Rocks fall, party (mostly) dies.
To continue off Wednesday's commentary, the Dragon at the top is basically an egg timer attached to a small motor. Every twenty minutes or so it Awakens and shakes the mountain. If your player token falls over you can set it back up where it lays, even if it moved you up a space. But if it falls off the mountain entirely, you go back to Start. The black squares are magnetic and hold your player token in place during Awakenings. There are cards that positively and negatively alter the time between Awakenings, as well as Tool and Trap cards that can save you from falling off the mountain, which Selkie has pointed out here. Plus Amanda still has one Lasso and a Bear Trap...
Honestly, Dave? I think I speak for a lot of us when I say: If you don’t figure out a way to make this game, I will be sorely disappoint! 🙂
Seriously, it sounds like it’d be fun!
Hyyyyyyyyypothetically, I’d just need some chitboard, cardstock, a mold making kit for the dragon tokens and mountain, dice, and magnets.
The big problem, it seems to me, would be play balancing the shaking effect.
You should hold a contest for designing the dragon or some of the ier cards.
*fancier
I don’t know why that got cut off..
Mold making? Just find someone with a 3D printer.
It just dawned on me – they’re playing Fireball Island
OH MY GOD, I seriously forgot about that game! I wanted it so bad as a kid, it looked like a blast!
I think Selkie gave Amanda a hint to help her in the game. If she did that was awfully nice of her. =)
Is ‘eat it’ really considered a bad phrase? I mean, I have a friend who says fudge in place of you-know-what. I always found it silly when people do this. I’ve known people who say freak instead or son of a biscuit. The meaning is the same, so why not just say the actual thing? We all know what you’re saying lol
But is eat it short for eat sh*t?
Either that or Eat My *Rooster*.
Selkie helped Amanda? Will she remember that?
I doubt Amanda realizes it’s help, since Selkie presented it in teasing form. Most like she’s going to go “Ha! I noticed it! In your face, Selkie!” or similar.
Selkie’s doing fine (in a cave. heh.) and voluntarily made Amanda aware of her own advantage/s to use however she may. That’s close to a compliment!
Back in the day I used “frak” & “felgercarb” and I dare anyone to admit to being old enough to know where those came from.
Both from the ORIGINAL Battlestar Galactica in the 70s, “frak” is similar to another word that has the same first and last letters, while “felgercarb” can mean “cr*p” or “b*llsh*t”.
That said, “frak” was used in the Battlestar Galactica reboot, but I don’t remember anyone using “felgercarb.”
And I know that from watching the Original Show. On TV. In my jammies. Ahem.
I remeber the original series well enough to remember the Pilot being preempted in the middle so Jimmy Carter could broadcast the signing of the Camp David accords, never do that to a room full of Navy Sci-Fi geeks.
I’ll admit it. I was a fan of the classic Battlestar Galactica. (Although more for the ship designs and models than anything else.) I also like the re-imagined version. It has the added benefit of having a better, more coherent and cohesive storyline and better characters.
When I get stressed enough to let out a swear — which doesn’t happen often, as my internal controls are pretty tight — what comes out is “smeg”. From a show my family raised me on and where most of our in-jokes come from.
I like having people use unfamiliar swearing. There’s way too much of the normal type. At least people can be creative with it. (And with insults, too — ever watch Epic Rap Battles of History?)
Fellow Red-Dwarf fan?
Indubitably!
The cat’s my fave. And I was sad when I tried to get my nephews interested in watching it and they got turned off by boredom before even finishing a single episode.
Though I think I started them with the wrong episode. Ought to start them on the backwards planet, because it’s got the best slapstick and setting-related jokes, if I recall, without needing to be able to relate the jokes to cultural experience.
Not sure why dammit (previous comic) got called out either, If we didn’t know otherwise I’d assume they are super conservative or something. 😀
To use an analogy, when bending metal, you bend it past the point you want it to settle because it has some elasticity. This matches Amanda right now. She has a very foul mouth. If you only identify the really bad words, she will slightly regress back toward using them when you aren’t around. By going further the other direction, that settle point lands on allowing the child to express frustration but doing so without using harder language.
