Also, Zoom Out 25X. And man, do I understand the pain of the local stores never getting the one you want in. I have seen Transformer sections at Target and more than one Wal-Mart stay empty for months. Somebody get friggin’ Motormaster in so I don’t have to pay double the price plus shipping online!
This is final confirmation that Ethan is 110% not into girls. If the thought of Amber licking Sky Lynx (who, for the unaware, looks a touch Freudian) does nothing for him, that’s it, game over.
A man born to liberal parents in oregon, when he went to college he joined up with a group of homophobic fundamentalists. He enjoys collecting Go-Bots and wrote a webcomic called packedshort
It wouldn’t be implausible, given that there are at least 7 webcomics taking place in the shared multiverse the Walkyverse is part of, given all the canonical crossovers.
So long as he isn’t like his Shortpacked! counterpart and is so anal that he spends hours re-arranging Target’s shelves so they are more pleasing-to-the-eye and logically arranged!
No, no, I’m with Ethan. If I don’t find my ponies at a store properly, I feel like I’ve cheated somehow. Unless it’s getting near the end of the wave and they haven’t hit my podunk store shelves, then the internet is fair game.
Oh, I should say: unless they’re unreleased and I get them from a questionably-reputable Ebay shop that has them misnamed and straight from the factory. Then I feel a sense of accomplishment at a hunt well done.
Just be glad that it comes out daily, in some other comics, you have to wait a full week or worst whenever the webcomic writer gets around to posting again after how many months.
Angels 2200. Although davidbreslin101’s comment below reminds me that once I was an avid Megatokyo fan who eventually got fed up with the slow updates.
Cough*megatokyo*chough. When I discovered that comic, I binged on the 12 years of archives, absolutely loving it. There followed a three-month wait for the next page. Gave up following it when I realised I was forgetting who everyone was between installments…
Yea, I do love me that webcomic, was one of the first ones I discovered, then lost, then rediscovered years later. But lately it hurts with the slow updating, although I do understand why, and hopefully it should start going again soon. For me, it is just an excuse to do another archive dive.
You think so? DoA’s daily updating is what’s keeping me invested into the series. A lot of other webcomics I read have infrequent schedules and may only have one or two new pages a week, so it’s hard for me to stay interested.
Plus we’re guaranteed to have some major drama bombs soon enough.
I can see the point if you’re a Collector(tm). It makes more of a story for each piece you collect. A memory. It turns what would otherwise just be stuff into a series of experiences.
On the other hand, if you just want a particular toy, get yourself that particular toy and be done with it. You’re not proving anything to anyone by denying yourself the most convenient means to get it.
I’m like this with books nowadays. I stopped getting them off Amazon in the hopes of helping to keep high-street bookshops alive. Even if what I want isn’t in stock, there’s usually something unexpected and brilliant that’ll do instead. Bookshops are like being able to dig for treasure in your lunchbreak.
When it comes to books, I tend to read eBooks as I can invert the colours so it’s white on black as well as enlarge the font which is an important feature for someone with vision as poor as mine, heck I only buy newer volumes of paperback manga I have been following as reading those are not easy for me as eBooks are.
And with the sliding timescale, this strip will be fit perfectly in the ‘present’ of the comic in another 30 years when the third ever G1 Sky Lynx toy is released.
Ah, that’s why I specified G1, all those Minicons and Predacons who aren’t space shuttle dinosaurs don’t really count. That crazy robot mode is kind of the big selling point.
Same here. Not a toy collector, but a board and miniature gamer, so the game’s the thing, not the hunt. Sooner I have it, the sooner it can hit the table. (Or in the case of miniatures, join the ever-growing pile of metal, plastic, or resin that needs painting.)
I didn’t read that discussion, but given that it’s a Willis comic, and meant to be semi-autobiographical, I’d say they are. That, and the fact that Amber’s Transformer collection has already been part of the story.
I think it’s more related to the junior high lunch thing where you lick all your food before leaving the table so nobody else will eat it while you’re gone.
It’s more like a being a child thing. Does not apply originally to food, but the principle is the same: if you lick it the others won’t touch it.
I am surprised though that this has a tradition even at other parts of the planet. I mean, when we did it with my siblings (with toys, spoons etc.) I didn’t know there were other parts of the planet…
Oh, Ethan. The toy stores around here are awful, but there’s such a thrill of accomplishment getting it at the store. And as a doll collector, I’ve heard awful stories of online ordering and getting dolls with messed up faces. At least in person, you can check that out on your own…
After closing all the Zellers, which were awesome and had been around forever.
Damn you Target. Asshats. (Also now Future Shop has closed as well and now if Walmart doesn’t carry it, I can only get videos online. One way or another.)
I’m so pleased to see this comic, you don’t even know. I pretty much always liked the occasional (or frequent) jokes about toys, comics, movies, etc that showed up in Shortpacked!, and that’s really what I miss most about it now. Not that I don’t miss the Walkyverse versions of the characters, but when the story’s over, it’s over. But jokes like that are a potentially bottomless well. Hopefully this means that Willis will leave himself an in if he’s got a joke in that arena he’d like to get out.
