Red’s Dawn Part 2
Mar22
on March 22, 2015
at 9:00 PM
It’s not easy having your world and identity thrown upside down.
And that ends Red’s Dawn. Stay tuned for The Tournament!
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That was unfortunate.
Also, Red looks great in her school uniform.
And out of it….
Agreed.
Why do we have to call her “Red” she should have a more feminine name like “Scarlet”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrJnsU0bxJY
Because she picked Red herself.
Hah! Just as I thought!
Yep.
I find Red’s expression in the hairdryer panel amusing. ^_^
I agree, but the expression in panel 4 is what I find most profound. I’ve had that expression many times.
@BACH-MANN, too: Concur, and I wish I had said something about it first thing. She’s not angry, as you might expect. But neither is she despairing. She’s wistful, isolated, maybe a little overwhelmed, but not despairing. She’s experiencing some of the annoyances of being female, but not yet any of the advantages.
A couple of other art notes:
Minor quibble: I said I’d only do this the one time, with the throbbing vein effect, but of course something else has cropped up: the hatching effect to show the color on Red’s cheekbones, or blushing. Since you have actual color to work with here, the hatching is unnecessary and distracting.
Second, Bravo! on not shying away from the reality of her failure to sit. There are some comics that would not have had the bravery to do that. Some might consider this as “too much information”, and for some it would be fetish fuel. But in this case, it’s necessary to show the level of inconvenience and dismay Red is experiencing.
(I’m having a hard time believing that Red would drop her panties and then let loose like this…but OK, I’ll buy it for the sake of the story, and as an example of just how strange the situation is for Red.)
This is a good sign that you’re not just going for the fish-out-of-water jokes so common to FtM comics, but will be closely examining the implications of the change for someone transformed against their will. (Not the same as someone feeling that they were born as the wrong sex.)
The decision to show the pee was all Bach-Mann’s. I was pushing for the more traditional “feet to knees” approach, but he wanted to show more. I’m glad I relented as I think he made the right call.
Agreed. While I think after a week or two Red would have adjusted to altering her autopilot morning routine. I agree with 50 as it strongly showing her plight of a ne body she was not born with and part of the struggles not just mental or social Red has to deal with.
Thank you. *^-^*
Also Like the one with the hair dryer scene, can’t tell if she wants to fight it or just give up on it.
On her way to her new school?
I think we can safely assume this is the school her parents sent her to. The all girls school her parent’s had wanted to get her into but couldn’t because Red was a guy…
Which raises the question if they planned to send their child to that school before or after Red was born. If before, then it’s normal, parents hoping for a daughter and planning thier school life. [I don’t agree but it happens.]
If after.. then that raises alot of issues of why they tried to get thier male son in….
I’d like to think that Red’s parents wanted to put her in that school because it’s academically the strongest school within reach–but putting her in a modeling gig at the same time suggests that they really wanted a girl. And not for healthy reasons. They wanted a child who could easily be exploited for her looks.
If they wanted to raise a strong male, they would have enrolled Clarence in a military academy.
Well a good academic school I can understand easily. My question is they mention wanting to get Red in before, then mention it’s an all girl school. Which raises my question when they wanted to or planned for Red to go to said school.
I think, all things considered, they were disappointed that Clarence wasn’t a girl. (And yes, that is common, for both boys and girls.)
I don’t think they tried to enroll Clarence there, though; they just had hoped to be able to enroll their daughter there.
Still, it’s a good question. I guess we’ll have to wait to see, if it’s even dealt with in the comic.
There could be some changes in this comic but yes in the I dream of Jeanie strip they wanted a girl, tried to enroll him in this all girls school and then lept on the opportunity to enroll her.
Red looks really dapper in that uniform. Her school has good taste.
I think that first panel was probably TMI.
Also: wearing a tie to school? Not such a ‘girly’ uniform there, then?
it’s not exactly uncommon depending on the private school.
As distasteful as it seems to us, it is worse for Red. There is no better way to show what she is living through.
