeah, I mean, Ethan can only give him his intestines for like two or three minutes at a time. Then they disappear and blorp back into him as he regenerates. Amusing for a while, but it’s bound to get dull after a week or two, and Zeke’s still left with no eye and no intestines.
Wasnt there a comic way back where Ethan corrected Lucas saying that it isnt that he cant die, its more that he doesnt stay dead. That he remembers all the pain and trauma of dying.
If that is the case, then i would imagine Ethan would still like to avoid death when possible
Ethan can’t stay dead. Not the same as “can’t die”. He died a lot, then respawned. At this stage, severe, non-lethal mutilation is probably the worst you can do to him, or the Cpt Harkness Treatment – burying him in concrete, so he spends the next few hundred years dying and respawning so he can suffocate again.
Regardless of the harm or the lack of it to Ethan, there’s still a lesson Zeke needs to learn. Plus a thing can still be wrong even if it doesn’t cause harm. I might have a 1000 apples on the tree in my yard, but you shouldn’t take them without asking.
This is the reason why this “Zeke Plot” makes sense. If Ethan didn’t have his power, he would be risking too much being around a potential killer robot. As long as Ethan is invulnerable, he has nothing to lose, so he can risk having his intestines outside instead of inside. For any other human, turning off Zeke will be the only one sane option.
I agree with you, Scott, Ethan is playing with fire, but he can’t burn.
Eldrik
2 years ago
yess. called it. Not that it was that hard to call 😛
Eldest Gruff
2 years ago
Ethan’s got a great point. Eugene might have a ton of assets at his disposal, but unless he’s got control of a robotics plant, anything that couldn’t be constructed by 3D printing or amateur metalwork would have to be purchased, not custom-designed. Ten to one, the optics are likely available on the general market, or scavenged from existing widely-available product, because obtaining anything military-grade would probably attract more attention than Eugie’s willing to risk.
I don’t want to be negative about this but I’m not sure I really like the direction of where Ethan and Lucas stories are going. Its becoming more and more philosophical and less emphasis on the humor. Which I don’t think does as well in multi-parters. I mean the gold standard of this type of thing is Calvin and Hobbes. And this just seems like a rather pale imitation.
I think the only “problem” (if I can even call it that) is the 3 page a week format. It forces one thought per page, because it can’t flow naturally onto another page. This means a 12 page issue takes four weeks to deliver.
Throw other series in between Analog & D-Pad issues and we end up with a fairly slow delivery mechanism. With the exception of a random one-off in September, we haven’t seen Ethan and Lucas as superheroes since 2020. Again, I don’t think this is a problem, but it is a consequence of the format.
You saw him use his powers, but he wasn’t performing as a superhero out protecting society which i believe was the point of the comment you were responding to.
I love it. There’s a billion webcomics out there that are humor only, but my favorites are ones like this, Order of the Stick, Girl Genius, etc that blend both together well. I agree with the other folks though that perhaps you should wait a few weeks for the rest of this issue to be out and read it all at once.
In my read, this feels like an exploration of how a much better thought out Ethan and Lucas would, given this A&DP universe, get a version of Zeke on their side. The whole new universe feels to me like the author is taking the chance to write out a much better story for characters he likes — I’m expecting a fallout with Scott, and a romantic situation with Lilah, but at a much chiller and reasonable pace. I like that he’s not rushing to set up a reasonable world for these characters, and while I can see how it’s slow… Read more »
Vedrit
2 years ago
They need to keep putting morals and ethics from the perspective of ZK’s “automaton nation”
no thanks nintendo
2 years ago
And by “I’m sure I can figure something out!”, chances are good he means “I’m sure Scott can figure something out!”
The watching in real time of the slow acceptance of a society full of entities not of one self is both slightly satisfying and terrifying.
John Swift
2 years ago
So… I wonder if the line refering to zeke as “One-of-a-kind” was a joke by Tim about how the master is totally just building a new robot to *something*?