Just in case there was any doubt, some of the characters are identical to their Walkyverse counterparts. Every single part of this strip, apart from the character ages and location, was identical to Shortpacked!, even Amber’s snark and Ethan’s near-fetish for Transformers!
Prediction for the next few strips:
ToeDad returns and finds Ethan, in a horrible mood, still on guard duty. All attempts to communicate with Ethan fail as he gets more and more aggravated about Amber’s new toy and the fact that he can’t easily get his ‘fix’ from the local Target. Eventually, Ethan is holding ToeDad by the front of his shirt, shaking him and screaming something about: “Why does she get Sky Lynx and I don’t, huh? HUH? Why?!? TELL ME WHY!”
ToeDad, fearing for his life from the obviously-insane young man, runs back out onto the street and gets run over by a passing garbage truck. Hence the interlude at the Emergency Room.
The Bloomington Target was always good to me. And for a while there was a TRU Express in the mall that I also found a lot of stuff at. However, that was about 3 years ago and I admittedly spent more time there than I probably should have. It’s entirely possible that it’s gone downhill… or uphill I suppose, depending on when Willis visited… or even uphill and then downhill again…
I feel your pain. Being able to edit them forever would be bad, least people then want to go and revise history should they say something stupid or regretful, even if others have already replied to it. But I do wish we were given a two or three minute grace period for if we notice typos, poor wording or grammar, or other such things. It is funny how often one does not see such things until just after one clicks on “Post Comment.”
Well, not having one is by far not the end of the world, but if you ever happen to come across anything else that claims it will do something similar (without completely abandoning the current commenting system, as I do like the one we have!) feel free to try it out!
Anyway, since I seem to have your attention, Good Sir Willis, let me just add the following: As always, awesome work! Keep up with the entertaining pictures with words and story things!
This is why the Danny and Ethan relationship will be slow walked. Ethan lusts alright, but its for plastic robots. Danny will have to make the first move, which could take until 2525.
Now that I think about it, this is one of the few times where Ethan’s focus isn’t on his struggles with his sexuality. He just gets to geek out with Amber again.
The crucial difference between Shortpacked!Ethan and his DoA counterpart is that the former was a self sufficient grown man who just kind of casually found out about his sexuality without any real effort, and was practically celibate as he was so focused on toys that dating and sex were just a secondary concern at best. In DoA, Ethan’s a kid, who came out in a pretty dramatic fashion and has been bombarded with torment from his community. Ethan doesn’t have the opportunity to reject the dissenting voices of his family, and he’s been so beaten down for it that he tried to bury his sexuality and force himself to be straight, and is only now becoming a bit more confident. As much as Ethan doesn’t want to be “Gay Ethan” he feels trapped in that role, and even his attempts to try to come to terms with his sexuality make him feel like he’s digging himself deeper into a role he doesn’t want.
So the trauma he’s been subjected to by his family has shaped him and he never should have had to go through, something Shortpacked!Ethan never had to which is probably why he was just able to continue on as normal, but I think as he grows older and becomes more able to take charge of his life, he’ll eventually be able to be more comfortable in who he is.
In the meantime, I think a lot of the healthier things he can do is just have these geekouts with Amber and Danny over nerd stuff.
I don’t get males into “nerdy” pursuits who put down females who enjoy the same things. (The semi-recent “Gamergate” controversy comes most quickly to mind.)
Hey, fellow male nerds! It can be hard enough sometimes finding members of the opposite sex who will put up with our various hobbies! To find females who might actually also enjoy them, as well? They should be celebrated, not derided!
(At least here, though, in this community, I’m probably preaching to the choir. So yay for that.)
Man, I wish I lived in the Dumbverse. Transformers seem to come out a lot sooner there. (Or maybe Amber just has some ultra secret connection inside Hasbro who hooks her up?) I mean, first Generations Tailgate, and now maybe the new Sky Lynx?
On the subject of online ordering vs. “The Hunt,” I feel both sides of that argument. In an ideal world, I would be ALL about the hunt. But realistically, I do end up getting most of my toys online these days.
I first started shopping online for third party products. But especially since Combiner Wars, I’ve gotten a lot of my official product that way, too. Part of it is that retail distribution just seems to be getting worse and worse. There are entire waves I just never see. (And it isn’t like I live in the middle of nowhere, either.)
And part of it is that I’ve also been going the Takara route a bit more then I used to. While I’d have lived with it if it was the only option, I really disliked all of the black on Hasbro’s Arcee. And for Superion and the upcoming Defensor, I just needed to have the proper team line-ups, darn it! (With apologies to Alpha Bravo fans.)
