#471 – Lunatic Fringe Fest
January 2nd, 2014 |
Happy new comic, everybody!
Inquisitor Markus Kortez is new, but our twitchy friend has theorised conspiracy before.
Discussion (131) ¬
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Ohhh, that guy. Nice expressions. Love Kortez, is he a hedgehog or somethin’?
He is, in fact, a hedgehog. Hedgehog characters in the Sonic fan communities always bothered me, because they all look the bloody same. Eastwood challenged me to take on the species and put a different spin on it.
I have a question about our rat conspiracy theorist friend, is he wearing pants? Because I’m pretty sure he isn’t.
Kangaroo rat. No.
I thought he looked Australian (Ossiningan?) though I think it was actually the clothes that sold it for me, not sure why
wait, scratch that, I have a theory: I’m a complete lunatic
That’s the most creative and genuine-looking hedgehog anthro I’ve ever seen in my life. Virus, continue to be a shining example of good taste in the community.
I’m not saying the Inquisition really is targeting this guy, but…*the Inquisition is targeting him*.
Getting over his fear of the Inquisition, too, just for an Inquisitor to do that. This sounds like a perfect red herring for our heroes to be assigned to so they don’t mess up something more important.
Inquisitors, though. Blaming aliens when there’s a chaos god who takes a somewhat spider theme. That’s some serious open mindedness.
The bottom row is made of good posing. The shot of him running is especially good.
Coould it be both aliens and the chaos god.?
There’s something strangely familiar about this comic in correlation to the courses I took in college…..:\
Ah, that guy. And to think, I really was certain, that we purged all Centauri Republic spy networks. And then – “Aliens”… Aliens indeed.
In the glorious golden days of the great Centauri Republic we thought nothing of spending a hundred years or more setting up ‘alien abductions’, ‘autopsies’ and ‘crashes’ so that when a race finally did make it to the stars, we could bring them on programs beamed across the Republic where they would be informed that they had been punk’d and we would drop a mile wide pie on their global capital from orbit.
I wonder sometimes, how many people are still able to make connection between “aliens”-guy’s hairstyle and “glorious golden days of the great Centauri Republic”, that is still and will be mourned by each generation of Centaurians…
… It’s pretty solitary here, on the Forgotten Obscurity Peak …
*facepalms* I’m a fan of the correct show to get that reference. I am mildly ashamed that I didn’t catch that earlier.
Speaking of SF shows from that time period, is your username a stealth swear word? If so, that’s pretty frelling good.
For the sake of potential stealthiness I will neither disprove nor confirm your theory.
But such choice was made not for the reason of potential stealth profanity display, but as a suitable substitute for my main nickname.
Still, thank you, by my name.
I’m just amused by the creative use of the laser pointer, myself. :-)
I don’t buy the ancient aliens theory. In fact i have more faith in the transient pulse theory, or whatever it’s calling itself now. We advance to a level of technological brilliance, then fundamentalists take over and we blow ourselves back into the stone age… or at least the 19th century, eventually everything turns back around and we have a new renaissance or we devolve into 12th century politics. Then again, what do I know. I grew up with reformation era politics in suburban florida, and they’re only ten years behind most urban centers. A decade after I left they fired a science teacher for practicing witchcraft when all he did was make a toothpick disappear.
Nobody with any sense should buy the ancient aliens theory. Pointing at anomalies and going “that’s a bit weird, must be aliens” is a poor excuse for science.
well the ancient aliens theory is really just a redressing of the old excuse of saying “God did it” in regards to anything.
If Twitchy was to make the My Little Pony connect(static)
(emotionlessly) Please disregard any potential connection between My Little Pony and the Secret World Government. The belief is laughable. Ha ha.
How aware is the general public of the dark gods ? Can a regular guy name the big four off the top of his head or is the knowledge of their existence so secret that knowing anything about them marks you as a potential cultist ?
