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The hospital waiting room?

50 (33.3%)

Faye on a trip down Deriver Denial?

26 (17.3%)

Emergency Cast Meeting?

45 (30%)

The police station, charged with the assault (or even murder) of Pintsize?

9 (6%)

Weird archetype-filled dream sequence for Faye in which she sees her life as a strange Pyroland-like fantasy and is Elightened?

20 (13.3%)

Total Members Voted: 139

[HamboneHFY]

From a literary point of view, the lack of Marten - or anybody - in that last "awake" panel also serves well as a reminder that however much support and friendship a person in this circumstance has, in the end the path of self-destruction is a tragic, lonely and selfish one.

It's superbly crafted. Concern, intervention, support, lashing out, loneliness. It's a whole arc compressed into five flashes. I've been reading QC since practically day one, and Jeph's talent as a storyteller has only grown with time. I'm thoroughly impressed.

[Halloween Jack]

This is a very good portrayal of what it's like to be blackout drunk--you can be awake, interacting with people, doing stuff that you wouldn't normally do, but your memory of what you did is sporadic or non-existent, until enough alcohol has been processed by your body. Source: my second DUI arrest.

[Mr. Skawronska]

Faye shocked the EMT with that punch. I would have expected EMTs to be nearly impossible to shock.

Not impossible, but difficult.  I think the EMT was surprised the punch wasn't directed at one of them.  It usually is.

Go ahead, ask me how I know.

S

[hedgie]

Quite true.  The antereograde amnesia is quite common when one blacks-out (whether it's something like the Ambien Walrus or alcohol).  I don't know what's worse…  having no memory of the situation, or having only flashes of it that  can't pieced together. 

[jwhouk]

I've never read this other comic, but miscarriages are often quite unforeshadowed in real-life, so I don't see why that would be a point of criticism necessarily.

CAD's author is... well, not well-regarded in webcomic circles. He had, at one point, a running feud with another long-time comic artist (rhymes with "Wurtz") and was/is seen as a copy-cat who writes to the lowest common denominator.

Personally, I gave up on the three comics that were involved in the whole mess a long time ago - some of it for personal reasons.

[jwhouk]

There's also plenty of other reasons why the internet had problems with Tim Buckley, though.

Like him deleting an entire subforum and banning anyone who he thought might have read it, because of an accusation that he raped someone.

Yeah, well, he's not the only one who's bad about that. Imagine deleting an entire comic forum overnight - with no warning for anyone involved.

(Sighs, clicks on the open Halforums tab on his browser, silently prays it never comes to that here.)

[aphanisis81]

I've never read this other comic, but miscarriages are often quite unforeshadowed in real-life, so I don't see why that would be a point of criticism necessarily.

CAD's author is... well, not well-regarded in webcomic circles. He had, at one point, a running feud with another long-time comic artist (rhymes with "Wurtz") and was/is seen as a copy-cat who writes to the lowest common denominator.

Personally, I gave up on the three comics that were involved in the whole mess a long time ago - some of it for personal reasons.

Heh, yeah, I just tried to read some of the CTRL+ALT+DEL archive and I did not get far. Seems pretty dopey. I guess I just meant that lack of foreshadowing didn't seem like it should be a demerit with regard to a plot development that usually takes couples by horrific surprise.

[Welu]

Oh dear.

[jwhouk]

Oh dear.

I nominate this as the understatement of the year.

[dexeron]

So I re-read "The Talk" and somehow I never really noticed until now that Faye's dad added bourbon to his milkshakes.  I mean I remember other people mentioning it, and somehow I knew it on some level, but holy crap, it never really struck home to me until now that there very well might have been a lot more going on there that Faye never knew about.  Now I'm really wondering at the parallels and just what kind of mental state Faye's going to be in when she wakes up, and whether she'll be combative or struck by horrifying self-realization.

I think we all knew what today's comic was going to be, but man, it doesn't hit any less hard.

If tomorrow's comic is a Yelling Bird or robot hijinks I am going to scream.

Warning - while you were typing, more people reacted to the Fayepocalypse. You may wish to type faster if you have any hope of keeping up.  Chop chop, now!

[KOK]

If Faye's heart had stopped, the beeping would have ceased abrubtly. The fading must represent Faye sinking deeper into unconciousness, no lonmger able to hear the beeps. Also, if her heart were to stop, there would be people with the skills and tools to do something about there in seconds.

