#617 – we’re in this together

That's the end of this story! Thanks for waitin guys. I'm back from San Diego where I met a LOT of you, and it was such a treat! But then I was tired as hell. You know this story. ANYWAY. marceline blog banner There are NEW Marceline pages from issues THREE and FOUR in the store! If you like to see the uncolored lineart, check em out! And if you have the scratch, own a part of the series! There's also a small number of Marceline & the Scream Queens books in the store, that are signed by me for free! Grab one quick! And be sure to specify who the book is for - no eBayin' in this piece.

65 thoughts on “#617 – we’re in this together

  1. Today's comic is amazing, creative, touching and humorous at the same time. It's kinda hard to pull off.

    1. My thoughts exactly; I wish I could upvote this a million times.

  2. I love this so much.

    "I don't need some article telling me what we're like."

    I loved that the most!

  3. God, this is so great. What a creative, funny way of telling this part of the story. I had to read it again because I didn't get how exactly it was being told by Clark. Mixing the present (time of the last strip) with the future (when Clark's article is published online), and interjecting the text from Clark, and Eve's (redacted profanity-laced) musings … it paints such a vivid story, without blatantly saying it.

  4. I think my favorite part about the storytelling in OP is that there's always a little honest moment that keeps it away from sentimentality… it's too genuine to be sentimental in a way.

  5. Showstealing expression of the day: Hanna, second to last panel. Matched the "WHAT!!" to a T, all the way to the double exclamation mark 😛

  6. Aw cmon Hanna, I wanna read the rest of it…!

  7. Now I don't even like them.

  8. Ah, thanks for the alt text. I was about to go through life with that "Now I dont even-" hanging in my head.

    1. Mind saying what the alt-text is? Please? Some of us access the internet primarily from our [not very good] phones.

      1. The alt text reads: "…like them."

      2. "…like them."

        1. ‘… like them.’ /echo

          (sorry I just wanted to be a part of things, even if I am 232 weeks too late to be much of an echo)

      3. '…like them'

    2. thanks for mentioning the alt-text. i completely forgot about it, and really was about to go through life with that hanging in my head.

    3. I can’t see the alt text anymore. I just see the title of the next article.

  9. Hat tip! Good ending.

  10. This storyline has been a seriously choice piece of work

  11. They totally subscribe as soon as they're sure Jane's not looking.

    This is possibly my favourite ending to an Octopie arc, love the blending of real life into Clark's article. I love that this comic never dumbs down.

  12. Haha, love the NYT dig. I sort of doubt they'd cover millenials in this way, though, not unless Clark Li had it good with his editors. Most of their coverage of the proverbial hipster stems from their weird interactions with the children of the upper crust (ie Lena Dunham, their Sunday Section, et al). I don't think the NYT has yet had a convincing story really covering our generation. Which just makes this panel and this whole arc that much sweeter. Nice work. 🙂

  13. Absolutely amazing work, Meredith! This one hit home.

  14. This is such a good arc. Clark's article says something very real.

    Also, bets on what "[made love to]" replaced in Eve's original speech.

    I'm going to guess… "diddled".

    1. "made sexes on"

  15. Gross, "made love."

    1. Oh god! I forgot about Eve's (totally legit) opinion on that. Adds even another layer to all this…

  16. This is brilliant, and you are a poet.

    (I've been reading for a few years, but I've never commented before.)

  17. Beautiful way to wrap up a great storyline. Cheers again for the always exceptional read.

  18. Man, so it was Clark asking Eve that question in the last comic! oooooooooooooooooh

    1. tulipsandbluebonnets

      Yeah, I thought it was Eve at first, but looking back, the speech bubble was coming from his side of the bed.

  19. Loved the 'call me' note in the tip jar.

  20. I want to cry now. Seriously, this is what it means to live our generation. To feel so empty and to have nothing worth showing for but resentment for one another and the person within us.