I think he had Ethan make Embla for him in that version. I wouldn’t be surprised if the master makes an M-BLA to combat this new version of ZK, considering he built them.
Figured the Master would be brought up. but i was thinking he was gunna be used in an example of like” zeke if you knocked somthing of the Master’s over by accident and broke it. would you want to be thrown in a trash compactor in retribution for something you didn’t intend to do?”
but im not complaining at all. this way works wonderfully as well
Also, Ethan feels a pain of his own in seeing Zeke harmed, especially when he is responsible for that harm. Human empathy makes us feel the pain we cause in others and more-so when we have an emotional stake in that person’s well-being.
Ethan doesn’t just owe Zeke a new eye, he wants Zeke too have his eye back the way it was because it makes Ethan happy to make Zeke whole and happy again. A lot of prosocial behavior stems from a personal satisfaction in seeing others satisfied.
I love how you let Zeke experience human everyday behavior and reasoning. Very well written Tim.
Austin Mills
2 years ago
You know, from this angle Zeke’s actual camera looks fine. It appears to be the lens and shell that need to be fixed. So some cut glass or plastic for the lens, carbon fiber print (we know they have a 3D printer) for the broken eyelid – good as new.
Yeah, I was kind of confused at first since it looks mostly like it’s just cosmetic damage when it first happened.
lechuckGL
2 years ago
As many already mentioned before: ZK is indeed a child. Oh my godness, they are growing so faaaaaaast
Jacob
2 years ago
ZK’s color changing is perfect for emotional context lacking in a hardware face
asdasd
2 years ago
the bastion of morality!
vernes
2 years ago
I am LIKING this slow character growth of the murderous robot into a normal dysfunctional person.
Pulse
2 years ago
i love how the shade of his colors shows him calming down
Pulse
2 years ago
also a perfect time to upgrade! he has been around for awhile, theres gotta be a better camera now.
atlachan
2 years ago
is Ethan going to find, or even set off the (active?) failsafe bomb while fixing the optics?
Last edited 2 years ago by atlachan
justin
2 years ago
I really like the subtle shift in colour.
Not as red as the beginning but purple bordering on blue to show that he is kind of coming around a bit but not quite “ok” with things yet. lol
Tim, do you use alt text to convey things like that? seems like an important detail that might have been lost to colour blind people. (not colour blind myself obviously just know friends that are)
24
indentured servitude: the bastion of morality!
and the foundation of capitalism!
Voluntary exchange of goods and services is the foundation of Capitalism. Last I checked indentured servitude wasn’t a thing anymore, yet Capitalism still is.
I like how his eye color shifts throughout the conversation, and now we have blue instead of purple!
Yeah I was just gonna say that. Well, not *quite* blue but certainly getting closer to that.
The first three panes are pink, while the last one is purple. It looks like maybe red and blue LEDs mixing to make purple, but it’s still purple.
Panel 1 is definitely on the redder end of the spectrum. Not pink, because pink is red + white, and this definitely has blue in it, so maybe more of a fushia? Panel 2 and 3 look to be a more even mix of red and blue that we would call violet (or maybe magenta? but it’s light so let’s stick with violet), with Panel 3 slightly more on bluer end, and Panel 4 has even more blue, making it more of an indigo.
It’s a “lightish red”
I really like the robotic mood lighting.
We DO complicate things an awful lot. But even ZK’s previous, cursory glance at humanity’s patterns should’ve made it clear to them much earlier, that we need this complication for very practical reasons. Mainly, not falling into chaos or abuse every time something unfair happens/is done to someone.
At least ZK’s fast on the uptake. Prone to fits of rage, but able to assert rationality back in place soon after.
last panel, zeke went down to DEFCON-2 to 3
I’m guessing ZK will want to perform the repairs themselves, once the hardware is procured. In fact, they’d probably also want to search for the parts themselves. And pay them with Ethan’s money, of course.
