I think this page sumarizes a lot of what I like about Commander
June 13, 2013
2:24 pm
I remember once I was doing a science fair project and part of it involved swabbing an earthworm to see what kind of bacteria were on it. I don’t do well with any kind of worm, especially as a kid, so I didn’t want to. My mom (who is even worse with worms than I am) said that she’d hold the worm for me if I agreed to do it, to be my moral support. That was enough to get me to swab the worm and finish the project and win first prize at the science fair.
Seemed like a relevant story.
Good parenting.
Pictured: A reenactment of every animal I brought home to Mom and Dad ever.
All I ever had as a child was cats. My mother liked them, my father didn’t. He didn’t like anything that didn’t pay attention to him.
Yer dad sounds like A LEETLE GUHLEE MAHN! >:3
Got a red eared Brazilian turtle when i was 10. Dad loves it as much as i do. Mom… Not so much… ^^;;
*which is understandable because the turtle went from the size of a 10 yo palm to a size of a dining plate within months. Figures XD
my dad hates cats, and dogs, and kids, and birds, and snakes, and worms, and… pretty much anything he’s not allowed to barbecue.
To be fair, I can’t really argue with this logic.
Though, judging from stories friends overseas have told be about South Korean barbecue, I feel one of those may be up for debate.
Is it “kids”?
HAHAHAHAHA thank you
Considering I’m South Korean, I can tell you that the sentiments behind that are mostly false unless the words pork or beef come up. >:/
We do have dog soup though and I can tell you that a good number of the current generation are actually as squeamish about the idea as Americans are. Having pet doggies will do that.
…he’s not allowed to barbeque snakes? How else are you supposed to cook them?
Personally, I like my snake grilled.
Rattlesnake makes a delicious and very healthy broth, great if you’re not feeling well, better than chicken soup!
As much as I’m fond of snakes, I’d thing barbecue would be the logical way to prepare them. I mean, think about it; the whole thing’s pretty much one long rack of ribs~ XD
I do love Commander’s ethic on this, though. He gave his word, so he had to keep it. It’s a great lesson for a little kid <3
Snake meat is surprisingly delicate when cooked, too much sauce and you may as well just have pulled chicken. The two best ways I know of to cook snake are skinned and gutted whole grilled with a dry rub, or gutted marinated and baked skin-on. Be wary of the bones when you do it skin-on though, they’re small and sharp.
My exact words… even today I don’t have any fear of most critters, unless they are dangerous or can hurt you.
On family meetings (usually in farms, I have many relatives), I’m called to remove critters (sometimes need to kill, like the nasty wandering spider). Once saved a frog from getting roasted alive, after it was found inside a working oven.
Commander’s face looks like my mom’s when she faced a cicada.. She hated/feared it more than flying roaches. ^_^
The frog one sounds like a wasted opportunity to me. Let it roast. Serve frog’s legs. I tried them once. They didn’t taste like chicken to me. It was more like the taste of fish (like mackerel or something) and the texture of a chicken wing.
Reminds me of a story my dad told me.
He’d been bugging his parents for a pet for weeks. Finally they relented, and gave him the magnificent sum of 25 cents to buy a pet with, knowing the exact price of a single goldfish.
He got a discount on a one-eyed, three-legged rat instead.
I had a pet snake when I was a kid. My stepdad hated it, but he never made me get rid of it. I just had to keep the snake on Total Lockdown when it was in its cage to make him feel better.
Self-control in face of irrational arm-flailing panicky fear is like the manliest trait of all :P
I had a snake too, but my parents just wanted to hold her. Rather the opposite of this great comic. Seemed like a relevant story.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes
Relevant.
There’s a video on YouTube about a snake that opened a door to freed itself from a room.
It was a very large snake, and it went splat when it hit the ground. Sounded slightly painful.
The Commander is more man than I will ever be.
Welcome to the club. I don’t handle bugs very well either, but I doubt I could keep it together as well as the commander here.
Also: I love how parents already know what their kids will do, and then continue to love them anyways.
