Shortpacked! by David Willis
Toys are serious business.
Convention appearances:
Calgary Expo Calgary, AB: April 26-28
Phoenix Comicon Phoenix, AZ: May 23-26, 2013
BotCon San Diego, CA: June 28-30
San Diego Comic-Con San Diego, CA: July 18-21
SPX Bethesda, MD: September 14-15
Phoenix Comicon Phoenix, AZ: May 23-26, 2013
BotCon San Diego, CA: June 28-30
San Diego Comic-Con San Diego, CA: July 18-21
SPX Bethesda, MD: September 14-15
Multiplex
Sorcery 101
Templar, AZ
The Transformers Wiki
Hail to the Slash
80 page GIANT
Axe Cop
The Book of Biff
Butt-Taco
Comics Curmudgeon
College Roomies from Hell!!!
Diesel Sweeties
Dinosaur Comics
Dr. McNinja
Dresden Codak
Fans!
Fleen
Gastrophobia
Girl Genius
Girls with Slingshots
Goats
Hark, a vagrant
Hijinks Ensue
Intrepid Girlbot
Legend of Bill
Medium Large
Not Invented Here
Octopus Pie
Overcompensating
Penny Arcade
PhDcomics
Power Nap
Questionable Content
Real Life
Rob and Elliot
Bad Machinery
Schlock Mercenary
Sheldon
So Far Apart
Something Positive
Two Lumps
Wapsi Square
Wonderella
Wondermark
Frumph.NET
Sorcery 101
Templar, AZ
The Transformers Wiki
Hail to the Slash
80 page GIANT
Axe Cop
The Book of Biff
Butt-Taco
Comics Curmudgeon
College Roomies from Hell!!!
Diesel Sweeties
Dinosaur Comics
Dr. McNinja
Dresden Codak
Fans!
Fleen
Gastrophobia
Girl Genius
Girls with Slingshots
Goats
Hark, a vagrant
Hijinks Ensue
Intrepid Girlbot
Legend of Bill
Medium Large
Not Invented Here
Octopus Pie
Overcompensating
Penny Arcade
PhDcomics
Power Nap
Questionable Content
Real Life
Rob and Elliot
Bad Machinery
Schlock Mercenary
Sheldon
So Far Apart
Something Positive
Two Lumps
Wapsi Square
Wonderella
Wondermark
Frumph.NET
Tags
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galasso
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guest strip
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joe
justice league
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leslie
malaya
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ultra car
©2005-2013 David Willis | Powered by WordPress with ComicPress | Subscribe: RSS | Back to Top ↑
Ultracar’s about to go AmaziGirl on Malaya.
Suck it UC!
If Ultracar hates everybody, does he hate Ultracar, too?
He’s got a not-very-well-hidden inferiority complex behind his superiority complex.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure Ultra Car hates Ultracar. Don’t most people hate it when someone misspells their name?
Come to think abut it, what about Joe?
Seems like he has abandonment issues with Joe. “DAD.”
It’ll be interesting to see how people spin this act of Malaya’s. *Gets popcorn*
I am of the opinion she is still the maximum amount of bitch legally allowed in America.
Her crush on Leslie is just a Morality Pet.
And girl does she want to pet it.
Internet goes to YOU, good sir/madam.
Does she indeed.
Spin? It was a truly awesome comeback to Ultra Car’s setup.
She’s still a heinous bitch, though.
Okay, last one was a false start.
YES ULTRACAR SQUISH HER SQUISH HER SQUISH HER
Yay! She’s gonna die!
I’m a little more enthusiastic about that than I should be, huh?
not really.
Ohshi—-
Hint at character backstory? Uh-oh.
Seriously, I think I just weakened a bit for Malaya. Malaya, I know too many bad relationships, especially in too short of a time, destroys your faith in people, but I’ve done the angry route, and it doesn’t work.
And now I’m giving advice to webcomic characters. Damn you Willis!
Actually, I kind of wonder if Malaya thinks Leslie is her ticket off of this endless ragefest she’s got going on. The whole “fresh start” thing makes me think that Malaya may consider Leslie her “redemption” or something, proving that she can be a good person, and can have good relationships.
Unfortunately, I don’t know how much longer Leslie will put up with Malaya’s shit. She’s nice, but she cares about her friends. And if Malaya thinks she needs Leslie to redeem her, well… what’ll happen if they break up?
Malaya is no worse then Mike, though. Better then, really, as she hasn’t yet pulled off anything worse then breaking Jacob like he did. She’s been a bit of a bitch to people, but it’s, like, insults and stuff. Nothing actually HARMING, really.
