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
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©2005-2013 David Willis | Powered by WordPress with ComicPress | Subscribe: RSS | Back to Top ↑
NO PANTS
NO PROSTITUTION
NO SERVICE
*Claps*
NO CLAP
FINAL DESTINATION
STANDING BY
Amber fanservice. Why not?
Additionally, that’s a plot point I never saw returning.
Also, ROBIN, not Amber fanservice because I’ve been awake too long.
Perty sure that’d Robin o3o
I don’t know what that emoticon is supposed to mean, but my brain just sees a goldfish every time someone uses it.
Wide-eyed kissy face
I love how Leslie knows that off the top of her head.
Well, she has been hanging out there for a few hours already…
Oh character tags, how I love thee~
A note on the character tags, I was kinda sad not to see him tagged as Not-A-Prostitute Guy here
But I guess that would involve changing older tags.
Willis has done and will continue to update old tags as needed. It’s most notable when characters are given actual names; Yet-to-be-named offspring, for example. http://www.shortpacked.com/tag/yet-to-be-named-offspring/
Manny! You know, I don’t think that one actually ended as badly as it could’ve. There might be hope for Ethan yet.
You know, for twenty minutes before Leslie and Robin kill him for taking two hours in lines instead of distracting the other customers.
Perhaps, but by the time Ethan will get there Manny won’t be there.
“Drain my coin purse.” I don’t think I’ve heard that one before, but why should the guys have all the fun in choosing euphemisms and allegories for bodily functions.
Did she just come out of the men’s bathroom?
Nah, the last two panels are separate panels. Robin’s in the ladies’ room.
I’m guessing it’s a unisex single-person bathroom.
But yeah, the door symbol doesn’t have the traditional, relic of a past age “skirt” that women’s bathrooms normally have.
It looks more like a cape to me. It must be a “superheroes only” bathroom.
can I just say the way that Leslie responds to Robins comment is the reason why I love them together?
*inserts commode-flushing SPFX*
So…Ethan’s future boyfriend? If this did work out (because they were cute before Leslie and Robin ruined it with their good intentions) it would be funny that Ethan loses his first boyfriend the day he finds out Amber’s pregnant and (re)meets his second on the day she gives birth….hmm almost like it was planned somehow…That being said I kind of feel like Ethan never really dealt with the break up with Drew. It happened and outside of the “I broke up with Catman!” thing it was almost like the relationship never happened at all. I mean I know a lot of people felt like Drew was wrong for Ethan towards the end but they were together for a year and they seemed to love each other. It just always seemed strange to me that Ethan didn’t really care that the relationship was over. He just threw himself back into his toys.
That’s because Ethan is not only an addict, but almost completely unaware that he has a problem. In his eyes, Drew broke up with him for a completely unreasonable thing (like snoring) and can’t grasp his own shortcomings, at least not to the magnitude to which it should resonate with him.
Yeah I mean it’s great to have a hobby but the fact of the matter is Ethan is now running late for the birth of his best friend’s first child because getting a toy he wants RIGHT NOW is more of a priority for him. Yeah I get that he mentioned it’s hard to find but when it comes right down to it it’s a freaking toy and Amber IS HAVING A BABY. His priorities are seriously screwed up.
You’re absolutely right, just look at all the harm to his and others lives his toy collecting has caused! Like….um….anyone? Well, at leats he’s missing being there for the birth of the baby which will having lasting consequences such as…..um….I got nothing, the others aren’t even in the room with her.
How about this replace birth of her first child with her wedding day or any other important event that requires Ethan be somewhere at a specific time but there’s some toy he wants (because there is ALWAYS going to be some toy he wants) he has to get first. I wasn’t saying he needs to stop collecting just that there’s a time and a place. Would it have killed him to put the toy back just this once and meet his friends at the hospital? It might not have “lasting consequences” but it sure as hell might piss Amber off to find out he’s not there and why. Her other two closest friends made the time. Plus what if there are complications? She’s already overdue. This pregnancy hasn’t exactly been an easy one and yeah I think it’s weird I think it’s really fucking weird that Ethan seemed to feel absolutely nothing about breaking up with Drew. I would have settled for one sad faced at work panel. What this tells me is that Etha has severely disconnected from people in a pretty serious way and his mind it’s 1) Toys 2) People. All I’m saying is that it should be the other way around. A transformers toy feelings won’t be hurt if Ethan buys it at a slightly later date. Amber has feelings and they might get hurt by Ethan not being there when she could potentially need him.