Oh Sweet Pony Jesus, Commander’s expression in the 6th panel…it’s priceless because of its accuracy. It’s the face of one who is trying their best not to explode.
Yea, I can feel the tension in those fingers grabbing the armchair. It must be a reall good armchair, I’m sure that grip would break a bear’s arm to a flesh and bone pudding.
OH SWEET MERCIFUL GEZUS ITS IN MY FUCKING SHIRT, BUT JONESEY WILL BE SAD IF I KILL THIS ABOMINATION OF MOTHER NATURE, BE STRONG COMMANDER, DO NOT KILL THE BUG. DO NOT KILL THE BUG…
DO
NOT
SMUSH
BUG
June will be sad, Jonesy doesn’t seem to be a fan of the bug.
Jonesy would be sad for June, who would be sad for the bug. Thus, sadness. (And little girl revenge plots.)
Father of the Year, All Years
I <3 <3 <3 the Commander.
This just put a big smile on my face. All of it.
“I’m not gonna drop it!”
Said every kid ever, as they proceeded to do exactly what they said they wouldn’t do.
“I won’t fall out of this tree!”
“I won’t let the dog wander out, I’m watching him!”
Relevant:
The one and only time my mother told me NOT to climb a tree that day, I fell out of one and broke my leg. Creepy how they know.
Makes me wonder how much burning took place on the Millipede Planet.
Once the commander was but in charge he ordered them to glass it from orbit. So lots and lots of burning.
She’s only five. She’s only five. Just keep telling yourself that CD.
I love seeing a character like the Commander made so uncomfortable about something so small. He is huge man, clearly seen (and took part in no doubt) more than his share of violence, been in a military of some kind, but when it comes to a harmless little arthropod he crawling out of his skin. To be completely honest, I am the same way when it come to needles.
On a different note, is the gap in June’s teeth from a missing tooth or from unusually large diastema?
She’s just a five year old losing her baby teeth.
That is what I figured, but just had to be sure. Thank you kindly for indulging me.
Any chance of learning how the Commander lost his tooth?
Dropbears. He doesn’t like to talk about it. He lost many good friends that day.
At least he was manly enough to still talk to Jonesy about drop bugs…
I always assumed Junebug thought she looked weird when she lost that tooth so CB pulled one out of his own mouth to make her better
Yes. He would do that.
Epic Dadness
Surely you don’t mean “all of them”…
Im sorry but; he loses his tooth in an earlier comic when he goes back in time to beat himself up and impress Jones
Naw, he was missing it before that.
Seemingly a long time before that. He is missing it when you showed a younger him with his friends taking a picture of them walking calmly away form an explosion. Not sure how much younger he is there, but he looks younger there than he did on the millepede planet.
On a semi-related note, how far in the future is he from? Not looking for an exact year or anything, just a rough idea. Like 50 or 500 or way more?
Jesus Christ, CB’S face in the fourth panel.. I just.. I can’t even..
Also,
NO COMMANDER! DON’T BURN CANADA GUY’S SHIRT!!!
To be honest, I’d expect Commander to go back in time to give himself one of Canada Guy’s shirts just so he’d be prepared for when she dropped the bug.
Course he could have stopped Junebug from getting the bug in the first place, but… he’s the Commander.
http://gifs.1000notes.com/post/52835171683
I think this is an accurate representation of what the Commander must have been feeling like.
WHY IS IT SO BIG?
Also, what is its name?
I’d like its name as well, or hasn’t she given it any?
That’s what she said.
I was expecting her giant bug to be a Scolipede and a gift from Jared. Cause that is one giant Centipede.
(Tried to respond once before, but, it’s not showing. Weird.)
It’s a millipede. Centipedes look a lot different, and a giant centipede would be a terrible pet for a kid – their venom is actually dangerous to humans, and can be lethal to kids.
And June’s bug may be a bit large, but it looks pretty close to right for a giant millipede, which can be about a foot and a half long.
Each comment gets moderated, perhaps the program/Coela/an admin thought you were being spammy/rude/somethin’ in your first response. I think the giant centipede comment was referring to Scolipede, rather than June’s pet, but I could be wrong.