  21. Guys… awesome storyline aside, is Eve running over to help Jacob with a shipment of Ass Noodles?

    1. They are Glass Noodles, and somebody scribbled out the "Gl" as a prank.

      Sadly, I only know this because my juvenile mind always replaces the word glass with ass anytime I see it.

      24-hour Ass Repair.

  22. The "Call me" in Jane's tip jar

  23. I think my favorite part of this page is how carefully Clark edits the article to leave the door open for Eve (at least, in his head). The "[made love to]" paraphrase over a more neutral version (I assume they can get away with "[had sex with]" in the Times? 'intercourse', maybe?) Or the way his rejection is tucked neatly away behind the subscription fold, where nobody will ever see it.

    Sorry, Eve, it looks like you've got another Greg.

  24. Did anybody spot ugly jack in 6th panel?

  25. Really curious as to what Eve said instead of "made love to" …

    Meredith, you're way too good at conveying all sorts of emotions in a single page. Somehow the situation here is funny, touching, saddening, honest, complicated in a simple way, and somewhat relatable all at the same time.

    1. It's a four letter word and starts with F

  26. Wow, Clark. I guess I should have pegged you as the guy that wrote in their blog about the girls they've screwed. Pun intended.

  27. "..let put dick pulp in me, without question".

  28. I enjoyed this one. Very deep. I can only wish I can get that deep with my own writing. I love the consistency of the whole story as well with a balance between real and (for lack of a better word) absurd.

    Even when you have those points in the story that just seem completely outlandish like the arc where Ning had to help the secret barista organization you always brought it back to real life seriousness. Speaking of which, my sister works at a Starbucks. They have unique employee invented drinks. Makes me wonder about the possibility of a secret society.

    Anyway, I look forward to the start of the next story arc. I have a few predictions.

  29. This is probably my favourite strip of the whole comic. Beautiful, touching, and ingeniously put-together

  30. I'm almost sure I suddenly heard a Record Needle Scratch while reading the 'full article' panel…

  31. Haha, am I the only one who thinks that Clark's article isn't supposed to be really deep and touching, but is supposed to expose him as a pretentious, overly-sentimental hack? Seriously, I would never read an article like this. It is a bunch of flowery prose masking the fact that the article is about the writer going to a party and getting laid by a woman who will not ever return his calls again. Fuck that noise.

    1. Yeah; check out the juxtaposition between the barback slaving over a mop and Clark lounging and adding to the mess.

    2. Damn thats sad. Eve you are cold.

      shes ditching him already?
      I thought he was writing about himself. As he said himself, he feels the ousider in his generation because of his success at work, but not socially. He was as jealous of Eves life as she was of his.

      1. He's writing about the alienation of his generation, not just about his feelings or Eve's feelings. Which is a pretty banal, hacky thing to do. People have been claiming that their generation is particularly alienated since at least as far back as Generation X, and I suspect it actually goes back much, much farther than that.

        I'm not sure if alienation is just a default human state, or a consequence of the particular way we've organized our civilization, but it definitely doesn't seem to have anything to do with generational politics. Most people here feel that way.

        1. Guys, we love Meredith and OP, but when she plays the voice of a generation card none of us should expect her to actually come up with the voice of our generation. So yeah some of it comes off as a little derivative of other voices of other generations, that is to say if those other generations even had one particular "voice" they could definitively point to, and it's got more flowery show than content. It doesn't truly capture the huge ambiguities of a wired generation, some of whom are incredibly goal-oriented overachievers and others left stunned by the economy, student debt, and a feeling that there's not much they can call their own, alongside all the positives they don't even realize they have. Which is fine because I think she, and almost everyone else, deserves that much slack from us. I mean, don't be that guy who's too obsessed with what *has* to be in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction, because you're sort of missing the point then. Because by the end of the film it's really just a tantalizing glow.

        2. Dude, I wasn't criticizing Meredith Gran, I was criticizing Clark Li, who is a character in Octopus Pie and who is not the mouthpiece of the author (he has said plenty of ridiculous things in this arc that obviously do not mirror the author's opinions, so I'm not sure why you're assuming his article does).