I ask because as interesting the alien theory is, I think “Patternari cults” is a more obvious explanation for the spider imagery through the ages ;)
Oh, so you’re saying spiders are automatically Patternari cultists? Racist.
Patternari are creepy, spiders are creepy, Patternari represent deceit, Spiders (except for that one from James and the Giant Peach) represent deceit, I think it would just be a safe assumption that a good portion of Mobius’ spiders are Patternari cultists, please note: I said a SAFE assumption, not a correct one, so don’t hold me to it
without spiders then you would have an abnormal amount of flying insects. Spiders are like Judges, juries, executioners of those stupid flying things.
I am saying that as much as I am saying all dogs are Hound followers ;)
… but your reply leads me to an additional question : how does Eastwood with his acute arachnophobia react to anthropomorphic spiders ?
Racistly.
like he does with everyone he meets?
Good thing Arachnia is dead. Her AND her ninja children would probably go to town on Eastwood.
you mean the Arachnis Ninja clan from the sonic comic?
That would be the one, Spike. BTW, how is Twilight doing? *smirks*
I didn’t think it was possible but you both suck and rule at the same time, you rule for having extensive knowledge of the sonic comics, and by the way, spike is the name of a sonic OC I came up with in 2009, a full year before that damned show came on the air
seriously, never associate my name with that show again
Understood. Won’t happen again…at least not by me, but I should warn you that the name plus the lizoid currently as your avatar may cause the connection to remain.
which is why I am waiting for one of these guys to change it up, it’s not by choice that I have this guy as my picture
Spike, you need to go to the Gravatar.com site to change your icon, it’s not under the EN crew’s control.
I tried that once, don’t have any cool pics to upload or anything like that
mobian fox mulder vs mobian mel gibson.. fucking epic
did they ever actually find any aliens on that show? (too young to remember)
No, it was revealed that Mulder was mind plucked by a crazy scientist. The other possible version of events is that his sister was abducted by a serial rapist murderer, and apparently being a somewhat helpless child himself and unable to protect her because of shock, arrested development, or brain injury blacked out the events in his mind.
Later it was revealed that the psychiatrist he was seeing was being brought up on charges for implanting ideas in peoples heads about events that never happened, which lead to a hunt for the actual rapist child murderer.
I believe the villain was eventually caught in a school bus yard by Mulder himself. Unfortunately, the killer refused to admit where he buried the body of Mulder’s sister and the only proof that she was kidnaped by him was a piece of clothing torn from his sisters pijama jumper. Then he dropped out, making only guest appearances, until the bisexual bodysnatcher movie showed up.
I can’t guarantee how reliable this is since I only saw the episode(s) once.
As I recall, the few times they did show aliens it was either the result of drug induced hallucinations or the organization run by the cigarette smoking man trolling Spooky and Miss Inconclusive. It’s still weird though.
so it was more of a mind f*ck than LOST?
To the best of my knowledge there was no time travel in the series. There was body swapping, superheroes, vampires, the possibility of aliens, and the dead coming back to life several times, artificial intelligence ghosts in the machines, even the assorted insects were threats to behold.
Fringe started off similar to the X-files franchise. In fact, if they had cameos of cast in the first season one could have easily put them in the same franchise. it was kind of like supernatural in a way too. I didn’t watch it religiously.
I’m not as impressed with Alias, since that is clearly a mission impossible meets tomb raider knock off. I honestly think Alcatraz was pretty bad and second only Revolution as far as bombs when compared to Abrahms other work.
If you haven’t seen it Revolution has the same plot as the postman. Only, in my opinion, it’s less believable and much longer. Sadly, my suspension of disbelief only goes so far…
I’m currently watching it for the first time, so the comparisons between Markus and Mulder amuse me (Markus is just a crap Fox Mulder without a Scully, though that might make for a fun D-Team strip).