I hope we get a head-to-toe shot of the uniform; it looks like it does have a red skirt, which is indeed feminine, but not distractingly so. The white blouse, tie, and vest is a good look, serious but not severe. (Of course, in a girls’ school, the distraction factor is not so important.)
I note we didn’t see Red apply makeup; it’ll be interesting to watch her learn to do that. She did a good job with her hair, though.
You can see the whole uniform in Jeanie Bottle 1144
Yes but not in the as I call it. *Drum roll please..* Bachh Mann Style! That;s what we’re curious about among other things.
Go to the Fan Art page. So far, it’s only the pics Bach-Mann submitted to CD Rudd to get the Melvin Chronicles gig. The second one is a shot of Red in her school uniform next to her War Mallet cutout.
Ref, you dolt. That Guy means the Fan Art page here. There is no “Fan Art” on the Bottle site.
BACH-MANN: Wow, I wish we’d had micro-skirt uniforms for the girls back in my high school! I have to conclude that those skirts were chosen by a perverted male administration. 🙂 Even Mallet-girl’s skirt is longer. Heck, we can even see the fold between the top of her thighs and Red’s delightful bottom.
Yes, ties are quite common as part of girl’s school uniforms, even in Japan. And speaking of seifuku, some schools in Japan have actually decided to put the girls in the same long pants as the boys, and/or replaced the girls’ burumaa with sweat pants. Pervs around the world are heart-broken with the news.
Sad indeed, particularly in a nation with a reproduction rate falling through the floor due to a general disinterest in sex.
I do have to say, though, that the photographs I’ve seen of actual Japanese school girl uniforms aren’t all that sexy, either. They’re mid-calf in length, at least, often dark gray or dull plaids, with plain blouses.
Nothing at all like, say, Haruhi’s high-mid thigh length skirt in attractive colors. Those pictured in Maria-sama ga Miteru are much closer to reality.
With Japan’s crowded cities it’s probably a good thing that the youth are holding off reproducing.
As far as uniforms go, real ones are nowhere near as form fitting and revealing as ones depicted in manga. (which is probably good because students are underage)
Personally, I don’t like uniforms. They promote conformity which is counter to America’s message of freedom of expression.
@Heavy: It’s rarely a good sign when young people lose interest in sex, which seems to be what’s happening in Japan.
Concur on the uniforms, though, for exactly the reason you give.
I do, however, favor a relatively strict dress code, especially for grades 7-12. Business attire is the approximate standard. Slacks or skirts, not jeans, button down shirts or blouses, ties, minimal jewelry, that sort of thing. The intent is to keep students mindful of the fact that they are there to do serious work.
@50srefugee They could still be interested in sex, just that they are wearing protection. I got the impression that in the past girls would leave school and would be pressured by their society
to get married and have children quickly. I feel the new generation want to live a bit before settling down.
I feel the dress code means that the students misbehave but look nice while doing so.
Here’s an article about the phenomenon:
theweek dot com/articles/453219/everything-need-know-about-japans-population-crisis
As you suggest, contraception is playing a role, but more than that is going on, and the results indicate a dying society.
Not only has the Japanese fertility rate dropped below replacement levels, but the population is aging. They are on track to have so few young people that the work force will not be able to support their far more numerous elders.
To be fair that’s the same in MOST of the industrialized world. Births go down as do death rates. It’s just that in most of the industrialized world the low birth rates are made up for with immigration. Not so in Japan. Also when you consider we have a world population heading towards 10 billion the fact that overall growth rate is declining and begin reversing itself isn’t nessecarily a bad thing. Yes there will be problems to adjust to in the near future but the previous rate of growth WAS unsustainable. The problem is this is part of a larger pattern and we are only seeing a SMALL PART of it. It’s too soon to say if it will be an ultimately good or bad thing.
We had ties at our school. Summer uniform was a dress and winter was a skirt, stockings, blouse and tie.
Great expressions. Red looks like she is really enjoying being a girl, Poor kid.
Anyone with more musical and/or poetic talent up for doing a riff on I Enjoy Being a Girl (from Flower Drum Song, originally.)