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

I've never read this other comic, but miscarriages are often quite unforeshadowed in real-life, so I don't see why that would be a point of criticism necessarily.

It wasn't just the fact that there was a miscarriage that was the point of criticism. It's the fact that the miscarriage was so poorly done. CAD began as a webcomic that was a gag a day comic that transitioned into a comedic comic about a socially bereft and character insert that was oblivious to his surroundings almost to the point of being a sociopath. Buckley attempted to make the webcomic more "dramatic" by randomly inserting a miscarriage arc, which was out of place entirely for the comic. It would be like having a science documentary all of a sudden change into a fictional sitcom.

The problems with Tim Buckley are many. From the characteristic B^U laziness to his many sins as a human being. I've been a QC reader since the beginning and where Jeph's talent increased over time, Buckley's if anything seemed to have the inverse property. All the crap he gets is well deserved due to his failings as as person.  I could honestly recite from memory his laundry list of offenses, but I doubt anyone here really wants to be bogged down with all that.

That being said, holy crap. For people who say that Marten may not have been alarmed because the social group tended to get plastered, I would tend to agree to an extent. However, I feel like even as a binge drinker, you'd know when there were problems. Maybe he saw that there were two entire bottles next to her and that she was passed out on her own. Maybe he checked that her pulse was weak. I know that if I had walked in on one of my friends looking like that, I would have called the paramedics. I for one approve of this, it adds a lot of gravity to a situation that would otherwise have been brushed under the rug.

What I imagine will happen now is that Dora will blame herself for this. She'll believe that she sent Faye straight into the end of a bottle instead of helping her. Marten will feel shitty for being so wrapped up in his own life he didn't notice how steep Faye's descent was. Her friends will ultimately suffer for something she honestly brought on herself. As proactive as her friends will likely be about her alcoholism, I really hope this is a turning point for Faye as well.

[MooskiNet]

Replying to various:

- I thought Faye was under her own power based on the angle (nearly eye level with Marten, and she's shorter than he is).  A gurney does seem more likely, but I didn't know if the paramedics would allow Marten to be walking beside the gurney, so I opted for ambulatory until
- The punch is directed upward, but it's moving his face.  I think it had some power to it.
- As has been noted, there are drugs that can be used to sedate combative drunks.  After the punch, I'd guess she got one of them, because
- she did not appear to be restrained in panel 10, but her wrist was on the edge of the panel; could be wrong
- also, any drugs she was given would almost certainly be a push through the existing IV line, so there wouldn't necessarily need to be more than one

[Call me Ms]

Omg so much. Going on / to say / reactions.

Like a few other long-time-QC-readers new to the forum, this arc *drove* me here. Kinda fascinating how intense emotional / narrative content almost compulsively compels us to seek connection around it, huhn?

...anyway at the top of my many reactions are appreciation and awe.  The artwork, narration (w/o narrating!), expressions, skill, realness and vulnerability Jeph's demonstrating are incredible. *Totally*, he's tackling some Heavy Stuff -- I disagree w/ some posters who feel that this is all just part of bizness-as-usual for a light-hearted comic -- It's an honor, i think, to be able to witness this stuff....

Yeah,  I agree with the person who said that "Close to Home" likely has multiple meanings (sorry, not sure I can search from within compose to find you, and wading through what took me two hours to get through in the first place = too daunting). 
I do think the title works both within the logic of the comic & on the meta: another stroke of J.'s genius. Beautiful.

[bhtooefr]

That's another thing, QC has always had its hints of drama from very early on even when it was about the gags. So, when the drama hit hard (500), there wasn't whiplash.

[Omega Entity]

Again, you lot are seriously overestimating how much mental coherence and physical coordination a person has when fading in and out of consciousness. These are not lucid snaps. These are brief, groggy half-awake moments in which she's not even really aware of her surroundings.

The punch, very likely, means absolutely nothing, and is just there to illustrate just how out of it Faye really is. Even drunk, she's never hauled off and tried to punch anyone in the face, let alone a friend. Martin was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and having her punch an EMT just wouldn't have had the same impact.

There is also no way she's walking on her own power. If the EMTs are bringing you into an emergency room, it's on a stretcher.

