*** This comic originally ran in August of 2016, as part of the original Tempest in a Teardrop. You can still find it deeeeep in the Archives. Ar-chives? ***

As of today we’re taking a three-week break from the comic. With the Apocalypse about to be unleashed at any moment, we certainly aren’t going to abandon you! There is far too much to laugh at!

My goal: to repost some old favorite comics and articles, to write some fresh ones, and to “redo” a few, so they meet our current world situation and generally-ridiculous circumstances. In fact, we’ll be putting something out six days a week!

This was planned. Reasons below. If you aren’t interested in how we do the comic, then bail now and we’ll see you tomorrow.

We’re at a good break point now, and the next portion of the story takes place at a location our readers know of but one that has scarcely been seen. That’s the problem. Codex draws a *ton* of reference art that can be reused, particularly for backgrounds. The next story arc follows Kit as Ionë trains her in the more lethal portion of her arts.

It’s comic after comic after comic as they battle over… deadly, competitive tea drinking.

When we looked ahead, we knew we could, at best, give you one comic a week. There is that much art involved. Rather than do that we’d rather just take the time to do it right. Codex also has a couple of other projects on the burner, and just needed a little break from the deadlines.

We’ll talk to you in the comments!

–> Codex & Q

Codex’s Birthday takes place at an awkward time of year. It sandwiches itself right between Christmas and our Anniversary. That’s three things to celebrate in a week, and that’s one too many for me to handle. Which of those three would you boot? I guarantee you’d be wrong. Entirely wrong.

So, once Codex’s beloved grandmother passed many years ago, she took her actual birthday – July 4 – and made it her adoptive birthday. Codex’s Mother still calls and sends cards on Codex’s actual birthday, but I suppose she is entitled since she had to go through 897 hours of labor, or whatever it was. I understand her father found out she had been born the day prior to her birth, due to time zone shenanigans and Navy magic.

Meanwhile, Codex makes out BIG TIME every year. We celebrate with fireworks, fire, cake, coffee, presents, and the last day of summer rain almost every year. There may or may not be other libations involved. This year, I got her some new shavings. They were… dubiously sourced. I figured she was down in the basement, sprinkling them about and frolicking or whatever, when she suddenly appeared in the kitchen and asked why I was dressed in a pickle costume and how odd that looked with my signature hat.

“Um…” I said, “I guess you enjoyed those shavings. A lot.”

“Shavings?” she replied. “I thought you got me incense. I’ve been burning them for half an hour. They are realllllly groovy!”

Okay, yeah, so she’ll finish up today’s comic… later today. Or possibly tonight, to be posted first thing Tuesday morning. Meanwhile, we hope you had a wonderful 4th and either blew something up in honor of the country that was, or for practice as our gay, atheist dystopia slowly transforms into America 2.0.

–> Quizzer

No, we didnt’ short-change you for todays comic. We had alway’s planned a single frame that we would normally run for Wednesday’s. The single-frame comic’s are supposed to be “low-cost’ in artist time, but when they creep up to what a half-comic would take we run them as full comics’. Or maybe comics.

My mis-use of apostrophes is legendary within our household, whether Im writing or speaking. ‘

Glyph made a very funny card that might, possibly, be ‘a reference to that. Wel’l run our Monday comic on Wednesday and then resume as usual on Friday.

Meanwhil’e, learn from me, or Glyph will make fun of you, too.

[Comic Note]’ You might have to click on the second half to clearly make out the text.

We wrapped up The Churchians: Shadow Saints, and to celebrate, I let Codex out of the basement and set her in the front yard. “Get a little sun”, I said. “Hop about. Frolic on a decaying stump. Go! Be a mushroom.”

Now? She’s gone. Presumed reading someplace nearby. Thank goodness she showed me how to use the cartoon-making gizmo I normally keep her chained to. There must be more to it though, because I pushed all the doohickeys, dialed in the dials, made sure the fuel reservoir was filled with coffee, and double-checked the paper-retaining chamber.

I got this:

Yeah. This is not the quality entertainment you all stop by for.

So seeing as we’re between books, it’s a good time to take a break. We have two special comics next week, and then the splash page for The Churchians: Night Veg running the following Monday. That will be our third book if anyone can still do math. We suspect most of you can, since our comics are numbered sequentially… and they are now conveniently arranged in our soon-to-be-out-of-date Archives!

In the meantime, you can continue to search for fuel. Please do so carefully. The beloved worker-bees at the Department of Transportation Twittered out some good, practical advice about the crisis. “Do not put gasoline in plastic bags.” We needed to hear that. Or at least, the Tribal Peoples of the Blue Checkmark did. Here are some other safety tips:

• Do not store gasoline in paper bags, either.
• Do not drink any gasoline you find.
• If you do drink the gasoline, do not attempt to light your burps on fire.
• If you find any gasoline, do not put it in a federally-mandated gas can.
• If you manage to get any gasoline into a federally-mandated gas can, you will not be able to get it out again. I know. I’ve tried.
• Do not pump gasoline directly into your glove box or other storage compartment in your vehicle.
• Do not inject yourself with a used Covid needle, whether it contains gasoline or not.
• Do not store gasoline in a five-gallon bucket, even if you have it covered in tin foil.
• Do not try to fill your vehicle with propane.
• Do not drink the propane.

I could add more, but thinking “How else could a moron possibly screw this up” makes my head hurt. The list is endless. Feel free to contribute in the comments, and have a great weekend!

–> Codex & Quizzer

*I’m looking for a little reader feedback here, so suggestions, affirmations, or criticisms are welcome in the comments.

In putting together the first book of The Churchians, I realized that ‘Arrival’ is a terrible name. Here’s the original comic. It’s okay for what it is, but we can do better.

‘Crashlander’, ‘Crashlanders’, ‘Story Crashers’, and ‘StoryCrashers’ are all on the table. Many of you are long-time readers and know the history of Rory and The Professor. We’ll be doing a better transition comic – introducing Rory and the Prof – for the book. I’m partial to the first two because Old Hick referred to Rory as ‘Rory Crashlander’ here:

However… Continue reading →