*themself.
“Them” has become both plural and singular. But still, ZK = singular entity -f = singular; -ves = plural, therefore “ZK, themself”, not “ZK themselves”. I’ve always thought that they/them was to avoid the “not-a-person” and “subhuman” implications of using it/it … Am I wrong? Is the motivation to transform all singular forms of non-binary personal pronouns into the plural?
… or maybe my grammar-naziish correction was just too curt. That’s probably it.
When the latest episode hadn’t appeared by lunchtime (UK) today, I was concerned Zeke might have squeezed too hard…
Did anyone take into account Ethan actually can’t die?
oh you did 3 comics back.
Yeah, I mean, Ethan can only give him his intestines for like two or three minutes at a time. Then they disappear and blorp back into him as he regenerates. Amusing for a while, but it’s bound to get dull after a week or two, and Zeke’s still left with no eye and no intestines.
Not necessarily, he did do the experiment to see if he could store blood to donate and the blood didn’t disappear when he respawned.
He restores back to his last “healthy” state, not sure that would apply to how ZK would be removing the internals…
but he can feel pain, and be injured, so long as he doesn’t die from the injuries.
He still feels pain…………
Wasnt there a comic way back where Ethan corrected Lucas saying that it isnt that he cant die, its more that he doesnt stay dead. That he remembers all the pain and trauma of dying.
If that is the case, then i would imagine Ethan would still like to avoid death when possible
Ethan can’t stay dead. Not the same as “can’t die”. He died a lot, then respawned. At this stage, severe, non-lethal mutilation is probably the worst you can do to him, or the Cpt Harkness Treatment – burying him in concrete, so he spends the next few hundred years dying and respawning so he can suffocate again.
Fortunately, this isn’t Torchwood.
And fortunately there isn’t a barrier made out of diamond
Regardless of the harm or the lack of it to Ethan, there’s still a lesson Zeke needs to learn. Plus a thing can still be wrong even if it doesn’t cause harm. I might have a 1000 apples on the tree in my yard, but you shouldn’t take them without asking.
This is the reason why this “Zeke Plot” makes sense. If Ethan didn’t have his power, he would be risking too much being around a potential killer robot. As long as Ethan is invulnerable, he has nothing to lose, so he can risk having his intestines outside instead of inside. For any other human, turning off Zeke will be the only one sane option.
I agree with you, Scott, Ethan is playing with fire, but he can’t burn.
yess. called it. Not that it was that hard to call 😛
Ethan’s got a great point. Eugene might have a ton of assets at his disposal, but unless he’s got control of a robotics plant, anything that couldn’t be constructed by 3D printing or amateur metalwork would have to be purchased, not custom-designed. Ten to one, the optics are likely available on the general market, or scavenged from existing widely-available product, because obtaining anything military-grade would probably attract more attention than Eugie’s willing to risk.
10 to 1 it’s outsourced from a Kinect.
I don’t want to be negative about this but I’m not sure I really like the direction of where Ethan and Lucas stories are going. Its becoming more and more philosophical and less emphasis on the humor. Which I don’t think does as well in multi-parters. I mean the gold standard of this type of thing is Calvin and Hobbes. And this just seems like a rather pale imitation.
I think the only “problem” (if I can even call it that) is the 3 page a week format. It forces one thought per page, because it can’t flow naturally onto another page. This means a 12 page issue takes four weeks to deliver.
Throw other series in between Analog & D-Pad issues and we end up with a fairly slow delivery mechanism. With the exception of a random one-off in September, we haven’t seen Ethan and Lucas as superheroes since 2020. Again, I don’t think this is a problem, but it is a consequence of the format.
We saw Lucas as a superhero last Friday. Unless you want to argue that those arrows aren’t created via a super power anymore.
You saw him use his powers, but he wasn’t performing as a superhero out protecting society which i believe was the point of the comment you were responding to.
