#744 – spa day

I said the updates would be posted fast and I WASN'T KIDDING. Hope you are strapped in. While our regular colorist is away, the current arc is being colored by Valerie Halla. I love the color work Valerie has done so far, and I think the story will look pretty excellent with her at the wheel. Be sure to check out Valerie's own webcomic, Portside Stories. It's a sweet story with lovely art about some teens navigating gender. Chapter 1 just wrapped, so you'll have an easy time catching up!

44 thoughts on “#744 – spa day

  1. Mar is now my absolute favorite character.

    1. She used to be mine, but now….I mean, I still LIKE her, but what happened to the hippie who knitted on the subway or when she needed somebody to be sad at? Is she gone forever? 🙁

      1. That hippie… grew up… :*|

        1. And so did eve! Do you remember her in the very first comics?

  2. Why do I get the feeling Marigold/Hannah is a Keating/Roark pairing?

    1. Because you don't read better novels?

      1. Could be…I enjoyed the book either way (enough that I've lost counts of how many times I've re-read it). The comparison holds up, I think.

  3. It’s strips like this that amuse me the most when I remember that Marigold was introduced as a stoner who could “make soap out of anything, even dreams”.

  4. ….

    Maybe Hanna was right.

    1. I feel like Marigold's fate was sealed with Eve's drunken vision of her as an angry businesswoman.

  5. Whoah. Mar has gone full Carrie Bradshaw. NEVER go full Carrie Bradshaw.

  6. Mar has brown hair? I always pictured her as like…a very dirty blonde.

    1. maybe she was dying it to look more like a hippie

  7. Haha, wow. Marigold has traveled far from her old hippie stoner style.

  8. SPA CASTLE?????!! Can't wait!

  9. i was having a positively rancid day and mar reaching out to jane just fixed it

  10. I feel like Hannah would greatly benefit from a spa day too.. but one that's a bit more subtle then Mar..

  11. Is that Mar’s 87th cup of coffee like in that Futurama episode? …cuz, that would explain some things a bit.

    1. THIS COFFEE KEEPS SHAKING! I don't like my coffee shaking! GET ME ANOTHER!

  12. Wow, if you go back to the first time we meet Marigold and then see her today without witnessing any of the changes in the middle there's no way you'd recognize this as the same character. She's a totally different person, inside and out. It's sort of… terrifying.

  13. unnnnnffffffff the character development <3 <3 <3 ~~~

  14. I don't really like Mar. THROW THEM STONES

  15. I also want to call attention to Eve's blissful-early-morning-simpleton face in panel 2. It's great.

    1. And her shit-scared expression in the final one! bahahaha

  16. all of these huge moments happening but there's still a sense of something massive looming this comic is going to make me explode

  17. Honestly, both Hanna and Marigold have become so different from their initial appearances, I don't blame them for not understanding each other. They're completely different people than who they are used to each other being.

  18. This is a comic about very stressed people living very stressed lives.

    The comic equivalent of ASOIAF. A saga nobody is sure begins or ends. Only that it is happening.

  19. I think a very simple thing happened to both Mar and Hannah but affected them in different ways… ADULTHOOD.

    ADULTHOOD SLAPPING YOU IN THE FACE.

    They were both idealists, hippies, hannah in a childlike way.

    And Mar getting a real ass job just pushed her into adulthood carrie bradshaw style.

    While hannah had to grow up suddenly when Marek left because adulthood means making plans and they didn't want the same plans. And realising that just made her bitter and killed her inner-stoner child.

    Sad. I'm so scared of adulthood happening to me like that. I don't want to get a job and then suddenly start wearing adult clothes and going to 30 something dinner parties and wine bars spa resorts. (It's fine if it's what you're into hey, I just don't want to change who I am because of ADULTHOOD)

    Anyway. Again. Octopus Pie is my spiritual guide in life.

    1. Ima gonna tell you a secret. Adulthood is amazing because you get to just be into what you're into and leave it at that.

      Adulthood also means some compromises- having a certain job might mean you start dressing a little differently or that you put off some fun stuff so that you can have other more important later.

      But then there's that bit where the second part loops back to the first part. Getting comfortable with the fact that you're not what you wear or what bar you go to on Friday night. Knowing that who you are is still who you are, even when priorities shift.

      Also realizing that there's no real solid finished state for who you are is pretty big, too, I think. There's always time to grow and learn and get on with things. One shitty life period doesn't dictate the rest of your life. Becoming bitter doesn't mean you'll always be bitter.

      Anyway! Being in your 30s and 40s! I highly recommend it.

      1. I'm not so sure about the "you are what you are deep down" shtick. To quote Bojack Horseman (the show, not the character), I'm not really sure "deep down" exists. You are what you do and how you are doing it right now.

    2. Ha ha ha. Oh sugar, plenty of us have been slapped hard by adulthood and still manage to be okay. Adulthood isn't a one-way ticket to selling out. And it's not a gun to your head forcing you to change into something you don't want to be. You do actually have a say in what type of person you become.

      Until you turn fifty. Then you'll need to start wearing polo shirts and voting Republican. IT'S THE LAW

    3. You just explained all my nearing adulthood fears much more eloquently than I could have.

    4. i dunno, you can make adulthood whatever you want it to be. sometimes i think a big part of your 20s is just figuring out that paying your bills/being responsible and being whoever you want to be is not always mutually exclusive*

      *assuming you can actually pay your bills

  20. Marigold nose status: intermittent
    Eve nose status: completely absent
    Jane nose status: more data required

  21. every face in this comic is both the best face and the worst face and I love it.

  22. O noe.
    Marigold has gone full animal print coat. That's the anti hippy.

  23. I thought mar's necklace in the first panel was a nike swoosh. I'm a little disappointed it isnt.

  24. I always thought Mar was blonde, too, but I think she dyed it darker so she would look more "serious" and "professional." Which, maybe wasn't meant at all, and just a random coincidence of the strip going color, but that's how I explain it.
    The text being cut off as Mar opens the door is just an amazing detail. Like, I was IN that van hearing her rage open the door, hearing her voice get 10 times louder as the door opened. That is some extra-credit level story-telling experience right there.

  25. The details of NYC life are one of the things I love most about Octopus Pie.
    The shuttle to the spas in Flushing or Jersey always look like sketchy rape-vans.

  26. I just have to say that I know someone who underwent this EXACT transformation.

    Dreadlocks and woven tribal tunic hippie —-> spandex and animal print cardio fashionista.

    This is a thing.

  27. Is Grab My Hand the name of a band and "Spa Day" the name of one of their songs?

  28. Mar looks really nice! hahaha love her design, she looks really good on that first panel. And the coloring is amazing as usual! Thanks to all the patreons that made colored octopus pie a reality!

  29. Damn, Mari looks like… Dare I say… A Boss Ass Bitch in the first panel?

  30. Valerie Halla!! Holy crap, a name I recognize! Awesome collab!! I really need to read her stuff, god I love webcomics but the list of stuff to read just keeps getting longer.. oh well!

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