Page 19. A guy just like them.
Early update this week because I’m gonna be at Anime Central in Chicago from Friday to Sunday, sharing table F032 with Kel McDonald of Sorcery 101! I’ll have Chapters 1 and 2, as well as prints. I’ll probably do sketches, too!
“Your little spokesman…” oh, oh ouch :C oh, Brendan.
“made by a guy just like them” is also giving me a bad feeling about the future of Al’s pre-existing issues with, uh, being open about his sexuality… My heart is clenching so bad from apprehension right now. A very well-done page. But also, aaaaaaauuugh
I got the same feeling and it huuurrrrtttttts. I’m not religious but bless this comic and its fantastic writing, I swear every page has one image/expression or line of dialog that makes me feel at least one emotion. Intensely.
For I moment I read it as “are both very… cute”
this made me laugh out loud
Noo Brendan :( Now I feel bad for calling him Al’s cute secretary. It was a joke Brendan I’m so sorry :( You aren’t a booth babe, you’re the real deal, we’ve seen how pro you are at robots :(
I hope Al manages to gather up some courage and tell them that Brendan is as important as he is in this business. Or at least tells them that Brendan is also coming to this meeting-thing.
Have a great time at the con, such a pity I can’t go in person and pester you ;)
Hahaha! That conversation was so well written. I can just hear the polite, but self-satisfied tone of voice of the man on the phone.
The phone guy seems to be on the same page they are on, though. People housed in robots will want the best arms and legs they can get. Maybe he has a personal stake? Dying relative? Age?
He undervalues Brendan, meaning B is the Ace in the Hole.
The voice on the phone is working for the government, in the military. He is likely aware Brendan is gay, and *obviously* Miss Villas is a woman and a minority. When the he says, “guys just like them”, he probably means white, heterosexual, males…
*belatedly*
I feel like I both agree and disagree, actually – from the way Mr. Sterling and Col. Lee interact, what I’m seeing is less “this fellow is a White Heterosexual Male” than “this fellow is a member in good standing of the White-Heterosexual-Male-Oligarchical-Society”. Being in the closet is a part of that, but only because the WHMOS is uncomfortable with open sexuality outside the standard framework of heterosexual marriage … and judging by any number of political figures, as long as you act as if any other sex is shameful and try to keep it quiet, they won’t have a problem with it. The much more important signs are that Al is a busy man with a lot of important work to do, courteous but not deferential, aware of the professional landscape (this is reflected both in knowing of other important figures like Miss Villas and freely admitting what Col. Lee already knows about their financial status), and a confident player of the business negotiations game.
Even if he has no idea that Brendan is gay, (my mental model of) Col. Lee sees Brendan as a PR guy – one of those magicians who makes the hoi polloi enthusiastic, but otherwise of little interest – whereas Al is a guy like himself. To my mind, that’s who the “them” is in “a guy just like them” – people like himself.
Edit: I love this kind of thing in a story – and I love this story. I’ve not been checking it frequently (right now, I’m archive-binging every month or thereabouts), but it’s really good and I really appreciate it.
I’m rather late to the party, but anyway, I wonder if part of this is also that Brendan is Jewish? At least, his name sounds like he is.
Ten to one this guy’s name is Faust. Ten to one.
Faustopheles?
I’m hoping the guy on the phone is thinking ‘I expected him to say 40. God, we may be in time to save Grandma, please let all the random factors align.’
Don’t be sill… His name is Lou Cipher
I’ve taken some note of your shadowing, colouring, and shading, as it relates to the story on this page, buru
so something about the neuron emulator is still not essential, and (assuming that string is supposed to be all numerals) a couple of digits still seem “unusual” in their appearance
that’ll get resolved eventually, “in story,” i suppose
Damn right. He’s just like everyone else: human. Puts his pants on one leg at a time, has stuff he’d rather everyone didn’t know, hates shaving.
I just realized that the emulator we were looking at there is most likely the one Brendan will use to copy Al, and is therefore probably inside Sulla’s head ‘now.’ Or do they upload and download to other emulators?
http://www.popsci.com/article/science/neuroscientist-who-wants-upload-humanity-computer?src=SOC&dom=fb
Life emulates reality. “Koene and I had dropped by Huffman’s company, which received venture capital to develop automated brain-slicing and imaging technologies. Huffman was wearing pink toe nail polish on his shoeless feet and sported a thick beard and bleached faux-hawk.”
what no I can’t be caught up this isn’t faaaaair
you know, technically, that guy on the phone “has a point,” every if he is offering it in an offensive-coating
The guy on the phone is trying every kind of bait he can toss overboard. Likely he knows about Brendan, but not Al. First he dangled the girl, now it’s fame. He REALLY wants this to happen, and not everyone who works for the government is a monster. He may be Mephistopheles, used to tempting everyone into doing his bidding, but I suspect he sees something about to be born and wants to be part of it.
“You’ve got the perfect face for this.” Dang. That means Al just forfeited any and all pipe dreams of transition within the next two years and probably beyond for publicity, largely because Brendon used the puppy dog eyes. :’C
I got to meet Blue at Acen!!!! I will be cosplaying Sulla to Anime Midwest! Love this page!
No, no no no. I loved everything in this story but this is just not ok, I dont like it at all, goverment is never like you put it in here sorry for my bad english, I have not read the rest of the story but this really pisses me off, I do not believe it, I can dream with all the awesome technology and human relationships but this imae of the goverment and the trust of the characters on it I just cant. I also do not like them as a corporation, I’d love them as people of science that care for the people despite their economic status. ug. But well I dont know I am confused I do love the story but this I do not love it that much.
I guess twenty million might buy you the right to talk like that.