Also, as with most “he saw under the disguise!” things, the odds are very good that Kitchen Doctor doesn’t have even the vaguest idea who that young lady on his table even is (aside from Amazi-Girl). It’s not like Amber’s been making headlines, ya know?
(That’s also why I found the mask-off moment in the first Spider-Man movie to be more about New Yorkers than about “keeping his secret” – exactly how many random folks on a subway train are likely to know Peter Parker from Adam’s off ox? When he’s not cavorting around in ted-and-blue tights, he’s a student, which doesn’t exactly get your face on the cover of the Daily Bugle.)
I’m thinking not so much a random doctor, as one who Sal knows is willing to perform medicine outside of professional and (most importantly) reported settings. Maybe an Asher connection?
Well the details we have so far don’t really allow for a definitive timeline placement, but if I were to hazard a guess I’d say right after the fifth David Tennant one.
Sal seems to be the sort of person who’s got a guy for everything, or knows somebody who does. Like, need your car fixed? I got a guy. Need HVAC repair on the cheap? I can hook you up. Need a guy whacked by the mafia? I don’t have a guy, but I know a guy who knows a guy whose dad may have a connection.
It is basically the same character. Looks pretty much exactly that, has the same personality and is used in the same way in the story. It is probably just a common stock character but, still, kinda funny.
There’s a difference between “common stock character” and “public domain character”. Jen and Mick are the latter. “Magic user who isn’t actually very good at magic, but tries” is the former, although they may be named Schmendrick, Rincewind, or Mildred Hubble, amongst many others, all of whom are still under copyright. The trick with using a common stock character is to make them distinct from other iterations of that character in some way.
In Rincewind’s defense, it’s not so much that he’s bad at magic, as that he’s bad at resisting peer pressure (his problems started when the other students at Unseen University dared him to look into the Octonomicon, which contains the Eight Great Spells used to create the Discworld, and one of the Spells got lodged in his brain and frightened off all the other spells he was supposed to learn).
That’s the other doctor. Doctor Marco. He was more of a town doctor, this one was a forensic one. I think both were traumatized in the Ishvalan war of extermination tho. Pretty sure every named male over 30 in FMA was.
He’s actually a plumber who specializes in sinks and garbage disposals. Sal was in a hurry and made the mistake of trusting Google’s AI summary when she asked about “nearest doctor”.
He’s not really qualified for this, but $50 is $50 and he’s always wondered if you could seal a wound with caulk.
My kid was five and jumping on the bed.
He bounced too high and nicked his head.
The wound was a gash and oh, it bled.
Took him to the doctor. Rather than shave his head.
No stitches for him. they used glue instead.
Cyanoacrylate glues are nifty and they come in a variety of types and viscosities.
I mean, you CAN seal a wound with superglue. That’s literally what it’s for. And tampons were originally meant to pack wounds. So, y’know. Could do worse.
Tried looking up the history of the tampon . . . doesn’t sound like it was intended to pack wounds when it was developed, unless you count vaginal wounds.
Maybe they got it mixed up with chainsaws? Those started with a medical application.
Not gonna look up sources, but I can confirm the superglue origins. The tampon one on the other hand, is unfortunately a common folk tale. A very believable one though!
And, unfortunately, Mollyscribbles is correct about chainsaws 😬
the typre of cotton used in tampons/maxi pads was developed for use as bandages in ww1 era, and the nurses went “holy shit i shit i can use this stuff to keep my panties cleaner!” it is the same with kleenex, paper developed to help dress wound in the war needed to be sold afterwards
Um, not entirely. What we have now as superglue is the stuff that failed as a wound sealer except in dire emergencies (which I entirely concede this to be). What is used to seal wounds medically is a different (safer) chemical.
That’s how Dr. Mario got started. Put on the coat, don’t elaborate on your credentials, advise patients to take one multicolored capsule every four to six seconds until they either recover fully or lose a 1-UP.
Like in “The Bladerunner.” (The 1974 science fiction novel, nothing to do with unrelated movie.)
All medical care is a government monopoly, and only available to people who have been sterilized (or will be as soon as their permission permits). So essentially all medical workers moonlight in the underground medical black market.
That was my first thought too. Kitchen Doctor looks pretty different from how Reagan was drawn in Shortpacked!, but the fact that multiple people thought of him seems at least mildly interesting.
I believe Word of Willis is that Ronnie will not be appearing here, and neither will Historical Jesus. *Eyes Mike’s grave, remembers that Word of Willis is not particularly ironclad.* Eh, okay, maybe.
I would expect Ronnie to get the similar treatment as Dexter and Monkey Master. Not actually appearing because of the scifi stuff, but their image showing up.
It was more nuanced than that, and less a promise than artistic commentary. What Willis said was something more to the effect that they didn’t want to kill off someone who was going to have the entire cast in mourning, because given the time distortion of the comic, that would mean that they’d have to be drawing comics all about that for like the next decade of real time and it would be awful.
But they got around that by a) killing off someone who wasn’t widely liked (and a couple of characters who were widely hated), and b) time-skipping over the most immediate fallout.
Sure, I remember the initial statement. It was the bit about “overlooked Mike had become a main character” that I don’t think was ever stated – or is even a good summary.
Oh, that part? Fuck if I know. I’d define “main character” as “on the cast page”, and Mike was there from the beginning, and continues to be there even now, years after his death. If anything, he was declining in main characterness even before his death, as we accumulated more characters who weren’t, y’know… dickholes.
He was actually getting some more characterization and nuance in the build up to his death – with flashbacks and with clear feelings about Ethan from how the whole “seduce Ethan to mess with Danny” plan went down.
It seemed more to me like Mike was killed off because he was a failed main character. He didn’t fit well with the setting and the rest of the cast and he wasn’t being used much.
This is what I remember Willis actually saying on the topic.
I keep saying folks suggesting he was killed off because he was too problematic, and I seriously doubt that; I think it’s more like, DoA was a bit more grounded, and Mike no longer had super powers, and there’s only so much you can done Mike down before he stops being recognizably Mike…
I MIGHT be imagining things but I feel like I remember Willis even saying at one point that his inability to convey Mike’s hair style in three dimensions “should have been a sign”, or something to that effect, haha.
Booster isn’t a replacement Mike, but I don’t think it’s an accident that they were set up to interact the most with Walky, Amber, and Ethan — the only characters who really lost something when Mike was removed from the strip.
(Note: I’m not saying Mike did good things for any of them, just that he had unique dynamics with all three of them, unlike say Joyce, who was an especially hard fit for Mike interactions because there was nothing he could say to her that wouldn’t be better coming from Sarah — to paraphrase Willis.)
If I remember correctly (and I don’t trust that I do) Willis did say that part of it literally was because the trope of “snarky asshole” was less and less acceptable as time went on. What began as a character not wholly unlike early Davan MacIntire (Something*Positive) that mostly existed to insert funny and drive change, became something that the majority of the comment section called hateful and abusive. And it wasn’t that Mike changed; the world had just (rightly) pointed out that we don’t have to deal with toxic people anymore, and toxicity was Mike’s M.O.
I admit that all of my real liking for Mike, came from Shortpacked!’s version of Mike, who we actually got to see as kind and nice and caring. I kind of feel like there’s an alternate timeline somewhere, in which it wasn’t Mike who died, but Ethan, and Mike took up drinking to cope… and because it’s Mike, he just turned into a nicer, friendlier person. Which would be interesting if he becomes actual *real* friends with more people and they learn the truth.
Anyways. I dislike the phrase “replacement Mike” because, in a very literal sense, Booster DID replace Mike. Not just as Walky’s roommate, but as mostly-unconnected outsider who would make funny-yet-uncomfortable commentary about the main characters and drive them to change, while their personal connections bring some of the more fringe characters into the spotlight. Booster and Mike fulfill the same narrative role.
But no, they’re different people entirely. After all, Mike was a fully fleshed out person, who had his own struggles, motivations, goals, fears, limitations. Who’s Booster? What friends did they have before moving in with Walky? Who were the people who didn’t respect their pronouns? What does Booster want in life? What do they fear? What are their major obstacles? Booster is basically the girlfriend in a shonen anime; they exist fully to define the main characters, and don’t really exist outside of their relationship to them. The only real character connection they have is with their sister, who – surprise! – doesn’t really have any background other than a personality and how she develops Carla’s personal story.
But at the same time I’m still surprised! Like, it makes sense that she *knows* someone, but I’m surprised that she has enough trust/social standing to get them to do this for her.
Despite Sal being The Coolest, I feel like we’ve seen throughout the comic that her trusted circle is actually quite small. She plays it cool, but doesn’t have a massive circle of connections or anything. Really makes me wonder who this person is and how he’s connected to it all!
Alternate theory. Does Sal know Professor Leslie? Leslie likely saw Amazi-Girl at the protest and might have a connection. She is dating a dentist after all…
Or Jason. Jason DEFINITELY owes Sal a favor. (A favor for favors, as it were.)
And Jason knows Galasso, who has dreams of world domination and has made the appropriate allies in pursuit of that goal. So maybe Jason hooked her up? (So to speak.)