[elfly]

It struck me that Pintsize being turned off is quite relevant to the plot...

A  companion-AI would almost certainly have been given the ability to recognize and respond to medical emergencies; giving them that ability is only sensible.  For Marten to discover Faye, Pintsize must be out of the picture, otherwise he would have called an ambulance long before Marten returned.

Have to assume that Pintsize was going to call Marten for help, noticing that Faye was drinking too much, and that Faye turned him off.

[freeman]

Again, you lot are seriously overestimating how much mental coherence and physical coordination a person has when fading in and out of consciousness. These are not lucid snaps. These are brief, groggy half-awake moments in which she's not even really aware of her surroundings.

The punch, very likely, means absolutely nothing, and is just there to illustrate just how out of it Faye really is. Even drunk, she's never hauled off and tried to punch anyone in the face, let alone a friend. Martin was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and having her punch an EMT just wouldn't have had the same impact.

As a person who has been drunk senseless on regular basis  and has received several testimonies of their  antics (in semi-regular basis) in all verbal, written and and video forms, I must assure you that the amount that still can fit in is scary. The scariest part is that it's probably you at your most honest state there. Something like "I'm in hospital? You! It must be because of you! I didn't need this! Look at this mess you cased!"  would seem very reasonable, though actually managing to land a hit instead of just raising a hand slightly, not so much.

[stinson6016]

Omg this makes me so sad. I had to log in from my phone at work just to throw my three cents in. I know about the depression behind this.

[Malsies]

I think this arc could have interesting effects on Faye and Marten's relationship.   I think we might see, as others have mentioned, Marten beating himself up a bit for not being more attentive to Faye in her post-breakup fragile state.  I think this could lead to him possibly neglecting Claire a bit (not intentionally, of course).  I think Claire would understand that he needs to be there for Faye, but since she's also new to relationships and familiar with Marty and Faye's history, she might be insecure about it and question their closeness.  And if Faye lashes out at Marty for sticking her in the hospital (I could see her being pissed and resentful about having to be kept for observation), there might be questions of why he sticks by someone who treats him so poorly.  At that point Marten  has to decide if his friendship with Faye is worth putting another of his relationships in jepoardy.  I don't think he would abandon her outright, but I could see it leading to a major change in the dynamic of their friendship.

I also think that Dora will partially blame herself, but I don't think she'll hire Faye back (and I hope she doesn't).  She might question if she, as a friend, should have checked up on Faye or asked someone else to sit with her, but from a professional standpoint I think that Dora will know she made the right decision for her business.  I'd like to see Faye use this as an opportunity to be more ambitious, and I think there's been a foreshadowing of a shift in her professional life for quite some time.

On top of all that, I feel like there needs to be some kind of closure with Angus.  I don't think they'll end up back together, but I feel like we've been waiting on them to have some kind of discussion, and this is the type of drama that's wont to bring it about.

Amazing work, Jeph.  Bravo.

[RuminatingRoy]

That's another thing, QC has always had its hints of drama from very early on even when it was about the gags. So, when the drama hit hard (500), there wasn't whiplash.

Goodness, yeah. There was the bourbon milkshake story, then on the eve of her first day of therapy she's drinking on the job. My assumption would be that since this comic as a whole focuses around Marten and his daily dealings, that perhaps Faye has been drinking on the sly for a little while. Perhaps I'm reading too much into some of the character interactions, what with arguments like "You're drunk this early in the day", but it wouldn't surprise me if this has been going on for quite some time and just no one knew about it.

I've been blacked out only once in my life, but I nearly ended up in the same state that Faye is in and it was enough to scare me away from the whole idea for a long time; however, it's easier to fight off irresponsibility instead of a psychological or physiological need. Perhaps Faye meant to drink herself to death, but I'm betting that she's losing a big battle with fear and stress and hiding the tears in the one thing she feels like she needs. That makes it all the more horrifying and real, and it's absolutely wonderful that there's enough foreshadowing for me to feel justified in thinking that's what's happening here, and yet if I'm wrong, hey - there were plenty of signs all around, and I looked in the wrong place.

...

Like a few other long-time-QC-readers new to the forum, this arc *drove* me here. Kinda fascinating how intense emotional / narrative content almost compulsively compels us to seek connection around it, huhn?
...

