This marks the first appearance of Colin, Puck’s boyfriend, in the series. Puck, Daphne, Phoebe and Colin make up the central cast of characters in the strip. Anyone introduced after this point is just icing on the cake. Colin is a favourite of mine: a nice guy with a streak of immaturity three miles wide. He provided lots of comic potential.
The ‘Mousthkellar’, by the way, was a spoof on the ‘Rathskellar’, a venerable pub on McMaster’s campus. A few years after this strip ran, the university decided to close down all such venerable watering holes and replace them with one giant ‘Super Pub’ (I kid you not, and that’s what they actually called it – a Super Pub), so the Rathskellar sadly is no longer in operation. It was dark and musty and vaguely Germanic in feel. I liked it.
That musty, Teutonic feel doesn’t come through in this strip, mainly because of the intensely lazy background work here. I must win an award for ‘laziest depiction of a bar in a comic strip’. Oh well. I’m not sure what those white circles are supposed to be. I think they were intended to be lights? Perhaps? They’re up to critical interpretation.
My brother’s ex-girlfriend thought the last panel of this strip was hilarious, what with Puck’s facial expression. It works, and I have to say that I’m most proud of a joke when the drawing really plays a crucial role. When body language or facial expressions make a joke fly, it’s a great experience. Of course, when one’s poor drawing skills make a strip tank, it’s even more frustrating, but thankfully that didn’t happen here.
This was the first strip to have me laugh out loud, so…yep! Last panel for the win.
Good to hear! The drawings may be kinda crude, but if they’re doing the job, I’m happy.
“icing on the cake” – yep, that’s Tracee !
Tracee is more like that icing that has WAY too much food coloring in it so it’s almost sorta bitter. Like, you want to eat that big icing flower on top of the cake because, well, it’s icing. But as it’s going down, you regret it.
That’s Tracee.
I made a temporary leap forward in Time, and discovered Tracee, (sob sob sob), is GONE !
And all this time I was hoping you’d spin off a new Web Comic entirely for HER !
(loud caterwauling)
Well, she’s never gone forever. She’s like certain unfortunate diseases that might look like they’ve vanished, but really they’re still lurking around. She’ll be back. Just not yet.
And if Tracee is like a disease then I already have it.
Tracee Fever!
I disagree. Tracee is perfect. Salem would probably say that she’s the cat’s meow.
@CH
Yes, yes, I would !
🙂
It’s amazing, the sorts of things some people can go for.
And sometimes fascinating. And sometimes gross.
Wow…and she doesn’t look a year over 546. She’s aging better than Galadriel.
Well, I wouldn’t say THAT.
Hey, that mug is is about the size of the one I put in Old Auntie’s hand, that some people (*cough*) made fun of. http://tinypic.com/m/juhd0i/3
@Susan
“Auntie” ?
Well, Old Auntie obviously likes her ale.
Yup. Seventeen.
Seventeen what? Seventeen tacos. Must be seventeen tacos.
Cannolis? Feet? R-factor? Hundred miles? leagues under the sea? Radians? Steradians? It was so long ago, I can’t remember!
Dratit, I did easy math wrong! 21. Maybe. Maybe I thought he was lying. I don’t know any more. It was a whole not 2020 ago and so much has changed. For one thing, 2020 happened.