Except, that’s never happened. each situation is judged on it’s own merits. Ethan’s pressence is neither required nor necessary for the birth and there’s no downside to being late.
It hasn’t happened YET. This sets a nasty precedent for the future basically it says if you really need Ethan to be somewhere or in an emergency you sure as hell better make sure sure there’s not some piece of molded plastic standing in the way of him him getting to you.
Maybe Ethan does have a problem (I’m personally not convinced), but I don’t think THIS is a good example of it. He picked up an item at the store and is now waiting in line to pay for it. The fact that is taking two hours doesn’t seem to me to be evidence that he is throwing off his obligations – its just a silly punchline! Maybe there is someone out there who waited two hours in a WalMart checkout line because the store refused to open any more checkstands, but I rather doubt it.
Also looking at the last couple of days of this storyline and he’s already 2 hours late and he debated whether he should drop the toy and head to the hospital. Roadblock told him to go to the hospital. He already knows morally what the right thing to do is and he’s still picking the toy.
Maybe I’m a terrible friend and/or emotionless robot, but I don’t see how Ethan waiting 2 hours in a line at Wal-Mart plus 5 hours in a waiting room at the hospital instead of Ethan waiting 7 hours in a waiting room counts as a problem. I also don’t see how being late for an unnecessary non-emergency sets precedence for blowing off commitments and crises.
Granted, I still think he should’ve forgotten about the toy when he got shut out of the self-checkout and saw how huge the remaining line was. But it’s not a priority system that sets off red flags in my heads.
We don’t KNOW that it’ll be seven hours in the waiting room. Some deliveries happen very fast, relatively speaking. Bottom line, Ethan is putting his toy ahead of his friend here. His other friends know it, because even ROBIN thinks that taking two hours to get there is kind of irresponsible. And HE knows it, because Roadblock is a little voice that lives inside his head.
My mother gave birth to my youngest brother in two hours obviously that hasn’t happened with Amber but there’s no reason it couldn’t have.
Well my mother took 66 hours to give birth to me. Unless Amber is getting a c-section there is no immediatly time limit to how long labor can last. Anyway I just hope Mike is somewhere in the hospital. For if this was Ethan’s kid then maybe there should be some urgency in his actions, but it is not. I am sure he will be there when it matters. As for now as long as he gets there eventually it should be okay by today’s mores.
This stuff is par for the course for Ethan, and it has messed with his life in the past. I don’t understand why some people are so dead-set on defending him when everything in the comic indicates that, yeah, he has a bit of a problem.
I honestly think for a lot of people when they’re defending Ethan they feel like they’re also defending themselves. They have their own collections and they identify with Ethan so they see any criticism of Ethan as people criticizing their own buying habits/relationships with people. Maybe they’ve dealt with criticism or maybe they anticipate future criticism warranted or not so despite it becoming clearer and clearer that Ethan has a problem they’re always going to rush to his defense because if they actually admit that he has a problem that might mean that they do too.
DanielleM, yeah, I think that’s probably at work here.
David is himself an enthusiastic collector of toys, and a lot of Ethan’s behavior is his: he’s been clear about that. But I think he’s got the necessary perspective not to miss his friend’s delivery because of a toy.
DanielleM Actually, I’m a minimalist – more in line with Drew than Ethan. The toys in my house belong to my boyfriend.
Ethan’s addiction isn’t really a problem – we’ve had no plot lines about debt, about ruined friendships (aside from Drew, and that WAS Drew’s issue) or about psychological damage. The only time it was really messed up was in the flashback when Ethan went to save Amber from her dad and stopped by the toy aisle…and that was for a punchline.
I don’t see how not being there to wait for someone else’s baby to be born is a big deal. Everyone *I’ve* ever known who was not in a sitcom just called their friends in the following day to meet the baby.
Really, it’s more of a sign that Ethan may have a problem that he’ll wait in line 2 hours, than that he’s not rushing off to the hospital waiting room. But that’s reality.