Oh, on yesterday’s comments, I speculated that it was just a head injury, and that she hadn’t been shot. The gut-wound is more obvious this time, so I admit my wrongness here.
So Amber was dressed in her street clothes last strip right? That means following the logic of her being back in Amazi-Girl costume here means what? Sal had to dress back up to protect her identity? I mean maybe she just put the mask back on, but I’m choosing to believe she fully redressed Amber cause that’s funnier.
Yeah that’s…wow, now that I’m looking, that’s a really weird detail. Good catch!
I can believe that these are the same underclothes Amber was already wearing in the last strip. But Sal definitely put gloves and a mask back on her. Which is a really interesting detail. I wonder why…
I reject this and any +1s it earned! She was not wearing the gloves and mask and the rest of the Amazi-suit was packed up. Sal at minimum put the gloves and mask back on her. Likely the whole suit because Sal never half asses anything.
Yeah, the suit was clearly spilling out of the backpack when Sal found Amber, and there would be no reason to take it out of the backpack and hang it like that unless it was recently removed (doesn’t appear to be arranged so that it will dry out or something).
What I take from that is that Sal is preserving Amazi-girl’s anonymity even with this Kitchen Doctor.
Hollywood has taught me that mob-connected “kitchen doctors” have a very strong “No names” rule, anyway, because they don’t want to be put in the position of having to commit perjury if it comes to that. Anonymity is usually pretty key in illegal skullduggery.
Sal knows what it’s like to feel naked without your gloves on.
(But no for real she did clearly put the mask back on for no reason other than anonymity concerns. The gloves might be because Amber was face down in the snow, and her hands were probably freezing cold to the touch.)
RD would be college-based and too bureaucratic for Sal’s immediate needs. I’m thinking an Asher connection. I’m expecting sometime in the next few comics to see Asher waiting in the living room or something.
Although while they should and likely do have a medic on site when playing to provide medical attention for injuries that don’t require a hospital visit (and possibly to determine if an injury requires a hospital visit) I doubt most of them have a sketchy medic who will operate on strangers on their kitchen table so they can avoid police attention. Roller Derby leagues are usually legit not sketchy semi-legal underground operations. A doc like this seems more “underground fight club” than Roller Derby.
(a good pressure cooker can be used as an autoclave) But that’s the thing about no-questions-asked kitchen doctors. They’re also can’t-sue-for-malpractice kitchen doctors.
My mom, a not-kitchen doctor, used to sterilize instruments in the oven. Admittedly not surgery tools but still. I think you can do that if you’ve got a proper sterilization box.
Whew she’s not dead. Yet. It wouldn’t be the first, or even the second time I was under the impression a main character wasn’t going to die. Case #1, Mike. Case #2, Stand Still Stay Silent – in retrospect, I really should have seen that character’s death coming. Still a tearjerker though.
Not sure how I was expecting this to go, but I don’t think “a new character we have never seen before” was it. Of course, it’d be kinda hard for it to be…
Anyway can’t wait to vote Kitchen Doctor in the next Patreon poll!
Refreshing yesterday’s strip in anticipation for today’s update gave me a mental image. Imagine as part of Willis trying to make the strip appeal to more modern and hip generations, if instead of Sal smoking cigarettes, she had a vape pen. Just no explanation, Sal just appears on strip with a vape pen, and Joyce smells the smoke like “oh wow it’s blueberry muffin scented”.
I think Sal’s personal idea of “cool’ is antiquated enough that she’d hate vaping. Like I think she only even started smoking because the idea of smoking appealed to that cliche sort of leather, street biker, aesthetic she’s adopted.
It took Nintendo five years to figure out how to make the Switch handle bluetooth headphones. Gonna be another seven or eight until they have Waluigi taking a puff in time with you.
I am thrilled, I love Sal and Amber’s messy rivalfrienemy thing. Love that she protected Amber’s secret identity on two levels here while Amber was out cold.
I think #1. He looks like he has some grey around his temples – he could be 30 years older than Sal, especially if he’s an actual doctor that took the time to go through medical school.
Him being older doesn’t rule out her hooking up with him. I’m speaking from experience as someone who made questionable experiences when she was younger.
I wonder if this guy might actually be a Walkyverse character, or at least get a name. My first thought was that this might actually be Jennifer’s dad (he’s a doctor, right?), but of course it would be absurd for Sal to drag Amber all the way back to her hometown.
He looks kinda similar to how Ronald Reagan was drawn in Shortpacked to me, though obviously he can’t actually be him since Reagan’s been dead for years.
I don’t think so, given that when almost this exact situation happened in the Walkyverse, the doctor was Paul, and he’s still a stupid judgmental freshman in DoA instead of a stupid judgmental doctor.
This kind of reminds me of when I got hit by a car and had no health insurance. (Pre-ACA.) I self-treated by going to the guy down the street for $5 of weed, suteeing it with yams and oil, and just staying immobile on my futon on the floor for several days. Every time I felt tempted to get up, I’d have another couple bites of “spiced” yam and conk back out. After about 3 days, and a long hot shower… I felt human again. Restorative!
…OK, so… shall we lighten the grim mood with a question game?
Q. What is your favorite medicinal substance likely to be found in a kitchen?
In addition to booze and garlic (from mispost): crystalized ginger for upset stomach. Honey for soar throat. Fructose for metabolizing alcohol faster. Coffee for headaches. Milk/cheese/yogurt for stomach pain. Wasabi for clearing sinuses and turning on the tear ducts. I’ve tried seeped thyme and rosemary topically, but I don’t know how much they helped. Mostly it was so I would smell like a salad instead of just plain vinegar. Apple cider vinegar. I think baking soda has uses. Water for a lot of things. The hottest tap water for relieving itches without damaging the skin. I don’t know if you’d count aloe, it’s in my kitchen window, but I don’t eat it. I know it’s edible though.
Not recommending it in this day and age, but honey was also used to treat wounds in ancient and medieval times – apparently it has some antibacterial and anti inflammatory properties. Henry V was so treated for an arrow would iirc.
I’ve used baking soda as a scrub for athlete’s foot. I’m on a low sodium diet, so I’d have to use my potassium bicarbonate (baking potash?) but since I have to get that at a specialist store, I save it for baking.
Going to sidetrack with a bit of anti-ai rant. The internet’s always been full of home remedy / food misinformation. Heck, it was always common long before the internet. But pre-chatbot, you could look at the context, what the site was, what other things they claimed, etc. And there were places you could find where people had tested the claims. But now, geez, big auto-complete has enshittified that. It makes what was merely common into ubiquitous, and launders it from the context.
I will swear by hot tap water for itches though. It’s more than just placebo. It works in the same way that scratching does, by increasing blood flow to the itch area, but without scratching the skin. Use the hottest water you can get out of the tap, enough to make you react “oh my, that’s hot”, but not so hot you get scalding burns (very unlikely if your water heater / tap are set up correctly).
Don’t do this right after exposure to what caused the rash, eg: poison ivy. Wash with soap and cold water as soon as you can. Hot water opens pores, you don’t want that if they irritant is still on your skin.
One time a coworker of mine had been in a car accident with her father the day prior and showed up to work because she was concussed. We didn’t know she was in an accident but I talked to her (because she was being very… off. Inattentive, out of it) and when I asked if she was okay she was like “oh yeah lol I got into a car accident”. We got the manager and she was sent to the hospital and they confirmed she had a concussion and I’m just really glad she wound up okay in the end. Car accidents seem to really put people in a hell of a mental state post-accident!
Also, I’ve found peanut butter helps with toothaches. Ginger helps when I get mucus-y, I’m allergic to cough syrup so if I need help coughing to break up mucus I go to garlic pills. Honey is also a good one.
Peanut butter for toothaches… I never heard of that! I know clove oil is a tooth anaesthetic and chewing ginger root can sometimes help one to bear mouth pain. But I never tried peanut butter… 🤔
I think the reason it works is if you have a bit of food that’s digging in between the teeth or into the gum, peanut butter is soft enough to sort of ‘gum’ it out! That’s what my dad and I have done at least! I’m trying to think of other natural remedies I know of, but I’m blanking lol. And I’m really glad too!
Jeez, American health care is a nightmare. I recently had an accident and broke my maxilla in three places and my orbital bone in two and while it would have grown back together on its own it would have permanently altered my face and I would have had double vision for the rest of my life. And there is no way I could have afforded the surgery without insurance. Universal healthcare rocks.
Agree with others that mob doctor is most likely. Sal likely (grudgingly) asked for a favor from Asher, who then called in his own favor. The doctor may not be happy about that.
Fallout could go two ways: (a) Asher considers it amends for getting Sal arrested and brings closure to that incident or (b) Sal and/or AG now owe the mob a favor.
The doctor himself is likely to trade in money rather than favors. I’d figure a couple hundred for a job like this. Maybe twice that. Sal should be able to get her hands on that kind of cash by borrowing from non-mob sources. Don’t recall if her motorcycle is already sold or she has it stored away for some reason but her bike should cover it if she still owns it.