I’m halfway into season two, and so far we’ve had mutants of varying stripes (including radioactive), monstrous insects, AI, ghosts (rapey as well as Space Ghosts), satanism, voodoo, genetic engineering, the Boys from Brazil, malevolent surgery to “improve” people, human experimentation, possession…
But no aliens so far. Nothing concrete.
I never watched the X-files or LOST, they were too confusing to keep up with, so I reiterate “total mind f*ck”
There’s a D-team?
actually the aliens found him… and it almost didnt end well, he got what he wanted, juuuusssttt not what he expected, in a very hellraiser style painful type way.
So the inquisition actually employs somebody even dumber than Eastwood and Zuviel? :P
Markus is actually a top-grade archeologist and field researcher. Much as Eastwood is a crack field man when he actually puts the effort in, and a Virus is one of the better combat daemonologists doing the rounds. Trouble is Markus is obsessed with aliens, Eastwood is an apathetic slacker and Virus has no common sense.
if you had to choose one of those three to be in the fox-hole next to yours, who would it be?
I’d go with Eastwood. He might be a slacker, but he can deliver when he needs to. Markus is a researcher and his alien obsession might not be for the best, and a lack of common sense is definitely loads more lethal than being lazy.
eh, I’d go with Virus, if for anything than the fact that he at least knows what he’s talking about
That’s the thing with the Inquisition. Scarily competent in what they do yet flawed to survive/because of what they do. Even if that flaw is ‘that one dude who won’t shut up about himself at parties.’
someone been watching the History Channel I take it?
Or absorbing too many internet memes.
I’d actually never heard the dude speak til SilverSword and I were working on designing Kortez. I went and had a look at a YouTube montage. I believe, and Silv can verify this, that my verbal response was something along the lines of:
“What a massive twat.“
that was my exact response to: Justin Bieber, One Direction (sorry that England had the misfortune of being their birthplace BTW), Miley Cyrus (well, in her case I had a lot more things to say), every T.V. “Psychic” ever, Obama, etc. etc. etc.
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard One Direction. Unless they play it at my store. I don’t know, I wouldn’t recognise it.
unfortunately they play some commercials here in America and I hear a distinct English accent when one of them speaks, and if you’ve never heard one Direction, then trust me on this one, you are SUPREMELY. FUCKING. LUCKY.
I think that may have been your verbatim response, actually.
if I may ask, what’s the difference between Verbal and Verbatim?
Verbatim means exactly, word for word. What I wrote was my verbal response, verbatim.
thanks for that Virus, you’re on the ball with my (at this point most likely extremely annoying and inane) questions
and speaking of history channels, I’ve actually been wondering this for a few years now, how do schools in England teach the American Revolution? I mean, do they teach form the same point of view as American schools? (weird question I know, probably just gonna sound stupid or ignorant or some combination of both)
Well I was never the greatest history student, but I don’t remember learning that much about it in school. I probably absorbed more from American TV than from history class. I know it’s a major defining moment in US history, but, well, Europe has a lot of history. And Britain invaded/was invaded by, and conquered, colonised, withdrew from a lot of places.
I would like to thank you for your honest answer, Virus, and I’m well aware of it all, but I was just wondering if English schools taught the American revolution the same way (you know, different sides of the conflict and all), I know England has pretty much been invaded by everyone else at some point or another (the Nordic folks more often than not X3), actually, I love history, an area of expertise of mine is the Hundred Years War between France and England (and I side with England on that one)
though, somewhat like you, I learned a lot more about it from something other than textbooks, I learned about it from a video game, if you’re ever interested, look up Bladestorm: the Hundred Years War
As someone who did History for my GCSE, I we did not even mention the American Revolution. I honestly had NO idea what it was until I picked it up in college. As Virus said, we invaded and colonised a lot of places and most of those kicked us out. Historically, America was no different. GSCE history entirely consisted of this past century with teachers given SOME free reign to teach whatever history they want to teach in the years leading up to GCSEs. This is usually an ancient culture or two, the Vikings, Battle of Hastings, The Tutors and Stuarts, English Civil War, Industrial Revolution and very briefly covering the Victorian era as it lead onto the events that started the first world war. Not sure if every school is the same but from what I’ve seen, they are… or were.
is it sad that I actually have a more in-depth knowledge of all those things than most people my age (turning 18 in May)
I quite like your non-standard hedgehog design.