This is a comic – maybe it DOES signify that he’s got screwed up priorities. After all, Amber has all her friends waiting in a hospital in the middle of the night. We’re playing by sitcom rules.
‘Anybody who is defending Ethan has social problems that they can’t handle and so are anticipatorially deluding themselves’, huh? Your position so weak and defensive that you had to stoop to desperate ad hominems, it seems.
Of course, it was pretty obvious that you were in deep water
when your argument went “Look at all the stuff he’s missed!” “Um, he hasn’t missed anything.” “Er, um, but he MIGHT miss lots of stuff! Yeah! Really!!” Desperate much?
To be fair, I think this is the first time it’s become really a problem that shows poor priorities on his part.
The Drew thing was just a typical relationship clash over different values and over control of the look and feel of their living space, with Drew taking a particularly nasty and underhanded dig to try to win the argument. There’s a grain of truth to it, but Drew was treating it like a mountain from which he morally perched upon high.
You see this kind of thing in relationships all the time. Unfortunately.
“Anybody who is defending Ethan has social problems that they can’t handle and so are anticipatorially deluding themselves’,” Yeah not what I said at all. I said identification with Ethan could be a possible reason for so many people defending him and I still think that’s the case because some people seem to take any criticism of him so personally but thanks for grossly oversimplifying what I said in a pretty childish way. You really succeeded in putting me in my place with that one as for those events I said he could potentially miss how in the hell is that a weak argument. You keep acting like I said he had missed these events which I never did. I said Ethan’s behavior now could realistically get worse over time and lead to him missing more important events that is a very real possibility. Yeah you’re right I’m just desperate and grasping at straws because it’s not like bad behavior we refuse to work on could potentially escalate to worse behavior as time goes by. Ever. It’s not like that’s the entire point of what I was saying because I had the gall to criticize Ethan’s collecting. Clearly I am a monster.
Still not understanding why you’d expect all your friends to drop everything and sit around through your labor, which can and will take hours.
Still not quite sure why you’d want them to, either.
This varies from person to person. One of my best friends didn’t see any reason for me to be there. But for many people it’s a traditional rite of passage, and they want their friends there to share in their happiness. Amber clearly falls into that group.
Yeah I agree it varies and for me it comes down to does my friend want me there or not. Obviously I’m not necessary to the process the baby is going to show whether I’m there or not but if it’s important to my friend that I be in that waiting room then I’m going to be in that waiting room. This is Amber’s first child and she doesn’t know what to expect. She could understandably be nervous about the whole thing and even if she hasn’t specifically requested her friends be there that doesn’t mean she won’t be happy to know that they are. If Ethan’s priorities were better he would probably be able to anticipate that.
Let me ask you this, have we ever seen Amber express a desire for all her friends, or even Ethan specifically, to be there? If yes, then you’re right and this is a negative reflection of Ethan’s priorities, if we’re all just assuming then it’s not indicative of anything.
Yeah, Amber’s been so totally sensitive about this pregnancy thing. She certainly wouldn’t want it disrespected, like calling it a tummy turd or aying it would be pooped out or things like that.
timemonkey, if Leslie calls Ethan specifically to inform him that the labor has begun, and Ethan responds “I’ll be right there,” it is reasonable to assume that Ethan is expected to be there.
begbert2, Amber gets to call the baby a “tummy turd” or whatever because she’s the one who’s going through the pregnancy. If someone else did that AFTER she did it, that MIGHT be okay. But neither one of those things means that she doesn’t want her friends with her during the final stages.
You guys do know people DIE during childbirth, right? It’s rare but it happens, and considering how painful it is for many women, that can make it a very nervous-making experience, sometimes downright terrifying.
TCampbell, that is a point but if it’s because HE decided he wanted to be there and not because he was asked to then it’s still entirely up to him. If Amber wanted the support or to share the moment with her friends then this does reflect poorly on him. If it’s just that he wanted to be there then it’s entirely his choice how fast he gets there, no matter what he says to Leslie or anyone else.
“I’ll be right there” can mean anythign from ‘I’m leaving immediately’ to ‘I’m leaving as soon as I’m done what I’m doing’.