Yes, Slingshot also got a U.S. release, but by the time that happened it was just easier to keep my pre-order for the Unite Warriors version then it was to order the U.S. “Quickslinger” and hunt down the other four members of the Combiner Wars version. And Deluxe Groove… While I will be happy for anyone who wants him but didn’t want the Takara Defensor if I am wrong, given his situation I very much doubt he’ll get any kind of U.S. release like Slingshot did.
So combine together sucky retail distribution and occasional dips into Takara-land, and most of my toys come from online retailers these days.
Still… I miss the hunt. And any time I go to a store with a toy section (or, better yet, a dedicated toy store) I will still look. That’s where I got Combiner Wars Optimus Prime, Powerglide, and Bombshell. Oh, and I snagged Blackjack when I saw him, even though I wasn’t planning on the rest of Menasor.* And recently, when I was on a weekend trip to the Catskills and we stopped into a Family Dollar to grab a few toiletries we’d forgotten to pack, I snagged this Legends Class Cliffjumper:
I know it is an older mold that most people probably have long left behind, but having a Bumblebee and a Gold Bumblebee Goldbug with that mold, my collection felt incomplete without the other obvious repaint.
So yeah. Long story short (too late!) I do most of my shopping online these days. The hunting grounds are just too sparse these days to survive on the hunt alone. But in my heart, the hunt lives on! And occasionally, it does provide some delicious fruit.
* Re: Menasor, a third party version had already filled that hole in my collection. If Hasbro comes first (even with just an announcement), sorry third parties, but official toys take priority, even if yours looks better. If third party comes first, then unless I really like Hasbro’s just as much if not better (such as with Springer) then I’ll just stick with what I already have.
Oh geeze, that Target does suck. 🙁
I miss the KB Toys over in the mall… and the Aladdin’s Castle arcade…
Okay, I just miss the College Mall from the late 80’s/early 90’s in general.
This is why Big Bad Toy Store gets an obscene amount of my money. 😐 No local Target, and the local Walmart regularly leaves their Transformers shelves bare save for a couple of RID figures and the shitty Bayverse bots no one wants. For months. And then they restock and make sure to restock the Bayverse bots, so even more of them are left to languish on the shelves three days later, when the shelves are bare again. 😐
I prefer TFSource, myself. I like the free shipping when you get over $150, which isn’t too bad. And they have great customer service. They somehow managed to replace a broken Metroplex I’d received even though by the time I received mine they were out of stock. (Maybe they kept a few on reserve for such things? Or held onto any other rejected stock to swap parts around if they can repair them? I dunno. Whatever. I am happy with the end result.) And another toy, Fansproject’s version of Dragstrip, had that problem with a fragile canopy. When mine broke, even though it wasn’t broken out of the box and I was honest about that, TFSource sent me a replacement canopy at no extra cost to me with no questions asked.
Mind you, BBTS isn’t bad either and I have ordered from them in the past. But (aside from a dodgy “Source Points” program that doesn’t have much in the way of good items to redeem the points on, and that is useless to anyone who uses their order stacking system, anyway) TFSource has done well by me and earned my loyalty.
But yeah… Local stores. Every time I go in, it is like, “Well, let’s take a look. Yup, same stale stock as last time.” Half the pegs are empty, and the other half is all old crap. Occasionally I find a gem, so I never stop hoping and looking. But it is, alas, rare.
(The proceeding was supposed to be in reply to Cybersnark’s comment, but seeing as how it isn’t properly nested, I must have forgotten to click on “Reply.”)
Reminds me of a discussion about toy hunting vs. ordering online I had some time ago in the web.
I usually try to hunt my toys down, but thanks to the extremely shaky release patterns here in Germany (some waves are only available in certain stores which are not everywhere, some waves are entirely skipped), I have to rely to ordering online every now and then.
And then there’s the story of Rook, who I tried to purchase online at two different stores with no luck, only to encounter him a few weeks later at another toy store… and since I own him, I found even more Rooks here and there. It’s like they were all kept secret until I finally found one, and now he’s everywhere.
Ethan, like many collectors, fetishizes focuses on the activity of acquisition, not the thing acquired. Part of this requires deluding himself that some commercial transactions are “better” than others, in terms of challenge or even moral weight.
That being said, I do feel a rush when I find cool stuff at cons. I practically geeksploded when I found a huge figure of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman at Fan Expo.
The rush I understand, not from finding something, but rather from a) discovering that such an awesome object exists and b) coveting it.
Maybe I read Smaug’s scene from The Hobbit too many times as a kid, because sometimes it’s nice to spread all my favorite posessions around my bedroom floor and wallow in the hoard.
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NEW SLIPSHINE THREESOME
Amber and Ethan Give Sky Lynx a Lickin’
Talk about using toys!
You see, Amber said “play with piece of plastic” and my first thought was something very dirty
Soundwave holds the camcorder.
**slowclap**
I refuse to believe that there isn’t some Transformer somewhere who doesn’t transform into a camcorder.
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Laserbeak_(Armada)
Also, Zoom Out 25X. And man, do I understand the pain of the local stores never getting the one you want in. I have seen Transformer sections at Target and more than one Wal-Mart stay empty for months. Somebody get friggin’ Motormaster in so I don’t have to pay double the price plus shipping online!