Ancient Aliens…my brain glazes over every time I accidentally come into the room whilst it’s on. If you’re going to claim that aliens were responsible for huge chunks of human history, at least do your research.
isn’t the most common argument the similarities between the Mayan and Egyptian pyramids?
There’s only so many ways to build a pyramid with just muscle power.
Not to mention, this is the same show that claimed, in all seriousness (I think), that the Black Plague was the work of alien reapers with plague scythes.
I’m honestly not sure how relevant this is to the discussion, but a theory like THAT sort of makes all other theories posited by the show to become equally as laughable by association.
I’ve been hearing lots of crap about supposed “UFO sightings” lately, I have to resist the urge to google map these yahoo’s (internet pun?) addresses just so I can find them and literally smack some sense into them
It’s part of the human condition, it’s how our flawed, easily-fooled minds and senses work. Centuries ago, people saw goblins and elves and gods and angels, and nowadays people see aliens and government conspiracies and… still gods and angels, for some reason.
I haven’t seen any of that… yet, anyone who claims they’ve seen an angel, I usually consider to be something of an asshat (even though I’m a protestant Christian who does believe in that sort of stuff… don’t hate me please)
Heh, no hate. Somehow I guessed as much. All I’m illustrating is that you might not want to be so aggro about other people’s weird paranormal beliefs, because to my mind, they’re no more or less deserving of a sense-smacking than any religious beliefs. :)
true, but I wouldn’t be so aggro if people would stop being so aggro towards my beliefs (I don’t even broadcast my beliefs and people still rip on me)
“But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.” – Matthew 5:39.
google might be monopolizing the internet but it’s a damn fine search engine, am I right?
I blame mistranslations over the centuries. Clearly, the ‘other cheek’ here is the butt-cheek…Matthew is instructing people to moon people who slap them as a show of passive-aggressive disrespect.
heh, nothing passive-aggressive about my reactions, you f*ck with me and I f*ck you up, plain and simple
There was one cool observation that I liked which was the some stinking great bricks somewhere that had tabs that slotted neatly into one another. On the face of it, it would look like you would need some kind of precision tool to make stuff that neat and then heavy duty cranes to lift and position them. Wish I could remember where these things were or what they were called. They were pretty awesome. Of course, these bricks were thousands of years old and “before humans were walking out of caves” blah blah blah, the usual.
Main thing that bothers me is all we ever see are NUMEROUS different architectural styles that these aliens apparently loved to build but they never drop anything like a coin or an ipod or anything for us to dig up! If we found an ancient skeleton of a rather funny shaped creature wearing a Rolex, then ok, I’d find the alien thing really damn plausible.
It’s because many of these people can’t grasp the time aspect of these works. When your entire job / life is dedicated to getting this temple up, you’ll probably spend a long time becoming very good at making one kind of brick and someone else at a different one, et cetera and teaching children to do the same thing for a hundred years until the temple is up. It only seems necessary to have modern tools because it’s hard for us nowadays to come to grips with spending a month with a rough pad slowly making the exact indentation required. It’s like the Terra Preta area of the Amazon. It’s believed by some that a single civilization spent a millennium and a half turning a large section of the rainforest into an orchard, which is why the soil looks artificial and the trees are almost all fruit bearing in that area. They built with wood and died in the smallpox plague, so there is no other evidence of their presence. This is a task that probably stopped being a job and became a cultural imperative over the centuries.
Personally I can’t understand how people can make such elaborate Minecraft maps, but I don’t think aliens helped them. I just think that they had a remarkable store of patience and time.
Hah, excellent observation, the Minecraft thing.