I love it. There’s a billion webcomics out there that are humor only, but my favorites are ones like this, Order of the Stick, Girl Genius, etc that blend both together well. I agree with the other folks though that perhaps you should wait a few weeks for the rest of this issue to be out and read it all at once.
In my read, this feels like an exploration of how a much better thought out Ethan and Lucas would, given this A&DP universe, get a version of Zeke on their side. The whole new universe feels to me like the author is taking the chance to write out a much better story for characters he likes — I’m expecting a fallout with Scott, and a romantic situation with Lilah, but at a much chiller and reasonable pace. I like that he’s not rushing to set up a reasonable world for these characters, and while I can see how it’s slow… Read more »
They need to keep putting morals and ethics from the perspective of ZK’s “automaton nation”
And by “I’m sure I can figure something out!”, chances are good he means “I’m sure Scott can figure something out!”
And we already know Scott’s fix – blow up Zeke.
Boy wouldnt that be one hell of a situation
The watching in real time of the slow acceptance of a society full of entities not of one self is both slightly satisfying and terrifying.
So… I wonder if the line refering to zeke as “One-of-a-kind” was a joke by Tim about how the master is totally just building a new robot to *something*?
I seem to recall Zeke had a girlfriend called Embla.
Zeke in CAD1.0 made EMBLA. ZK in this timeline is a one of.
I think he had Ethan make Embla for him in that version. I wouldn’t be surprised if the master makes an M-BLA to combat this new version of ZK, considering he built them.
For current practical purposes Zeke is.
Figured the Master would be brought up. but i was thinking he was gunna be used in an example of like” zeke if you knocked somthing of the Master’s over by accident and broke it. would you want to be thrown in a trash compactor in retribution for something you didn’t intend to do?”
but im not complaining at all. this way works wonderfully as well
Comparing someone to their most hated enemy may not go the way you think.
thats fair but i was just giving an example of what if you were in Ethan’s position
I have been enjoying this SO MUCH.
Great writing, like always. But these pieces in particular has been a blast to read through.
Thank you, Tim.
Very nice on the smooth and gradual (angry red)-(neutral purple)-(hints of blue contentment/happiness) mood color transition
I wonder what green will signify…
Also, Ethan feels a pain of his own in seeing Zeke harmed, especially when he is responsible for that harm. Human empathy makes us feel the pain we cause in others and more-so when we have an emotional stake in that person’s well-being.
Ethan doesn’t just owe Zeke a new eye, he wants Zeke too have his eye back the way it was because it makes Ethan happy to make Zeke whole and happy again. A lot of prosocial behavior stems from a personal satisfaction in seeing others satisfied.
“mirror neurons”
I love how you let Zeke experience human everyday behavior and reasoning. Very well written Tim.
You know, from this angle Zeke’s actual camera looks fine. It appears to be the lens and shell that need to be fixed. So some cut glass or plastic for the lens, carbon fiber print (we know they have a 3D printer) for the broken eyelid – good as new.
Yeah, I was kind of confused at first since it looks mostly like it’s just cosmetic damage when it first happened.
As many already mentioned before: ZK is indeed a child. Oh my godness, they are growing so faaaaaaast
ZK’s color changing is perfect for emotional context lacking in a hardware face
the bastion of morality!
I am LIKING this slow character growth of the murderous robot into a normal dysfunctional person.
i love how the shade of his colors shows him calming down
also a perfect time to upgrade! he has been around for awhile, theres gotta be a better camera now.
is Ethan going to find, or even set off the (active?) failsafe bomb while fixing the optics?
I really like the subtle shift in colour.
Not as red as the beginning but purple bordering on blue to show that he is kind of coming around a bit but not quite “ok” with things yet. lol
Tim, do you use alt text to convey things like that? seems like an important detail that might have been lost to colour blind people. (not colour blind myself obviously just know friends that are)