And, to Leslie, she hasn’t done anything as bad as Robin, either. She hasn’t had a chance to, to be honest, but she’s willing to drop the ally she’s building to with UC to stick with Leslie. She sounds like she’d like to stick to the straight and narrow when it comes to Leslie. Robin, on the other hand…
Really, I know you people don’t like Maylaya. But for the life of me, I really don’t understand why…
Also. Ultra Car. Really? You’ve never looked so cliche and dumb as you have been in these last couple strips. Pies have never, ever been funny.
Au contraire, mon ami.
http://5secondfilms.com/watch/grumpy_ben
Yeah, but Mike does it in style…
Or is it “with” style?
I don’t get it either. I think she’s pretty.
Huh. Funny, my take on it was completely different. My thought from Malaya’s statment is not that bad relationships turned her into an asshole, but rather that she’s always been an asshole, and when people come to understand what she’s like they dump her, which she translates as bad relationships. Leslie isn’t going to work as her ‘redemption’, because she’ll ultimately show her true colors to Leslie, too, and Leslie will dump her. Although maybe that will be her redemption, realizing that if even genuinely nice people dump her, then maybe she is the problem here.
Remember, the one common denominator in all your bad relationships is you.
Yes, the one common denominator in all your relationships is you, but always having bad relationships doesn’t automatically equal “you’re an asshole”. A nice, polite, and gentle person who never says a bad word to anyone can still kill a relationship if the reason they’re so polite and gentle is because they aren’t open about their real feelings.
Sorry, nothing anyone says will convince me that Malaya was ever quiet and polite, or that she even recognizes those as attitudes a human is capable of adopting.
I didn’t say that, I said it was a big leap between “all of Malaya’s relationships have been bad” and “it’s because she’s a bitch”. There’s no way to reach that conclusion from what we know of her so far.
Malaya’s pretty nice to Leslie. She still expresses her negative opinion of others while around Leslie, but she’s not negative or derogatory toward Leslie herself. So obviously she knows something about being nice and polite.
She has made at least one statement which obviously offended Leslie, without showing any awareness or recognition that what she said was offensive – even if it wasn’t a direct insult to Leslie. You can’t just be nice to your girlfriend, and be an ass to all her friends, and assume that this is going to be a satisfactory relationship for your girlfriend.
To paraphrase HIMYM “It doesn’t matter what my friends think of my girlfriend, but it matters what my girlfriend thinks of my friends.”
I’ve made mistakes in relationships, but the main thing I did wrong was being naive and guillable, which isn’t good for a girl in late high school/early college.
I dunno, I mean there was the girl who lied about being raped to steal my guy, and he wanted nothing to do with me when I told him about what she did because “She would never do that and I was lying.” Or the girl in college who’s brilliant idea to deal with her boyfriend paying attention to me (despite me trying to take a step back from my friendship with said guy because he was getting too friendly) was to try to manipulate everything she could to get me thrown into a mental ward.
And these sort of things were the norm. I’m glad my life is boring now.
Does that mean I’m the reason almost all my ex’s have been abusive to me?
Guys? Someone tell me?
Too bad. Now Ultra Car is going to have to act tough and keep up the hate pretense with the only person who could ever be his friend.
Still going to totally work out though, you know for character development and all.
War. War never changes. *UC pies Ron Perlman*
Ooh. UC is gonna regret that. Here comes The Wanderer!
*Duck and Cover*
War has changed. It’s not about nations or ideology. It’s not even about profits, resources or ethnicity. It’s an endless series of proxy battles. fought by mercenary and machines. War, and its vast consumption of human life, has become a rational, well-oiled business transaction. *gets a pie in the face*
In the grim darkness of the Forty-first millennium, there is only war. *Pie to the God-Emperor of Mankind atop his Golden Throne*
We need an image of this.
NOW!
Ultracar sure can dish out the pie dishes, but can he take ‘em?
Just don’t run over Fuckface. I like that lizard.
Oh dear, she pissed off the car…
Anybody think he should meet up with Christine?
That’s funny. Apparently, UC didn’t kill her when he hoisted her. So, now he’s going to….run over her, drown her in pie, send her to Africa? I foresee a long and interesting ‘friendship’ in flower.
Poor Malaya.
Yeah, I’m gonna keep saying it.
She is honestly trying, in her weird, stunted way, to make a friend. Heck, in some situations, throwing a snowball at your erstwhile ally in the snowball fight would actually seal a friendship. Maybe that’ll happen here, but UC’s ego and the photo-reversed speech balloon suggest otherwise.
It’s impossible to say just how those “bad relationships” of hers went, but I’d be pretty surprised if she didn’t have a long pattern of driving the good prospects away (as she may be starting to do with Leslie) and sticking with the bad ones long after things turned sour, just because she also tends to drive off the kind of friends who’d help her pull out.
Ethan was once told he was a self-sabotager who “had to do everything the wrong way.” He’s improved since. But I think that even at his worst, he wasn’t anywhere near Malaya. She’s physically attractive, reasonably intelligent (she gives about as good as she gets in her verbal fencing matches), and has a mischievous sense of fun. She could probably have been one of the most popular members of the staff… if she weren’t also so… MALAYA.
