08/07/13 Martina’s Last Crawl



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It always irks me when people throw knives in movies and they miraculously hit blade first. Ha!

Monday was very interesting for me. I got to participate on a gallery panel discussing upcoming shows. What fun to learn new things like that! In the evening I made a pizza and read. A perfect cool August evening.

A year of curiosity on Mars. Nice! 🙂

Spacetrawler book#3 KICKSTARTER, pre-purchase you copy NOW!

51 Comments

  1. Muzhik

    @Christopher, the knife throwing CAN go in blade first, but it takes a lot of practice. I’d be able to do it today if my brother hadn’t kept running away.

    re: Crimson-57 getting hit in the head — With that green skin and red blood, I wonder what color his bruises would be.

  2. Chaucer59

    Balderdash. If the knife is properly balanced (center of gravity a good inch into the blade from the hilt) you have to be pretty clumsy to miss. Most folks make the mistake of trying to throw the wrong knives. I rarely miss with a knife. I never miss with a tomahawk.

    That said, no, I would not expect a random knife, thrown by a beginner, to hit blade-first. What really chaps my ass is when they throw SWORDS, like Branagh did in Hamlet. Utter blatherskite.

  3. Joal

    Love it as always. I was tense the whole way, even though panel 8 really does hint very strongly that Martina will get her way in the end.

    BTW typo in panel 9: says “All I have to do IT wait out of reach” – should say “is”.

  4. War Pig

    If I had not been able to throw a knife (or a bo-shuriken) and a tomahawk (you’re right, Chaucer59, they’re very useful even today) accurately, the first time, I’d not be here several times over. Takes practice but we got plenty of that. Not so uncommon as you’d like to believe, Christopher. My sensai could hit several objects at varying distances, some of them moving, accurately, with up to eight shuriken of both types (bo and hira-shuriken). The hira-shuriken is the infamous “throwing star” while the bo-shuriken is more like a knife or spike.

  5. WellWellWell

    Brilliant as ever.

    But as a medical professional I just have to say it: headbutting from somebody resembling a quite fat 8-year old by mass and speed … should not make you cough up blood and die.
    The stomach is quite resilient as long as not pierced.

    Ohh, my bad.
    I forgot https://www.baldwinpage.com/spacetrawler/2013/07/21/spacetrawler7adasd/ and the scrambled innards.
    I`m following too many storys at once ost seems

    So just brilliant – as ever.
    Love. your. work.

  6. Nathanyel

    Aww, I thought Crimson-57 might survive…

    Anyway, been meaning to ask forever, what’s the logic behind Eeb names? I initially thought they were just impersonal designations given by the G.O.B., and that Red-9 simply adopted such a name, but then she gave Crimson-57 the name, well, Crimson-57.

  7. JPTHUNK

    Damn Christopher! That was an awesome culmination after such a well developed and slowly rising climax. Once the ebbs destroyed the building and the furryites ran away I wondered how you’d conclude the story. This is as fitting a death for Martina if there ever was one. Well done!

  8. Christopher

    Knife throwing more plausible than thought? huh. Neat!

    @Joal, thanks! Fixed!

    @Craig_Thomas, oh yes. Have been working like a dog on it to have it ready before Spacetrawler ends.

    @Snow_Cat, what “‘silent’ takedown”? (just want to make sure I’m not missing something)

  9. TB

    Now you have to have a reference in a coming strip as to why Eebs can all be killed instantly with just a single knife thrust. The real reason, of course, is dramatic license so the “chuffs” can be used as a countdown.

    Keep in mind that this isn’t the End of All Eebs. Just the asshole ones. There’s still a big pile of clamped Eebs, and some clamped “free-will” Eebs. I’m not clear on how many of the latter there are. I only saw Dimitri clamp Red-9 among all the Eebs he was travelling with.

  10. Christopher

    @Wolf_knight, AH! Indeed. No. That was just follow-through of panel #2. Hee hee hee hee. 🙂

    @TB, well, she’s pretty much hitting them in the throat, skull, and neck. They may be dying quicker than they should, but they’re all not too-far-fetchedly fatal blows I’d think. Helps to have a really really space-tech-level sharp knife.