I’m inordinately fond of “son of a biscuit” for some reason, maybe in part because it’s such colorful nonsense.
And I say this as someone whose workplace is prone to foul language on all sides—engineers, it turns out, have few qualms about dropping F-bombs in conversation.
They’re probably overcompensating. Given the situation..
I just can’t wait until society just admits that everyone uses all the words, nobody gets hurt, and we can stop pretending this isn’t literally classy people trying to insult the common man by demonizing the words he chooses to use. that’s literally what ‘vulgar’ means.
Well… I suppose it depends on the word. I’m not going to appreciate someone bringing out “c*nt” no matter how much someone argues “people just talk like that.”
I noticed a long time ago — after becoming part of a group of college friends whose swearing made my earlier experiences with swearing seem quaint — that people who use swear words a lot have a completely different experience of them from people who use them rarely or not at all.
When my friends use “f*ck,” or say (actual phrasing) “I’m gonna eff you in the A” or “Ha! You just got effed in the A!” they are not picturing someone actually getting raped. The literal, sexual meaning of those terms has been worn away through use until it’s just another verbal tick and a show of aggression without specific mental visualization.
But when my mom hears “f*ck,” it’s much more direct and shocking, something she definitely doesn’t want in her experience, and it’s because for her, the literal meaning has not been worn away. It’s not just vulgar, it’s a completely different meaning from how those who commonly swear experience the term.
I’m close to my mom’s view, though no longer shocked by swearing, and I prefer the wag’s way of handling it. “Have you seen my f*cking jacket?” “Isn’t it over there, next to your non-f*cking jacket?” Or “It’s just a f*cking movie.” “I prefer to see a movie that’s not about f*cking, thanks.” Any time I can interject a line based on what was literally said 🙂
In one of the Matt Helm books, Matt (who is not a spy, he is a “counter-assassin” – he kills people for the government) earlier killed two bad gus, and has just killed two more before being captured.
The leader of the bad guys asks him, “Just how many f*cking people HAVE you killed?”
He says, “None”.
Bad guy says, “Why deny it? I know you’ve killed AT LEAST four – oh, I get it. You mean none were f*cking when you killed them.”
🙂
I WANT TO PLAY THIS GAME!!!!!!!!
I told my kids I didn’t want them to say S WORD or HE’S AN A HOLE or SON OF A B.
If they were gonna cuss, then cuss.
I also told them they were not old enough to cuss in front of me.
When I was a kid (and I’m 56, so it was a long time ago) we had to say things like “Gosh darn it all to heck!” and “Forget you!”. Of course, those restrictions didn’t apply to adults.
Everyone needs a way to let off steam when they’re frustrated, though. Since my kids watched Nickelodeon a lot, I’ve been leaning towards SpongeBob’s “Tartar sauce!”
I’ve always been a big fan of “BOB SAGAT” as a swear word exclamation (it has a great cadence to it) I have to admit, though, “tarter sauce” sounds like it could be fun as well.
When I’m frustrated or angry, I’m fond of turning who or what has my ire into a swear word. It has the plus of being surprising for the person who I’m angry at.
I like to use “shut the front door”.
The thing is, if letting off steam is basically swearing anyhow, why bother punishing people for swears at all? It’s silly. Words are words and their meaning are how you perceive them. If I’ve decided that any time someone calls me a b*tch is actually a compliment, then it’s a compliment!
Well, you can get to my age (37) and be the kind of person who uses swearing without thinking about it (verbal tic), or the kind who doesn’t use swearing at all, or you can be like me and bring out swearing only when you think it contributes to the meaning better than any alternative phrasing.
If I were in the first category — verbal tic — then it would be difficult to dial it back to specific usage. Since I grew up in the latter category — none at all — I have found it very easy to keep a lid on my verbal expression of emotions and not use words I’d prefer not to say.