It’ll come up again. “Red’s Drunken Evening?”
This whole instalment can be summed up in one word: “Ouch.” 🙁
“Ouch”, but not intolerable.
I see most of my descriptions for this strip include the word “but”. This indicates my approval of the balance Luna and BACH-MANN are striking.
Poor Red. It is going to take her awhile to get use to being a girl. That only the top of the uniform, The bottom part look like is might be a red dress or scert. Panel six, you can see just the top of it.
If she just instantly figured everything out, then we’d have a comic about a girl and her nerdish would-be boyfriend. There’s enough of those.
If she just rejected being a girl altogether, “fighting to maintain his male identity”, then we’d have an angsty comic about someone who would be effectively neutered, or at best, an effectively butch lesbian. Seen that before, too.
Never have I seen a comic taking male and female roles seriously, from the standpoint of a character only just learning what being male means.
Agreeing with 50.
To add to his last point, we have a character learning his way to manhood now having the path being a bit crooked from the one he saw before him, as well as the path being a bit thorny and hard to see but still a path the character can take but remain themselves it with a different outlook and new feelings but as a core the same person. It’s a hard character to build but so far Luna and Bachh are doing a good job.
Good points. in Jeanie Bottle, Red had the interesting moment of coming back to the dance with make-up on. I think the most interesting direction is for Red to have a lot of ambivalence. Maybe she is curious about exploring being a girl, but she isn’t going to want her friends knowing that. She is still hoping to be a guy again one day, and she would never live that down. Then there is the whole teenage rebellion angle. Her parents pushing her down the path of femininity is going to make her push back.
There is a lot more interesting story potential by giving her with both inner and outer conflict on the matter. Having her in a one note rejection of being girl gets old, and so does having her quickly embrace it.
Cannot say enough how important that ambivalence is.
There’s a lot to be said for the two extremes, but it’s that middle ground that gives the story enough room to play in
Ambivalence allows for some surprise. It’s good to not always know which a character will go in a particular situation.
On that note, I am curious to see some scenes of her at school. We know that when she is around her male friends, she fights hard to be one of the guys, but how does she act when she is in an all female environment? The only indication we have gotten so far is the school dance, where she came back from the girls’ restroom with makeup on. Maybe she will see school as a place where it is okay to explore that side of herself. Of course, when you lead a double life, it’s only matter of time before both halves run into one other.
Or maybe it will go a completely different direction. Either way, I am looking forward to more.
You’re giving it too much credit. Also, she is most certainly your second extreme. Not that it’s much of an extreme. She is most certainly not working on any path to accepting her femaleness. The only reason she isn’t your “butch lesbian” is because she is trying to avoid sexuality altogether, not because deep down she’s converging to a heterosexual female.
Gee, Red goes from being a dateless dweeb with no prospects to a supermodel who’ll have millions in her trust fund when she hits 18. I feel SO sorry for her.
It’s an excellent illustration of the difference between what makes males and females attractive to each other.
Red is physically attractive, and, as any number of attractive but clueless women have shown, that’s all that’s required of them.
Men need to be emotionally and socially attractive, and a mere *poof* is unlikely to fix that. They have to be leaders, to some degree, and that is a far more difficult status to achieve, and to a large degree, a riskier one.
The trade off is that leadership status typically increases with age, while physical beauty fades.
Is it physical beauty in itself which fades or the youthful physical beauty? In our society, it’s very easy to consider the two interchangeable, celebrating the one and forsaking the others.
The youthful physical beauty of women, which at its core is a set of indicators for reproductive fitness, youth itself being significant there.
“Men are disposable, women are perishable.”
Just because that’s what YOU wish would come true for yourself doesn’t mean that’s the objective standard by which truth is measured. Here’s an idea, why don’t you just go to Thailand and pay for a little snip snip. Get it done. Spring for it already. No one cares any more except religious zealots. What should be your new name Tom? I know, Tammy. Get your operation and change your name to Tammy Sewall. And then you can change your last name to something else when you find a man to stick his d* in you.
