Updating on the weekends? What will we think of next?

We’ll break them of that repeating-repeating habit some day.

Just, you know… not any time soon.

Yes, there’s a reason I used those specific first and last musical act names. You didn’t think this was completely random, did you? (Not that I’d blame you, I suppose.)

Also: We’ve seen that Roger can interact with Rei in a non-joking, reasonably coherent manner. If he’s mentally prepared beforehand, that is… apparently he doesn’t react well to surprises.

…

There’s an awful lot of 80s up there, isn’t there? Hmm. Clearly I am a product of my times.

It’s not that Rei’s terribly fond of bad jokes, mind you. She just takes her responsibilities quite seriously.

It was sort of a long way to go for a punchline which isn’t exactly guaranteed to cause the slapping of knees… but hey, you get a tiny bit of history and education along with your mild entertainment. What’s not to like?

I’d like to give a shout-out to the nice folks at Foster & Dobbs over on NE 15th in Portland, Oregon. If we hadn’t gone wandering thereabouts today, it would probably have been months from now (if ever) before I came up with this comic idea. We didn’t pick up the Dubliner Stout there, but they did have the Tomme d’Aydius (which I’d never heard of before today, and is one of the few goat’s milk cheeses I’ve tried and really liked). And yes, they do have Wensleydale, and the placard refers to it as “the favorite of Wallace & Gromit.” How can you not adore a cheese shop like that?

Oh, and the best part about using cheese as your webcomic prop? The cleanup, of course. (YUM.)

…

Now, on the other hand… there’s a cautionary tale in this for those who want to make a photography-based webcomic. If you get the urge to use the natural light of the evening sun… make damned sure that you get things done in time.

In other words: Yes, I know how bad the first two panels look. When I proofed the pictures before doing corrections, they all looked the same. Color correction, however, made a mess of the first two but brought out the 3rd and 4th panels beautifully.

Oh well. Live and learn, yadda de yadda.

I doubt I’ll ever be up to the challenge of doing a “rolling punchline” or “joke barrage” like Shamus Young is so fond of, but I love working extra jokes into a comic wherever I can…

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?

I realized the other day that Roger hasn’t directly pestered Rei, the object of his affections, lately…

This one’s an example of why I need to start planning these out a bit better before shooting: I intended a three-panel joke setup with a kicker, sure, but I didn’t actually have the kicker figured out in advance so I had to come up with one during assembly. And… I’m not really happy with it. It’s pretty obvious where I tried to go with it, but the journey isn’t actually funny.

Mind you, I also need to get more on the ball about comic production so I’m not assembling during the 10-o’clock hour on a Sunday night, either. (I goofed off a bit during the afternoon when I could’ve been fixing up today’s comic, then the Sunday night gaming session went way damned long…)