If you want a pretty neat exploration of what happens when you don’t learn to control what you say, go check out South Park’s Tourettes episode. Besides handling the actual brain problem unusually well (pointing out that it’s not just swearing and it’s not fun to have that problem), they let Cartman go wild pretending to have Tourettes and had it segue into some consequences for him.
Actually, South Park is a good example of when offensive content works. They have managed to touch on dozens of worthwhile subjects by getting the viewers into the mindset where they weren’t on the defensive because the show itself wasn’t there just to preach at them or somehow be better than them. The most extreme example I can think of was when Mr. Slave pointed out that we as parents ought to be helping our children develop better role models than the slutty girls that culture seems to latch onto — and that’s in an episode where they have a sluttiness contest where one person shoves a pineapple up their butt and the other shoves a PERSON up theirs.
Lastly: I can appreciate turning insults into compliments; it’s a long-standing tradition for humans to take on the terms that have been used to insult them. Being able to handle insults with aplomb is an appealing character trait. That’s why we have creative insult wars, and rap battles, and roasts. In fact, if you’re not adverse to some harsh language, go check out Markiplier’s reaction to his roast thread (where he asks people to insult him creatively). I found it hilarious and it confirmed his ability to handle criticism with a good attitude.
Don’t know how I managed to overlook this before, but … congratulations on 700 comics, Dave!
This is adorable! Also those are pretty nice hands dave 🙂
When my kids were growing up, we had a game called Tornado Rex. A spinning top similar to WB’s Tasmanian Devil would knock you off the mountain path…
First I will re-post the previous installments then , NEW MATERIAL!
The Orphanage Kids Adventures Presents ;
The Smith Sisters and the Great ScareFair Chapter 01.
For Halloween time I have for you a bit of a scare .
Read this fanfic story if you dare.
What makes it a frightening read?
Amanda_Marie and Selkie getting along ! Now that is scarey indeed!
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“Okay Todd , what is wrong?”
Todd looked over at his former , now quite estranged , lover and the mother of one of his children. “Why do you think that any-thing is wrong?”
“Because you keep looking over to the Maize-Maze like you are expecting it to spontainiously combust.”
Todd winced before admitting , “Well it is just that ,… did the girls seem to be acting strange to you ?”
Andy paused in handing out the blood punch , ichor-cola, and other refreshments to the children. “You mean like how as soon as we told them about how we volunteered the family to work the Halloween Carnivale they suddenly _Stopped_ fighting ? Or how Amanda-Marie _insisted_ that she and I have Selkie over for a sleep-over last weekend? Or that they had Kesha and Heather over as well? Or that the four of them insisted on watching all of the ‘Home Alone’ , ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ , and ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ movies in a weekend long marathon? Or that those same little girls have volunteered en masse to work the Mystery Maize Maze and nearly trampled over the other kids who tried to volunteer for that job?
Why no , I have not noticed any of that Todd , none of it at all.”
“Okay , there is a point where you are just abusing sarcasm Andy, you know that right?”
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“all units, attention all units,” said the small young voice into the cell-phone that had been set to the walkie-talkie app. “Alpha Targets spotted! Repeat alpha targets spotted!”
“Yessss! Wes were rights that theys would be heres!”
” Continue at your post Agent Alicorn, let us know if they turn into the maze.”
Sounds of little girls cackling in an evil but cute manner was heard.
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“Man this year is even lamer than it was last year dude.”
“Yeah, man, Spackle is right, why are we even here any way?”
“Ah, I guess I just wanted to , OW@ what the f—-?”
“Hey don’t yuh know that you are not supposed to say swear words here ? This is a family fun zone , there are kids with delicate ears here.”
“Hey you little brat , you, … hey wait a minit’ , you are one of them ! From last year!”
“That’s right!” and with that Amanda turned arround and ran into the corn-maze that was behind her.
“Get her!”
And so the three morons, er, teenage ruffians ran after their prey….
….and to their doom.
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There are , sadly, some people who do not have tragic backstories but just simply _choose_ to be bullies or , to be blunt, ass-hats.
