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First and FANCIEST, the first 2 issues of Marceline & the Scream Queens original art is now for sale. This is also the first-ever peek at the uncolored, unlettered line art of the series. GO SEE!
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AND FINALLY: For a very limited time - the month of July - I'm selling minis for Just Be Cool Already and You Don't Need Anything in a tidy 2-pack! They are signed! Get 'em here.
31 thoughts on “#613 – this is nothing, this is everything”
shaman
This comic has the best wisdom. The BEST.
cottons
No, Clark, listen to Eve. Take it from somebody who's been there. While it ain't nothing, some fun hangouts with your friends on the cheap (when your ungodly work hours afford you that luxury) don't really soothe the burn of forfeiting your dreams to student loans.
Steve B.
On the flip side of the coin, achieving your dream career doesn't really soothe the burn of total isolation and alienation. Especially when your dream career probably isn't as great as you imagine it is.
MenachemSchmuel
LIFE SUCKS
EVERYONE LOSES
GO HOME
Powys
I imagine it's harder to get a dream career than to go out and make friends. I mean, I dunno how you do it, but I don't have to ruthlessly network, work my ass off, and interview a dozen times or more in order to make a new friend.
I guess it might feel that way, but in reality all you do is go to a store that carries a hobby you like and try talking to someone who looks a little bored. Or asking the clerk when hobby night is.
You're only as isolated as you let yourself be.
Tony
In my experience meeting people is easy. Keeping them is hard. A person can meet a million people, have them over for a party and still feel isolated and lonely. Maybe its a fact of life that you'll feel alone a lot of the time.
I've never had a party myself but I have met quite a few people. Some were great others not so much. I get used by some (I stopped hanging out with those people) others just confuse me when it comes to the relationship I have with them so they get thrown into the acquaintance pile. Still others I give them my number and we never see or talk to each other again. I've learned that acquaintances and friends are really two different things.
Of course, I'm very shy by nature and I don't seem to make the connections I'd like to have.
About it being harder to get a dream career I'll give you that. At first I wanted to be a paleontologist. My lack of math skills prevented me from getting the professional Geology degree I needed. I went with my second career choice: creative writing and being an author. While its more fun there is a lot of stiff competition from other new and old writers and public figures out there. Long story short, I've worked hard but still don't have much to show for it.
I'm still going to keep trying though. Both socially and career-wise.
Steve B.
Spoken like a true extrovert. Not everyone has as easy a time making new friends.
I recently drove myself insane on the path to a new career by living for several years in highly isolated conditions in new towns without any social support networks in place, made it to a PhD program at an Ivy League university, got into the lab I wanted to, and then bombed out of the program on a health leave of absence after the depression/social anxiety issues that'd been festering without any local friends to keep them in check spiraled out of control.
Of course, I know that Eve's situation sucks, too; I once spent three years working in a gas station. So the moral is: don't be like Clark or like Eve. Walk a line.
Steve B.
Also, I just have to add, having a friend that you've known for 10 days who you met at that comic/record/whatever store you like and having a friend you've known for 10 years who's been through the shit with you are so vastly different that they're really completely fucking incomparable. I'm sure Clark has friends in the former sense – everyone does – but it is the latter kind of connection Clark is talking about. Those are the kind of friends – real friends – that Eve is perpetually surrounded by, and she doesn't seem to understand how special that is.
ppp
BONUS
I'm an introvert.
I actually pretty much tossed all my friends after I graduated and I don't feel a shred of loneliness. In fact it was people that often made me depressed by needing too much of my attention ("too much" being not even a hangout a week). Being an adult introvert with my own place far away from any old friends is great. If I WANTED to make friends though, I know where to go. Maybe someday I'll feel like it again. Getting a great job? Now that was a whole lot of a hell harder than making a new friend.
Steve B.
Your experience is not universal, and you should be careful about conflating your experience with the definition of being introverted. Being introverted does not mean that a person is comfortable with complete isolation and a near-total lack of meaningful human interaction. It just means that having conversations with people is mentally exhausting and that isolated reflection is mentally restive (extroverts have the opposite experience). It doesn't mean that you never want to have conversations with people; the vast majority of introverts still desire friendship.
Physical activity is physically exhausting, but that doesn't mean we don't desire it; without it we'd just be bed-ridden vegetables. Likewise, human interaction is mentally exhausting for introverts, but most introverts still want to do it.
Jibb
I think the whole introvert/extrovert concept is a bit outdated, some ways I'm an extrovert and in others I'm definitely not. If you have anxiety and such I realize its not always this easy but just try going out and meeting new people, worst case scenario you make an ass of yourself and never have to see these random people again so its irrelevant, best case you make a couple new associates and move on from there. Over time it gets easier
Arkadi
The grass is always greener.
redearth18
WAIT i just realized, his name is Clark and he's a reporter…. HOLY SHIT SUPERMAN IS IN OCTOPUS PIE
redearth18
just look at that spit curl, he's got to be Clark Kent!
Kate
You know about the Eve's surname thing already, right?
claire
i've been reading octopie for about five years, and i've gone from lil baby me thinking, "i don't totally get it" to "oh, i get it now!" to "oh my god this comic getsss meeeee". never stop <3
shadeofblue
Yeah, I've also been reading this comic for a few years now… Started from the beginning and loved every bit. The characters are so human!
toox
poppin out comics like BAHM
Aftershock
Man, I really empathize with Clark right now. I passed out an opportunity to party it up tonight because I don't have the time. Taking 16 hours of summer school credits and working 30 a week plus hitting the gym doesn't leave you with a lot of free time. There probably isn't a day that goes by that I don't think "I'll only be young once".
Make time for your friends, guys!
RealLifeMEH
You're still doing school… wait until life kicks in.
It's much more like Clark's than it is Eve's. And you don't realize it until it hurts enough to notice.
Domineke
I made the little eve my wallpaper. it's pretty adorable
Lord Meow
THE CAT IS EVERYTHING.
Jillian
Dude, Eve, you've got SPACE for a couch and are responsible enough/make enough money to have a CAT. That's already way more than a lot of us Brooklynians have.
@mrrilo
I find myself on both sides of this. I've been the guy who sacrifices fun and friendships and real connections for work/the dream and found myself lonely.
I've also been the guy who did a bunch of menial crap but met great people and had remarkable experiences.
Interestingly enough, both instances are from the same two year time period. The first, how I felt when I was working my "dream" job and the second was how I felt once I decided to leave.
@notmarkflynn
All I've got… ::Slowly takes off glasses:: …are these rippling pecs and rock solid shoulders.
Sean
He's gonna try to Single White Female her, isn't he?
spas
Eve has friends but is just as alone in Clark, in some ways. Let's ship them and see if we can't fix Eve's career and Clark's social life – magically!
xXhitler69Xx@aol.com
i can't ship them. nope. i know they'll probably fuck but he's her type in the same way park was her type, and that can't work out. that's why will works so well as an eve partner, because their disparities force both of them to make changes in themselves–or, growth, which seems to be central to OP in general.
Kate
How exactly is he her 'type' though?
@glitterbot_
I just binged on OP after not reading it for months, and I love it even more now!
Merp
love love love love love