And if she doesn’t break the pattern fairly soon, she may never.
I admit, in my own warped way, I’m starting to warm up to the little asshole.
I have to admit, I keep hoping for some sign this little interloper is redeemable. I hated the idea of Leslie hitting that little bitch on the rebound, I don’t care that Robin fucked up at least she did it while high for crying out loud. Malaya is just… horrible to everyone, all the time. I would love to see something more than “is a shit to everyone but the hot piece of ass she wants to nail”. That’s not one dimensional, thats zero dimensional. When you look into this chick’s eye’s the void stares back. Willis please, fill this void with… something.
Defending a highly unpopular character ain’t easy.
And in your case, brasca, you were vindicated in the end!
Indeed I was. And I’m willing to believe that Malaya isn’t all bad, but she better have a good back story for why she is who she is. Right now she’s just Tharqa in a hotter body as far as I’m concerned.
I like her. A lot of these guys are/ were bad people who do selfish, bad things. Malaya is just more obvious about it. I find it refreshing.
Leslie: This is our randomly sorted game aisle.
Cholma: Cool. Cool cool cool. Do you have “Settlers of Canaan” here? I hear it’s an awesome game.
Leslie: Uh, you mean “Settlers of CaTaan”. It’s over…
Cholma: Nope. Pretty sure it’s “CaNaan”.
Leslie: …
WTF are you talking about, and what is Catlers of Satan?
IIRC there actually is a Settlers of Canaan. It’s a “scenario pack”.
UC can dish it out, but he can’t take it.
If he actually killed someone I think it would be officially listed as an industrial accident.
ultracars costing his makers alot of money than, maybe they will send an ultra-terminator after him.
In any case, it certainly wouldn’t be manslaughter. The legal definition of that word requires a lack of malice on Ultra Car’s part. It’d just be murder.(When the word ‘manslaughter’ sees use in court, it usually involves accidental killing.)
Not necessarily a lack of malice, more like a lack of intent to kill. There’s a weird, cramped little space in between where “voluntary manslaughter” resides (at least in some jurisdictions).
Murder might not be applicable either, considering the whole A.I. rights issue.
If A.I.’s have not been recognized as sentient beings and equal to personhood under the law, no different from corporations in that sense, then him killing Malaya would be akin to a Pitbull ripping out her throat, and that could be tagged as Negligent Manslaughter towards his owner/creator.
I hope to GOD Ultra Car doesn’t see your post, or heaven help us all.
A response to my yesterday’s comment: NO! NO!
Alright, Malaya. That was legitimately amusing. Proceed.
Wait a second, since Ultra Car view every one as an enemy, shouldn’t he be doing the same thing to Malaya?
Ultra Car got his comeuppance…. I…. I like Malaya now…. DAMN YOU WILLIS!
I DON’T LIKE MALAYA :I
Huh … I always figured that U.C. liked Robin and Joe … but then again, I guess nothing U.C. says is intended to be taken literally.
-airfox
I dunno if ‘like’ is the right word. UC’s relationship with his dad is complicated.
Oh no, white-on-black speech balloon!
FASTER ULTRA CAR! KILL! KILL!
Squish her.. Squish her to goo!!
That is made so much funnier by your Gravatar. EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! (had to make the joke)
Malaya why’d you have to go and say that – Leslie’s awesome and you have to go and reveal you really do like Leslie despite all your bitchiness – making her into your morality pet-esqe character and showing us you have a good side to boot!
Damn it all-
If you start developing realistically sympathetic motives and feelings that make you almost human then we’ll be forced to feel bad when UC does get revenge…
Now I am wondering if Malaya is a bitch because she had so much bad relationships, or her relationships were bad because she was a bitch…
I don’t think that Malaya needs a nice girlfriend to finally be a better person, she needs to grow up first. Problem is, I don’t she realises she might be part of the problem.
Really, I know you people don’t like Maylaya. But for the life of me, I really don’t understand why…
Its because she is constantly looking down on and insulting those around her while maintaining a smug and arrogant sense of superiority.
She isn’t evil in an interesting way like Mike she is just a jerk.
you summed up why people dislike malaya perfectly. if she was a jerk in an interesting way like mike, most people would be fine with her. instead she just has a crabby attitude towards everyone and everything.
Nah. Malaya’s just disgruntled; Mike’s going out of his way to mess people up. I wouldn’t call that “interesting.”
She a jerk, but unlike Mike she’s the kind of jerk that people actually have to deal with.
I’m one of the people who actually liked Malaya from the start, despite her being supposed to be an unlikable bitch.
So, go Malaya.
Well, good luck, Ultra Car. America believes in your new mission. Go earn a medal of honor and get rid of Malaya.