One such example occured one year prior to these events.
Exactly one year.
For you see one year ago, before Andi sought-out her daughter, before Heather was adopted , before Todd Smith adopted a little girl with sorrowful eyes, those three girls , Kesha , and some of the other children from orphanage were hollyhocked and harashed by a trio of older boys who thought it was hilarious to torment the orphanage kids.
…. now it is twelve months later and while many things have changed since the last ScareFair some things remain the same.
One of those things that remain the same is the fantasy of revenge in the hearts of some young girls….
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The Orphanage Kids Adventures Presents
The Smith Sisters in the Great Scare Fair
Chapter 02
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“Lonny?!”
“Over here you dip-sh–!”
“Where here?”
Suddenly there was cruel saccherine laughter all arround them. “Man you losers are pathetic!”
“When I get my hands on you you little brat …!”
“Now is that any way to talk to the person who can get you out of there? Now you greasy-hair go to your right and walk past the next intersection then turn left , you spike-hair , first of all Bart Simpson would be asshamed of that hair and second turn arround and go back to the scarecrow. You third guy…”
Several minutes later the three miscreants were re-united although they were still hopelessly lost in the maze .
Unknown to them the directions that they had been given had placed them right where the girls had wanted them ….
The poor saps had no idea what they were in for….
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“Um, Tod?”
“Yeah?”
“Where are the girls?”
Tod looked over to the maze only to see that there was a crudely painted sign barring the entrance that read “Closed Back soon.”
Todd wondered why he had a hard lump of consentrated dread in his gut.
Then he remembered some of the troubles that he and Andy had gotten into as youngsters and also remembered that Selkie and Amanda-Marie were their daughters.
Yep, that explained it.
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One of the few things about life in an orphanage that could be said to be ‘good’ , at least more or less, was that some-times older ‘graduates’ from the orphanage would come by to talk or entertain the ‘inmates who were still severing their time’ as one of them put it.
They would play ball-games with the younger children, or they play bored-games , er board-games,(…mmmm….no, the first one was right after all…) or…. they would do magic shows…
…more than one of the younger orphans would look up certain books in the library after they had seen the feats that the older alumni had performed….
The Orphanage Kids Adventures continue with
The Smith Sisters and The Great Scare Fair Chapter 03
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“Slight-of-hand”
“Misdirection”
“what your audiance sees is not as important as what they THINK that they see”
These were amung the simplest , and most basic of the lessons found in a library book about performing magic tricks.
Rest assured that the writers of the book in question , unless they had been precognitive could not have anticipated the use that those lessons would be applied to at the Scare Fair that year.
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Andi looked up at the sounds . “I thought that the fire-works, I mean dire-works were not going to be for a while yet.”
Todd shrugged as he handed out a Bitter Arsenic (really a lemonade) to a child. “Maybe they are test firing to get ready.”
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Shortly prior:
“Are you scared yet ? Because you _should_ be.”
The three teens spun arround at the sound of the voice .
Standing there was a small form , quite a bit shorter than any of them, wearing an…. eclectic … costume.
“Get ‘er!”
“I summon lightning!”
Instantly there was a flash of blinding light and a thunderclap.
The ruffians jumped back by dint of pure reflex.
Amanda cackled merrily. “Mortal fools! Last year my powers were at a low ebb after being cast into this dismal plane of existance! But I have had a year to gather my power and while I still lack enough power to leave this world I now have more than enough power to visit my vengence upon you! HAHAHAHAHA! ”
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At the orphanage there was an older boy whose name shall be with-held in the interest of his protection. He worked a paper route and small jobs but rather than spending his earnings on chewing gum, or sweets, or musical recordings he would save them up and spend them only twice a year.
First at Christmas time to cheer up the other orphans and thank their care-takers.
…. and secondly in the period between July 5th and the 14th.
In this time frame stores in the United States grow very eager to get rid of their stocks of fire-works that had gone unsold in the days leading up to that nation’s “Independence Day” celebrations.