Yeah, that's what got me here as well.

[Aziraphale]

What I imagine will happen now is that Dora will blame herself for this. She'll believe that she sent Faye straight into the end of a bottle instead of helping her. Marten will feel shitty for being so wrapped up in his own life he didn't notice how steep Faye's descent was. Her friends will ultimately suffer for something she honestly brought on herself. As proactive as her friends will likely be about her alcoholism, I really hope this is a turning point for Faye as well.

Nah. Remember, she was willing to cut her brother out of her life without so much as a second thought; when you're in the habit of looking at life like that, one person more or less in your life isn't going to make much difference. She's also not one to accept responsibility (much less blame) for her own actions. This could be a turning point for her and Faye alike, but I'm not getting my hopes up on either count.

[Y]

This fading beeps seems like it's the perfect setup for such a hallucination or even a near death experience, where she talks with her father while unconscious. Or perhaps she might wake up in a robot body with the help of Hanner's prototype if her body is beyond repair.

The punch might be because from her perspective she's just drunk and she can just sleep it off, no matter what her actual health status is, and getting to the hospital means being 'imprisoned' for some days until a doctor clears you, and more lectures to follow.

Not that sort of doctor, but I'm fairly sure a combative patient with acute alcohol poisoning can be given benzodiazepines and antipsychotics if being carefully monitored in a hospital setting.

I would think any unnecessary medication would just add to the poison. And there is always the possibility for an allergy to those meds(unless she had them prescribed before). I would think a combative patient would just be restrained.

[WhiteRoseWeatherWitch]

<another lurker crawls out of the woodwork>

I think that people have come out of the woodwork because surprisingly many people have had some sort of crisis, and, whatever that crisis was we can see some reflection of it in the story arc. For me though, the thing that attracts me to QC is that (as Faye's Mum points out) those of us who are left go on living, and have to work out how we do it.

I'm new, so slap me down if this is said somewhere else - there is always someone who will help. No Really. If you have been affected by this storyline and need to speak to someone, make sure you do.

[MooskiNet]

Also, mods have been careful to say it every page or so, but welcome new folks from someone who just joined on the last major arc!  Glad you are here, kinda sucks it's so dark right now.

Edited to add:

I'm new, so slap me down if this is said somewhere else - there is always someone who will help. No Really. If you have been affected by this storyline and need to speak to someone, make sure you do.

Nobody would ever smack you down for saying that without getting one hell of a collective smackdown themselves.   

[Natswash]

I have to say that I love these big arcs because they drive more people to posting.
Don't like this one as much because you know painful arcs are painful

[CasAttack]

It could just be me, but I think drinking to this extent (while purposeful) was not an intent to kill herself. Part of what snowballed Angus and Faye was the lack of discussing the issue of long distance, which should've been a serious conversation with a serious resolution the moment it became a possibility. Faye and Angus both are at fault for how abrupt the ending was, which led to the break up be extremely uncomfortable and bad. Faye never let herself process what happened, and certainly didn't reflect on it. Thus....booze to avoid the matter entirely.

[HamboneHFY]

I would think any unnecessary medication would just add to the poison. And there is always the possibility for an allergy to those meds(unless she had them prescribed before). I would think a combative patient would just be restrained.

Restraint isn't risk-free. Somebody who fights being physically restrained can actually quite badly injure themselves, and others.

As I mentioned before, different medicines interact with the body in different ways. It's not as simple as just "adding to the poison" - you can quite safely take multiple different medications at the same time if they follow different pharmaceutical paths, and given that drunk and violent patients are something of a healthcare staple, I'd be surprised if there wasn't some suitable sedative that's safe for use alongside alcohol.


Warning - while you were typing more wild speculation has been posted. Please reboot your crystal ball.

[Isyrion]

Oh dear and holy shit!  Glad to see Marten use his head on this one.   Hopefully we see this cause development to Faye's character as well as to the QC cast in general.  This is in my opinion one of the best if not the best webcomic post in quiet sometime.  Looking forward to the rest of the week....will also pray that Jeph doesn't lose power.

[osaka]

Also, mods have been careful to say it every page or so, but welcome new folks from someone who just joined on the last major arc!  Glad you are here, kinda sucks it's so dark right now.