I found a Zits from a couple of years ago which seems to relate to Red’s Dawn: go through the strips at http://www.thecomicstrips.com/subject/The-Shower-Comic-Strips-by-Zits.php
There was a better one in an earlier collection, a Sunday strip I think, which showed how long Sarah took to get her look–and how little time Jeremy took, but I can’t seem to find it on the web today.
be less gross.
Where’s the fun in that? 😉
There is no fun in being gross.
The “fun” is in seeing a character discomfited in a way that relates to the story. The grossness is justified here because it shows us something of what Red has to deal with.
subjectivity…context…..
One thing I’m hoping will be addressed in this comic is Red’s parents’ reaction to their son’s sudden gender change. Why are they not confused by this? Do they know about genies?
“We see what we want to see.”
Even so, it is rather odd. I’m just taking it as part of the storyverse that people go Of course! Maybe it’s a side effect of the spell.
I’m impressed that you made a pee joke so thoughtful. You could see the obvious set up in part one, and I wondered how you were going to get a part two out of it. Having the strip focus on her emotional reaction to it was a very pleasant surprise. The conclusion to the last story line had a nice emotional intelligence to it as well. I feel confident that Red’s story is in good hands.
Since it has come up, the first panel is gross, but I think it needs to be. I don’t think the rest of the panels would land as effectively if the fact that she just peed herself was elided.
I’m very proud of how this one came out. I think we’re getting a good feel for the characters as we go. We are putting our own spin on this version. I hope you all continue to enjoy the strip.
Good luck with the new strip.
Will we see some back story?
How did the parents react?
Did they go tO the hospital?
Did his school reccommend he/she transfer?
How much time has passed since the incidenT?
see I dream of jeanie bottle for answers on alot of that.
Word of the Gods is that a week or so has passed since Red was transformed.
The other questions were at least touched on here:
jeaniebottle dot com/?p=870
Red’s parents were thrilled.
They did not question the change, much less take Clarence/Red to the hospital.
They had always want their child to go to the girl’s school (which is, WoG, in the neighborhood, i.e., not a boarding school.)
The entire backstory (which focuses on Jeanie & Melvin, not Red) is here:
?p=870
Pay special attention to Red at the school dance, after her transformation, starting here:
/?p=743
I to hope we get more interaction with Red’s parents, and with the other girls at school.
Forgot the link that collects the whole sequence:
/?tag=reds-backstory
Jeez, if they focus anymore on Red they’re going to have to rename the comic. (JK)
Lets get some discussions about the other characters going!
What are Melvin and BJ doing? Are they feeling Red’s absence at school? A third of their group is missing.
What’s BJ’s personality like? Some have called him sexist, I think that’s a bit harsh.
Will this comic be about Melvin’s efforts to win the blonde girl’s heart?
The Cast page says this about BJ: “[he] thinks himself the ladies man. He couldn’t be more wrong, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to woo the fairer sex when he can.”
I’d like to see a few flashbacks to get insight into Clarence’s personality, so we have a bench mark into how much being female has changed his personality.
Another tidbit from the Cast page: “The unofficial leader of the trio of friends. Melvin sees himself as the wise wizard of the party.” Somewhat encouraging, actually. That means that Red may continue to accept his leadership, as long as he can keep himself from either hitting on her, as BJ does, or allowing himself to be cowed by Red’s sexuality. He’s at something of a disadvantage because Red’s taller and apparently a bit more mature than he is. He’ll have to make up for it with assertiveness, aggression even.
Obviously, I’m shipping Melvin and Red, rather than BJ and Red. Maybe BJ gets the blonde nerd.
The comic has been out a while, so likely many won’t see this now, but there is a flaw with this comic. Namely she peed down her legs because her male member is missing.
Um… How many guys just let it hang out and then pee? Far as I know we all sorta you know GRAB the thing to aim it?
I know it’s nitpicking, but something like that happening seems really unlikely.
I’ve done both. I know that’s TMI, but there is truth in the depiction.