Welcome back, and welcome to 2011!

I remembered to update the date in the copyright tag this time!

Are you kidding? I’m sure that he loved pie.

…What?

These are the things I think about.

Often.

Yes, my mind is a very strange place. Not that this is news to you, dear reader.

Never let the fact that you have serious concept issues with your idea get in the way of making a bad pun, I figure.

…

It’s vastly easier to find information about “The Swan Princess” than it is about “The Swan Prince,” by the way. In the eyes of Google, at least, Disney trumps the classics of old…

Laugh if you want to, but I’m absolutely certain that I’ve heard my dice make this noise right before a gaming session…

Admit it: You’ve missed this sort of thing.

At least a little bit.

(Right?)

And we’re back! Did you miss us?

Don’t worry, Rusty will come around. He enjoys the limelight too much not to.

…

I couldn’t resist the running element of having one balloon in each of the first three panels pointing to an off-screen character. Heck of a way to get back in the saddle, eh?

It’s the least I could do for one of my biggest, best fans.

Okay, don’t you all go clamoring at once for similar treatment, now…!

I’d like to thank Wonderduck for giving me the first grunted syllable in today’s comic, back in the comments for Monday’s comic… *wry grin*

…

You know, if I keep using Bob then I’m going to have to give him a tag and a slot in the cast page, aren’t I?

It’s funny, I always start out with vague notions for what I’ll do with this duck or that set of ducks, but when production time arrives I find myself going in different directions. Bob was going to be a one-time character over those few comics a while back, but when I came up for this DST-zombie joke I realized that I needed him to give Score someone to play off of. It’s not like anybody else around here has the zed-head perspective required, right?

The best laid plans of ducks and men, or some such.

Don’t be silly. Nobody here would slaughter cats just to collect their eyes. That would be hideous.

…

I use Roger mainly to tell jokes that make people groan. I use Li mainly to tell jokes that are somewhat… inappropriate.

That is, even more inappropriate than your average bad pun, of course.