The favors come into play for being put in contact with someone like that in the first place. And as long as Asher’s mobbed up family doesn’t find out it’s Asher she owes not the mob in general. I don’t think Asher is likely to ask her to do anything more illegal than what the average college student gets up to in return. It’s his family finding out and deciding she ows the Family that’s a problem.
Well, not cayenne pepper. It doesn’t actually help stop bleeding. I tried once, after stepping on glass. I didn’t do an experiment or anything, just seasoned my cut before wrapping it. I read it doesn’t help afterwards. Also seasoned it with garlic, because I had garlic cloves but no peroxide or rubbing alcohol or even liquor.
So garlic then liquor.
That… also sounds like a recipe for ouchies.
Only thing I know of for ground coffee is that it makes decent dish detergent in a pinch and quite good rose fertilizer.
(…Oh, and it can make coffee too, of course.)
I can’t wait for Kitchen Doctor to become the new breakout favourite and long-running character as he goes back to college to get an Arts degree while also treating patients.
You know I don’t think I stop to say this in so many words. As often as I should. This comic rules. What a good damn webcomic. Fuck yes. Absolutely. Superhero having to get shady non-normal medical care from ex-rival turned friend and ally. Right on the tail of Huge Gay Swerve Romance Turn. Fuuuuck yeahhhhhh.
Huh. Maybe it was Amazi-Girl who had Kitchen Doctor’s contact info, gathered previously from Blaine’s mob connections? Amber did have the phone out when Sal found her: perhaps she had his contact record open to show Sal?
Sal, wisely, might have surmised (or gleaned from the contact) that Kitchen Doctor knew Amazi-Girl but not Amber, and re-dressed Amber accordingly so that Kitchen Doctor would recognize her?
With all her shenanigantics, I’d bet Amazi-Girl has already needed Kitchen Doctor previously…
That’s definitely not the kitchen doctor Harry Dresden uses, because there is no polka music playing.
Now that I think about it, I very much doubt that Bruce Wayne remained uninjured over his entire career as a normal human hero (Superpower – $$$$) – did Alfred have an MD?), armored Batsuit or not. At least the Marvelverse had at least 1 comic sequence where Hawkeye is recovering from injuries that Cap or Thor would just shrug off.
Well there was that time Bane broke his back. Was kinda a big deal. :p
On a more serious note there have been plenty of times in comics where the injuries have been noted. I specifically remember in the Batman Beyond series from… damn more than 10yrs… Bruce’s kidneys were failing due to the years of abuse and pain killers
“Huh, weird… the first kiss didn’t work. Try it a few more times. Yes I’m serious! We’re doing this for science, and multiple attempts is basic scientific rigor! So keep smooching until we have an adequate sample size!”
Yay! for street doc! DoA’s transition (descent?) into cyberpunk is proceeding well! (Amber’s our decker, Sal’s our street sam, Carla’s our gearhead, and ain’t sure about the rest.)
At least two Korean churches in a city of 80,000. And perhaps this isn’t a Korean only mob. Perhaps it is multi-ethnic. Perhaps it is the woke mob we’ve been hearing so much about.
slightly tangential, but “woke” mobs have for a long time now been a thing in China, at least according to my relatives’ girlfriend who’s a Chinese-born first gen US citizen
as in, apparently over there there are bad gangs and good gangs, where the latter work for the people, and like if a bad gang steals your car or something, you can actually call a good gang to get it back ^^
Much as large governments want you to believe there is a bright line distinction between “legitimate government” and “criminal gang”, there really isn’t one.
If I was confronted with a severely injured woman who couldn’t go to a hospital for reasons, I’m not sure my first thought would be “Which of my acquantences has a parent who doesn’t live near here who might be able to help?”
“What? You want me to let this perfectly good liver go to waste? He was an organ donor. Didn’t specify who it would be donated to. Besides, this nice Chianti ain’t gonna drink itself.”
“Hey Asher, I need a favour… an illegal one.”
“I dunno Sal, I left that world.”
Ethan finds out that Amber is in trouble and shoots Asher a puppy eyed look.
“Okay Sal, I know this one guy…”
When one isn’t involved in illegal activity one does not usually go to a street doc. Or know where to find a street doc in the first place. Can you explain why you think someone involved with roller derby would go to a street doc?
So… we don’t use back alley doctors for roller derby bouts lmao. We pay for licensed paramedics. It’s a sanctioned sport with a lot of rules and regulations, not a biker gang.
I’m going to guess that, “Kitchen Doctor”, is someone that Sal is familiar with. I don’t see her going door to door, asking, “are you a surgeon, my friend has been shot”. She went straight to his house, knowing he could take care of Amber/Amazi Girl.
For the record, if someone is hit in the head and loses consciousness /at all/, they need to seek medical attention even if it was just for a few seconds. That means their brain bounced off the inside of their skull hard enough to make it stop working. If they lose consciousness for more than a few seconds, there’s a solid chance they’re waking up with brain damage. It’s not like in the movies, where someone gets whacked in the head and then wakes up just fine a few hours later- if you’re whacked in the head and take hours to wake up, you’re not coming out of that the same as you went in, and you’re probably not coming out at all.
So yes, it’s very, very bad when someone takes a long time to wake up from being hit in the head. Not so much from anesthesia, since that’s what anesthesia is from.
(though I dunno if you can do general anesthesia in anything like a safe fashion without a lot of monitoring equipment. The line between “unconscious” and “dead” is thinner than we’d like it to be.)
Might not have been anaesthetized with propofol and gas, it could easily have been a reversible sedative instead like ketamine. Safer, certainly for a back-alley doctor, but not ‘safe’ no.
We also see her as she’s waking up, which generally doesn’t happen with all the equipment still around. It’s possible there were more things involved than just what we see in this single scene.
Man I am SO into this new plot hook. More AG please. More AG adjacent characters. We met the doctor now introduce me to AG’s gadget person. Home Depot Enthusiast?
Gonna yes-and off my own bullshit and say Batman has Lucius Fox. AG has…. Carla? Maybe in another Dumbiverse adjacent comic the way Shortpacked was for the Walkyverse.
I imagine there is going to be a huge clash between “maintaining secrecy and anonymity” and “wanting to brag to the whole world that she was the one who did the thing.”
Y’know, looking at how all that is laid out with the blood on the towel underneath here, I’m STILL not sure what she was wounded by or the extent of it — although if Kitchen Doctor was able to patch it up, I suspect that no major organs were involved or bullets had to be dug out.
even though most of the panels are (save for the text) solid black this is maybeeee one of my fave strips of the comic so far… just so dang well executed !!! by jove !!!!!!!
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OH
THANK FUCK SHE’S ALRIGHT 😭😭😭
For various definitions of “all right”.
yeeessss. Also now the random doctor has seen her disguise.
Mask still on. Doc is blinded by comic-physics.
Also, as with most “he saw under the disguise!” things, the odds are very good that Kitchen Doctor doesn’t have even the vaguest idea who that young lady on his table even is (aside from Amazi-Girl). It’s not like Amber’s been making headlines, ya know?
(That’s also why I found the mask-off moment in the first Spider-Man movie to be more about New Yorkers than about “keeping his secret” – exactly how many random folks on a subway train are likely to know Peter Parker from Adam’s off ox? When he’s not cavorting around in ted-and-blue tights, he’s a student, which doesn’t exactly get your face on the cover of the Daily Bugle.)
Reminds me of the scene from Justice League where Lex Luthor takes over Flash’s body, takes off the mask and goes “I have no idea who this is”.
I’m thinking not so much a random doctor, as one who Sal knows is willing to perform medicine outside of professional and (most importantly) reported settings. Maybe an Asher connection?
Um, who dis?
It’s kitchen doctor
Welcome to the cast, Kitchen Doctor!
thank you for saving Amber, kitchen doctor
I mean, his name IS listed right there. ~<3
Well the details we have so far don’t really allow for a definitive timeline placement, but if I were to hazard a guess I’d say right after the fifth David Tennant one.
Youza, that’s a salty bit of snark~!
**grin**
That’s doctor Marco from FMA
Looks more like Dr. Knox, having random people at his house in need of medical attention also fits that idea.
No Walkyverse equivalent, then?
Shortpacked’s Ronald Raegan?
Yeah I’m very concerned about where Sal might have found a doctor she could trust to do this off the books
Sal seems to be the sort of person who’s got a guy for everything, or knows somebody who does. Like, need your car fixed? I got a guy. Need HVAC repair on the cheap? I can hook you up. Need a guy whacked by the mafia? I don’t have a guy, but I know a guy who knows a guy whose dad may have a connection.
My first thought: an Asher connection.
don’t you remember kitchen doctor? he0s been in hundreds of strips
His name is not just “kitchen doctor”!
Yeah, I am pretty sure it is Dr. Knox.
Of the Medical School of Hard Knox?
No, of Fullmetal Alchemist.
It is basically the same character. Looks pretty much exactly that, has the same personality and is used in the same way in the story. It is probably just a common stock character but, still, kinda funny.
