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
amber
animated
batman
botcon
conquest
conventions
dark of the moon
david willis
dinobot
drew
duncan
ethan
faz
galasso
generations
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guest strip
hamsters
homosexuality
jacob
jesus
joe
justice league
ken
leslie
malaya
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merch
mike
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optimus prime
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robin desanto
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shattered glass
star wars
tni strips
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©2005-2013 David Willis | Powered by WordPress with ComicPress | Subscribe: RSS | Back to Top ↑
XD Well, she was asking for it.
I have a new favourite character.
Welcome to the Lucy Fan Club! Get in line so that we can hand out Bat-masks. Then we will have fruit punch and watch cartoons.
only if they’re batman cartoons.
Wouldn’t Teen Titans be more appropriate?
We can watch both, can’t we?
oooo cool I can’t wait for the bat-lucy utility belts!
Man, I wish that were a real thing. I wish there were, like, a whole bunch of people from this comment thread all in one place, and we could all drink fruit punch and watch cartoons.
And oh the fights that would break out. Oh man, I’d pay to watch those.
I think Shortpacked has finally hit its peak.
Nope.
Shorpacked is in a new phase, but it has plenty of room to grow.
Countdown to her dark backstory . . .
She’s an Archie Sonic fan.
Her dark backstory:
http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/04-remedial-adulthood/math/
Amen to that, man. A female character who’s not only a comic book nerd, but is one of the few people alongside me that DOESN’T hate Batgirl from “The Batman” series. LOVE this character!
I LOVE LUCY has a new meaning.
Sweet. A Batgirl fan.
Not only Batgirl, but Batgirl from The Batman! She’s awesome!
I know, man! So many people hate that version of Batgirl, too. I Love LucyOHMYGODUNINTENTIONALPUN.
I’m the Goddamn Lucy.
Not the employee Shortpacked deserves, but the one it needs right now.
You Either be a hard worker or live long enough to watch yourself become unemployed.
FTFY
You Either be unemployed or live long enough to watch yourself retire.
Good to know our Superhero quotient hasn’t diminished any with Amber’s departure to another city.
Too bad Malaya…another nerd joins the herd.
What in heck happened to the color scheme now?
Puuuuuuuuuuuuurplllllllllle.
Nice rhyme.
Ugh! If I only I could ship fictional people with real people.
Technically, you can. You can even write all the fanfic you want to make it come true.
Writing fanfic makes it TRUE!?!
If you fuck in the meme…You fuck for real!
Technically I’m not a virgin then
Well, one can differ between physical innocence and psychical innocence.
The latter is as good as gone the moment one enters the endless wastes some people call the internet.
This is excellent news! My heart was torn between DoA Dina or Lucy, and now it’s definitely Lucy.
Why not BOTH? It’s your fic!
I need help with my own fanfic >.<
get Lucy and DoA Dina to *help* you.
THERE’S your fanfic!
The Elan avatar makes that comment GOLD.
Lucy is awesome.
I wish I worked there. I did something similar to that and got fired!
I wore a pirate outfit with skirt instead of pants. And got fired. WHY CAN’T A DUDE PIRATE WEAR A SKIRT!? for your information, it went down to my ankles. It was my clubbing skirt, and I didn’t have any clean black pants to go with the pirate shirt.
To be fair, that’s really inappropriate wear for a mortician.
I wore a Batman cowl and cape around a few Toys”R”Us shifts back in the day. They seemed pretty supportive.
Probably depends on the particular store.
Lucy is best pony.
I want to see her Riding Twilight Sparkle With that Batmask!
Yes this must happen.
She practiced hard to be the nerdiest at everything.
you know what, i’m going ahead and say it: i’m so satisfied with lucy, i don’t mind that amber left. i’ll still miss mike, though.
Your mom misses Mike.
And his nickles.
And his smile. His creepy creepy smile.
those nickels did help pay for the operation to remove my case of incurable cough…
Lucy stop it. Seriously. Stop being adorable.
Oh dammit. Fine. Be adorable.
Now I need to turn into a dude so we can cuddle.
Too late. I call dibs. :p
You can cuddle anyway.
Okay, you can’t cause she’s not real. But any two people who want can cuddle!
Maybe if a Lucy Hug pillow was made she could cuddle with that…
And post pictures.
I need them because of resions.
Now I’m picturing raisins made of resin, for some reason.
I read it as lesions. Ewww.
