First of a few short story segments. After spending so long on the events of one day, it’s refreshing and a bit strange to write a one-page joke comic like this. XD
A little background information on this strip: I have been tossing around in my head the notion to start in on donation incentives. I considered making this one-page strip a donation incentive bonus comic, but decided that would be a bad idea for multiple reasons. I am curious though, what kinds of extra stuffs would make a good donation incentive? Desktop wallpaper is the typical thing people do, but would something like extra pictures or bonus comics be more to everyone’s liking? As always, I am curious what you think on the subject.
Speaking of bonus pictures, a few more items. First, this Saturday will be a Sketch Day extra (which I will continue doing, donation incentives or no), so make sure to come back on Saturday. Second, I received more Fan Art the other day!
First is a picture from Johan, a Happy Birthday drawing:
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And previous fan-artist Elina sent the first ever Fan Art of Andi!:
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Thank you both so much! I must admit though, Elina, the Andi Fan Art was a surprise. I never anticipated her reveal would result in Fan Artistry. XD
KITTY!!! I HAVE MISSED YOU SO MUCH!!!
Aww. I wanted to see Selkie waking up to find out that it wasn’t a dream. =P
As far as incentives go, it doesn’t matter to me what you use. I wish I could donate, but my paypal account is still screwy.
Brave cat…
Ha! I love how calm Todd is when telling Selkie not to bite the cat. Sounds exactly how my parents would say it.
A fantastic one-off for a break between strips. Only question is why the fork and knife (panel 3), and where did they go?
I’m thinking she put them aside to protect food from kitty. At least she didn’t poke Crook with the fork.
Dave: just want to throw my hat in the ring and say I love the expressions in this strip, especially the bottom row of panels. Your art may not be as complex as others’, but you still do plenty with it.
…. I want to try cooking that now, because it sounds really good….
this reminds me of parmesean crusted fish. It can work with right cheese and cooking temperature. Not sure what use instead of olive oil though (lard?)
Butter works, or buttermilk. i’ve cooked it before. Lard in the deepfryer or pan.
“Please don’t bite the cat.”
Another great line to be quoted out of context in the future. 😀
Damnit! You stole my comment! But I’m still going to steal the line too. haha. We have good taste in quotes!
…Somehow, I can’t see fried cheese sticking to anything. Unless it’s like the cheese packets from boxed macaroni and cheese–that stuff will stick to anything once it cools a little.
It depends on whether or not the cheese is of a dryer sort or not. Cheese that you can grate into powder and mix with melted butter would most likely work well, but you would probably have to do an egg dredge to make it stick to the chicken. Just like using seasoned flower for fried chicken.
…please write that into a recipe, I have a friend who’s madly in love with cheese!
There is a fish version I used to make but forgot the exact amounts (my guess: 3/4cup parmesean, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, 1/2 tsp paprika) put mix together in bowl coat on fish (may need oil or egg on fish to help coat) and fry in a shallow pan in oil. It could work for chicken too if it was lightly dipped in egg first and rolled around (or shaken) in the dry mix before baking or frying. There are similar recipies online too.
Think parmigiana or the like.
How about melting cheese in a fondue set and dunking the chicken pieces in that? Basically, the same as a regular fondue except with chicken instead of bread…
That sounds actually quite doable. I might suggest my cheese-mad friend that. 😀
Dave> I find it refreshing and faster to do one-shots, but I think it’s all in my head cuz I tend to color them LOL! I like the behind-the-scenes stuff and you’ll see more in Shards. Got lots of ideas lined up. Just gotta figure they’ll end up wherever they end up and not plan them for particular chapters.
Super adorable Selkie today. 😀
As for donation incentives, things I’ve seen done: monthly donaters see the comic a day early, there are side-arcs just for donaters, the obvious wallpapers, a special forum name and a symbol next to their name in comments, and of course the neverending gratitude.
As for the incentives, I am partial to having an extra comic just for donaters, like a one-page joke strip or series of jokes that builds or something.