Honestly, the whole thing is really racist and insulting to ancient cultures. “Why, those primitive brown people surely couldn’t have done all that on their own!” People back then were just as clever and full of ingenuity as people are now.
soooo who’s the bigger “idiot” here? the Alien Conspirator or the guy who thought a laser pointer was a sniper rifle?
The guy who thinks that snipers would ever use something as obvious as a laser sight.
so the roo rat. unless your taking a jab at me
I think it’s the other two guys in the room who are still listening to the “Inquisitor”.
They’re the dumbest ones.
who says their listening? might just be they had nothing better to do? hell if I was bored enough I’d attend this guy’s lectures
It’s a small panel, but none of them are listening. There’s a couple making out and a sleeping hobo.
And thus, my respect for the “audience” has risen.
I was thinking about this for quite awhile now…he might have been playing the role of a ‘spotter’ for his ‘sniper’. Twitchy is looking dead at him when he aims the laser pointer at him, so maybe it’s more “Oh gods, he marking me!” Makes a bit more sense that way.
I’m wondering how one can expect an extraterrestrial organization to last so much longer than any terrestrial one. And not just the Danikenites, sci-fi is chock full of ten thousand year old interstellar empires (40K for one).
Do not underestimate the power of stupidity. Even gods are powerless against it.
To be fair, 40Ks empires aren’t exactly unbroken.
Imperium – Isn’t really holding itself together with much more than the Astronomican and hope. Regularly loses and regains star systems because of clerical errors. Has changed a LOT over the millennia. Would likely collapse into civil war if not for Chaos keeping them coherent in the face of a much bigger problem.
Eldar – It helps when the individuals are apparently immortal. Still managed to screw it up in the end.
Necrons – Immortal AND had a 60 million year gap after which they’re more of a very angry confederacy
Tau – How long do Ethereal Caste Tau live anyway? It may be that it’s the same group in charge that always has been.
I think 40 years is roughly the lifespan limit for all the castes if I remember correctly.
Wow. Those blokes sure do get wise fast!
I’m not saying it was goa’uld… But it was goa’uld.
Oh man, I loved stargate. Especially the original cast
That’s one way to get rid of an annoying audience member.
Giorgio A Tsoukalos?
YOu draw anthro Hedghogs better then the source material! KUDOS!!!!
Our twitchy friend will make appearances, correct? That would be so cool. Course, I am curious as to how he ‘survived’ the chase. Lol.
IS the beginning of a story arc, I wonder? Hope so. The story arcs are so much more enjoyable then the short one or two shots, Then again, that my be because I love long involved plots.
And since I am so very much aware that my archive has come to an abrupt end, I shall go cry in a corner, wistfully wishing for an update to what may very well be the worst thing I could be reading in my aunts house, considering how much she disaproves of material such as this.
Can’t wait till we get our own place……
I would have gotten here sooner had it not been for my obssessive need to read all the news updates posted with each of the earlier ones and the later ones that had them. ANd stopping to comment once the boxes were available to do so.
Of course, now that I have finished with the binging, I can go to the forums now! YAY!
Okay I have rambled enough.
Heh, I noticed your ongoing commentary while checking for new comments in the site dashboard. Thanks for reading, and congrats on getting so thoroughly up to date!
One more one-shot, then we start a new story. I prefer being in story mode too, truth be told. But the one-shots are good jumping on points for new visitors.
Yes, yes, you have a point there. I agree. One shots are important. But YAYAYAAYAY!!! Another arc is gonna be so much fun!
Ya know, Virus should take Blasphemy/Basphemy should stow away on a future adventure, simply so I can see more of him. Besides he might prove useful. Maybe.
Okay ignore me. I just love him and I don’t see enough of him.
hey, if you guys could peg a major EN character as a TF2 class, who would be what? here’s my idea
the Heavy: Schaefer
the Medic: Simmons
Demoman: Lothar
Spy: Jamella
Pyro: Harry (I guess)
Scout: Wildfire
Sniper: Korvos
Soldier: anyone from Team-D (by which I mean the red-head or the wasp, both their names escape me)
Engineer: I got nothing
frig, I mean Team C, my bad ><
What exactly is TF2 anyway?