          Also, although I'm not sure how the hell this is connected to what we're talking about, the suitcase in Pulp Fiction only contained a macguffin lightbulb. I believe in the original script it contained diamonds or something, but Tarantino decided it worked better as an ambiguous glow. I'm not one of those peeps who sits around wondering what intentional ambiguities in art "really" are, and I'm not sure what I said to suggest that I am one of those peeps.

        3. And for the record, I think Gran's work actually does a pretty excellent job capturing many of the voices of our generation. Authors of fiction can often illuminate truths that are too complicated or ephemeral to be stated directly. So where a pretentious, over-reaching journalist trying to directly summarize his generation may come across like a pompous, simplistic boob, a humble cartoonist telling stories that resonate with her peers may succeed.

        4. You seem to be spouting an unending stream of popular truisms, the kind anyone would have to support. Yes the author and her work are different things. I'd be an idiot to claim otherwise. But you make no connection between the character of Clark Li–the whole damn center of the story—and what's trying to be DONE in the work itself. Clearly the narrative is more ambiguous about Clark than you seem to be. You also possibly deliberately missed my point that Li's article IS a Macguffin. It can't be the real, untapped voice of a generation because that's not the kind of crap you just make up, so it only tantalizes and distracts from what's actually important in the story. If Clark's article's undeveloped by forcing his personal experience into general truths of a generation, it's, again, because that's not some crap you can just make up. And if you bash it for clumsily connecting the personal to collectively experienced truths, you yourself have missed that that's because it's FICTION. You can be unimpressed by Clark for a lot of reasons, but claiming so because his article wasn't up to snuff loses sight of the fact that the article itself is a literary construct.

        5. Hey, I get what you're saying. If a cartoonist wants one of their characters to be, say, a master poet, we have to look the other way a bit when the character starts reciting poetry because the cartoonist herself is not a master poet. I get that. But I'm not just talking about the specific words of Clark's article, I'm talking about the very concept of writing an article in the New York Times about a party the author went to and then using that as a springboard to talk about generational issues. I think it's ridiculous, on the face of it, and I think Jane's reaction to the article ("fuck off with that") is a response to that.

          Does Clark's article also expand upon some of the arc's themes? Sure. But I don't think that means we're supposed to accept Clark's article as brilliant.

          I dunno, whatever. If Clark shows up in future arcs maybe we'll learn more.

  32. one side of an ampersand

    Classic!!! This was just great!

  33. Great story, but Eve's last comment was especially great for character growth. Awesome.

    1. Could be signs of on coming depression?

  34. What I wanna know is what Eve's eyetwitch in panel 8 means.

    1. Shes wondering how much this article is going to humiliate her to her friends and lovers,

      And how he can be so socially inept as to not understand thats not how you get a second date.

  35. But, But!
    Goddamit. Wont some cheapskate pay.

    I was enjoying that article

  36. I feel this latest arc is a statement about ennui. Eve has been depicted as bottoming out before but I find in her lately a growing dissatisfaction with the lack of direction in her life. The strip makes clear her friends will be no help. They can’t even finish an article in which Eve is featured.

  37. Oh eve. So beautiful is the comic and this page.

  38. Imagine what you would think if somebody said

    "I used to fall in love with everybody I had sex with, but now I don't even like them"

    right after they had sex with you.

    1. Id think "sweet, no competition"…

      then later on realize "HEY" after no calls back

  39. Wonderfully complex. I think trying for the voice of the generation thing ends up as either the hugest necessity or biggest vanity. Much as we like to think how it can be both, there really is no middle ground to it.

  40. I'm 3 years late but I gotta say this: I love this comic but…you commenters (read "young whippersnappers) seem to think all this is about your totally unique generation. I haven't seen anything unique about it, from "going in" to being lonely in a crowd to sexual confusion and frustration. This stuff has been going on generation after generation and only life's top layer changes. Underneath it's been all the same. Merideth, you're a genius at your craft – thank you from someone born in 1942 who recognizes all this as amazingly close to home.

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