Millipedes actually just crawl around eating whatever they decide looks tasty. Centipedes are dicks that eat whatever they think they can kill with ALL OF THE POISON EVER.
And to think people think spiders are the real enemy. Spiders eat all the bad stuff you don’t like and (mostly) do everything they can to stay out of your way. Snakes too. Centipedes? Thing could be less than an inch long and it’ll still go for you.
OH GOD centipedes are such ASSHOLES. Almost as much as hornets.
Oh god… centipedes and caffeine… may all the gods save us all…
You speak so much truth it’s not even funny. Back during my college years I was pulling an all-nighter and… losing. There was a centipede all the way on the other side of the room and I kept nodding out for minutes at a time. Every time I’d open my eyes, the centipede would have positioned itself somewhere closer to me in the room. Then I had one especially long snooze. When I woke up, I couldn’t see it at all… until I checked the wall behind me and found the damned thing reaching for the back of my neck. It died in less than three seconds and my personal war against the fuckers began that day. I like to think that one I killed was an important political/military figure in the centipede community, especially since recently one tried to drop on me in my room. I’m not sure what got it first–the ceiling fan or my rampaging feet as I did my best impersonation of a frantic schoolgirl trying to find out what just landed on me.
haha! Ohhhh yes. I hate all bugs. I literally bug bomb my house once a year and then spray down a nice coating of bug barrier. Works great! Every now and again a sneak little bugger will get in and it dies horribly.
I’m from the tropics, and I’ve woken up in bed with a centipede biting me multiple times! Those fuckers broke the sacred “You are safe under the covers” creed! How I loathe them.
When CB admitted to hating millipedes I thought I shared that with him. But looking in more details, I don’t. It’s centipedes that I hate. Millipedes are alright. They’re even kinda cute, in a creepy-crawly way. Centipedes need to die.
It’s easy to distinguish the two, centipedes have legs that go to the sides and long antennas while millipedes have legs that stay below their body and short antennas. (There are also more scientific differences, like how millipedes have two pairs of legs on most of their body sections, while centipedes have only one single pair of legs per section.)
Anyway, the bottom line is, centipedes are awful. I suppose CB will never go to Centipede Planet, because the only thing to do on such a planet is dropping all the nukes ever until the entire crust is turned into roiling magma.
So this comic is apparently increasingly becoming a tribute to a great set of parents.
This, too, is fine by me.
I found these comics a couple months ago and I must say they make my week. I love them and I always keep checking because I can’t wait to see the next one lol. Keep up the good work <3
My uncle is like this with snakes. He weighs more than 300 pounds, but he has actually outran ATV’s and leapt clean over the hood of a car to get away from snakes.
Soooo…Your uncle & Indiana Jones, right? :D
I can relate. I’m a big guy, weighing about 250, but when I see a snake, I will run like I’m going for the Olympic gold.
Hands up, manliest and badassest panic attack ever.
Don’t worry, Commander! Millipede cooties come right out. No need to burn the shirt.
Also, his daughter is awesome. That cannot be repeated enough times.
Washing a shirt doesn’t erase the memories of having a millipede crawl under it. Neither does burning, but it’s the next best thing.
To me, the shirt itself wouldn’t be a problem, but the fact that the millipede was up against my skin.
I don’t think I could ever feel clean enough after that.
Oop, just noticed it doesn’t go down his undershirt. Not against his skin.
I could feel clean again, but it would take a couple days.
“It would take a couple of days.”
Of scrubbing.
With lye.
Brillo.
Acid.
Lava
Boiling hot tar & a cheese grater
Well, that escalated at an appropriate pace and to an acceptable conclusion.
You mean, the commanders standard soap? don’t you think he would need something stronger?
The bug looks like it has a very mad expression in panel three. I don’t blame anyone for recoiling from something that angry. Specially if experience already dictates it’s gonna try to get under your clothes.
Good thing I’m not in the Commander’s shoes…’it’s my kid’s pet’ would have registered in my brain a half second after ‘BUG ON ME’, which would be plenty of time for my hand to have splattered the thing.