  11. Fnordius

    Well, Jonesy, I would put it as bittersweet since they are themselves tragic figures. Born only to be tortured into spacetrawlers, and never educated, they long since psychotic and Martina must blame herself all this time for false empathy, and how she screwed up the whole Boghram’s Teeth thingy. To her, this is righting a wrong she herself participated in, making penance for the greater evil she caused when trying to stop the evil behind the Eeb exploitation.

    This is sad, and kudos to Christopher for not pulling his punch. Martina suffered.

  12. Jonesy

    @Fnordius You’re right, bittersweet it is, if Martina’s feelings are considered. I was just thinking it from my own perspective, how she is tortured by them and how she was facing an unjust death in their hands. I wouldn’t really regard these Eebs as psychotic since they are way too rational to be such, in my opinion. They have made a choice, they chose wrong and now they die. =)

  13. War Pig

    As for dying quickly from a single knife wound, you must consider alien physiology – they ain’t like us – so we don’t know where their brain and/or vital organs are located. Plus, compared to their body size, Martina’s knife is like a human being stabbed by a freaking, two edged machete. On humans, if you connect with a knife to the kidney (they are easy to find from behind, even the “floating” kidney), people die quite quietly and quickly. The acute pain from the kidney strike makes them incapable of screaming, and the kidney is so well supplied with blood that they bleed out internally in seconds. Shock sets in and they die. Second best torso strike from behind is the aorta, but it is harder to hit from behind due the the overlapping ribs, while the kidney can be reached without rib interference, and since the kidney is lower, you can grab them around the neck with your off hand and draw them off balance and into your stroke, making the whole thing more effective. On the head from behind go in behind the ear and up into the brain housing group. Death, as they say, is instantaneous.

    Lung strikes are just as fatal but take longer. A strike to the liver may not kill, or at least take some time. Spleen involvement is good, but again, it is a lengthy process, taking up to five minutes.

    I know, kinda grim but accuracy counts, even in science fiction.

  14. CBob

    I’m not a knife thrower, but the way it was explained to me was that part of learning to throw a knife is learning to gauge the rate at which a knife spins vs distance to the target, and to adjust the distance so that impact coincides with the right part of the spin by shifting one’s body slightly forward or back while throwing.

  15. WellWellWell

    @Frank – Yeah!. When all is saved and fine, she gets medals Starwars-style, steps backward and falls down the stairs, breaking her neck….

    What a hoot that woul be, ruining all the beautiful writing on christophers part.

  16. War Pig

    @Daniel Harris: They have no neck, no turnable head, they are cylindrical and, in fact, rather resemble a green .45 ACP bullet. The have no apparent mouth, no ears, smallish eyes – and antenna. They must breathe through their arses as they have no nose, either. They do have a unibrow, though. Yeah, they resemble a lot of humans I know. 😉

  17. TB

    Be careful everybody. I’m pretty sure this whole series has been plotted out on the back of a single cocktail napkin. Endless flexibility, with the author flying not just by the seat of his pants, but without pants entirely. The most innocent comment could change the entire future!

  18. I’m not convinced yet that Martina will really end up dead. I mean, do you guys remember the door of the seventh panel on page 157? (skeet bot) SUSPICIOUS.

    (I will admit I just wanted to see how many people went to look at that strip and for how long.)

  19. Definitely very interesting, this is the very first comic I read from this series and already got me, intriguing, will search for more of you.. “that really hur..” and I was like: DIEEEE YOU SUCKER!! amazing.

  20. Jonesy

    @Eric R – You will not only cheer Martina in her mission to kill Eebs, you will also laugh at Dimitri’s jokes, get worried about Yuri’s mental behavior, feel happy when Pierrot and Emily kiss for the first time, be sad at many times when somebody has died or one of the characters breaks down in utter sadness.
    This comic will take you – and never return back

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