Don’t be silly, there’s nothing wrong with same sex cuddling.
True enough. It’s when the dry humping starts that you have to worry.
If by worry you mean “get out the camera” then sure.
But that’s when the fun really starts.
At first I thought Galasso was going to send some minions to Gotham.
But Gotham is HERE.
Next panel: Malaya looks straight up and notices there is a Bat-signal lamp built into the ceiling.
Nice way to say “up yours Malaya” without any words at all.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about her at first but now I think that Lucy is really awesome!
I’ll say it again, she looks like Sarah’s daughter.
Man, I was really hoping Willis hadn’t given Sarah’s sister a name, because I went back to find this comic for the express reason of theorizing that Lucy is said sister.
Assuming she was a freshman in 1997, Sarah would be 33 now, meaning she’d have given birth sometime in 1992 for Lucy to be 20. Sarah would’ve been 13.
…Sarah could have an older sister we never met, and Lucy could be Sarah’s niece or something, but there’s something kinda wrong to me about there being three major black people in the Walkyverse and two of them being related.
Yeah…that DOES seem a little presumptuous. Like If you found out that Dorothy, Joyce and Leslie are all related Or Ethan and Joe.
Or Amber and Faz.
ahahahaha THIS
… Lucy could be her younger SISTER instead of daughter. Just saying.
I mentioned that!
It would be like Cass to not use words to say that. I have decided which batgirl Lucy is.
Looks like either Barbara’s or Stephanie’s mask. Cass had the one that covered her mouth as well.
Though she might have used a different one at some point, I just remember the one with the mouth stitches. Huntress added them during her brief tenure as Batgirl during No Man’s Land, after getting spraypaint to the face, and then Cass inherited it.
It’s Barbara’s from The Batman.
Yes! Barbara’s Personality in The Batman was great, and she even appeared before Dick!
Because of copyright problems. They had trouble getting Dick Grayson until a little way in = P
Just…because everyone needs to know that
Okay, going back into my little ninja turtle shell now
I was previously unaware of this and found it interesting!
HA! Take THAT, asshole!
Who…are you talking to?
I think he might be having some personal fun time
Stephanie Brown Batgirl will not go away DC. No matter how hard you try to make us forget by cramming Barbara Gordon down our throats we shall remember the bestest and most fun Batgirl ever!
Nice to see Lucy’s taste in heroes wasn’t spoiled by Whorefire.
Actually, based on the tags, she is supposed to be Barbra Gordon, specifically the version from The Batman.
I know, as a fellow Steph fan, this revilation makes me feel sad too. Especially since thus far Lucy has become my fav character in this strip, so the combanation woud’ve been pure win. XD
Whereas the Stephanie Brown Robin will go away.
(It hurts because it is true.)
Hey, she could be into girls. We don’t know. It would certainly provide a punchline to Ken and Jacob fighting over her.
I’d suggest Leslie hook up with her, but there’s probably too much of an age difference. Or not, Malaya seems to be on the younger side as well, and Leslie went for her.
^This was a response to a comment that seems to have been removed. I’m not talking to myself or anything.
(We loves Batman jokeses, we loves them! No! We hates them! Gollum preferses Spider-Man!)
Nah, you just went back before the comment and posted yours.
It’s all that time travel. It does things to you…
This is my new response to everything.
Dress as Batgirl and run away?
…One of the candidates should try that at the next debate. I would totally vote for whoever did that.
Raise Taxes? Punch the elderly? Blow up the homeless!? I will never vote fo-
nevermind, he’s got my vote.
I’m rather curious how we would track down every homeless person and blow them up considering how little data we’re able to gather on them to begin with.
You’ve never worked for the census my friend. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
No, but I did write a fifteen-page report on homelessness law for a critical thinking class in my senior year, and the most accurate census data I could find to report admitted up front that the accuracy of the numbers was shaky due to difficulty knowing if they’d actually tracked down the majority of all homeless people.
0_0 Your answer was overkill. She was all like, “funny joke!” and you were all like “stomp your joke into the ground with my FACTS BAKD AWE IOAWD ASD ”
And she’s all like…joke?
I’m sorry, Wixvhen! I should’ve recognize that it was a joke.
Wait, she?
You don’t have to track them down; just blow up all the areas that aren’t inside somebody’s house.
Sure, there may be a few false positives, but omelets, eggs, etc. If you’re really worried you can do the firebombing at night or something.
I still giggle at the idea of either of our candidates proposing, in their serious “policy” voice that we should punch the elderly.