Edited to add:

I'm new, so slap me down if this is said somewhere else - there is always someone who will help. No Really. If you have been affected by this storyline and need to speak to someone, make sure you do.

Nobody would ever smack you down for saying that without getting one hell of a collective smackdown themselves.   

Maybe they like the slapping 

Warning  - while you were typing someone came in and made a serious comment. You may wish to add content to your innuendo.

[FayeDouble]

Week comic predictions!
1) At some point Marten and Clarie will be talking in the hospital waiting room. She will be supportive and understanding, Marten will be worried. Sven or Angus will likely show up in the last panel.

2) I think Faye will see her father. Call it a near-death experience or whatever, I think she will see him and ask him why. And he will say something along the lines of "I can't let you do to yourself what I did." The last panel will be a close up on her face with tears streaming down it. It will give her a kind of closure, and a realization of the path she's heading down.

What do you all think?

[RuminatingRoy]

2) I think Faye will see her father. Call it a near-death experience or whatever, I think she will see him and ask him why. And he will say something along the lines of "I can't let you do to yourself what I did." The last panel will be a close up on her face with tears streaming down it. It will give her a kind of closure, and a realization of the path she's heading down.

What do you all think?

Hmmn... I'd like it for other stories, but that feels like it would be slightly out of place, perhaps a bit heavy handed. It could be done, but it would have to be handled just right.

[Rubick]

It's going to be very tough to not stay awake until 3AM in the morning to catch the comic as soon as it hits.

[A Duck]

The title of today's comic is particularly heavy. Holy crap.

I had to sleep early today.

[Jedit]

That's another thing, QC has always had its hints of drama from very early on even when it was about the gags. So, when the drama hit hard (500), there wasn't whiplash.

Which is why I actually give a damn about how people react to this comic.  If it were QC_loss.jpg I'd have been out the door just as I was with Buckley (whose personal peccadilloes I neither know nor care about - I prefer my authors dead). 

On the other hand, it often seems like every humorous "slice of fictional life" cartoonist eventually does the "see I can do deep and serious" arc, they always think it's the best thing they've ever done, and it's always the nadir because when you write humour your audience are there to laugh, not cry. Randy Milholland is the only person who really gets away with it, but Something Positive has always been jokes about being unhappy that sometimes stop being jokes.  I hope Jeph can do the same.

[shrike1978]

It could just be me, but I think drinking to this extent (while purposeful) was not an intent to kill herself. Part of what snowballed Angus and Faye was the lack of discussing the issue of long distance, which should've been a serious conversation with a serious resolution the moment it became a possibility. Faye and Angus both are at fault for how abrupt the ending was, which led to the break up be extremely uncomfortable and bad. Faye never let herself process what happened, and certainly didn't reflect on it. Thus....booze to avoid the matter entirely.

I agree.  Faye has always used drinking as a coping mechanism, and now she just has so much to cope with that it got very out of hand.  That's not a healthy thing and it's not an excuse, but it's not an indication that she is suicidal.  I think blaming Angus for anything to do with that relationship ending is a mistake.  He continually communicated with Faye over the audition process.  He confided his fears in Marten that Faye was just putting on a brave front, but ultimately, Faye kept reassuring him that it would be ok, and ultimately, not taking her at her word would have been showing a fundamental lack of trust in her.  Angus did everything right leading up to the breakup, but Faye was not emotionally equipped to handle it, and I don't think even she realized it.  In the end, I think that realization has ended up being just another thing that she's coping with through alcohol.

[McH]

I don't like the idea of Faye seeing her father. Jeph's always been so subtle about that part and the teetotaller thing her mother enforced on him was always a question mark - I hardly think that's what killed him because he only had a few drops a week, so even if he was an alcoholic (seems likely), it seems like depression or something like that would be the key to her father's suicide anyway.

I'm imagining Faye's dreams to be filled with moments of (imagined) regret concerning Angus, Sven and Marten.. you know those dreams where you just keep switching from one subject to another? I imagine something like that happening.. it'll be erotic, panic, happiness, panic, something uplifting, fear, etc. Always going from something to distract from the demons and back to the demons again. And I imagine she'd still rather do that than be awake.

Warning - while you were typing someone else imagined something horrible. You may wish to review your anxiety.

