Page Twenty
Lots of pukey colors. I guess it’s appropriate. Doesn’t really make a nice looking page, though. I like the last panel, otherwise I feel like I really let myself down here. >:P
First person to actually guess what’s wrong with the doc gets mad props. Not that I’ll tell you if you guess it, but I’ll just say no one has so far.
That face drip is pretty haunting. I like it. Nice job!
Panel 7. Oh my gosh, panel 7, with the EYE and the freaky freaky freaky texxxxt.
Panel 2 has some great emotion.
Asleep? Self-induced hallucination? Side effect of something he caught or that was slipped to him when he wasn’t looking? I WILL CONTINUE TO WONDER.
Holy frick is that ever interesting. O_O I want to know their cherished memory now. :D
Good news, I did a mini comic of the first time they met and it’s the vote incentive right now.
Wow. Schtein is actually the initial douche.
he’s not good at first impressions. Or second ones.
XD Haha, Schtein is such a character.
This is such an awesome page <3 Lots of melting faces lol :D Uhhh Google is telling me it's heat stroke, And I think being that close to an explosion and considering he wouldn't have been given food or water due to the nature of his crime I'm gonna go with that XD;
no way, they gave him food and water. That would be terrible if they didn’t.
Yaaaaaay :D I have no idea then XD I’ll just have to wait and find out! …Or read your mind!
…Huh. That doesn’t seem to be working either :<
the warden is drugging him
I never ever ever comment on anything, but your comic has broken me. It’s really wonderful. Mostly, I just have to ask if Langstrom is wearing black gloves in the last two panels, or are his hands going nasty with the rest of him?
His hands are melting, yeah.
I like the detail of the sweat stains of fear. Also, what is the problem???? Reaction to de-lousing? Nervous breakdown from phobias? THE LEAD PAINT? ASBESTOS?? This will continue to bug me.
I have seen three presentations on lupus in the past week and I can safely say that it’s not lupus.
Also, THIS PAGE IS THE FREAKIEST THING LIKE…EVER. I love it.
It’s never lupus.
Except that one time with the magician.
“I have seen three presentations on lupus in the past week and I can safely say that it’s not lupus.”
This is the best thing I’ve read. Ever.
I’m going to say schizophrenic just because I have a schizo character in a comic with people that he imagines melted and hey we have everything else in common I guess :I
Nice underarm sweat stains, btw! Thats what we like to see.
You’re incorrect, so I guess we can finally quit being creepy carbon clones. Hooray! :D
Yayy!!
I mean, nooo my clone
Also I hope you will be posting more Schtein/ Langstrom comics! They are awesome.
Man, I should! That sounds like fun. I wish I was better at one page jokes.
I’m in love with the slow change in him in every panel. The ooze from the mouth and then it just all falls apart from there. Literally. The way you draw Schtein reacting is so wonderful too, not a boring moment!
It canNOT be reassuring to be reminded that its him and his haunted, guilty mind for the rest of eternity. Heh.
I’m guessing when they took an excessive amount of blood from him, they were actually injecting him with something to try and get him to talk about something (such as his top secret project).
HERPES, what’s my prize?
It’s at the pharmacy. :C
Syphilis!
OH SHI–things just got real… unreal. I can’t wait for Saturday, or the next incentive!
Is this sickness some sort of calling card from Opa? Just wondering–it’s a silly conspiracy theory that’s been floating around in my head for a while. Either way, can’t wait to find out!
Well, back to my cheap-ass wine :3c
He doesn’t have his gloves! I bet it’s extreme paranoia of germs and hypochondria.
The plot thickens! Again! This is so terrifyingly creepy. I love it. I like that his eyes get more vibrant then fade out as he goes batshit. I’m going to vote for hallucinations due to a mixture of schizophrenia and a panic attack.
The vote incentive is… kind of heartbreaking. But I should not be surprised.
Also I’ve been loving his feet these past few pages. Not sure why.
Doc has the DTs! Herville Alcoholic Schtein.
Now you’ve done it. You finally got me to comment.
My guess would have to be some sort of psychosis brought on by either something he contracted (like malaria), the trauma of everything that’s happened to him, or psychosocial stress. Dur hur psych nerd. That, or he was batshit crazy from the start :)
Also, the pic I got for voting was Schtein himself. Gotta love when that happens.
My guess, evil science particles from the explosion that he inhaled after the explosion. Maybe others will appear in the vision to.