I have Zoom Out… I used to pretend that I was James Bond, and the little guy was that gun 😛
NEW SLIPSHINE
Amber, Ethan, and their new toy “Sky Lick”. 😛
Hi
Can’t wait for the fanartists to do this one!
I am both tempted and severely weirded out
Wait’ll they get the limbs so they can form Sky Reign…
This is final confirmation that Ethan is 110% not into girls. If the thought of Amber licking Sky Lynx (who, for the unaware, looks a touch Freudian) does nothing for him, that’s it, game over.
Bet he’d watch Jacob lick Sky Lynx.
And the idea of calling it “Sky Lick” is now forming in his mind as he imagines Jacob licking it… 😛
He might be gay but not dead. I’m sure he’d get some kind of reaction.
He’d watch Amber licking Sky Lynx, and imagine it was Jacob instead. That’d give him a rise. xD
That’s that’s where Ana’s avatar was from 😮
You’re right! Did David post a preview panel, or does Ana have the Secret Ultra-VIP Patreon Package that lets her read the whole buffer?
I think I remember seeing this strip’s last panel as preview.
I’m not using anything SECRET or anything =p
Aaaaaah Shortpacked vibes -3
Yeah! Thanks for the memories, Willis! (No, no, no, self, you can’t do a Shortpacked! archive-binge this weekend!)
Amber has a pretty good sideline in erotic unboxing videos.
If she does them while wearing her superhero outfit, she’ll get 10 million subscribers, and it’ll pay for her college easily.
I’d watch it.
[purple bubble] Amazi-girl does Not erotically unbox transformers [/purple bubble]
But, she can… BE erotically un-boxed?
Nah.
Well, Danny would know 🙂
It would take a pretty big box to hold a human, but that does sound pretty hot.
Ask Snake. He always has a few extra human sized boxes just in case.
Shortpacked Ethan! You’ve returned to us!
He wanders the multiverse using Joe’s technology, in search of a better world to call home.
This one won’t do. There are no Soggies, but there also seems to be a shortage of Sky Lynx.
This is a sign.
Crisis In Infinite Willisverses is going to be more than a promotional poster.
Can Willis and his Ultracarlabinger servant bring these characters together against the Anti-Willis and its forces?!
Featuring a guest appearance by Professor Ellicot-Chatham and Station!
Their should be a massive crossover between a ton of different webcomics where they have to defeat the soggies before all of creation is destroyed.
Only as long as the Soggies are led by the Anti-Willis.
What would Anti-Willis even be like?
A man born to liberal parents in oregon, when he went to college he joined up with a group of homophobic fundamentalists. He enjoys collecting Go-Bots and wrote a webcomic called packedshort
This just tickles me to no end. Somebody with talent needs to do a parody strip one shot on this!
I’ll second that motion XD
Longbox, about a comic store?
Kinda like that asshat who’s been trying to ruin the Hugos, then?
His fans greet each new plot-twist with “Bless you, Anti-Willis!”
Anti-Willis is obviously Jeph Jacques.
No I believe the AntiWillis would be Randy Milhulland
It wouldn’t be implausible, given that there are at least 7 webcomics taking place in the shared multiverse the Walkyverse is part of, given all the canonical crossovers.
Something Positive did something similar to that.
http://somethingpositive.net/sp09292011.shtml
The return of Shortpacked!
Beneath Ethan’s chizeled jaw and mild manners lies the soul of a predatory cat…
…or someone who really likes to be disapointed. either/or
Ethan DOES have a tendency to set himself up for disappointment.
And he did sort of date catman in another life
I don’t know how that’s actually relevant here, it’s just the first thing that came to mind when beige said “predatory cat”
A PREDATORY CAT, you say??
http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=1217
The Truth, revealed.
So long as he isn’t like his Shortpacked! counterpart and is so anal that he spends hours re-arranging Target’s shelves so they are more pleasing-to-the-eye and logically arranged!
Why either or?
Masochistic predatory cat!
“Sky Lynx” could be a metaphor for Danny in this if only it wasn’t so cool sounding.
Danny is more of a Wheelie. He means well, and is a nice guy, but damned if you don’t want to smack him on occasion.
Stop being a fan wrong!
With that shirt and his hunter-gatherer instincts showing, Ethan’s Shortpacked! is showing today. :3
No, no, I’m with Ethan. If I don’t find my ponies at a store properly, I feel like I’ve cheated somehow. Unless it’s getting near the end of the wave and they haven’t hit my podunk store shelves, then the internet is fair game.
Oh, I should say: unless they’re unreleased and I get them from a questionably-reputable Ebay shop that has them misnamed and straight from the factory. Then I feel a sense of accomplishment at a hunt well done.
So Shortpacked.
If it was shortpacked that package would contain a ninja turtle
That’s my fetish.
