Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson for February 19, 2013

I hope she’s heard of Manti Te’o.

I like Marigold’s pupil in the third panel.

More unicorns? Sure!

Now the truth has been revealed. There are no other unicorns. They exist only in Marigolds imagination. Marigold is the one and only everlasting eternal unicorn. All the tales of unicorn councils, magic barns, and uncorn society were manufactured in Marigolds imagination. She just wants it to be true.

Man, I hope we get to see this fellow!

Hearts for eyes – adore it!

My hypothesis: For unicorns, it is not merely an artistic flourish by the illustrator—Marigold’s pupils really become hearts when making a smitten-kitten face.

I thought YOU were the most beautiful creature in the world. Make up your mind already, willya Marigold?

Or is it?

So unicorns are hard to find even by unicorn standards. That or Marigold is so fussy she can’t accept less then more perfect then her own perfection. just wait and see Marigold Phoebe Dakota and Max will travel to a far off land of thunderous creatures looking for this amazing mystery unicorn only to discover he’s just some old man behind a curtain but along the way the four adventurers will each find what they truly want in life a heart, an I-phone,True love and that nerd.

@Q4horseI have often held that same theory, Marigold desperate for a friend and attention, felt the need to impress Phoebe and knowing full well she knew nothing about unicorns, Marigold tells Phoebe any thing that pops in to her head, when in reality Marigold her self is a rejected weird-o that all the other unicorns tease and ignore and Phoebe is just too trusting to question any thing Marigold tells her and as long as Phoebe never goes to the magical world she’ll never learn the truth that other unicorns are normal and Marigold is the freak who obsesses over her reflection etc where as other unicorns do not.

However more recent events have created a 2nd possibilityThere for I must reject your reality and substitute my own,

I think there is a world of unicorns and stuff out there, an amazing world normal humans don’t get to visit. I see no reason for there not to be other unicorns. We know dragons and answer pixies are real so other unicorns could also very well exist. I would think they would have to bread and populate some how even if its only once every 1,000 years or some thing and involves some sort of ridiculously complex rituals. I have no actual evidence to back that up, but Im too in love with unicorn dance computations for it to not be true. We could very well be lead on to follow the Marigold’s imagination theory only to suddenly on day see a 2nd unicorn come from off panel. The alternative would be just bleak and lonely, a good dramatic plot move but still kind of sad. The idea of other unicorns however opens the comic up to adventures and conflict. Max and Dakota each getting there own unicorn, ridding them around the world tracking down a 4th trouble making unicorn, or maybe Dakota getting some kind of evil anti-unicorn and becoming the queen of darkness and Pheebs having to save her with the power of love and friendship.

One thing I am cretin of, as its happened before, Dana has her own brilliant ideas beyond all predictability and any thing I say “Hide the Unicorn from your parents” , “That wasn’t magic Dakota was bald the whole time” , “Answer pixies are known for lying” never comes true. Dana has in her head what the world is and any thing we think will happen won’t. Not that it’ll stop me from suggestion my own wacky ideas like “Her music teacher is secretly an elf” you know because saying random stuff is fun. You could be right and we could be doing this whole “Unicorn no one’s ever seen” thing just to send Phoebe on an adventure while Marigold rigs up some kind of contraption to pretend there is a 2nd unicorn and she throws her voice in to it just to impress and entertain Phoebe and play in to this fantasy world until a van full of hippies and there dog unmask the truth that Marigold is in fact Gilbert Gottfried and Richard Simmons in a horse costume using a voice changing horn and magnetic hooves to provide the illusion of being both magical and female so they could trick Phoebe in to handing over the dead to Tim Curry’s ocelot farm. …Or it could be a real unicorn and Marigold is one of six close knit equestrian friends who each have special yet vital to the community talents that they and they alone can do that were determined by some quirk of fate and an unusably shaped birth mark, who along with there dragon friend, Todd, go on wacky misadventures and all pine for and fight over the same mysterious unseen man who only communicates with them there a small speaker phone on a desk in an office some place and sends them on impossible secret missions that teams them each up with a special chosen one among the human race and its Marigold’s assignment to study 4th graders with above average intelligence and non-typical interests, if only to get close to her stuck in the 80s father who programed a secret Commodore 64 game that holds the secrets to the survival of all living things. But before they can do that they have to find 7 magical MacGuffin with the help of a lagomorph and a monotremata and teach a computer to play tic-tac-to.

Or maybe Dana just has her own story

@rpmurray Nice tease. Your spot on and I LOLed

My burning question is: If Lord Splendid Humility never shows himself, than how could Marigold have seen his “such perfect withers”?

By the way, I’m surprised it wasn’t his buffed, steely croup she was smitten with. ;)

I like to think his bottom half is unicorn and his top half is human but well hidden behind a rock. (I said a ROCK not a ROC)

@isaiahammar

Yah, just a bit.

Sorry about jumping to premature conclusions. You are correct, since I’m not the author of this strip. It just struck me as a description of the classic imaginary friend no one can see. I still think Marigold is the only Unicorn in this reality, but they may exist in untold numbers in alternate realities since I subscribe to the multiverse theory. Marigold just has to have the ability to cross realities.

@rpmurray

I try not to ramble too much. @kaykeyser Now she can really ramble. Not that I do not enjoy a good ramble. :-)

@ujean The withers are perfectly positioned for mutual nibbling. That’s my vote for expressing unicorn affection.