It’s weird seeing Langstrom with something resembling a friendly expression on his face… :S
I want to say radiation poisoning from the explosion or whatever they injected him with… Or maybe he actually managed to fall asleep on that fossil of a mattress and is having a nightmare.
Are there only new vote incentives with each new comic, or do you update them more frequently than that? I don’t want to miss any pictures!
I try to update them everyday, but more often than not its every other day.
FFFF!!! AWESOME ZOMBIE MAGIC!
But seriously- you’ve done an amazing job here; you’ve got me clinging to each page.
um…. he’s definitley been getting something thats laced with pcp or lsd or ecstasy or something. The walls are meltingggg
I wonder if there’s some kind of lingering after-effect from the explosion that’s only now kicking in. It killed at point-blank range. Maybe somebody standing at the edge of it, like Schtein, would get sick, or mutated.
DUDE. Is he developing superpowers? Because that is EXACTLY the kind of laboratory accident that gives you superpowers. Just ask the Flash! Or the Hulk! Or, ohmigod, Doctor Manhattan!
Or, ooh! Ooh ooh ooh! LANGSTROM coulda developed superpowers and turned into Doctor Manhattan! ‘Cause, you know, everyone thought Manhattan died in a horrible accident, but it turned out he was actually floating around all semi-disembodied and psychic and stuff. If Langstrom did develop powers, you can just BET the very first thing he’d do would be to fuck with Schtein. ‘Cause he’s just like that.
Langstrom’s expression in that fifth panel is less ‘friendly’ and more ‘I’m gonna rape you if you fall asleep’. Hah. I love it. I have to agree with CT. The doc’s little feet are adorable. Dr Schtein manages to make crazy eerily cute, although I doubt he’d be pleased knowing that.
Also, judging by that wall in the last panel, I’m gonna guess his mattress is actually a portal to Hell, and his thrashing around during his hallucination caused it to open, and he will soon be transported into the deepest recesses of the abyss where he will gain hitherto unknown powers and use them for evil. So much science-y evil.
I gotta say, I love the color change as the page progresses, Schtein’s eye color fading away, the creepy vomit colors fading in… really brilliant.
This isn’t probable at all, but since Schtein’s eyes are machines Langstrom could be alive somewhere and hacking into them as payback >_> I can come up with the stupidest theories when provoked lol
I think he is having a good old fashion nervous breakdown.
Is this the part where it becomes a Batman crossover? You’re introducing the Scarecrow now, right? Oh man, just when I thought it couldn’t get any better you spring THIS kind of surprise on us!
…It’s Benzodiazepine withdrawl, isn’t it. Does Schtein take psyche drugs?
My mother’s medical book is telling me that it’s used for anxiety, insomnia, and seizures, among some other little stuff. Geez, that’s the last thing Schtein needs. Friggin’ seizures. Let’s hope it’s for the anxiety.
I’m hopping on the Enaka boat. Benzo withdrawl makes total sense.
Oh god I hope not! Especially because withdraw can MAKE you have seizures. (A friend of mine has an anxiety disorder, and when he was forced to cold turkey off a benzodiazepine, he started having seizures.)
Oh dang, that sucks bad. He’s not still having them, is he?
Yup. He still isn’t able to go back on them (no health insurance, no job), so until he can get money, he’ll keep on having them. D:
I’m sorry to hear that. Do you (and does he) mind if I pray for him?
He should apply for Medicare and Temporary Assistance. Have him look up his county’s name in the phone book, and look for social services or unemployment or something, and explain his problem to everyone who answers the phone until he gets directed to the right office.
No American should have a life-threatening condition that goes untreated.
Ooo, I like this explanation the best.
the flea powder shower? ;)
Yeah, umm, I have no idea how to vote. It’s possible I’m just not looking hard enough for the link, but I’m kinda stumped. (someone please help). Love the comic btw, and I’m going to make a boring guess and just say Schtein’s just not putting up with the stress well. Not well at all.
it’s directly under the comic. You kinda have to scroll right past it to comment. :D
That settles it. I’m getting new contacts. Thanks for the pointer, lol.
Schizophrenia? Psychotic outbreak? Chemical poisoning? Brain cancer?
Also, about the incentive: wow, Schtein was quite a jerk (but we already knew that). And Langstrom was *nice* D:
I’m thinking Schizophrenia. Either that, or his mechanical eyes are bugering up.