Licking toys in front of Transformer fans to get under their skin? That’s an odd fetish man.
Don’t kinkshame Yotomoe.
Siiiiiigh! I love this comic but it takes so goddamn long for anything to happen.
Just be glad that it comes out daily, in some other comics, you have to wait a full week or worst whenever the webcomic writer gets around to posting again after how many months.
Good point.
True that. And it updates every day of the week. Pretty awesome.
And there is a 4 month buffer.
Come to think, that may be longer even than Schlock Mercenary’s buffer. Impressive.
And the cast’s first three weeks of college have been more eventful than my three YEARS of college.
You wouldn’t want to read a webcomic about my life.
Challenge accepted. I read a lot of stuff.
There’s one I follow which updates (if at all) about once a year.
You are too patient. Flip a chair at them or something.
Actually, I forgot to delete it from my feed. I figured it was dead, but it just updates in geological time.
VGCats?
The Wotch?
Chasing the sunset?
Angels 2200. Although davidbreslin101’s comment below reminds me that once I was an avid Megatokyo fan who eventually got fed up with the slow updates.
Cough*megatokyo*chough. When I discovered that comic, I binged on the 12 years of archives, absolutely loving it. There followed a three-month wait for the next page. Gave up following it when I realised I was forgetting who everyone was between installments…
Yea, I do love me that webcomic, was one of the first ones I discovered, then lost, then rediscovered years later. But lately it hurts with the slow updating, although I do understand why, and hopefully it should start going again soon. For me, it is just an excuse to do another archive dive.
You think so? DoA’s daily updating is what’s keeping me invested into the series. A lot of other webcomics I read have infrequent schedules and may only have one or two new pages a week, so it’s hard for me to stay interested.
Plus we’re guaranteed to have some major drama bombs soon enough.
I wouldn’t exactly call hoping that a particular toy will make itself available for purchase gaining anything surely.
I can see the point if you’re a Collector(tm). It makes more of a story for each piece you collect. A memory. It turns what would otherwise just be stuff into a series of experiences.
On the other hand, if you just want a particular toy, get yourself that particular toy and be done with it. You’re not proving anything to anyone by denying yourself the most convenient means to get it.
And the hacked Muzak selection for this strip is “Year of the Cat”…
Amber wins.
Internet Shopping > Walmart
FLTS (Friendly Local Toy Store) > Internet > Walmart or Target.
Please frequent your FLTS, if you have one. They are a dying breed.
I’m like this with books nowadays. I stopped getting them off Amazon in the hopes of helping to keep high-street bookshops alive. Even if what I want isn’t in stock, there’s usually something unexpected and brilliant that’ll do instead. Bookshops are like being able to dig for treasure in your lunchbreak.
When it comes to books, I tend to read eBooks as I can invert the colours so it’s white on black as well as enlarge the font which is an important feature for someone with vision as poor as mine, heck I only buy newer volumes of paperback manga I have been following as reading those are not easy for me as eBooks are.
ANYTHING > Walmart
amirite
And with the sliding timescale, this strip will be fit perfectly in the ‘present’ of the comic in another 30 years when the third ever G1 Sky Lynx toy is released.
We’re about to get our fifth! …if you count the Energon Wars one
Ah, that’s why I specified G1, all those Minicons and Predacons who aren’t space shuttle dinosaurs don’t really count. That crazy robot mode is kind of the big selling point.
And people yesterday were wondering if this Ethan was also into Transformers like in Shortpacked. Well here’s your answer.
Quick question for Willis, was Ethan Siegel named after the guy who created superman? At least the last name. The first name obviously wansnt.
I understood about three words of that and all of them were “Target”
How about the sub-text?
Gonna have to side with Amber on this one. Not in it for the feeling of discovery, in it so I can play with whatever it is I’ve found.
Same here. Not a toy collector, but a board and miniature gamer, so the game’s the thing, not the hunt. Sooner I have it, the sooner it can hit the table. (Or in the case of miniatures, join the ever-growing pile of metal, plastic, or resin that needs painting.)
wasn’t there a discussion here yesterday about whether Ethan and Amber were into transformers in Doa?
I didn’t read that discussion, but given that it’s a Willis comic, and meant to be semi-autobiographical, I’d say they are. That, and the fact that Amber’s Transformer collection has already been part of the story.
Lick the toy in front of him?Is this inspired from another fetish i haven’t heard of?
I think it’s more related to the junior high lunch thing where you lick all your food before leaving the table so nobody else will eat it while you’re gone.
Even that doesn’t work, or at least it didn’t in my experience. The squeemish ones just cut out the licked parts, everyone else just ate it anyways.
Alternatively, they could spit in your dish.
That’s why you pee on it.
It’s more like a being a child thing. Does not apply originally to food, but the principle is the same: if you lick it the others won’t touch it.
I am surprised though that this has a tradition even at other parts of the planet. I mean, when we did it with my siblings (with toys, spoons etc.) I didn’t know there were other parts of the planet…
Claiming stuff via licking it is a kid thing that has been around for a while. “Ew! I don’t want it now! He got his cooties all over it!”