Team Fortress 2.
It’s a multiplayer team based FPS with no campaign, but a lot of comics/story behind it done by the devs for fun, and for the fans. And hats. LOTS of hats.
Check out the fan art page. Starting on the 4th row down with Simmons as Medic.
and now I feel like an idiot for missing that
Oh I see. I like the pics.
indeed, very well drawn, but would be better if they were wearing the default outfits for the TF2 characters, please don’t take this as saying they suck because it’s not and they don’t, they are amazing, just a little light critique
Would’ve been interesting to see them in full TF2 gear instead of half in and half not, I’m not sure why the choice to not do so, but it’s all good.
More interesting to see the idea come around again. Those pictures were done back in, what, 2008? Back when we were playing TF2 regularly and a few years before we officially introduced the B and C teams, several of whom make much more obvious fits for the TF2 roles.
as I said in my choice list, either the red-head would make an awesome soldier, she’s crazy enough for it, and wildfire’s enough of a “Leeroy Jenkins” to be the scout, wouldn’t you agree? now honestly, a virus demoman does not frighten because, honestly, he’s not an explosives expert, he’s a daemon expert, he’d blow himself to hell and back before even scratching someone
I’ve recently gotten into TF2, it’s a lot of fun, hard as hell to play with a laptop mouse, but fun nonetheless
Hm. I’m not much of a gamer, but I think I’m gonna take a look at it out of curiosity. Thanks guys.
you won’t regret it… assuming you’re not one of those FPS gamers who spend a cubic sh*tload of time playing CoD and think that just ’cause your good at CoD that you’ll be good at TF2… sorry, I saw a video about that exact reason and now it’s stuck in my head, but yeah, it’s a good game, very colorful with a fun cast of characters
@ Spike: There was no reply button on your post so I hit the one on mine. Anyway, I haven’t played many games myself. The last FPS game I ever played was a Wolfenstien shareware back in…well, somewhere between 98 and 01, when it was still young, so you don’t have to worry about me on that. I just can’t wait till I get a stable enough net connection to try TF2. May take a while, though. The web site makes it look interesting though, so I am in full anticipation of it.
heh, trust me, it’s a really fun game, the soldier is the recommended class for beginners
Oh! Eastwood would be the Engineer. He made the Robot Attack Chicken and probably the Turret that was seen in the Bookend arc.
he learned how to make that thing from WoW didn’t he? and I remember the turret, the chicken was using it, even had the hardhat and wrench
I think so, but I’m not going on an archive trawl to confirm it.
Of course, that also leads to the possibility of the Robot Attack Chicken being The Engineer.
I was actually going to suggest that XD
*Facepalms* I REALLY should have caught the “dueling conspiracies” theme of this comic earlier. (That’s what I get for being exhausted during the holidays from holiday work/stress)
I’m also wondering if our conspiracy flinging friends will show up again and if either or both of them will end up running into an actual conspiracy.
hahaha this guy…
http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/158329-ancient-aliens
is anyone else still waiting for a “biggus dickus” joke to crop up somewhere? I mean we’ve had the Spanish inquisition, a cubic buttload of blackadder, what’s next?
In defense of hedgehog characters, I designed mine to be as unlike Sonic as I could, since I knew any comparison would be made as soon as I told anyone what species it was.
Mr Kortez, though, is an inspired design.
the only thing about my hedgehog character that’s even remotely the same is the muzzle, mine doesn’t even have visible quills, more like really long hair tied back in a ponytail
Even call it.
if the spidery theme actually represented that, that would mean this “secret world government” actually believes itself to be evil.
…in a world full of demonic cults, I guess that’s fair play actually.
Does EN take place in the same universe as the sonic canon?