November has been a cruel month and I won’t mention it any longer. The reverb will echo in the lives of my family, and my extended family, for a long, long time.

A couple of weeks ago, I re-read twenty years worth of Peanuts Christmas comics, with many Wizard of Id and BC comics thrown into the mix. I even went back over my Calvin & Hobbes.

I wanted to capture a little of the Christmas magic they published in their art, unique to their characters, yet accountable to the season.

We’re doing that this December. We’ll resume our story on Jan 8. That’s pretty traditional for us, for the last couple weeks of December. We’ll just have to frontload a few more into December.

We’ll still be here to respond to your comments or groan at your horrible puns. God bless, and thanks for reading.

–> Quizzer

I finally bit the bullet and updated our Archive. It had been almost a year, which turned out to be a lot of comics. I learned several things in the process.

Our next comic will be #189.

Extra Frames don’t get their own number; they get a ‘b’. For example: #136b.

We only had one duplicate title: Return Trip. Comics #127 and #129. I renamed #129 to Broken Silence, which was the original name. I’m assuming the shop gremlin was somehow involved, since they were so close together.

I’m already thinking about what to do with comic #666. Any ideas?

The alt-text appears below each comic in the archive. I changed a few of them to add more funny.

As a result of all this work, we’ll be making a slight change to our comic format, but it won’t show up for a few more comics.

Enjoy!

–> Quizzer

But… my Dad passed away today. It was a mercy, really, because he’s been gone for over a week now. I think he’s grateful that he wasn’t a Biden voter, and wanted to make *darn* sure of that.

He died in Christ. For those of you who don’t follow the Christian faith, this simply means that we believe he is in heaven, and as Codex & I are also professing Christians, we’ll see him again.

I’d imagine it’ll go something like this.

I’ll suddenly pass on. I imagine mouthing off to the wrong camp counselor, insisting that same-gendered folks don’t produce offspring, and then *BAM* I’ll see all the dogs I’ve ever loved rushing toward me in a big pack and then my Dad looking over the slobbery reunion with disapproval, but acceptance. He was a cat person.

We’ll head for the nearest tavern, The Golden Halo, for those who only make it to the outer circle of the blessed realm. That’s on account of me, not him, by the way. He’ll offer to buy me a drink, and order beer. It’ll be something decent, like a Hefeweizen, but I’ll want something stronger, like a shot of whiskey. Or six. Maybe eight. I’ll be leaving a lot behind, and judgement will still be before me.

We’ll argue about the passage past death. He’ll be all, “No, all you have to do is follow the rules. Didn’t an angel escort you through the valley?” and I’ll be all, “Angel? That’s a conspiracy theory! I sneaked behind the bastard, whacked him on the head with a tennis racket, rifled through his cloak, and presented the golden ticket to the front gate. Citing Christ as my savior probably helped the most.”

He’ll frown. I’m familiar with that look. I loved him anyway. He’s my Dad after all. He even chose me via adoption. Did I tell you about the time when he swung an entire loaf of bread at the back of my head when I was 17 or so? I must have mouthed off to my Mom. It was the only time he’d do such a thing. The bag burst, and bread went flying all over the kitchen.

It was one of those moments where time stops. You know that if you laugh, because it was funny as heck, you’d die. I must have kept it together because I’ve made it to 50. Or maybe I died that day and 2020 is hell. I hope it’s the former. That’d be more life-validating than the latter.

Our drink would continue in silence. We didn’t have much in common. The subject of our vertebrae would be awkward. Talking about sports, pointless. He was a golfer, and although I appreciated the sport because it’s name was the only four-letter word left after 1297, I was more into chess. We argued over stocks. We argued over politics. We were even on the same side, but we disagreed on the meaning of what a  “statesman” was. He thought it was Winston Churchill or Patton, and I thought it was “a dead politician”.

I remember holding the wrench for him as he struggled to change the oil in his car. When it came to mechanical stuff… He needed help. I figured out how to revive the thoroughly-rusted engine of a wood chipper. It’s amazing what hatred of politicians can drive you to learn.

In short, my Dad and I were very different people.

Despite that, I learned the value of hard work, that life isn’t fair, that some things are worth fighting for, and that writing eulogies in the era of Covid sucks donkey gizzards.

Mom says we’ll have a proper funeral in the Spring. Maybe I’ll be sober by then.

The next few comic scripts are written and Codex is cranking them out. Friday’s comic, by the way, was entirely 95% hers. I suspect December is gonna be… a little rough. We normally punt the last two weeks but we may be taking the entire month off.

Tomorrow’s comic, however, is coming.

Prayers always appreciated,

–> Quizzer

Well… let’s see. Everything is kinda going sideways.

So here’s the deal. The script called for “An angry crowd outside a typical Churchian house.” New scene, new architecture, normally this is in the category of “pain in the artichoke” but we wrote it while driving to Portland from Seattle on Sunday, and then back again. Continue reading →