–I love that ad.
Oh, Ethan. The toy stores around here are awful, but there’s such a thrill of accomplishment getting it at the store. And as a doll collector, I’ve heard awful stories of online ordering and getting dolls with messed up faces. At least in person, you can check that out on your own…
Dammit, Willis. You just jinxed us getting a Sky Lynx on time, didn’t you, like you did when you wrote Legends Tailgate into the comic.
Given that Sky Lynx isn’t due out until 2016, I think he may have been intentionally trying to work around that effect.
Sorry to tell you this Ethan but looking for shit is hard enough on it’s own even with the Internet just all those people who are hunting for Amiibos.
Oh, cool! Shortpacked is updating again
dabdabdabdab dab dab dabdab
Good times.
This episode of Dumbing of Age brought to you by Shortpacked!
Target in Canada was garbage for pretty much everything. Which is why they utterly crashed and burned after less than two years in the market.
After closing all the Zellers, which were awesome and had been around forever.
Damn you Target. Asshats. (Also now Future Shop has closed as well and now if Walmart doesn’t carry it, I can only get videos online. One way or another.)
Doesn’t Best Buy carry what Futureshop had?
I know how that is my walmart has had the same marvel legends wave for over 8 months.
Whoa bro deja vu…
I actually have a friend who does this to me when I buy my comics online.
I feel like this comic is Willis writing to himself 15 years ago.
No, that is just how big his buffer is.
You got Shortpacked in my Dumbing of Age!
-checks url-
-checks banner-
Man, I thought this was a new Shortpacked! strip for a moment.
So did I.
Amber gets the points on this one 😉
Heh…shortpacked
I’m so pleased to see this comic, you don’t even know. I pretty much always liked the occasional (or frequent) jokes about toys, comics, movies, etc that showed up in Shortpacked!, and that’s really what I miss most about it now. Not that I don’t miss the Walkyverse versions of the characters, but when the story’s over, it’s over. But jokes like that are a potentially bottomless well. Hopefully this means that Willis will leave himself an in if he’s got a joke in that arena he’d like to get out.
is it just me, or does this strip not have alt text?
It’s “for serious, the bloomington target is terrible for toys”
cool, thanks. dunno why it didnt show up for me earlier.
My favorite G1 Transformer was always Grimlock because he was such a loveable dufus.
I liked the three Nissan 280s – Prowl, Bluestreak and Smokescreen. Bluestreak especially because I strongly identify with his personality.
…
Oh god, I’m a nerd, aren’t I? 😉
Everything I know about G1 I learned from Death Battle and Miracle of Sound.
Have mercy on a poor ignorant heathen.
Did I just read Shortpacked by mistake?
Yes.
DAB
Just in case there was any doubt, some of the characters are identical to their Walkyverse counterparts. Every single part of this strip, apart from the character ages and location, was identical to Shortpacked!, even Amber’s snark and Ethan’s near-fetish for Transformers!
They even have identical hairstyles…
Oh, and I think there actually was a Shortpacked! strip about the “ordering online vs. hunting in stores” argument.
Several, actually, and at least one storyline.
I find this lack of ninja turtles disturbing.
Wait for Donatella Wilcox in about ten years time! 😉
I always get such whiplash from the strips where Amber is just happy and funny.
Its pretty great.
I know, right. I just love to see Amber and Ethan interact around a common interest rather than worry about each other.
Just got to add this: Amber is enjoying this situation too much for it to be strictly legal.
100% behind Amber on this one.
What’s in the BOOooox!?
It’s Blaine’s severed head!
Yessss
Prediction for the next few strips:
ToeDad returns and finds Ethan, in a horrible mood, still on guard duty. All attempts to communicate with Ethan fail as he gets more and more aggravated about Amber’s new toy and the fact that he can’t easily get his ‘fix’ from the local Target. Eventually, Ethan is holding ToeDad by the front of his shirt, shaking him and screaming something about: “Why does she get Sky Lynx and I don’t, huh? HUH? Why?!? TELL ME WHY!”
ToeDad, fearing for his life from the obviously-insane young man, runs back out onto the street and gets run over by a passing garbage truck. Hence the interlude at the Emergency Room.
im one hundred percent behind this prediction
“Sky-lynks? Is that a Pokeman? I pray for your soul”
*Incoherent fanscreams from Ethan, Toedad runs*
Ethan used supersonic!
ToeDad was already confused!
The Bloomington Target was always good to me. And for a while there was a TRU Express in the mall that I also found a lot of stuff at. However, that was about 3 years ago and I admittedly spent more time there than I probably should have. It’s entirely possible that it’s gone downhill… or uphill I suppose, depending on when Willis visited… or even uphill and then downhill again…
Damn, I miss that TRU Express.