Considering his experience with millipedes, squishing them is probably the last thing he would want to do, especially while it’s on his body.
Besides, the Commander knew it was going to happen the moment his doughter held up that bug. It wasn’t a suprise.
I wish I could fill the Commander’s shoes, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be wearing his shirt right now.
This comic is really awesome- especially coupled with your story. It might be funny, but it reminds us that we tend to forget the ridiculously gross, stupid, repeatedly ignorant things we put our own parents through.
Loved his expression in the last panel- “Why am I always right about these things.”
I was crying from laughter before I read the last panel.
I love the body language of him shoving himself into the chair and trying to stay calm. Great expression all around on this page.
i bet he is going to go back in time to stop this
Fun fact. Millipedes secrete a defensive noxious chemical from their rear ends when they’re handled and/or nervous.
So I’m thinking that little girl should be wearing some gloves. SHE CLAIMED TO HAVE LEARNED ALL ABOUT THEM BUT I DON’T THINK SHE DID.
Also, tarantulas have uricating hairs on their abdomens which irritate human skin when handled. It’s proof that bugs in general pretty much hate us.
the chemical knocks out spiders but doesn’t kill them, they just stand around in plain sight wobbling slightly for a few hours while hungry aracnivores wake up for the day. The Millipede Planet has a complex ecology.
It’s an extremely well-trained pet? Or maybe in the far future, they’ve found a way to de-toxify millipedes, the way pet ferrets get de-scented? :)
Otherwise, I’d say he now has a pretty good reason to burn that shirt.
For a pet, I’d prefer a skunk…De-scented of course. I like the idea of taking the skunk for a daily walk on a leash.
You can bet that any potential burglars who are casing your house as a target & see you would think twice about breaking into YOUR home if you do this!
I wonder if maybe they stop doing it if they get handled enough to get used to it? Not sure a bug can really ‘get used to’ something they way a smarter animal can, but I am reminded of my gerbils who at first would poop every time we picked them up, but eventually stopped.
I just noticed the millipede is going down Commander’s shirt.
Ahhhhhh this is awesome!!!
I guess that’s what the fire in the backyard is for.
The free-range fire gets fed early!
Junebug’s a lucky girl. Most people who have a problem with bugs would whip the shirt off and start hammering it with their boot if that gigantic hellbug landed on it.
Seriously, that thing looks like something that Vault Hunters would want a big shotgun to kill.
Eh. That sorta stuff doesn’t scare Vault Hunters.
They’ve faced down The Destroyer, The Warrior, Terramorphous, Face McShooty…
They’d be fine.
I didn’t say it would scare them, just that they’d want a big shotgun to kill it.
Or possibly a revolver-shotgun. Or a sniper-shotgun. Or more than one sniper-shotgun. Or a Derp Nukem. :)
I GET IT NOW.
June?
Bug?
JUNEBUG.
@Coelasquid I had a similar experience last fall with my little sister Lilly, on the day my mom was taking me back to college. She was really sick with a nasty cough and sore throat, but was refusing to take her cough syrup, even though she knew it would make her feel better. I sat down next to her on the couch and told her about how much I hate yogurt. I mean, every time I’ve ever tried to eat it, I’ve gagged to hard to even keep trying. I told her that if I could eat a spoonful of yogurt, I bet she could take a spoonful of her medicine, and she reluctantly agreed. Mom had us both stand over the sink with our spoons full of gunk, and on her mark, Lilly and I stuck the spoons in our mouths. As soon as I had the yogurt inside, I basically froze- for a few seconds, my gag reflex warred with my determination to show my little sister how awesome I was. The gag reflex won, but at least I didn’t throw up- just sorta involuntarily spat it out. I genuinely lost control of my muscles for a moment.
At any rate, Lilly’s mood improved a lot that day- she still laughs about the face I made while trying to swallow- and I eventually got the taste and texture out of my mouth. I am never doing that again.
“…how much I hate yogurt. I mean, every time I’ve ever tried to eat it, I’ve gagged…”
You realize that yogurt has “active cultures” in it, right? Active cultures of what, you might (or might not) ask?