Totally should. Free martial arts classes for all old people! They can all become like Batman in the new “Return of the Batman” cartoon/movie that was so very hardcore.
She’s pretty awesome, alright!
and with this, you have won lucy
“Tell them what they’ve won, Johnny!”
“You win a brand-new, state-of-the-art Lucy, with super Batman action!”
Lucy is the best.
The BEST.
She is the antithesis of Britta.
She’s a female neckbeard.
Lucy is the anti-Malaya. They must never touch, or they will both annihilate each other.
Aww… so no Lucy/Malaya licky-style?
Dunno why that depresses me, but it does.
Considering that Leslie’s into Trek and BSG, Amber’s into Ninja Turtles, and Robin’s into DC Comics, it strikes me as really damn bizarre that Malaya would assume any new chick wouldn’t be a nerd.
What suprises me is that Lucy isn’t into Marvel and Star Wars, just to complete the circle. Then again, there’s a guy for that already.
Leslie’s into Star Wars too, remember? The whole reason Robin bought her a house was so she’d have a place to put a massive Millennium Falcon model, and her first lesbian crush was Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi.
Jacob’s into Spider-Man, which isn’t really Marvel in general but it counts.
There’s a guy for that.
(if you could imagine that I have the voice of the iphone voiceover guy that would be fantastic)
Ah, yes… I see that Lucy is familiar with the #1 rule of comedy and smart enough to use the stealthy-sneaky skillzzz & dectective skillzzz of Batman to not only make the webcomic funny but stick it to Malaya by leaving her high and dry with her “plight”. For BatLucy is a buffer to no one… Especially in a fucking playground.
Does this mean I have to change my avatar to a happier batman?
No, you don’t have to. And I’ll stay shocked and confused. Deal?
And I’ll just…..yeah….
Lucy is the anti-Malaya!
I love purple. I’ve pretty consistently bought a new purple T-shirt with a pocket pouch since I was in fourth grade. It’s the color of not one but two production logos I’ve designed for myself over the years. I love the color purple to pieces.
So now you know where I’m coming from when I say this comic has way too much fucking purple in it.
Seems to be Lucy’s color of choice. She’s wearing it in every appearance so far, even as a kid. And in the logo she has it under her work shirt.
Speaking of the logo, it kinda looks like Galasso is singing an aria. I like to imagine him having a surprisingly pleasant baritone.
It’s Malaya’s color of choice, too, though. So long as everyone has to wear the same overshirt anyway, he couldn’t put one of them in orange or something?
I always pictured him in a high bass.
I didn’t even notice the banner had changed.
…Hey wait a minute, where’s Ken? (Or is that the joke?)
Silence. Else Stephanie Brown will come for you and silence you for color heresy.
Jokes aside though, what’s too purple about it? All I see is the BatLucy cape and cowl and Malaya’s shirt. Not too bad.
AND Lucy’s shirt.
I guess that’s kinda violet-y. I dunno, little more blue than I usually think of as purple.
In his defense…some of it is violet.
There’s no such thing as too much purple in a Batgirl costume:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yvonne_Craig_Batgirl.jpg
The Batman’s Batgirl is kind of purple, which is the specific Batgirl that Lucy is dressed as.
Then your love of purple is weak.
I adore purple and most of my clothes either are or are colours that compliment purple. Personally I thought this strip was great.
There is no such thing as too much purple. The whole comic could be a swirling vortex of 50 shades of purple and it would still not be enough purple.
I endorse this message.
I second this motion.
Third.
Fourth.
You’re lucky that you don’t like green, then, because there’s even more green in this comic than there is purple!
Great. Now I’m in love with another fictional character…
For the record anytime some says something negative about nerds the response should be the one above. Although insert you favorite character.
Mask over glasses! How can she stand it? I always feel like my lens are being pushed into my eyelashes.
Maybe the mask is prescription and she switches her glasses out.
Eh the mask would probably cost less then the frames on her glasses. So that could be quite frugal.
Not gonna lie… my heart swelled a little at that last panel. Lucy is indeed worthy to wield the popcorn popper.
Lucy, you are now my favourite.
Also, oh my god, this is my first comment here. Ever. I’ve been reading for years. HELLO COMMENT SECTION
Yesssssssss!!
Luuuuucccccyyy!