Ah. Ta!
Wait! There are common stock characters around that cartoonists can just plug in when they need them?
I have so much to learn.
Unironically, there is ‘Jenny Everywhere’. (Also, specifically Steamboat Willie Micky Mouse et. al.)
There’s a difference between “common stock character” and “public domain character”. Jen and Mick are the latter. “Magic user who isn’t actually very good at magic, but tries” is the former, although they may be named Schmendrick, Rincewind, or Mildred Hubble, amongst many others, all of whom are still under copyright. The trick with using a common stock character is to make them distinct from other iterations of that character in some way.
In Rincewind’s defense, it’s not so much that he’s bad at magic, as that he’s bad at resisting peer pressure (his problems started when the other students at Unseen University dared him to look into the Octonomicon, which contains the Eight Great Spells used to create the Discworld, and one of the Spells got lodged in his brain and frightened off all the other spells he was supposed to learn).
It’s probably like stock photos, you need to pay a yearly membership.
I refer you to the thematic singularity known as TV Tropes.
Be warned: like many other singularities, it has an intense gravitational pull that’s hard to escape.
Guy better enjoy his face while he has the chance then
That’s the other doctor. Doctor Marco. He was more of a town doctor, this one was a forensic one. I think both were traumatized in the Ishvalan war of extermination tho. Pretty sure every named male over 30 in FMA was.
You can’t make a comic about war=bad and go around having military personnel who *aren’t* traumatised in some way
(Well, except for every single officer above Roy. They’re too evil to be traumatised)
His parents named him after their ideal profession for him and his place of birth
Oh, so you subscribe to nominative determinism?
This was funnier in my head.
I mean, I don’t know how funny it was in your head, but I thought it was pretty funny on its own.
I only nominally subscribe to nominative determinism, myself, though
Are you determined to do so? (I think the nominal subscription, while having fewer features than the full annual one, is still a pretty good deal.)
Any chance it was both where he was born and also where he was conceived?
What kind of parents want their child to be a kitchen?
Every pantry wants their child to grow up and be a kitchen.
He may be a little cupboard now, but he has big dreams
Conception*
He’s actually a plumber who specializes in sinks and garbage disposals. Sal was in a hurry and made the mistake of trusting Google’s AI summary when she asked about “nearest doctor”.
He’s not really qualified for this, but $50 is $50 and he’s always wondered if you could seal a wound with caulk.
Shrug – I’ve heard good things about SuperGlue.
My kid was five and jumping on the bed.
He bounced too high and nicked his head.
The wound was a gash and oh, it bled.
Took him to the doctor. Rather than shave his head.
No stitches for him. they used glue instead.
Cyanoacrylate glues are nifty and they come in a variety of types and viscosities.
Superglue works but I am partial to duct tape (possibly with soft toilet paper in it).
I mean, you CAN seal a wound with superglue. That’s literally what it’s for. And tampons were originally meant to pack wounds. So, y’know. Could do worse.
Do you have a source for those? Not re the off-label use, which I think is fairly well documented for both, but for the historical claims?
Did a quick google . . . Super Glue was initially released commercially in 1958 but the medical use didn’t catch on until during the Vietnam war.
Tried looking up the history of the tampon . . . doesn’t sound like it was intended to pack wounds when it was developed, unless you count vaginal wounds.
Maybe they got it mixed up with chainsaws? Those started with a medical application.
Not gonna look up sources, but I can confirm the superglue origins. The tampon one on the other hand, is unfortunately a common folk tale. A very believable one though!
And, unfortunately, Mollyscribbles is correct about chainsaws 😬
I was reading these with a straight face, but I had to laugh when I got to your emoji.
”What it’s for” doesn’t quite track. It was an early application, but it’s still not a correct statement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Coover#Super_Glue
Not to be harsh, but “I’m not gonna look up sources but I can cofirm that it is true” is why people think that vaccines cause autism.
Always get a source. Always.
As the autistic person, their comment is fine how it is.
Also as an autistic person, what? You can’t confirm a thing is true just by saying that it is true.
No, I didn’t say “as an autistic person”, I said “as the autistic person”. Their post is fine. It doesn’t need to hold up in a court of law.
the typre of cotton used in tampons/maxi pads was developed for use as bandages in ww1 era, and the nurses went “holy shit i shit i can use this stuff to keep my panties cleaner!” it is the same with kleenex, paper developed to help dress wound in the war needed to be sold afterwards
What later became maxi pads was originally military bandage material.
Um, not entirely. What we have now as superglue is the stuff that failed as a wound sealer except in dire emergencies (which I entirely concede this to be). What is used to seal wounds medically is a different (safer) chemical.
He used Amazi-Glue, not superglue. (he was pleased to learn amber brought her own med supplies)
This is just a tube of Krazy Glue that Amber got for toy repair that she drew an ‘A’ on with Sharpie and put in an Amazi-Pouch.
He specializes in dealing with leaks. It’s just blood this time instead of water.
That’s how Dr. Mario got started. Put on the coat, don’t elaborate on your credentials, advise patients to take one multicolored capsule every four to six seconds until they either recover fully or lose a 1-UP.
Dr Kit Chen, more of a specialist than Dr House
😆
*applauds
Of course it is, it says so right in the tags
No, no, his name is Dr. Küchen, and he is a master of his craft.
Not to be confused with apfel kuchen, which is an excellent craft.
The tags say Kitchen Doctor, so Kitchen Doctor he is.
Yeah, for now. Willis doesn’t want to give away the upcoming plot just yet.
… when we discover that he can also do doctoring in the breakfast nook, and even in the den.
(But not the laundry room. He’s not some kind of perv.)
Dr. Kitchen.
It is Dr. Kitchen Doctor, if you don’t mind, he does have a medical degree.
kitchen doctor!
Night Nurse, meet Kitchen Doctor!
I ship it.
Kitchen Doctor? Strange…
Perhaps; but who am I to judge?
Kitchen Doctor Strange is Earth’s Culinarian Supreme, protecting the realm from demonic lack of flavor.
DORMAMMU, I’VE COME TO COOK!
Of course. Batman has Leslie Thompkins. Daredevil has the Night Nurse. Amazi-Girl has Kitchen Doctor.
Technically, Sal has kitchen doctor and Amazi-Girl is just borrowing him.
So basically what you’re saying is that Amazi-Girl is more like the Luke Cage of this analogy.
Technically, we don’t know that just yet. Amber was still just about conscious and texting when Sal found her, she could have given Sal the address.
Damn, full-on mob doctor stuff
Or Kitchen Doctor I guess, sry tags
…Is that a blunt between the doctor’s teeth?
…Friend of Asher’s maybe?
Or maybe someone Marcie knew about?
I immediately though doc with a cigarette…
Imagining either a cig or hypodermic cap.
Could be a joint. Wrong color for a blunt.
Reed Richards is moonlighting as an unlicensed doctor now?
We don’t know that he’s unlicensed. This could just be a side gig along side his regular medical career.
Not if he’s Reed Richards. That would really be a stretch.
Beats Dark_Panda about the head and body with his newly awarded Internet.
Applause to you
Like in “The Bladerunner.” (The 1974 science fiction novel, nothing to do with unrelated movie.)
All medical care is a government monopoly, and only available to people who have been sterilized (or will be as soon as their permission permits). So essentially all medical workers moonlight in the underground medical black market.
permission -> condition
For a moment I thought that was Ronald Fucking Reagan
Kind of looks like Ronnie, eh?
That was my first thought too. Kitchen Doctor looks pretty different from how Reagan was drawn in Shortpacked!, but the fact that multiple people thought of him seems at least mildly interesting.
I think Kitchen Doctor is meant to have east Asian ancestry, but that didn’t save me from the accidental Reagan Jumpscare
Ronnie was an employee of Shortpacked! for like four years, so it’s 100% possible. One of the few characters we haven’t seen make a comeback.
I believe Word of Willis is that Ronnie will not be appearing here, and neither will Historical Jesus. *Eyes Mike’s grave, remembers that Word of Willis is not particularly ironclad.* Eh, okay, maybe.
I would expect Ronnie to get the similar treatment as Dexter and Monkey Master. Not actually appearing because of the scifi stuff, but their image showing up.
We saw a poster of him in Mary’s room, so that is in fact what happened
Also Mary Jilling it over a picture of Reagan repenting before the cross (which she may have drawn)
Why in the name of all that’s holy AND unholy would you put that evil image in my brain? What a horrible day to be literate.
Blame Willis. He drew it.
It is. Willis said no main character was going to die – and overlooked that Mike had become a main character.
Was that ever explicitly said by Willis anywhere?
Or is it an apologetic to let the Word of Willis remain Truth?
It was more nuanced than that, and less a promise than artistic commentary. What Willis said was something more to the effect that they didn’t want to kill off someone who was going to have the entire cast in mourning, because given the time distortion of the comic, that would mean that they’d have to be drawing comics all about that for like the next decade of real time and it would be awful.
But they got around that by a) killing off someone who wasn’t widely liked (and a couple of characters who were widely hated), and b) time-skipping over the most immediate fallout.