Willis DID say that the characters maintained their sexuality across the universe. And Ethan has ALWAYS been Tranformer-sexual.
gggh, stupid can’t-edit-posts…
I feel your pain. Being able to edit them forever would be bad, least people then want to go and revise history should they say something stupid or regretful, even if others have already replied to it. But I do wish we were given a two or three minute grace period for if we notice typos, poor wording or grammar, or other such things. It is funny how often one does not see such things until just after one clicks on “Post Comment.”
Long ago I installed a plug-in that claims it would allow the editing grace period, but it doesn’t actually work.
Well, not having one is by far not the end of the world, but if you ever happen to come across anything else that claims it will do something similar (without completely abandoning the current commenting system, as I do like the one we have!) feel free to try it out!
Anyway, since I seem to have your attention, Good Sir Willis, let me just add the following: As always, awesome work! Keep up with the entertaining pictures with words and story things!
I’m a little disturbed that the idea of Amber licking a transformer gives me perverse sexual lust.
This is why the Danny and Ethan relationship will be slow walked. Ethan lusts alright, but its for plastic robots. Danny will have to make the first move, which could take until 2525.
Now that I think about it, this is one of the few times where Ethan’s focus isn’t on his struggles with his sexuality. He just gets to geek out with Amber again.
The crucial difference between Shortpacked!Ethan and his DoA counterpart is that the former was a self sufficient grown man who just kind of casually found out about his sexuality without any real effort, and was practically celibate as he was so focused on toys that dating and sex were just a secondary concern at best. In DoA, Ethan’s a kid, who came out in a pretty dramatic fashion and has been bombarded with torment from his community. Ethan doesn’t have the opportunity to reject the dissenting voices of his family, and he’s been so beaten down for it that he tried to bury his sexuality and force himself to be straight, and is only now becoming a bit more confident. As much as Ethan doesn’t want to be “Gay Ethan” he feels trapped in that role, and even his attempts to try to come to terms with his sexuality make him feel like he’s digging himself deeper into a role he doesn’t want.
So the trauma he’s been subjected to by his family has shaped him and he never should have had to go through, something Shortpacked!Ethan never had to which is probably why he was just able to continue on as normal, but I think as he grows older and becomes more able to take charge of his life, he’ll eventually be able to be more comfortable in who he is.
In the meantime, I think a lot of the healthier things he can do is just have these geekouts with Amber and Danny over nerd stuff.
Girls who like transformers… we’re a rare breed it seems.
A breed to be much appreciated, as well.
I don’t get males into “nerdy” pursuits who put down females who enjoy the same things. (The semi-recent “Gamergate” controversy comes most quickly to mind.)
Hey, fellow male nerds! It can be hard enough sometimes finding members of the opposite sex who will put up with our various hobbies! To find females who might actually also enjoy them, as well? They should be celebrated, not derided!
(At least here, though, in this community, I’m probably preaching to the choir. So yay for that.)
Man, I wish I lived in the Dumbverse. Transformers seem to come out a lot sooner there. (Or maybe Amber just has some ultra secret connection inside Hasbro who hooks her up?) I mean, first Generations Tailgate, and now maybe the new Sky Lynx?
On the subject of online ordering vs. “The Hunt,” I feel both sides of that argument. In an ideal world, I would be ALL about the hunt. But realistically, I do end up getting most of my toys online these days.
I first started shopping online for third party products. But especially since Combiner Wars, I’ve gotten a lot of my official product that way, too. Part of it is that retail distribution just seems to be getting worse and worse. There are entire waves I just never see. (And it isn’t like I live in the middle of nowhere, either.)
And part of it is that I’ve also been going the Takara route a bit more then I used to. While I’d have lived with it if it was the only option, I really disliked all of the black on Hasbro’s Arcee. And for Superion and the upcoming Defensor, I just needed to have the proper team line-ups, darn it! (With apologies to Alpha Bravo fans.)
Yes, Slingshot also got a U.S. release, but by the time that happened it was just easier to keep my pre-order for the Unite Warriors version then it was to order the U.S. “Quickslinger” and hunt down the other four members of the Combiner Wars version. And Deluxe Groove… While I will be happy for anyone who wants him but didn’t want the Takara Defensor if I am wrong, given his situation I very much doubt he’ll get any kind of U.S. release like Slingshot did.
So combine together sucky retail distribution and occasional dips into Takara-land, and most of my toys come from online retailers these days.
Still… I miss the hunt. And any time I go to a store with a toy section (or, better yet, a dedicated toy store) I will still look. That’s where I got Combiner Wars Optimus Prime, Powerglide, and Bombshell. Oh, and I snagged Blackjack when I saw him, even though I wasn’t planning on the rest of Menasor.* And recently, when I was on a weekend trip to the Catskills and we stopped into a Family Dollar to grab a few toiletries we’d forgotten to pack, I snagged this Legends Class Cliffjumper:
http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Cliffjumper_(G1)/toys#Transformers_.282014.29
I know it is an older mold that most people probably have long left behind, but having a Bumblebee and a
Gold BumblebeeGoldbug with that mold, my collection felt incomplete without the other obvious repaint.So yeah. Long story short (too late!) I do most of my shopping online these days. The hunting grounds are just too sparse these days to survive on the hunt alone. But in my heart, the hunt lives on! And occasionally, it does provide some delicious fruit.