You are now my favorite. Forever.
wow nice batman-with-spiderman-eye mask
“The weirdest thing about him is that you can’t see his eyes through that bat mask. I drove myself crazy trying to figure that one out.” –Jaime Reyes, Blue Beetle #27
Is she running the risk to become a Mary Sue?
She likes dressing up as Batgirl. How is that related to Mary Sues?
I think Joslto means, is she becoming so awesome that she doesn’t have any flaws and becomes boring? To which I’d reply that Willis is EXCELLENT at giving all his characters, even the most popular, coolest ones, substantial flaws.
Yeah, people use to worry that Leslie was too perfect, but over time we saw she had her own sets of issues that kept her “human”.
To be honest most of his characters tend to be closer to a pile of flaws than anything else, so I think we’ll be ok here.
Eh I still don’t see Leslie as a human. She’s like this comic’s standard for everything.
Not my fav…
That’s odd. From the way I remember it, Leslie grew from a desperate doormat / stalker that Robin only remembered as “her lesbian” which she okay with being called.
In other words, she only started with her flaws (desperation-driven poor romantic choices) and grew into the rest of her character rather than vice versa.
later on Willis will reveal that because of Mike/Amazigirl’s teamup with the former Semme agents a couple years back, Lucy’s parents were killed.
Now she roams the streets at night, dishing out vigilante justice in her own, personal style…..no honey bun is safe.
Yes, that was what i meant. Well… in Willis we Trust
Only if she suddenly becomes the main character.
Considering that Amber was pretty much the main character and Lucy has been brought in to fill in the Amber void, that’s a very real possibility. I admit that I had a distaste towards Lucy at first since she was being pushed pretty hard at just being so goddamn awesome that it made my reaction automatically skeptical. Disdainful, if you well.
But, after this strip with friggin’ Malaya, I am TOTALLY on the Lucy bandwagon. ::puts on Batgirl outfit:: Yeah, I’m a guy, but Bat-ANYTHING is awesome. Bat-ANYTHING + Lucy is even BETTER. GO LUCY!
I was kind of on the fence about Lucy, but suddenly I really like her.
Yeah… Lucy is my new favorite character. So I’m guessing with the lenses in the mask, she’s going for “The Batman” version of Batgirl. I would have kinda seen her more as a Stephanie Brown type of Batgirl.
For some reason, Lucy doesn’t read comics.
Oh yeah… I forgot she was the same girl from the “New 52 Starfire” related comic. Sigh… Darn reboot. She would have liked Stephanie.
“For some reason”
Bwahahaha I like this comment.
Was anyone hoping for more on this… Robin/ Beard relationship? Maybe a conclusion, an admission.. something. I’m confused on whether or not hooking up on a store floor counts as a beginning or a binge.
I’ve been waiting for this encounter.
It was worth the wait.
Lucy: I’m Lucy, and I can breathe in space.
Malaya: I KNOW.
Funny, but for some reason, kinda disappointing.
After this I honestly like Malaya more.
The last two panels made me literally laugh out loud. Awesome!
SHE IS THE NIGHT!!!!
This is the best avatar for this comment, ever.
She is Fandom’s vengeance!
Welcome to the jungle, Malaya. We’ve got fun and games.
Lucy is like the anti-Malaya. Much to Malaya’s disgust and our enjoyment.
If they make physical contact will they cancel each other out?
The paddle has hit the water … let the shipping begin …… or not =P
It’d by a short story, and would end with ‘-and with a tender kiss… They both cancelled eachother’s existence out and disappeared from the world. The end.’
More romances should end like that.
And one should have the title “Opposites Attract”.
I think that you have given me my calling as a writer.
AWAY!
Oh God.
Rule thirty whatever.
I just had a weird thought about someone writing a bit of fan fiction about magnetic poles. not on a planet or anything, but on magnets. And getting turned on by it.
probably a physicist somewhere.
You forgot the shower of gamma radiation.
So…flipping…HAPPY!
Me at work just now after reading this..
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHHHa! “I am the night!”
She works at a toy store that has geek tendencies. Sort of like a Newbery Comics up here in Massachusetts. The Abnormal staff are going to out number the “normal” ones.
It looks like Malaya is staring at Lucy’s ass in that last panel.
I love the new girl already
I don’t care if Lucy is a fujoshi. I LOVE HER.
NewYoshiwhat?
Female otaku.
It’s one of those words that’s been embraced by American geeks unaware/uncaring of the stigma it carries in Japan. It literally means “rotten girl,” much the same way “otaku” parodies the way geeks are too anti-social to bother remembering other people’s names.