Also their own mom died. So they gained an interest in writing about the death of someone about whom some characters might have complicated feelings.
Sure, I remember the initial statement. It was the bit about “overlooked Mike had become a main character” that I don’t think was ever stated – or is even a good summary.
Oh, that part? Fuck if I know. I’d define “main character” as “on the cast page”, and Mike was there from the beginning, and continues to be there even now, years after his death. If anything, he was declining in main characterness even before his death, as we accumulated more characters who weren’t, y’know… dickholes.
He was actually getting some more characterization and nuance in the build up to his death – with flashbacks and with clear feelings about Ethan from how the whole “seduce Ethan to mess with Danny” plan went down.
It seemed more to me like Mike was killed off because he was a failed main character. He didn’t fit well with the setting and the rest of the cast and he wasn’t being used much.
This is what I remember Willis actually saying on the topic.
I keep saying folks suggesting he was killed off because he was too problematic, and I seriously doubt that; I think it’s more like, DoA was a bit more grounded, and Mike no longer had super powers, and there’s only so much you can done Mike down before he stops being recognizably Mike…
I MIGHT be imagining things but I feel like I remember Willis even saying at one point that his inability to convey Mike’s hair style in three dimensions “should have been a sign”, or something to that effect, haha.
Booster isn’t a replacement Mike, but I don’t think it’s an accident that they were set up to interact the most with Walky, Amber, and Ethan — the only characters who really lost something when Mike was removed from the strip.
(Note: I’m not saying Mike did good things for any of them, just that he had unique dynamics with all three of them, unlike say Joyce, who was an especially hard fit for Mike interactions because there was nothing he could say to her that wouldn’t be better coming from Sarah — to paraphrase Willis.)
If I remember correctly (and I don’t trust that I do) Willis did say that part of it literally was because the trope of “snarky asshole” was less and less acceptable as time went on. What began as a character not wholly unlike early Davan MacIntire (Something*Positive) that mostly existed to insert funny and drive change, became something that the majority of the comment section called hateful and abusive. And it wasn’t that Mike changed; the world had just (rightly) pointed out that we don’t have to deal with toxic people anymore, and toxicity was Mike’s M.O.
I admit that all of my real liking for Mike, came from Shortpacked!’s version of Mike, who we actually got to see as kind and nice and caring. I kind of feel like there’s an alternate timeline somewhere, in which it wasn’t Mike who died, but Ethan, and Mike took up drinking to cope… and because it’s Mike, he just turned into a nicer, friendlier person. Which would be interesting if he becomes actual *real* friends with more people and they learn the truth.
Anyways. I dislike the phrase “replacement Mike” because, in a very literal sense, Booster DID replace Mike. Not just as Walky’s roommate, but as mostly-unconnected outsider who would make funny-yet-uncomfortable commentary about the main characters and drive them to change, while their personal connections bring some of the more fringe characters into the spotlight. Booster and Mike fulfill the same narrative role.
But no, they’re different people entirely. After all, Mike was a fully fleshed out person, who had his own struggles, motivations, goals, fears, limitations. Who’s Booster? What friends did they have before moving in with Walky? Who were the people who didn’t respect their pronouns? What does Booster want in life? What do they fear? What are their major obstacles? Booster is basically the girlfriend in a shonen anime; they exist fully to define the main characters, and don’t really exist outside of their relationship to them. The only real character connection they have is with their sister, who – surprise! – doesn’t really have any background other than a personality and how she develops Carla’s personal story.
He does kinda like how Ronald Reagan was drawn in Shortpacked. Not completely the same, but similar.
Kitchen Doctor! No prescriptions, only recipes!
Prescriptions are regulated. Recipes…not so much.
It turns out his name is Dr. Kitchen.
Please, Dr. Kitchen is my father, just call me Kitch
Actually, my full name is Kittredge Chen Dougherty Torvald, but my friends just call me Kit Chen Dock Tor.
I should bake you cookies.
Yum! :-9
Can…can we make this official? Can he please be called Dr. Kitchen? Willis, are you seeing this? Can this be a thing?
Kitchen is his first name, doctor is his last name. So with his title he’s Doctor Kitchen Doctor.
Leslie Nielsen approves of this.
“so my characters full name was detective detective savage rage savage rage”
Sal how do you just know a kitchen doctor
Frankly I’d be surprised if she didn’t.
But at the same time I’m still surprised! Like, it makes sense that she *knows* someone, but I’m surprised that she has enough trust/social standing to get them to do this for her.
Despite Sal being The Coolest, I feel like we’ve seen throughout the comic that her trusted circle is actually quite small. She plays it cool, but doesn’t have a massive circle of connections or anything. Really makes me wonder who this person is and how he’s connected to it all!
Alternate theory. Does Sal know Professor Leslie? Leslie likely saw Amazi-Girl at the protest and might have a connection. She is dating a dentist after all…
what would a dentist know about removing bullets?
Not sure. But a dentist could know other health professionals of various stripes…
“The principles of surgery are the same above and below the neck.” Bonus points if you guess the quote without resorting to Google… 😏
Dentists have lots of medical training. And if he’s an anesthesiologist, almost all of GP or even more.
Or Jason. Jason DEFINITELY owes Sal a favor. (A favor for favors, as it were.)
And Jason knows Galasso, who has dreams of world domination and has made the appropriate allies in pursuit of that goal. So maybe Jason hooked her up? (So to speak.)
Asher, istg it’s gotta be. I predicted mob doctor yesterday and I thought it was super far fetched, I’m gonna ride this high forever
Yeah, when I saw this strip, I was like, “Oh, that commenter who said ‘mob doctor’ just won three internets and a cookie.” Good job!
Oh, on yesterday’s comments, I speculated that it was just a head injury, and that she hadn’t been shot. The gut-wound is more obvious this time, so I admit my wrongness here.
Everyone has a kitchen doctor they can turn to when an injury needs treating that going to a hospital for would raise too many questions, right?
I am very worried that she might not
Do you not? [archer_meme.jpg]
Alfred Kitchenworth
Good ol’ kitchen doctor.
Sal had to take Amazi-Girl to tgat fukkin caveman Sam Lasco
So Amber was dressed in her street clothes last strip right? That means following the logic of her being back in Amazi-Girl costume here means what? Sal had to dress back up to protect her identity? I mean maybe she just put the mask back on, but I’m choosing to believe she fully redressed Amber cause that’s funnier.
Yeah that’s…wow, now that I’m looking, that’s a really weird detail. Good catch!
I can believe that these are the same underclothes Amber was already wearing in the last strip. But Sal definitely put gloves and a mask back on her. Which is a really interesting detail. I wonder why…
They could have just taken off Amber’s coat/scarf/snow pants
+1
I reject this and any +1s it earned! She was not wearing the gloves and mask and the rest of the Amazi-suit was packed up. Sal at minimum put the gloves and mask back on her. Likely the whole suit because Sal never half asses anything.
Yeah, the suit was clearly spilling out of the backpack when Sal found Amber, and there would be no reason to take it out of the backpack and hang it like that unless it was recently removed (doesn’t appear to be arranged so that it will dry out or something).
What I take from that is that Sal is preserving Amazi-girl’s anonymity even with this Kitchen Doctor.
She may have washed the suit while she was waiting, to get the blood stains out
Hollywood has taught me that mob-connected “kitchen doctors” have a very strong “No names” rule, anyway, because they don’t want to be put in the position of having to commit perjury if it comes to that. Anonymity is usually pretty key in illegal skullduggery.
Sal knows what it’s like to feel naked without your gloves on.
(But no for real she did clearly put the mask back on for no reason other than anonymity concerns. The gloves might be because Amber was face down in the snow, and her hands were probably freezing cold to the touch.)
AG seems to wear a tunic style outfit now.
That’s Dorothy’s redesign
.
Looks like she was wearing the same longjohn blue underclothes in yesterday’s comic.
Yes, the new tunic is on the chair with the cape. I think the rest of the costume is just the blue leggings and thematically-colored sports bra.
Of course it’s thematically colored. A-G is prepared for everything. 🙂
He’s really just a specialist in kitchen decor.
I’m guessing a roller-derby connection or she got a referral from Asher.
“I need a doctor who won’t blab to the cops.”
“Why do you think I know one?”
“Asher.”
“Okay, okay. You go here, you pay in condiments. He likes spicy mustard.”
Oh, yes. Roller derby. That does make more sense.
RD would be college-based and too bureaucratic for Sal’s immediate needs. I’m thinking an Asher connection. I’m expecting sometime in the next few comics to see Asher waiting in the living room or something.
I’m fairly certain most roller derby leagues aren’t college affiliated. For one thing, they’re a lot more welcoming of queer players.
Although while they should and likely do have a medic on site when playing to provide medical attention for injuries that don’t require a hospital visit (and possibly to determine if an injury requires a hospital visit) I doubt most of them have a sketchy medic who will operate on strangers on their kitchen table so they can avoid police attention. Roller Derby leagues are usually legit not sketchy semi-legal underground operations. A doc like this seems more “underground fight club” than Roller Derby.
Please please please tell me those instruments were clean, jfc. I mean come on, dude, your KITCHEN?
Of course they were clean he ran them through the dishwasher. I mean the medical equipment sterilization machine.
Dishwasher, autoclave, same diff.
Kitchens have sinks what else do you want jeez
Antibiotics will cover a multitude of sins…
It’s already got the kitchen sink; what else is there to throw in?
+1 internet point, sir
And if emergency surgery is needed, that’s where all the knives are. Not the sewing equipment but that doesn’t come into play until later.
That’s why he only used the hall lights, the kitchen lights make his instruments look dirty.
(a good pressure cooker can be used as an autoclave) But that’s the thing about no-questions-asked kitchen doctors. They’re also can’t-sue-for-malpractice kitchen doctors.
My mom, a not-kitchen doctor, used to sterilize instruments in the oven. Admittedly not surgery tools but still. I think you can do that if you’ve got a proper sterilization box.
Your mom used to sterilize trumpets and marimbas in the oven?
The brass section handles it okay. But it’s destructive on the strings.
How to sterilize a scalpel in a genetics lab:
Dip it in 70% booze, burn the booze off, wait a second or three so the scalpel becomes cold.
You can do that in a kitchen. Doc smokes, he’s got a lighter.
If’s of course washed in a high temperature dishwasher first. The alcohol is just for the final sterilisation.
(Another biologist here)
I’mma be real honest: If your kitchen is not the cleanest room in your house, you aren’t living correctly.
HERE COMES A NEW-well, not a challenger, but a new character!
Whew she’s not dead. Yet. It wouldn’t be the first, or even the second time I was under the impression a main character wasn’t going to die. Case #1, Mike. Case #2, Stand Still Stay Silent – in retrospect, I really should have seen that character’s death coming. Still a tearjerker though.
Willis just damnably hadn’t noticed Mike had become a main character. He wasn’t intended to become one.
Oh hey, it’s that one guy from Fullmetal Alchemist! How’d he get here?
Not sure how I was expecting this to go, but I don’t think “a new character we have never seen before” was it. Of course, it’d be kinda hard for it to be…
Anyway can’t wait to vote Kitchen Doctor in the next Patreon poll!
That’s Dr. J. Kitchen Doctor to you
Refreshing yesterday’s strip in anticipation for today’s update gave me a mental image. Imagine as part of Willis trying to make the strip appeal to more modern and hip generations, if instead of Sal smoking cigarettes, she had a vape pen. Just no explanation, Sal just appears on strip with a vape pen, and Joyce smells the smoke like “oh wow it’s blueberry muffin scented”.
I think Sal’s personal idea of “cool’ is antiquated enough that she’d hate vaping. Like I think she only even started smoking because the idea of smoking appealed to that cliche sort of leather, street biker, aesthetic she’s adopted.
With the way vapes are being designed these days, by the point Sal switches over it’ll be bluetooth compatible with Mario Kart.
Like hell.
It took Nintendo five years to figure out how to make the Switch handle bluetooth headphones. Gonna be another seven or eight until they have Waluigi taking a puff in time with you.
… so, realistically, sometime this summer.
heh, something tells me that’d be more likely to happen with Carla or Meredith, Sal just doesn’t seem like a vape girl to me
First Patreon bonus strip for August 2025 – KITCHEN DOCTOR
You misspelled “Slipshine strip”. I assume it will be titled, “Asher pays Amazi-girl’s medical bills”.
Followed right after with “Sal pays Asher back”. Then “Danny pays Sal back” followed by “Amber pays Danny back.” And then the series is complete.
DOCTOR: Let’s see how we did. Oh, my God!
AMBER: Mirror… Mirror!
DOCTOR: You understand that the nerves were completely severed, Miss Amazi-girl…
[Amber starts laughing]
DOCTOR: You see what I have to work with here. We’re in my _kitchen!_ not an ER.
Hmm?
Jack Nicholson’s Joker origin story.
Ah. Ta!
This scene from Batman (1989) popped into my head:
https://youtu.be/ytPO9Af0Oo4
LATER: “Ever danced with Mary in the pale moonlight?”
I did chuckle at this, I did. 😀
um actually alt text, amazi-girl waking up with a hangover was at the beginning of book 15, not 14!!!! cinemasins plothole ding!!!!!!!!!
how very dare u make the cinemasins ding play in my head
The alt-text has been fixed.
Kitchen Doctor is now gonna be part of the cast, I can’t wait for him to have the defining quote of the book
Of course Sal knows some “no questions asked” doctor.
But of course. (i’m thinking an asher connection; they even look kind of alike and have the same mouth-cig thing)
At least five people already beat me to the Leslie Thompkins joke. Great minds, or something.
After Amazi-Girl had to wake up with the hangover, it’s only fair that Amber woke up with post-op pains.
That was a mean joke and I immediately regret it and I’m just happy to see they’re okay TwT
…This could escalate badly.🤢
Your mom could escalate badly
Yo, she already has.
… To a dime?
In _this_ economy?
Tariffs making everything go up….
🎶 Doctor Kitchen Doctor!
If you need medical care
And you can’t go to the hospital, because of cops
Well, he lives right over there!
Doctor Kitchen Doctor!
He’ll never send you a bill
But things might get real real bad
If you don’t help out the mob
Like you say you will! 🎶
A hot doctor, you say?
It’s shocking how completely unsurprising it is that Sal knows where to go for under the table medical care.
…This could escalate badly.🤢
Sorry, that got posted in response to the wrong comment.
What I meant to say here was:
“You mean, over-the-table medical care?”
As long as it gets off the table soon.
Spin off where Agatha and Kitchen Doctor travel from town to town, setting right what once went wrong.
/chinhands
“Hmm, this is not my arm.”
“Hey your chin fells nice.”
I am thrilled, I love Sal and Amber’s messy rivalfrienemy thing. Love that she protected Amber’s secret identity on two levels here while Amber was out cold.
Super accurate portrayal of coming out of anesthesia.
Oh cool, Dr. Zed from Borderlands here.
Holy fucking shit I called it?!!!
I mean, until we see that Asher’s involved I guess I haven’t yet, but like… I feel pretty strongly this is related lol. Mob doctor!
I am thinking you’re spot on. KD looks like Asher in several ways, too.
I’m guessing Sal put Amber’s mask back on to protect her identity. Good on her for doing so.
So do we think this is just some shady off the books doctor who treats people who can’t go to regular hospitals for whatever reason.
Or is he someone Sal hooked up with Pre Danny, and he owes her one?
I think #1. He looks like he has some grey around his temples – he could be 30 years older than Sal, especially if he’s an actual doctor that took the time to go through medical school.
Him being older doesn’t rule out her hooking up with him. I’m speaking from experience as someone who made questionable experiences when she was younger.
Pretty sure Bittersweet called it, and this is someone Asher was able to provide the name of.
I wonder if this guy might actually be a Walkyverse character, or at least get a name. My first thought was that this might actually be Jennifer’s dad (he’s a doctor, right?), but of course it would be absurd for Sal to drag Amber all the way back to her hometown.
He looks kinda similar to how Ronald Reagan was drawn in Shortpacked to me, though obviously he can’t actually be him since Reagan’s been dead for years.
I don’t think so, given that when almost this exact situation happened in the Walkyverse, the doctor was Paul, and he’s still a stupid judgmental freshman in DoA instead of a stupid judgmental doctor.
And by Paul I meant Peter, but given that his full name is Peter Paul I’m still giving myself half credit.
oh, no wonder he ended up with Mary
I was guessing vet clinic. But I approve of Kitchen Doctor instead.
Love kitchen doctor already.
Wakey wakey.
Kitchen Doctor doesn’t get a name because, hopefully, you don’t get to see him again. Otherwise you have worse problems than the debt you owe him.
Wakey wakey, but no eggs or bakey?
-look at tag- kitchen doctor, huh
Crockpot theory : it’s a friend of of the professor who used to look like that nutjob from Back to the future
New crackship. Bio prof x kitchen doc
I ship the hell outta this
I think the cool kids call this “old man yaoi?”
This kind of reminds me of when I got hit by a car and had no health insurance. (Pre-ACA.) I self-treated by going to the guy down the street for $5 of weed, suteeing it with yams and oil, and just staying immobile on my futon on the floor for several days. Every time I felt tempted to get up, I’d have another couple bites of “spiced” yam and conk back out. After about 3 days, and a long hot shower… I felt human again. Restorative!
…OK, so… shall we lighten the grim mood with a question game?
Q. What is your favorite medicinal substance likely to be found in a kitchen?
I can volunteer first.
A. Canna-yams. See above.
D:
dude, you’re lucky you didn’t die
Thanks for the sentiment, but I wasn’t banged up that bad. Some contusions, that’s all. Just bruises. All better in time.
In addition to booze and garlic (from mispost): crystalized ginger for upset stomach. Honey for soar throat. Fructose for metabolizing alcohol faster. Coffee for headaches. Milk/cheese/yogurt for stomach pain. Wasabi for clearing sinuses and turning on the tear ducts. I’ve tried seeped thyme and rosemary topically, but I don’t know how much they helped. Mostly it was so I would smell like a salad instead of just plain vinegar. Apple cider vinegar. I think baking soda has uses. Water for a lot of things. The hottest tap water for relieving itches without damaging the skin. I don’t know if you’d count aloe, it’s in my kitchen window, but I don’t eat it. I know it’s edible though.
Not recommending it in this day and age, but honey was also used to treat wounds in ancient and medieval times – apparently it has some antibacterial and anti inflammatory properties. Henry V was so treated for an arrow would iirc.
I heard that some ultra-pure versions of manuka honey are approved for use in hospitals as an antibiotic treatment, wonder if that is accurate tho…
Oh, that’s true! But today’s honey is not antiseptic enough for use on wounds.
Local wildflower honey is a good allergy cure, though.
Also, hot black tea with honey and lemon is the first line of defense against a cough.
Wow, you’ve got the full pharmacopea! Rock on!
Yes, baking soda dissolved in warm water is amazing as a sore-throat gargle or as an antacid. Just cools that heartburn right down, burp by burp.
And that coffee-wasabi combo sounds like my mom’s go-to migraine recipe: 1 pot coffee, 1 swig hot sauce, 1 block unsweetened dark baking chocolate.
I’ve used baking soda as a scrub for athlete’s foot. I’m on a low sodium diet, so I’d have to use my potassium bicarbonate (baking potash?) but since I have to get that at a specialist store, I save it for baking.
Going to sidetrack with a bit of anti-ai rant. The internet’s always been full of home remedy / food misinformation. Heck, it was always common long before the internet. But pre-chatbot, you could look at the context, what the site was, what other things they claimed, etc. And there were places you could find where people had tested the claims. But now, geez, big auto-complete has enshittified that. It makes what was merely common into ubiquitous, and launders it from the context.
I will swear by hot tap water for itches though. It’s more than just placebo. It works in the same way that scratching does, by increasing blood flow to the itch area, but without scratching the skin. Use the hottest water you can get out of the tap, enough to make you react “oh my, that’s hot”, but not so hot you get scalding burns (very unlikely if your water heater / tap are set up correctly).
Don’t do this right after exposure to what caused the rash, eg: poison ivy. Wash with soap and cold water as soon as you can. Hot water opens pores, you don’t want that if they irritant is still on your skin.
Wise words! VERY wise words.
And baking soda can do anything. It’s the miracle drug. 😉
Especially with vinegar.
holy WOAH, I’m glad weed helped you like that, it also saved my life way back when swollen legs had landed me in the wheel chair 🥲
edibles are great, canna-yams that guy made you sound fantastic :9
I usually get liquid cannabis so I can mix it easy with tea, coffee or kool aid,
that said I should get some cannabis butter so I can make cookies…
Really glad it helped you too. Analgesic, muscle relaxant. 💚❤️🩹
(I cooked the yams, though. The guy just supplied the herbs.)
One time a coworker of mine had been in a car accident with her father the day prior and showed up to work because she was concussed. We didn’t know she was in an accident but I talked to her (because she was being very… off. Inattentive, out of it) and when I asked if she was okay she was like “oh yeah lol I got into a car accident”. We got the manager and she was sent to the hospital and they confirmed she had a concussion and I’m just really glad she wound up okay in the end. Car accidents seem to really put people in a hell of a mental state post-accident!
Also, I’ve found peanut butter helps with toothaches. Ginger helps when I get mucus-y, I’m allergic to cough syrup so if I need help coughing to break up mucus I go to garlic pills. Honey is also a good one.
Peanut butter for toothaches… I never heard of that! I know clove oil is a tooth anaesthetic and chewing ginger root can sometimes help one to bear mouth pain. But I never tried peanut butter… 🤔
Really glad you helped your coworker to get OK! 👍
I think the reason it works is if you have a bit of food that’s digging in between the teeth or into the gum, peanut butter is soft enough to sort of ‘gum’ it out! That’s what my dad and I have done at least! I’m trying to think of other natural remedies I know of, but I’m blanking lol. And I’m really glad too!
Huh. Cool trick! Thanks!
*Plays “Red Beans & Rice” on the hacked cassette player*
https://genius.com/Michael-franti-and-spearhead-red-beans-and-rice-lyrics
Jeez, American health care is a nightmare. I recently had an accident and broke my maxilla in three places and my orbital bone in two and while it would have grown back together on its own it would have permanently altered my face and I would have had double vision for the rest of my life. And there is no way I could have afforded the surgery without insurance. Universal healthcare rocks.
OUCH. I hope you’ve been recovering well!
Oh yes, I am mostly fine now, thank you.
Heck to the yeah, high five for universal healthcare! So glad you got that surgery!
Tea. A nice cuppa makes everything better.
Everything. Always. So true. 🍵🫖
Agree with others that mob doctor is most likely. Sal likely (grudgingly) asked for a favor from Asher, who then called in his own favor. The doctor may not be happy about that.
Fallout could go two ways: (a) Asher considers it amends for getting Sal arrested and brings closure to that incident or (b) Sal and/or AG now owe the mob a favor.
Okay… I am suddenly really terrified about what comes next.
The doctor himself is likely to trade in money rather than favors. I’d figure a couple hundred for a job like this. Maybe twice that. Sal should be able to get her hands on that kind of cash by borrowing from non-mob sources. Don’t recall if her motorcycle is already sold or she has it stored away for some reason but her bike should cover it if she still owns it.
The favors come into play for being put in contact with someone like that in the first place. And as long as Asher’s mobbed up family doesn’t find out it’s Asher she owes not the mob in general. I don’t think Asher is likely to ask her to do anything more illegal than what the average college student gets up to in return. It’s his family finding out and deciding she ows the Family that’s a problem.
I am looking forward to a spin-off about the relationship between Kitchen Doctor and his neighbor Pat McHoarney.
I’m glad Sal knows a kitchen doctor who looks strangely kinda similar to Ronald Reagan to help Amber.
Oh I am suddenly so much more into this plotline than the other, it’s like part of the world map just opened up.
Gimme a lot of this.
Well, not cayenne pepper. It doesn’t actually help stop bleeding. I tried once, after stepping on glass. I didn’t do an experiment or anything, just seasoned my cut before wrapping it. I read it doesn’t help afterwards. Also seasoned it with garlic, because I had garlic cloves but no peroxide or rubbing alcohol or even liquor.
So garlic then liquor.
was supposed to be a reply to Laura’s kitchen medicine post
Wow. That sounds like… a recipe for a VERY ouchie cut foot. “Rubbing salt in the wounds,” × 10!
But yes, garlic and liquor are two essential staples of any cuisinarial apothecary!
Ground coffee is what the little old ladies my husband had on the line would rub in a wound to stop bleeding. They were cooks, he claimed it worked.
That… also sounds like a recipe for ouchies.
Only thing I know of for ground coffee is that it makes decent dish detergent in a pinch and quite good rose fertilizer.
(…Oh, and it can make coffee too, of course.)
USA today says be cautious with coffee grounds on wounds…
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2021/11/17/coffee-grounds-control-bleeding-wound-may-work-but-dont-try/8648667002/
I can’t wait for Kitchen Doctor to become the new breakout favourite and long-running character as he goes back to college to get an Arts degree while also treating patients.
KITCHEN DOCTOR
You know I don’t think I stop to say this in so many words. As often as I should. This comic rules. What a good damn webcomic. Fuck yes. Absolutely. Superhero having to get shady non-normal medical care from ex-rival turned friend and ally. Right on the tail of Huge Gay Swerve Romance Turn. Fuuuuck yeahhhhhh.
Huh. Maybe it was Amazi-Girl who had Kitchen Doctor’s contact info, gathered previously from Blaine’s mob connections? Amber did have the phone out when Sal found her: perhaps she had his contact record open to show Sal?
Sal, wisely, might have surmised (or gleaned from the contact) that Kitchen Doctor knew Amazi-Girl but not Amber, and re-dressed Amber accordingly so that Kitchen Doctor would recognize her?
With all her shenanigantics, I’d bet Amazi-Girl has already needed Kitchen Doctor previously…
I think if it were someone Amazi-Girl knows, Sal wouldn’t have put her mask back on.
Unless only Amazi-Girl knows him, not Amber.
That’s definitely not the kitchen doctor Harry Dresden uses, because there is no polka music playing.
Now that I think about it, I very much doubt that Bruce Wayne remained uninjured over his entire career as a normal human hero (Superpower – $$$$) – did Alfred have an MD?), armored Batsuit or not. At least the Marvelverse had at least 1 comic sequence where Hawkeye is recovering from injuries that Cap or Thor would just shrug off.
It’s funny that your should mention that, because I am right now listening to Ken Mukai play a rock arrangement of Strauss’s Tritsch Tratsch Polka on overdubbed electric guitars.
Well there was that time Bane broke his back. Was kinda a big deal. :p
On a more serious note there have been plenty of times in comics where the injuries have been noted. I specifically remember in the Batman Beyond series from… damn more than 10yrs… Bruce’s kidneys were failing due to the years of abuse and pain killers
Also that’s not a kitchen doctor. Waldo is a kitchen mortician. Hey that kinda rhymes 😀
Who’s jakey ?
Should I hope he dies ?
I’m wondering that too
Wolverine – “Girder through the chest? I had a girder through my chest yesterday? Huh.”
Girder? I hardly know ‘er!
“Sal, for the last time, I’m not an MD. My doctorate was in the culinary arts.”
“There’s no time for that now, Kitchen Doctor; a woman’s life is on the line!”
“What do you expect me to do? Fill her belly with herbs and spices?”
I think Willis is punishing us for the comment section being what it’s been lately.
Doubt it. His buffer is over a year long last I heard
well, the comment section has been the comment section for at least that long 😛
Eh, our commenting style has been pretty consistent for years now. Sickos and paladins mixing in disharmony. 🙂
“Hey you, you’re finally awake.”
Yeah, OK, out of your kitchen, but can she lie in your lounge a while?
No.
Remember when AG complained recently about always having to wake up to the task of cleaning up the mess Amber left for her?
How the kitchen tables have turned.
Thank you Willis for doing more superhero stuff
We now got a dodgy doctor
Oof. An underworld surgeon. How can they afford to pay him?
Quick, Sal! Kiss Amber. It’s common in stories that a true love’s kiss wakes up the princess.
“Huh, weird… the first kiss didn’t work. Try it a few more times. Yes I’m serious! We’re doing this for science, and multiple attempts is basic scientific rigor! So keep smooching until we have an adequate sample size!”
Yay! for street doc! DoA’s transition (descent?) into cyberpunk is proceeding well! (Amber’s our decker, Sal’s our street sam, Carla’s our gearhead, and ain’t sure about the rest.)
We’ll need a lot more piercings….
Another connection to the Korean mafia that is weirdly all over bumfuk Indiana?
The more conservative the state, the more profitable the organized crime.
But is there a large Korean-ethnic community in Indiana?
Maybe 16K to 17K?
At least two Korean churches in a city of 80,000. And perhaps this isn’t a Korean only mob. Perhaps it is multi-ethnic. Perhaps it is the woke mob we’ve been hearing so much about.
slightly tangential, but “woke” mobs have for a long time now been a thing in China, at least according to my relatives’ girlfriend who’s a Chinese-born first gen US citizen
as in, apparently over there there are bad gangs and good gangs, where the latter work for the people, and like if a bad gang steals your car or something, you can actually call a good gang to get it back ^^
Are they even a gang at that point anymore? Wouldn’t the better word be like, vigilantes?
Much as large governments want you to believe there is a bright line distinction between “legitimate government” and “criminal gang”, there really isn’t one.
The only difference between the good gang and the bad gang is the gang you’re in is the good gang
It definitely is multiethnic, as the of the two known and named associates of the mob one is Ash and the other was Amber’s dad.
Billie’s dad maybe? I think he was said to be a doctor… Was sorta expecting Joyce’s dad as a closest we got type thing.
If he’s a new guy I nearby suggest (despite the year long buffer) the name of Kit (cause kitchen) Artz (German for doctor)
If I was confronted with a severely injured woman who couldn’t go to a hospital for reasons, I’m not sure my first thought would be “Which of my acquantences has a parent who doesn’t live near here who might be able to help?”
Somehow less sketchy than Operating Room Chef
“What? You want me to let this perfectly good liver go to waste? He was an organ donor. Didn’t specify who it would be donated to. Besides, this nice Chianti ain’t gonna drink itself.”
There is a Kitchen Doctor near me, but he’s a remodeler and cabinet installer.
I don’t think we’re talking about the same dude right now.
Calling it now, this is someone in Ashers family.
yeah that’s probably what occam would say
No amount of sneaking out of a catholic school dorm gets you in touch with off the book doctors. At least based on my experience.
This is an Asher thing.
“Hey Asher, I need a favour… an illegal one.”
“I dunno Sal, I left that world.”
Ethan finds out that Amber is in trouble and shoots Asher a puppy eyed look.
“Okay Sal, I know this one guy…”
I like how he’s just “kitchen doctor”.
Sal was in a different state for the last 4 years.
How does she already know a back-alley doctor?
Asher is a popular guess, but I’m going roller derby or maybe Marcie.
Roller derby is legal
yup, sure is. It doesn’t have to be illegal for participants to go to a street doc instead of a hospital.
When one isn’t involved in illegal activity one does not usually go to a street doc. Or know where to find a street doc in the first place. Can you explain why you think someone involved with roller derby would go to a street doc?
So… we don’t use back alley doctors for roller derby bouts lmao. We pay for licensed paramedics. It’s a sanctioned sport with a lot of rules and regulations, not a biker gang.
I’m going to guess that, “Kitchen Doctor”, is someone that Sal is familiar with. I don’t see her going door to door, asking, “are you a surgeon, my friend has been shot”. She went straight to his house, knowing he could take care of Amber/Amazi Girl.
Dumbing of Age book 16: Because I want you out of my kitchen
we’re gonna find out this guy is a vet in the daytime and he’s gonna tell amber that “this superhero shit is too hot for me”
DAMMIT JIM-I mean Sal, I’m a (kitchen) doctor, not a miracle worker!
Sal is selling Amber’s organs!
We can rebuild her.
Make her better than she was.
Stronger.
Faster.
Better at speedrunning video games.
The Six Million Dollar Trash Goblin.
Dexter Morgan and Sal now will kill Amazi-Girl!
For the record, if someone is hit in the head and loses consciousness /at all/, they need to seek medical attention even if it was just for a few seconds. That means their brain bounced off the inside of their skull hard enough to make it stop working. If they lose consciousness for more than a few seconds, there’s a solid chance they’re waking up with brain damage. It’s not like in the movies, where someone gets whacked in the head and then wakes up just fine a few hours later- if you’re whacked in the head and take hours to wake up, you’re not coming out of that the same as you went in, and you’re probably not coming out at all.
So yes, it’s very, very bad when someone takes a long time to wake up from being hit in the head. Not so much from anesthesia, since that’s what anesthesia is from.
(though I dunno if you can do general anesthesia in anything like a safe fashion without a lot of monitoring equipment. The line between “unconscious” and “dead” is thinner than we’d like it to be.)
Might not have been anaesthetized with propofol and gas, it could easily have been a reversible sedative instead like ketamine. Safer, certainly for a back-alley doctor, but not ‘safe’ no.
We also see her as she’s waking up, which generally doesn’t happen with all the equipment still around. It’s possible there were more things involved than just what we see in this single scene.
*that’s what anesthesia is /for/, I meant to say.
Yes, receiving anesthesia by a singular doctor in his kitchen is totally safe!
Better than dealing with cops.
In general, and also especially if you were just knocking them around like weeble-wobbles a few hours ago.
She was not knocking those cops around like weeble-wobbles. Those cops absolutely fell down.
Man I am SO into this new plot hook. More AG please. More AG adjacent characters. We met the doctor now introduce me to AG’s gadget person. Home Depot Enthusiast?
Gonna yes-and off my own bullshit and say Batman has Lucius Fox. AG has…. Carla? Maybe in another Dumbiverse adjacent comic the way Shortpacked was for the Walkyverse.
Calling it now. This is how Carla joins the resistance.
It fits right? Well I don’t want to betray my parents but I sure can enable someone else to resist, within my own self-set moral code.
I imagine there is going to be a huge clash between “maintaining secrecy and anonymity” and “wanting to brag to the whole world that she was the one who did the thing.”
OMG new cool character drop????
Y’know, looking at how all that is laid out with the blood on the towel underneath here, I’m STILL not sure what she was wounded by or the extent of it — although if Kitchen Doctor was able to patch it up, I suspect that no major organs were involved or bullets had to be dug out.
https://www.tumblr.com/reflex76/790909406718099456/korrasami-came-out-of-nowhere-literally-a-full?source=share
Just gonna put this here so we don’t forget about the girlies.
I’ll never forget the couple days between the finale and the creators’ confirming Korrasami where I tried to talk to a friend.
Me: “Hey, do you think Korra and Asami are a couple now?”
Them: “No.”
Me: “But… they went on a private vacation together…”
Them: “That doesn’t mean anything, and I hold hands with my gal pals too!”
Me: “…”
needless to say when the creators confirmed it I felt so vindicated.
Two lovers
Forbidden from one another
Boyfriends divide their yuri
And a protest keeps them apart
Get ar-rest-ed on the campus
I forget the next few lines but then it goes
KITCHEN DOCTOR
KITCHEN DOCTOR
KITCHEN KITCHEN KITCHEN KITCHEN DOCTOOOOR!
even though most of the panels are (save for the text) solid black this is maybeeee one of my fave strips of the comic so far… just so dang well executed !!! by jove !!!!!!!
your kitchen doctor is kind of gnc as fuckkkkkkkk
to be read in amber’s voice