[xaszatm]

My interp of the comic:

Marten was alarmed at her unresponsiveness (panel 2)  and called paramedics who arrived and checked her vitals (panel 4).  They took her to the ER, where she was walking under her own power, led by Marten (panel 6), until she became aware of where she was or simply had a break/panic attack and punched Marten (panel 8 ).  She briefly regains consciousness to see her hand with an IV drip (panel 10), and fades out again, either due to alcohol consumption or a a sedative (panel 11).

WHO in their right mind would give a patient with alcohol poisoning a SEDATIVE ?!?

I'm not a doctor or anything, but in my mind somebody who has already been poisoned by one drug surely shouldnt been given another drug on top of it. That could kill them !

Honestly, IV's are used for a lot of treatments. It's a faster way for your body to receive medicine. Quite frankly, when someone has alcohol poisoning, chances are that they threw up. A lot. This results in severe dehydration. That IV can simply be a way of getting fluids in the body to counteract the loss. Another thing that IV could be doing is introducing drugs to counteract the poisoning. Because, yes, you give drugs to counteract poisons. You don't let the poison flow in the body, giving it a chance to do some serious damage.

[pwhodges]

I'm new, so slap me down if this is said somewhere else - there is always someone who will help. No Really. If you have been affected by this storyline and need to speak to someone, make sure you do.

Now that you have a login, you can see that we have a whole forum dedicated to that sort of thing.

[RuminatingRoy]

Honestly, IV's are used for a lot of treatments. It's a faster way for your body to receive medicine. Quite frankly, when someone has alcohol poisoning, chances are that they threw up. A lot. This results in severe dehydration. That IV can simply be a way of getting fluids in the body to counteract the loss. Another thing that IV could be doing is introducing drugs to counteract the poisoning. Because, yes, you give drugs to counteract poisons. You don't let the poison flow in the body, giving it a chance to do some serious damage.

It's been a long, long time since I was around hospitals (and I never really paid attention to much outside of the rooms I was going to), but the IV system she's hooked to almost looks like a dialysis machine. I could easily be wrong, though with all the advances in robotics, cybernetics, and materials I'd assume there were possibilities for machines that are tailor-made for poisonings and such. Sort of like pumping someone's stomach after they've had bad mushrooms or cleaning failing kidneys out.

[DillyDolly]

This fading beeps seems like it's the perfect setup for such a hallucination or even a near death experience, where she talks with her father while unconscious. Or perhaps she might wake up in a robot body with the help of Hanner's prototype if her body is beyond repair.

I really hope neither of those things happen. The talking to your dead relative/near-death-experience trope is really overdone to the ground. It is almost always cheesy when it's done. Even in real life it is—most recently thinking of that Malarky boy who made up meeting Jesus. It's also better we never know more about her father (beyond what Faye knows or other people tell her). That's how it is in real life. Death is an end. You might see beautiful hints of your loved one in other places or if you are religious you may believe you'll see them again, but people do not see their dead loved ones multiple times in real life. Sure, I can see in QC's world someday something happening like what goes on in O'Human Star (another really cool webcomic), but I don't think that's the kind of story we are getting.

The robot body thing would be minimizing the whole seriousness of the situation. And really? We already have one character who has part of a body replaced by a robot part. Do we really need the main character to be a cyborg? Okay, might be cool in other situations...but not this one.

[gprimr1]

Could be dialysis if the alcohol poisoning was very severe, but more than likely it's infusing normal saline or ringers lactate to keep her hydrated.

[Pilchard123]

Admittedly it's only one person's experience, but I have a friend who goes for haemodialysis regularly and the IV always goes into their inner arm, above the wrist.

[Aimless]

Aimless, would you like to weigh in on any of the medical arguments?

Their scrubs are prettier than ours

To be clear, I work in neurology and deal with a very particular group of drunk people, eg. if they have seizures or have been found unconscious with little information about what's happened. Most of my patients in this category are older than Faye and have a longer history of more overt alcohol abuse. By the time the regular "partiers" flood the ER, I'm usually back on the wards or in bed and have only minimal contact with the severely inebriated youngsters who're spread out all over the ER waiting to sober up.