And if you’re feeling creative, do something totally weird that we’ve never seen before. Sometimes just the novelty makes it completely worth it. 😀
Dave, please don’t make exclusive comic content for donators only, because not all of us can donate even if we want to. 🙁
A webcomic on your “I like” list, Dominic Deegan has a monhtly (or nearly monthly) wallpaper that people who donate can get. I’d also think that buddy icons for the various IM programs might be a good choice. (Just don’t post the piccies on the website, because people will steal them. :-P) You could maybe show a sketch of what it will look like, but only send the finished product to donators.
That pretty much sums up why I felt “donator-only comic” may not be a good idea.
Actually, I have tried something like that before, with string cheese. I can’t have mozzarella sticks with the bread crumbs because of gluten allergies, but dropping cheese sticks into a very hot deep fryer for a few seconds is really good too 🙂
Man i loved this strip, my faviorite so far,
and it really cheered me up, today is my day of birth and my bestest friend forgot
Happy Birthday! If it makes you feel any better, my MOM forgot my 19th birthday… I have been able to use this fact as a guilt button for years now; you should at least be able to talk your friend into any sort of favor for quite a while!
Aaaw. Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday (from a random stranger)!!! Hope you managed to do something special for yourself anyway.
And don’t feel too bad … I forgot my own birthday last year.
Happy getting shoved head first through a…
*remembers not to be placentalist*
Hatching day?
Bah, biological birth is for chumps. Happy decanting day.
Ha ha, “placentalist”. I like that.
Hah! Not me! (Cesarian section.)
For you it’d then be “happy anniversary of your very first surgery”. 😛
Ah…the joys of parenthood. Bringing you such phrases like “Don’t bite the cat,” “Don’t hit your brother with the dog,” and “Don’t poke the cat’s butt!”
Or even “Just because you can throw a rock at your sister’s best friend’s face doesn’t mean you should.” >_>
My favorite parent comments have always been, “Of course you can help with the dishes, sweetie!” and “That sure does look like a boat, but can you tell me why you drew it on the wall with glue?” (A. “Paper little, and the boat is white and glue is white!” [not kidding.])
Kids–they find a way to blow your mind every single day.
Biting a cat to teach it a lesson is fine, but you end up with your mouth full of cat hair and it’s horrible to try to get rid of. You literally have to comb your tongue.
…don’t ask me how I know. XD
You realize of course that telling people ‘don’t ask me how I know’ is an open invitation to do just that right? *giggles*
Soooo… how would you know this? *senses a good story*
Meh, not that good a story. Cat just needed to learn that while it was technically possible for him to sit on my desk to watch birds out the window, he was not allowed to do that when I’d just had my massive Lego-castle (combined from the parts of the three actual castle sets we had) built, one third of which his butt made crumble onto the floor. After the bite he was indeed more wary of my desk and to my delight moved to my brothers’ room to sit on their desk instead. 😀 😛
Just don’t close your mouth or let it touch your tongue. Bare teeth on foreleg eliminates the mouthful of fur, but didn’t really teach my cat anything.
Bare teeth was the attempt indeed, but the biting site was the tail, hence fur in mouth.
I have some friends who own 5 cats, they refer to themselves as Crazy Cat Ladies and Man in Training. The dude actually will naw on the cat`s spines until they start wining when they`ve been mildly misbehaving. . . or he feels like asserting dominance. . . or he`s bored. . . anyways, he apparently doesn’t really seem to care about the fur in his mouth, another friend whose picked this habit up uses it solely as a response to nipping from his kitty, he complained for awhile about the fur, until he apparently started using just his front teeth. Something to keep in mind for future cat biting.
*whining, sorry typing via PS3 is really annoying and takes forever.
You typed all that via PS3?! O_O Oh wow, you have a LOT more patience than I could ever summon up.
Dangit, Dave, now I want breadless chicken nuggets! And it’s really too early in the day to deep-fry…
The story is cute, and I’m glad the change of pace is refreshing to you. I’ll bet Todd never envisioned himself deep-frying as part of being a parent ;)…
I adore your comic. It’s one of the things that make my Mondays and Thursdays tolerable, if only barely. I need to break out my supplies and do some fan art for you, because Selkie just lends herself to it so well.
If I was employed, I’d donate. But, as an unemployed single mom, I’m sort of scraping together every cent I can find as it is. On that note, though… As a single parent of a toddler, I think Todd might have missed a bullet with some of the hardest years. Maybe some of the best. Or is it the hard ones are still coming up with her being a pre-teen? o.o
Can’t wait to read more! <3 Thank you for such an awesome and original story.