* Re: Menasor, a third party version had already filled that hole in my collection. If Hasbro comes first (even with just an announcement), sorry third parties, but official toys take priority, even if yours looks better. If third party comes first, then unless I really like Hasbro’s just as much if not better (such as with Springer) then I’ll just stick with what I already have.
Oh geeze, that Target does suck. 🙁
I miss the KB Toys over in the mall… and the Aladdin’s Castle arcade…
Okay, I just miss the College Mall from the late 80’s/early 90’s in general.
Seems like we were in Bloomington at the same time and are roughly the same age. We might even know each other. It’s a small, small Dumbiverse.
This is why Big Bad Toy Store gets an obscene amount of my money. 😐 No local Target, and the local Walmart regularly leaves their Transformers shelves bare save for a couple of RID figures and the shitty Bayverse bots no one wants. For months. And then they restock and make sure to restock the Bayverse bots, so even more of them are left to languish on the shelves three days later, when the shelves are bare again. 😐
I prefer TFSource, myself. I like the free shipping when you get over $150, which isn’t too bad. And they have great customer service. They somehow managed to replace a broken Metroplex I’d received even though by the time I received mine they were out of stock. (Maybe they kept a few on reserve for such things? Or held onto any other rejected stock to swap parts around if they can repair them? I dunno. Whatever. I am happy with the end result.) And another toy, Fansproject’s version of Dragstrip, had that problem with a fragile canopy. When mine broke, even though it wasn’t broken out of the box and I was honest about that, TFSource sent me a replacement canopy at no extra cost to me with no questions asked.
Mind you, BBTS isn’t bad either and I have ordered from them in the past. But (aside from a dodgy “Source Points” program that doesn’t have much in the way of good items to redeem the points on, and that is useless to anyone who uses their order stacking system, anyway) TFSource has done well by me and earned my loyalty.
But yeah… Local stores. Every time I go in, it is like, “Well, let’s take a look. Yup, same stale stock as last time.” Half the pegs are empty, and the other half is all old crap. Occasionally I find a gem, so I never stop hoping and looking. But it is, alas, rare.
And that’s how Sky-Lynx got a Kiss-Player partner.
Amber is far too mature looking to be a Kiss Player partner. There is no way she can pass as a loli! Maybe if she got her roommate into Transformers…
Hmm, Sky-Lynx is vaguely dinosaur-ish…
Nah… Dina wouldn’t cheat on Becky like that, would she?
(The proceeding was supposed to be in reply to Cybersnark’s comment, but seeing as how it isn’t properly nested, I must have forgotten to click on “Reply.”)
I read “What’s in the Box?” and I hear it in the voice of Brad Pitt from the movie Se7en.
So… It is only Sky Lynx’s head?
I’d hate to be with her at a screening of Transformers The Movie.
I’d just hate to be at a screening of Transformers The Movie, I’d rather mack on Toedad though I draw the line at actually sucking his toes
OTOH, will Danny start to dress up as a Transformer?
That would be a large menu to select from…
No Amber-in-panel-2, the correct answer to that question is “YOU’RE in the box!”
Reminds me of a discussion about toy hunting vs. ordering online I had some time ago in the web.
I usually try to hunt my toys down, but thanks to the extremely shaky release patterns here in Germany (some waves are only available in certain stores which are not everywhere, some waves are entirely skipped), I have to rely to ordering online every now and then.
And then there’s the story of Rook, who I tried to purchase online at two different stores with no luck, only to encounter him a few weeks later at another toy store… and since I own him, I found even more Rooks here and there. It’s like they were all kept secret until I finally found one, and now he’s everywhere.
“I will now pleasure myself with this Transformer”
Oh, are we doing “American Pie” jokes now?
I thought I was reading Shortpacked! again there for a second.
Ethan, like many collectors,
fetishizesfocuses on the activity of acquisition, not the thing acquired. Part of this requires deluding himself that some commercial transactions are “better” than others, in terms of challenge or even moral weight.That’s fandom, yo.
That being said, I do feel a rush when I find cool stuff at cons. I practically geeksploded when I found a huge figure of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman at Fan Expo.
The rush I understand, not from finding something, but rather from a) discovering that such an awesome object exists and b) coveting it.
Maybe I read Smaug’s scene from The Hobbit too many times as a kid, because sometimes it’s nice to spread all my favorite posessions around my bedroom floor and wallow in the hoard.
Same here. I don’t play Magic the Gathering but occasionally I get the urge to buy some cards and put them in my folders.
You know, Amber, if you’d just tried that in the hotel room after prom, the evening might not have ended the way it did.
I forgot students get financial aid money to spend it on anything
It is Other Danny!
Whats in the box!!