PTSD or DID (which is multiple personality disorder)! Because I kind of forget which one allows for hallucinations. Or wait… Is it a mixture of DID and depression? (Which you can hallucinate, due to depression, and then hear the people talking in your head–sometimes pretending to BE your hallucinated people–its ridiculous.)
Mad Hatter Syndrome? He could have mercury poisoning.
Random guess.
Nightmaresssss!
And I have never commented on a webcomic before. <__< congrats, you're my first! …ummm….
Aaanyway, great work! I'm following this religiously even if I must admit this is also the first time I've felt inclined to read a comic drawn with a style like yours. It's really great though! I love it, and keep up the good work!
jee whiz, thanks. What sort of style do you usually feel inclined to read? Just curious.
Before, it was mostly realism I was interested in, then more “ordinary” cartoon-y styles, but I’ve started to appreciate more and more styles lately, something I’m really happy about! Of course, a comic with an interesting plot like yours does help with this!
I DID IT. I POISONED HIS FOOOOOD. -shot-
Nah, I really have no idea. YOU WILL TELL ME, AND YOU WILL DO IT NOW, OR YOU WILL FACE A….FACEFULL…OF BILLY AND KLAUS. >:I -waves jar around-
Hm… For some reason I’m wondering if it might be a type of asphyxiation. He wears a gas mask quite frequently in some of his character sketches, but that could just have to do with the climate of the outside world. That would possibly explain why his eyes are slowly dimming and the world around him is going cuh-razy. Oxygen deprivation can have some intense effects…
gasmask comes in much later. Ignore that for now, it has nothing to do with the current story. It’s just me being self indulgent.
I love how you put so much thought into your writing/characters that people are trying to give Schtein a legitimate diagnosis, just like this is hapening to a real person. And that you seem to understand the medical mumbo jumbo they are pulling up haha
Langstrom, you creepy git, stop oozing on the floor. It is dirty enough as it is.
Is- is it the replacement eyes? Has anyone guessed that yet?
I am wondering whether or not they would require any short/long term maintenance or something to that effect, cause he ain’t getting it.
heh yeah he’d be pretty screwed if something inside them broke.
Geez guys Schizophrenia and DID aren’t the only things that cause hallucinations. It could be as simple as sleep deprivation. Or a really, really awful fever.
I’m fairly sure DID isn’t even a real diagnosis anymore, but I suppose that doesn’t matter in fiction. No, it’s something much more simple than most people are guessing. But it’s fun to try and think wacky stuff up.
DID is still a real disorder. (You must have two other personalities, other than the host, and a high intelligence. There are some other criteria, but those are utter basics.) It’s a ridiculous one, though, and quite unbelievable. My experience has been, if you don’t know anyone with it, then it doesn’t sound plausible, but if you do know someone with it, it’s sort of fascinating and horrendous (and, at times, amusing).
So… is he asleep and having a nightmare?
Let’s see – he’s got the shakes, he’s sweating, he’s hallucinating, and it started a day or two after the end of his “normal life”. I’ll go with withdrawal for $200. Could be benzos, or barbiturates, but we have no evidence that he was on them. We HAVE seen him drinking, however. So I’m guessing the DT’s.
ERgbflarg, these pages always get me.
And I won’t even start: I am the absolute worst at guessing what’s going to happen, unless it’s thirty seconds before the Great Reveal.
Seeing as how it’s a hallucination, what are the odds that there’s an uplink and/or override for those mechanical eyeballs of his? How much of a trip would the would get from sending him hallucinations, huh? Of course, that doesn’t support the auditory portion of the hallucination, unless there’s a speaker in his eyeballs or something. Of course, the eyeballs could be generating what his overwrought brain is designing and the auditory portion comes from his own head? That sort of combines a few smaller causes.
You know what I’ve always wondered?
Is if you wear really strong glasses, and you hallucinate, and you take off your glasses and look at the hallucination, will it be blurry?
Sorry for the double post, but I omitted the word Warden and wrote ‘would’ instead.
I bet his eyeballs got a trojan virus, but it malfunctioned so instead of “hot XXX gurls” he gets to see langstrom.
either that or it’s FINALLY lupus.
aAAaah, that last panel! O_O;
I love how you design your speech bubbles and text according to the feeling and tone in the dialogue. Awesome!
OH HOLY –
:hides from the wall in the last panel: