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Telepathy Club (OC)
(thelemmy.club)
Made with India ink, nib pen, and watercolour.
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this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2026
476 points (98.0% liked)
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Thanks for your feedback. Here is a walkthrough of what I intended for the reader to experience. Perhaps it falls short.
First, she asks a group of five people if she can join their telepathy club.
At first they are all looking at each other, as if to gauge each others' willingness to accept her into the group. You may assume they are looking at each others' facial expressions to see what the other people think about her request.
However, then it shows seemingly random people in other places, doing other activities: swimming, business deals, hair salon, working on telephone wires.
Then it switches back to the first group, who have come to a decision. You realize that the random people were all part of the telepathy club too, and they were communicating telepathically to consider her request. It turns out that after long consideration, and perhaps many debates between them all that the reader doesn't get to see, the answer is a simple "no."
Oh, I thought maybe they were reading her mind and the images were memories.
I thought these were images communicated by the group we see standing there as their answers and was trying to decipher the visual puns
I like that idea. Maybe I'll make a sequel where someone asks to join, and they delve into that person's deepest memories. Examples: childhood sibling rivalry, first kiss, being fired from a job, etc. All is good, and they will probably be accepted. Then, they see a memory where the person did something slightly embarrassing (saying, "thanks, you too!" to a server telling them to enjoy their meal). And they get rejected based on that.
mindreading and telepathy are different things; seeing the applicant's past played out is a different kind of psychic power than being able to say "yo bob what do you think?" in someone else's brain
Good point. I will have to explore this distinction in future Telepathy Snub comics.
That said, personally I do like this comic and it worked for me.
I do wish there was some kind of ~~~~ wavy-line professor x kind of visualization of all the telepaths exchanging info.
one last note: it'd be cool if there was some kind of 'well if you have to flap your lip meat to ask.... then probably not'
Oh ok, thanks for the explanation. I did not associate the other random people as being telepathic and in the club.
I would have had all the telepathic people doing something like, have their hand on their chins as if they were thinking. That would be a visual trigger that allows me to link all of the characters together.
Obviously some people got it without an explanation, so perhaps it's just me who has an issue understanding this. π
Good feedback. I think a visual cue in the background could have worked. Like a lightning bolt pattern going from mind to mind.
It took some thinking to figure out what was happening, I initially thought they were reading her mind and judging her. But after noticing that the first two panels were people of the group I figured it out. It wasn't that hard to figure out but required paying attention, a pretty good little comic if you ask me.
Maybe you should make the background colours of the second and third panels match that of the first, so that it's clearer they're the same peoe.
I got it after a couple seconds of thinking about it. I enjoyed it, and hope you keep it up.
Art that works for everyone is boring.
Keep being you.
Wow, how did I not understand this by myself. I am currently even watching Pluribus where this exact same situation happens >_<
Haha, I watched Pluribus too, and while this comic isn't a direct reference, the show certainly influenced me.
I also didn't connect the dots when I read it, but I would encourage you to not listen to anyone who tries to tell you how to "fix it". Keep doing what you're doing. Your style is good and I love the facial expressions!
I hope that nobody is using AI to read and comment on a comic on Lemmy! If so, what has this world come to?
I'm glad that many people got it, but I do sincerely appreciate hearing the alternative interpretations. I like breaking down the ways in which info is communicated in this medium, and ways it could be made more clear. At the same time, the subtlety and uncertainty is part of the setup, so I'm not super bummed that the intended meaning wasn't crystal clear to all.
Thanks, I appreciate your encouragement and compliments, especially the comparisons to such great comics.
I guess that in soliciting feedback, I'm not really aiming to make sure 100% of people "get" my next comic. I don't really see it as a failure if a few people don't connect the dots the exact way I intended. And especially because I'm not trying to gain internet fame with it (I don't have a website, or even title or sign these things; it's not my main creative pursuit right now).
But I do think it's valuable to learn from strangers how they connect the panels to create a narrative, and how the panel order, subject matter, colour scheme etc. can influence that. The way this medium is interpreted can also be deployed for misdirection, the way PBF does. Learning about how a comic is received can help me analyze that.
Thanks again for taking the time and sharing your thoughts, I appreciate it immensely.
This is the best compliment ever. I hope your day job involves inspiring youth to reach their potential and believe in themselves, and to transform their cynical self-image into optimism. Thank you.
I didn't get it, but that doesn't mean you did a poor job conveying your intent, and I like the artwork.
How it feels trying to make friends as an adult lol
It didn't fall short, it fell flat for me. I am sorry but I don't see a punchline even with your explanation, which, surprisingly, I didn't need to understand the plot. I thought I was missing something...
My initial thought was they scrutinized her and she imagined them on these different ways, an "old ugly lady" for one of the members did the 'no'.