The young man would get the best deals that he could then secret them away .
The Orphanage Avengers ( as they had come to call themselves) had convinced him to donate some of his secret horde to the cause.
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“HAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”
The ruffian trio shakely tried to get back up on their feet.
“You think that you can scare us you little piece of -_-_!?”
“Now, now, now, such launguage.” Amanda chided Lonnie gleefully.
Lonnie growled in rage as he lunged at his small tormentor.
He grabbed Amanda and shook her but Amanda responded by grabbing him as well . Imeadiately he went into convulsions before ripping his hands away from her and crab-on-its-back scuttled to put as much distance between the two of them as he could.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Pathetic fools!” Amanda chortled. “My very touch is more than you can bare!”
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It is worth noting that Selkie and Amanda’s Grandparents had lived through the civil rights movement , they were _Very_ aware of the niacin atrosity and the Tuskineegee Syphilus atrosity. They had been alive to watch in horror as a ‘man’ named Nixon who had commited treason three times before was none -the-less named president. They knew about how the military had marched it’s own soldiers across a desert plain that had been the site of a nuclear detonation only hours before.
Therefore it is understandable that they were a bit more sceptical of the intentions of mysterious agents of an aledged government agency than Todd was.
Thus it was that one day they happened to get their granddaughters stun-gloves, a device that fuctioned similiar to a stun-gun or taser but in the form of gloves. Their reasoning was that while young girls might mis-use a stun-gun , stun-gloves , which could only be used via direct contact, were a much safer choice.
If any-one attempted to place hostile hands on their grandchildren then they deserved what would happen to them.
Grampa Theo had made a joke about “feminine protection”.
Grandma Marta had smacked him on the head.
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“Do you dolts still doubt my powers? Then another demonstration is in order!” Amanda pointed to the teenager on her far right . “I give you the curse of explosive flatulance! That means you fart you explode!”
Imeadiately there was a loud ‘BANG!’ as the goon on her far left screamed and jumped forward.
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Several seconds earlier , while the goon-gang was facing Amanda , a pair of petite hands sheathed in black emerged from the cornstalks behind them. The sound of their actions were covered by the wind and sound machines of the ScareFair as they very softly placed a small fire-cracker with a lit fuse in his back pocket.
If the lout had been wearing pants that actually fit instead of ones that hung off of his waist exposing his butt-crack for all the world to see he might have felt her actions.
Fortunately for the entertainment of you dear readers this was not the case.
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“Huh, how about that.” Amanda said thoughtfully as she stared at her index finger. “I guess that my aim was a little off. Welp, lets try that again.” , and with that she pointed again to the (now understandably nervous) thug on her far right.
“[BANG!]”
“Yow!”
“Ah, much better!” Amanda said as she nodded happily to herself.
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It is worth noting that intelligent beings by their very nature must be social beings.
Therefore it should come as no surprise that the children in the orphanage , having been denied one form of family would build alternate forms of such with one another.
….and that gossip and an ‘orphans-stick-together’ mentality would have a very strong presence in the orphanage.
….thus when a rumour began to circulate that certain some-ones were planning to … extract some creative justice …. for the events of the previous year, one of the others may have, just _may-have_ mind you , have mentioned to the girls that certain subsonic sounds could have interesting effects.
Sounds that could not be _Heard_ could none-the-less stimulate in people angsiety, nervousness,fear, or even out right panic under the right conditions.
There was a young man formerly of the orphanage now attending college (if only barely) who was well known to be very proud of the speaker system in his van (which he called ‘the Date Machine’) . The girls asked him if they could borrow some of his speakers . He was understandably reluctant to do so… at least until they explained _why_ they wanted them.
He not only loaned them the speakers but also donated his time and expertise to the cause and wired up the effects that the girls thought up.
The entire time that the knuckle-heads, … er… offensive teenagers , had been in the maze they had been bombarded by sounds that they could not hear.
Now the Orphanage Avengers also were subject to these sounds but they had the advantage of knowing to what to expect and brace themselves for it.