It’s a bacterial culture, of the same type that lives in your intestines. You actually NEED it there to help digest your food. Without it, you’d likely die from just about any food you eat.
In case of diarrhea, eat yogurt to replace that bacteria that you’ve…ur, lost.
And tomatoes are supposed to be filled with useful vitamins and crap. Yet my gag reflex protests them – to about as violent a degree as apparently yogurt does to the above poster.
Just because they can’t swallow it doesn’t mean they don’t know what good its supposed to be.
The seeds in tomatoes taste like vomit to me. I can deal with the fleshy part, but the seeds completely repulse me.
I love the unhappy millipede face on panel three.
they’re both awesome in their toothlessness
bngvajiksmndjgvashbcjknjhasfdja sd
I literally had to flail and squirm and just.. GAH when I saw in the last panels that it was actually crawling INTO his shirt.
Just.. just…
OH GAWD.
I hope you know I’ve developed quite the crush on Commander.
Lucky centipede…
o gods, i can see the next comic of him jumping around because the thing was able to get into his pants
In the Commander’s point of view, that would be going TOO far…
Besides the general greatness of the Commander here, I really love how the only other person to want to touch the bug (Sammy) is the only person June is keeping it away from.
Commander, got a present for you:
http://bogleech.com/bio.html
Bloody hell. You’d think I’d know better than to click on links people post…
Just echoing Niccolo’s statement of “Bloody hell,” along with a generous portion of “OH GOD WHY CAN’T I UNSEE THAT WHICH HAS BEEN SEEN!?”
…Nothing that a case of Alzheimer’s or a sledgehammer upside the head wouldn’t cure…
I love the Commander’s kids. :D
“But look dad, he liiiikes you!”
Umm, real scary thought: in the last panel, THE BUG IS DOING UP THE BUTTONS!!!!!!!
It just can’t stand an undone shirt. That’s why it jumped onto the Commander in the first place.
O.o It is, holy shit, that is scary!
“Ooops-….I’m sorry!”
If I had a dollar for each time I heard THAT from my own 5-year-old…usually following a dialogue similar to: “Dear, don’t do that, you’re gonna-” “No I’m not.”
And of course Commander is a hero for letting her have the bug and not screaming like a scalded cat when it landed on him. I would have failed to clear either hurdles.
You could keep this up aaaaalll day.
This page just makes me happy. No overly worded interpretations, no outside stories, no venturing where things’ll go from here. This page: I like it.
ALL OF MY NOT WANT.
I fear for when my children want pets that are really bad ideas.
Oh man, this brings back memories. When I was younger I wanted a tarantula so bad, and I finally begged my parents into letting me get two as part of a science project. Mom and Dad did not like those things, but Dad still helped me set up the terrarium (terraria? There were two of them) and get the crickets for them to eat. Mom helped by agreeing not to squash them, which considering how much my mom hates tarantulas is kind of a miracle.
No force in Heaven or earth would have made me say “Yes” to letting my kids get a tarantula. Snake? Sure. Rat? Fine. Spider? No way in hell.
Good, I was wondering what the trained fire would factor into.
I had forgotten about that! I could totally picture him in the back yard, holding out his shirt and calling “here boy” as the fire comes and “eats” his shirt.
…after he had already shaken the millipede out into a trash can or something, unless he’s trained his fire well enough that it wouldn’t burn the millipede.
“The millipede: If it’s not evil, why did they get H.R. Geiger to design it?”
I love the little bug’s face!! He reminds me of a tiny Mr. Fish!
Ms. Coela, does it have a name? Will it be a recurring character? IT’S SO CUTE!!
Third panel: Millipede frowny face. Adorable.
I think that’s his tooth/pincer thingy. You can see it on page 4; I guess coela forgot to draw it on five.
It’s a wonder that arm chair is still in one piece.
This is easily the best page in some time. Kudos, Chole. Loving every panel more than the last.
awww…. the bug probably wants to find a nice warm dark spce to incubate it’s babies….