If Ultracar really haterd “everyone” then the worst thing he could do is make sure Malaya stay permanently BUT make sure she is miserable at the same time. Double win for UC.
… hated …. [ stupid intermittent spellchecker]
I wanna see Leslie get sexy times with Malaya, then realize how big of a bitch she is right when Robin walks in and sees them.
Wow, she actually didn’t want to throw it at Leslie, so when UC wanted to she spluted him…. that was the first nice thing I’ve seen her do (nice by my standards).
we might have some hope for the girl yet.
Oh, good. Ultracar’s been getting off scot-free for too long.
Now stop teasing us, Willis. You know that UC has Amazoned people for far less than that (for his own amusement, really). You want to try and redeem Malaya after giving her a launch as your most unpleasant character since Head Alien? Fine. But kicking it off with a karma houdini – a karma houdini you have to make UC act OOC for – is not the way to do it.
You had me until you said Head Alien was unpleasant!
Maybe he’s a Sound of Music fan and giving him bonus points for liking it as well?
Considering that Ultra Car lives in Leslie’s garage pieing her is tantamount to pieing the landlord. Either UC is really stupid or knows how far he can push things. I think Malaya will regret telling UC how she feels about Leslie more than the pieing. That’s the kind of info that can be used against her and I wouldn’t be surprised if the first person he tells is Robin.
I dunno. I kinda wanna see Ultra Car run Malaya over. Okay, I lied. I REALLY want to see him run her over. I mean, he could always pretend to be a normal car so that everyone is thinking it was murder and be searching for whoever the “driver” was of the car and get off scot-free…
Sentient cars are a normal thing now in the Shortpacked! universe. Nobody would buy the “a driver did it” act.
Whether Malaya just wants to get into Leslie’s pants or if she really likes her as a friend, the big question is: why? What, from Malaya’s POV, is so special about Leslie? I mean, if these characters were real, I would rather hang out with Leslie than with most of the other cast, but that’s because 1) as a reader, I’ve seen enough sides of Leslie to make that call, and 2) most of the other cast is insane.
Malaya didn’t know anything about Leslie except “she’s the girl who got dumped by that crazy sex tape chick, so les or bi”, and the reason Leslie was nice to her is that she was nice to Leslie. There are plenty of girls’ pants to get into, and there are plenty of people who will return niceness, so why does it have to be Leslie?
I’m sure Willis has a plan for Malaya, or he wouldn’t have introduced her, but it frustrates me that I don’t even have an inkling of where she’s heading. I don’t find her infuriating, I just find her boring. Where Mike is an unpredictable force of nature, Galasso is someone you painfully learn to work around, and Faz is someone you want to choke until he shuts up, Malaya’s just an annoying fly. If you take a deep breath and ignore her, she might as well not be there. She hasn’t yet justified her addition to the cast, and the one thing that might start to explain who she is — her crush on Leslie — currently makes no kind of sense.
But in a meta kind of way, my indifference to her is the reason I want to see more of her; I want to find out how she’s gonna get turned into an interesting character.
She finds her attractive? Just a guess.
She finds her attractive because she finds her attractive?
To repeat and elaborate on the original question: why does Malaya find Leslie so attractive/nice/[insert positive description] that she’s willing to work a job she fucking hates, just to be able to have conversations with her?
I’m still not sure what her motives really are. She’s admitted to just “messing” with Leslie, either just for the lulz or to piss off Robin. And at the same time, she seems to genuinely appreciate Leslie’s company.
…PLEASE tell me the very long comment I just posted (which I now can’t Ctrl+V back despite Ctrl-C-ing it before submitting) didn’t disappear?
I’ve actually had comments disappear from here (and DoA) before, but they were so short it didn’t matter.
It went into my spam folder for some reason. Retrieved!
*inhales*
THANK YOU, WILLIS!!!
Is I’ve Never really a game that you can really go into a toy store and really buy, or am I just being fucked with?
It exists!
Well, golly, I figured forcing your friends into embarrassing confessions and irresponsible drunkenness could be done without pre-printed questions on little cards, but I guess I horribly mistaken.
Looks like Ultra Car got….*sunglasses* his just desserts. YEEEEAAAAAHHHHH!!!
This cannot stand, man. This cannot stand…
Ha. The facebook thing made me giggle.
“One person likes this. Be the first of your friends.”
Only one person likes Malaya (Leslie), is immediately where my mind jumped.
I like this plot twist!
Psst. Your tsundere is showing.
Okay, who is my avi character? I have been wondering this for a while, and funny as it may be it looks a lot, and I mean A LOT, like my r/l self. this is kinda creepy…. Willis is stalking me!
Gwen Stacy? Says the filename, anyway.
Huh, for some reason I missed this one! I check every day so not sure how I managed that.