TCampbell, that is a point but if it’s because HE decided he wanted to be there and not because he was asked to then it’s still entirely up to him. If Amber wanted the support or to share the moment with her friends then this does reflect poorly on him. If it’s just that he wanted to be there then it’s entirely his choice how fast he gets there, no matter what he says to Leslie or anyone else.
“I’ll be right there” can mean anythign from ‘I’m leaving immediately’ to ‘I’m leaving as soon as I’m done what I’m doing’.
I’ve never been to a delivery, and since I’m never having my own children, I never will. Which is good, because I hate hospitals for a list of good reasons that I do not find it necessary to go into here.
That said… the thing about Ethan’s tardiness I don’t get is, how does he NOT know the routines of his various retail outlets by now? I would think that would be one of the first things an avid collector learns: “Gotta be at Jane’s by 11, remember that S-Mart’s express registers close down at 10.”
I know the routines of my local Toys’R Us and comic book retailer enough that I know what times never to show up, due to busy, and what time of day deliveries are made – and roughly how long it takes to unpack said shipments. And I’m not as avid as Ethan.
Amber loves Michael Caine. He’s just rationalized Alfred as a gift for her.
*nods*
I think it’s wonderful that I can read “not a prostitute guy” and immediately know who it refers to.
In this strip, it means he was a memorable bit character. In any other comic it would probably just signify that the cast contains too many prostitutes.
Prostituuuuute!
Is that a Ventre Bros quote? lol
What a weird hospital. An optometry section? No restrooms near obstetrics and the nursery? What the hell?
Is it just me, or does Robin spend more time in various states of nudity than any other SP! character?
Fanservice at its finest!
Finest? Try Funniest.
I say BOTH! ^_^
So hold it.
If he worked at a Wal-Mart vision center, wouldn’t he know Wal-Mart sells male prostitutes and wouldn’t be freaked out by it?
Okay this has now been a surprise for me, I didn’t expect Manny to return O.o At least he no longer works at Walt Mart.
I think Ethan does have a problem putting collecting over friends. But, I myself find it odd that Amber wants her friends sitting around the delivery room. Not something I wanted my friends to do-just my husband. My friends could visit after the fact. And I second the opinion Palaeoemrus posted-no freakin’ restrooms on the oby floor? And yeah, it does sort of look like Robin is in the men’s room.
Is it really that odd tho? She herself was a daughter and mental prisoner of a criminal manwhore that Ethan kinda saved her from. Leslie and Robin’s home became her new home for a long time as she matures more and more. Faz….nah….
Indeed, the Shortpacked! crew are pretty much her family
The 8th panel should go something like THIS!
YES!
Keepin’ it classy, Robin.
Am I the only one who’s gonna bring up the fact that Robin called her vagina her “coin purse?”
What do you think the ladies store in there?
We don’t pee from the vagina, we have another hole for that
I’m aware that women don’t pee from their vaginas, but I don’t think “coin purse” is a very good nickname for the urethra.
Now I’m imagining the coin sound effect from Mario games while Robin pees.
A woman peeing and it coming out with Mario coin noises? I kinda wanna see that now, just so I can say I did. And not for any pervy reason, but just because I can picture it in my head, and it seems really cool…
Yey!!!!! My request for Ethan’s future boyfriend has been granted!!
Good… tomorrow, remove the underwear…
I was hoping the kid would come out on the aniversery of D-day.
Also 6-6-12.
He has to get home, so perhaps there is someone waiting there for him. Tough luck, Ethan.
Or maybe he recognizes Robin and wants to keep dodging bullets.
Or maybe he just thinks she’s trying to pick him up.
Or maybe he just wants to get home.
drain my coin purse that is a new way of robin saying powder my nose. and maybe robin wound up using manny the way he is so in a hurry to get away from her or better he is trying to avoid running into ethan who may be the new patient there for being late
“Drain my coin purse”? Well, that is a new one for me. I will have to file it away for future reference. Don’t women pull down the pants and underwear at the same time? I know I do.
Classy
I like Robin better in red underware. Next time show bra! Nao!
For a girl who has like super speed she’s pretty slow huh?
How do you people remember these occurrences from years ago?!