Don’t you need two bugs for that?
You can’t just leave me hanging like that, Coelasquid. What kind of bacteria was on the worm?
What kind?
WHAT KIND OF BACTERIA!?
Panel 3. Happiest face on earth!
Commander’s face looks exactly like Jared’s did when Commander was going to bring in Jared to hug Jack Krauser. Pure. Fear.
Hey Coelasquid, have you ever played one of the Yakuza games (for PS2 and PS3)? I always kinda expected to see the protagonist, Kazuma Kiryu, show up in your comic mostly because he and the Commander have a lot in common. Kazuma is a very nice guy, incredibly badass, and a single father.
I don’t see why it’s so frightening, it actually kinda looks cute.
Dafuq?
This is the second comic today I get a malware warning about. Some derps are messing around, I guess? o_o
Oh good that isn’t just me, thought my computer had one of thsoe fake anti-virus trojans again.
Same here: This comic, QC, and GoGetaRoomie all reported as “attack sites”
Someone apparently attacked Hiveworks. They’re working on it, last I saw.
Sometimes I have these violent fantasies about spammers and malware goons and it involves fire, big forks and Naga Bhut Jolokia in every raw body orifice.
Naga Bhut… *ouch that’s NASTY*
Sometimes I have non-specific fantasies involving the use of cake batter, a length of PVC pipe no more than one inch in diameter, a funnel, and a tub of margarine.
Oh, and a red ping-pong ball as well.
Wow, Google chrome blocked this site for malware… had to go old school and use firefox to read it….Malware warning …oooh nooooo
Hi. I just got a warning this was an attack site. I’m using firefox. Anyway, it’s probably one of your ad partners. My “website” is the stopbadware site generated.
Ehm, I’m getting false warnings from my anti virus software about this page being dangerous and stuff. I don’t believe that, but it never happened before, so… I thought I’d mention it.
hey, Google chrome is trying to stop me from viewing the site! it keeps yup hysterically screaming that its a known malware distrubuter, anyone know how to tell google to cut that crap out?
Hiveworks had an issue, it’s been resolved.
Today I got one of those noisy ads on this website, just after I got a signal that this web was pernicious.
I reenable the ad-block for a week. Just wanted you to know this issue.
Its crawling into his shirt. I would be freaking out so quickly.
I grew up around millipede swarms, and to this day I cannot STAND the smell of millipedes. If you’ve ever taken guaifenesin for congestion or a respiratory infection, you may have noticed that you start to smell funky after a day or three. That, friends and neighbors, is very much what millipedes smell like. Also, the pills smell like millipedes, and they taste like the smell of millipedes.
*shudder*
Thinking about it, I kind of envy Commander Badass the financial, emotional, masculine, and physical security it takes to be able to casually arsonate a personal property – even one as reasonably replaceable as an old flannel shirt – when it has come into contact with something which can be reasonably determined to be irredeemably contaminated with the skeevies and ickies, or which otherwise needs to be disposed of.
You know, shirts, sheds, whatever.
Don’t think I’ve commented here before but I had to say that Commander’s kid is ridiculously adorable right here. I love her concern for the millepede re: fire at the end. :D
I started reading about a month ago and just wanna say that you rock both as an artist and as a humorist
And the next thing you’ll see is the commander and Beatlejuice sitting in the same self-help group. xD
I had an awesome mum. We’d bring her mice, shrews, frogs, toads, bugs and crawlies of all description, and she’d admire them politely and even interestedly before telling us to put it back where we found it.
Here’s to you, Mum*.
*No, she isn’t dead, but she deserves the praise regardless.
Haha, that expression of defeat in his face… poor Commander…
Panel 4 is me in every dentist’s chair ever.
This kinda makes me want one of those now. Weird, huh? Funny how the bigger the bug, the less I mind it. Seriously, it looks fun to have one of those crawling on your arm. That kind of bug is fascinating. Great job in capturing its creepy-crawly motion.
Love the body language in this one. Well done.
It’s been *years* and only now I noticed the millipede is slipping into Commander’s shirt.
He truly is a very good man.