Many young people, esp. those who've been severely drunk or have seen many who've been severely drunk, think that being extremely drunk and "asleep" is no big deal. And, sure, most young people in such situations sober up and seem fine after a couple of days. There are many people whom I'd either admit or at least keep in the ER for observation who never come to our attention, and many of those are hopefully watched over by friends and acquaintances or family, which may be all right even though if anyone asked me I'd recommend assessment by medical personnel and some bloodwork at least because I know that, while being drunk can be all right, it can also be very unpredictable.

If we have reason to believe Faye may have drunk two bottles of hard liquor in a short time then we're talking about a potentially lethal dose with a person who's seemingly unconscious and initially unresponsive, where we have no idea what happened. At the very least she needs to be stabilised, taken to the ER, examined by a physician, and admitted for monitoring and tests while she sobers up and pref. for a while after that as well (for psychiatric assessment, getting a better idea of her current situation, and also waiting to see if she develops pneumonia ). I'll grant I'm a bit of a fraidycat but anything over "one bottle and a bit" of hard liquor is something you should take very seriously even in a young person who's seemingly healthy in all other respects. Just my 2c, I know that there are some docs who'd be more chill (esp. in a less litiginous society) but I don't think that'd be rational in this situation and my admittedly limited experience bears this out. Seizures, life-threatening bleeds from various places, arrhytmias, respiratory depression, severe pneumonia, just all sorts of shit. Someone's gonna be unlucky and you can't just assume it's not going to be your drunk friend.

[jwhouk]

On the other hand, it often seems like every humorous "slice of fictional life" cartoonist eventually does the "see I can do deep and serious" arc, they always think it's the best thing they've ever done, and it's always the nadir because when you write humour your audience are there to laugh, not cry. Randy Milholland is the only person who really gets away with it, but Something Positive has always been jokes about being unhappy that sometimes stop being jokes.  I hope Jeph can do the same.

Jeph and Randy know of each other. There is speculation that Randy the Bandicoot is named for S*P's creator - and, in fact, Davan has appeared in a non-speaking cameo in the strip. (Of course, so has Wil Wheaton, so there's that...)

Jeph has also done the serious/humor thing pretty much throughout the run of the strip, so something like this isn't going to floor us - at least, not like Faye's drunken right hook did to Marty in that one panel.

(See? Jeph can do drama and humor in the same strip...)

[jwhouk]

I'm new, so slap me down if this is said somewhere else - there is always someone who will help. No Really. If you have been affected by this storyline and need to speak to someone, make sure you do.

Now that you have a login, you can see that we have a whole forum dedicated to that sort of thing.

It should also be pointed out that, inasmuch as Jeph rarely visits the forums, Mr. Hodges here (He's older than you, handle it) is essentially one of our primary mods. If there's a problem, he can and will deal with it.

[Omega Entity]

Faye's very unlikely to be dead. Alcohol poisoning kills you by knocking out the brain stem, which stops the breathing reflex. That's why you're advised to check the breathing of anyone drunk and unconscious: if they breathe normally, there's a fair chance they're just sleeping; if they're not, dial your local emergency number NOW. (But don't take their breathing as gospel: try to wake them up, which is what Marten does in panel 1. If the say "Get lost", or anything intelligible and relevant at all, they're fine.

Even if they interact with you coherently, that's -still- not a guarantee they're fine. I can think of at least one instance off the top of my head involving parents telling their drunken daughter to go to bed who'd had way too much to drink (and who also didn't throw up, but her friends did), and they woke up to find her dead the next morning.

[Dona Worry Be Happy]

Are we sure it's Faye that punched him?  I am questioning that she would even be able to if she is that far gone.
I can't wait for tomorrow!

[ybtlamw]

The comic's clearly from Faye's point of view. Why wouldn't that be Faye punching him? It doesn't make any sense to suggest it's anyone else.

As for the "lack of Marten" in the last frame—how can we possibly know that he's not still in the room with her? I understand this thread's for speculation as much as it's for discussing what we definitively know, but pointing out how he's not in the last frame when Faye's clearly looking to the side at a machine—where Marten couldn't be standing anyway—is absurd to me.

Just my two cents.

edit —

Also, as far as I'm concerned, I think it's just the way Jeph drew the strip that makes it appear as though Faye's walking upright. I find it extremely hard to believe that the EMTs are going to let her walk in under her own power, especially if she's drifting in and out of consciousness.

[MrCorvin]

Am I the only one here that is thinking...

"How is this going to affect Samantha?"