I was using the definition of women who eat up yaoi like candy.
Yeah, I think she’s becoming a quick favorite.
New favourite character, no contest.
Lucy is officially my 2nd favorite character in Shortpacked.
1st is ninja rick.
…yeah.
Question… Is this because she thinks she has the super power of making guys kiss each other?
Makeout Ex Machina.
Lucy is made of win and awesome.
Lucy is best castmember.
She is better than the salami and the bologna combined.
I Love Lucy. That is all.
Gilligan’s Island. ‘Nuff said.
Fantasy Island. Checkmate.
Mork & Mindy. Touchdown.
M*A*S*H*. The end.
Oh Malaya, you stupid, stupid bitch.
Lucy is awesome- no matter which character she is. My first thought was purple=Catwoman, but based on the tags, SpoilerBat or TheBatBabs are pry better guesses.
*pause*
Does anyone else remember purple Catwoman?
I like purple Catwoman. Gray Batman:TAS Catwoman was nice too. The modern black-outfit versions of Catwoman are much more boring visually. For some reason I also prefer the older mask to the goggles.
When I remember purple Catwoman, mostly I remember the two watermelons she smuggled everywhere in her tights.
Tight kittens?
OMG That’s random as hell but I don’t care I love Lucy so much.
Amber picked a great replacement.
Well you know the old saying Malaya
“If you can’t beat them…Join them!”
you never know…you might actually find something you like
and it can help make you a better person!
…Maybe
Or she can go the other route and become a “super-villain”.
Okay, enough about the batgirl thing; I’m busy trying to figure out exactly what’s going through her mind in the first few panels, that she would make that face. Seriously, what’s that expression?
Ok Willis you’re making Lucy way too awesome and loveable, what horrible fate do you have planned for her? You evil, evil man you.
There are fans of The Batman?
It wasn’t that bad of a show. It just had the luck of being the first incarnation of Batman after TAS.
Besides, it’s not like its Beast Machines or Armada.
I never watched a minute of that show; I was turned off by the character designs.
I shamefully admit that my first problem was that Batman had a pointy chin rather than his TAS square one. But then I saw the joker’s character design and good lord what were they thinking?
Yeah the joker design did it in for me. That and Penguine knowing Kung fu…..
The crazy character designs were a big part of the fun. It was such a big swing away from the Bruce Timm art deco style where all the men seemed to have huge shoulders and the women had tiny wasp waists. Every one of the villians had a completely different body shape. Also, that show had the best versions of Barbara Gordon and Dick Grayson. I never liked the grown-up versions of those characters, but as kids they were a lot of fun.
Yes there are. Not my cup of tea, but most of TV isn’t really my thing after the mid-’90s.
How I wish that I could elope with Lucy.
Where does she get all those wonderful toys?
Heh…..yeah…..
oh, wait, you’re talking about ACTUAL toys and not…..
yeeaaaaaah…….where does she get all those….toys….
That is the best possible response.
so much for lucy being marla buffer now she is now one of the so called nerds roaming the place.
Interesting! So Lucy is going to engage in 00′s nostalgia much like Ethan’s 80′s nostalgia and Jacob’s 90′s nostalgia?
And, from her choice of cosplay, I am guessing that The Batman is *her* Batman series.
I like.
I can hear the sound effects now. Really awesome.
You’ll never win, Malaya.
The geeks are always forever.
We are LEGION.
THIS. THIS. THIIIIIIIIIIIISSSS!!!! <3
Lucy: I’m batgirl….And I can make people kiss each other
Hey David, already saw that one?
http://www.offthemark.com/daily.php/?go=1349236800
I get the feeling that Malaya is going to end up as the crotchety old gramma of the store, pushing a mop in 30 years and muttering about Those Dern Kids.
She already is.
Lucy for President!
Of my pants.
Malaya’s face “Dat Ass”
The whole “Mayala is a whiny complaining person who can’t figure out how to not surround herself with people she hates” thing is getting pretty old. Maybe in a few more years it will reach the point where it’s funny again due to the shear ridiculousness of the joke redundancy.
But okay, yeah, obligatory stream of easy jokes based on the various people meeting the new hire. Why not.
I suddenly love the newish character
Purple AND green: must be a villain.
I’ve been geeking out over Batgirl all summer… I have a new favorite character. (I’m more Babs than Steph, but I like Steph as well so I still support her purple mask).