If any-thing they were feeling a bit giddy.
The moral-impearment posterchildren on the other hand were finding nerves jittery and their desicion-making erroded.
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“Now comes the best part.” Amanda said as she smiled her best ‘i-is-crazier-than-you-by – a-longshot-buster’ smile. “When I came to this world I managed to retain my faithful demonic retainer. You do remember her right?”
With that Selkie did a menacing crouch-walk into view.
“Itz the lizard-freak!”
“She’s a fish.” Amanda said some-what annoyed.
Selkie sent a quick side-ways glare at her ‘beloved’ sister but remained in character and only hissed at the “gansta-wantabes”.
“Do ever watch the Mightily Morfed Energy Strangers or other Sentai shows?” Amanda asked with all the casualness of a shark eyeing a tuna. “My favorate part is when the heroes fight the monster then the big baddie yells ‘grow my mighty minion’ and suddenly the monster that they are facing grows into a much bigger monster.
Just.
Like.
This.
GROW MY DEMONIC MINION GROW!”
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Now once there was a corporate slime-ball who saw a segment on the news about a new fad and said “I want that!”
The fad in question was called ‘astronaut-boots’ , or ‘spring-heeled boots’ , or even some-times referred to as ‘anti-gravity boots’. By which-ever name one chose to call them they were basicly small stilts with high-tension springs in them that let the person wering them jump for three, four or even five times farther than normal.
So the lack-wit bought several pairs to share ( in other words show-off with ) the others in his office.
One sprained wrists, one broken wrist , and a cracked pelvis however showed that some measure of actual skill was called for in the use of the devices.
The executive tried to write-them off as a business expense.
The IRS agent laughed at him.
He tried to take them back to get his money back.
The business had gone out of business.
Finally he decided to donate them to an orphanage as a different sort of charity write-off.
The children being of lighter body masses did not suffer the injuries that the executive had and enjoyed them very much.
Then the small group of girls had asked the care-takers to borrow them to use as part of a Halloween costume. Which was the truth just not the entire truth.
Selkie and Amanda’s grand-mother Marta had been happy to help them make costumes for Halloween even given some of the strange requests that came with it.
Thus Heather and Kesha waited for their cue…
“GROW MY DEMONIC MINION GROW!”
…. and flipped down the welding goggles that they were wearing, hit the toggle that activated the extremely high-powered strobe-light that was aimed right at the boys,…..
“AHHHH! MY EYES!”
….and raced out to Selkie. With-in seconds they had velcro-strapped every-thing into place and dashed around to the other side of the bullies.
As the teenagers regained a blury partial vision they beheld the sight of a two and three quarter meters tall Selkie with horrific patagia and fin-like protrusions. The ends of her arms seemed instead of hands to become whip-like tendrils.
In truth they were indeed whips that been made to look like tentacles but the morons did not know that.
Selkie made a rapid back-and-forth motion with one ‘hand’ and there was a snapping sound as one of the bullies screamed. In truth Selkie was having a great challenge just balancing but Kesha was unseen behind the buffoons and she was using her own whip to inflict the damage.
“NOW FEED MY DEMON! EAT THEM ALIVE! HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!!”
It was at this time that Heather punched the ‘play’ button that played a dozen copies of Selkie’s shriek at the same time at maximum volume.
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“Todd was that…?”
“Selkie’s shreik yes !”
How-ever before either one of them could move a single step, a trio of terrified teenagers burst right through the side of the maize maze running as fast as their rubber-like legs could carry them.
Right behind them came a trio of girls half their size snapping whips at the first trio while a towering Selkie was taking bounding leaps and shreiking for all her worth.
“Todd , how much trouble will we get into for this?”
“It depends on if any-one is still on the police force who was there for our little ‘coffee shoppe’ incident.”
The ever-loving, ever-living, undead end!
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Congrats on 700! 😀
700 pages! Congrats, that’s a huge amount of comics for one person to make. What’s even better is that they’re 700 pages of great story-telling and constantly improving art!