I have made that threat before with pretty much the same results. Then again, I’ve also wrestled and fought with cats. (None of them were hurt.)
Did you ever listen to Bill Engvall (back before the Blue Collar Comedy Tour when he was still funny)? I flashed back to an old CD of his I have at Todd’s last line.
“Son, please don’t bite the dog. Now, I never thought I’d ever have to say that sentence, but I say it ALL THE TIME.” Thanks for the bonus smile. 🙂
i thought selkie could not eat dairy products as wel as vegetables/fruits
She can eat cheeses and dairy, it’s just best as a supplement to meat. Good in small doses, but she couldn’t make a diet of it.
Excellent comic today! Definitely had me laughing! “Please don’t bite the cat.” There’s a phrase that belongs on a Selkie t-shirt!
Donation incentive; I wouldn’t mind having a Selkie wallpaper or two (or three). How about a back massage? I could use one of those too. But then, I don’t suppose you’d want to travel all the way here just for that. LOL. Guess I’ll have to be happy with wallpapers.
hmmm, Andi could be an interesting character…
If donation rewards are handled per donator, they may simply end up spread across the net for free after the first few days.
A method I’ve seen done that works well, is to have things like wall papers, extra arcs, or 1 shots, icons etc. have it all but rather than giving each person who donates them, set a donation goal, and let donators try to get the bar to go up. and when it reaches certain levels release that prize to all.
yes is a bit unbalanced for donators, but they know that going into it, and it makes it a bit fair for those who cannot donate but wish to. this can also become an ongoing project, releasing a variety of perks one by one, alternating between long stretches for really good rewards, and small stretches for the smaller ones, keeping a nice flow between.
there is the worry of running out of special content over time, i feel art can only improve over time, so there’s never really an end to new things, just a higher challenge.
just some ideas i had ^_^(HA! i forgot to fill in the math thing woops)
AWWWWW! New friends. And I’d watch out if Selkie makes good with that promise. But i think Crook learned his lesson! 🙂
LoL “Please, don’t bite the cat!”
Interesting recipe idea. Another webcomic writer came up with a similar food – the chupaqueso. Search schlockmercenary.com or see it made at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbD70Ljb6fI
Too much of that and humans end up with bullet-proof arteries but we already know Selkie’s metabolism is different.
I love Schlock Mercenary, can’t believe I forgot about the Chupaqueso. Feel like I missed a Shout Out opportunity. XD
*happy sigh* I’m in heaven read this.
Reading** (sorry, I’m the Typo Queen)
I love the line “Please don’t bite the cat”.
Aww, I love her expressions in the bottom panels!
Reminds me of something that happened to me once… “Solie, please don’t sit on the cat.”
My all-time favorite “cat” was a warning from my mom:
“If you see a black and white ‘kitty’ dancing, run away from the cat, because it’s a skunk, and you’ll be sorry if you don’t.”
Did Selkie get a haircut since the last chapter? Her hair was below her shoulders and long enough to French-braid. In this story, it’s cut a little above her shoulders.
I always feel bad when comics ask to donate…I would love to but I don’t have a PayPal account (I’m 14), so there’s nothing I can do. 🙁 On the plus side, I absolutely love your comic!
Don’t feel bad, loving the comic is an awesome way to help in and of itself. 😀 Thank you!
Heh, I like her reaction to the cat having bitten her before. I did the same thing when I was a baby to my grandma’s cat XD
Wow, a EGS and a Homestuck ref in the space of two panels!
Yes, please do not bite the cat. Your teeth are bigger, and his legs are smaller. It would be like hitting you in the arm with an axe.
Also a whole OTHER problem that I don’t wish to spoiler for those reading through this comic for the first time… but would very likely result in an unintended dead cat.
A one-finger flick on the nose is the perfect cure for a bitey cat. It cured our kitty of nipping my wife when he wanted food.
We’re the LAST people to even think about being cruel to animals (i even have a student volunteer award from a cat shelter) but I have a zero-tolerance policy on one who decides to bite. Especially her.