A NEW VOTING INCENTIVE COMIC (generated by me and my six year-old daughter)!!!
After watching a Reading Rainbow episode about comic artists, my daughter really wanted to try her hand at the process. This is the result: a comic co-written and colored by her, with my fantastic brush doing the ink. (Her watercolor job is actually better than my contribution, IMHO.)
You get a new THRILLING page each week, so you don’t want to miss it! I mean, the plot! It’s so … yeah.
As for this comic…
I felt that I needed to establish the actual location (and actual safety) of Miranda fairly soon after she went missing, because everything’s less funny when there’s a missing baby. When there’s a found baby that a character thinks is missing, that’s comedy.
And I’m really tired of this whole jail thing. Working around those bars, visually speaking, is a pain in the bum.
Well now we know where the baby went. Security got a hold of the baby. Nobody tell Colin. It’s a learning experience!
Don’t worry. Colin will get lots of time to freak the heck out.
I’mk actually surprised that security picked up the baby and disappeared in the “exactly 30 seconds” Colin was gone. Did not even check the immediate surroundings, did not deduce that the parent may have gone to the nearby restroom, he just though “abandoned baby, better take it straight to the lost and found” which is inevitably more effort on his and the park’s behalf, rather than thinking a bit.
Of course, it may not have been him, a gang of baby snatchers may have got her first, and he bravely rescued her, and, not knowing where the parents were, took her to the lost and found.
However, this hinges on the 30 seconds thing being exactly 30 seconds, and not simply amusing comedy.
More on that in the next comic, but it wasn’t security who picked her up directly.
Papa Schnorff?
Nah, just some nasty helicopter mom.
Hey, man, it’s Canada!
It’s Monday and already a new Puck comic? Well, I’m not complaining.
As for Miranda showing up there, that actually makes quite a lot of sense – mainly as the guard/s found a baby and most likely went “Huh, a lost baby? Well that’s not good, better take him/her with us”.
Boy are the other regs going to be red in the face when they realize what they missed out on. 😛
You get advance viewing! By, like, a few hours!
And here I was going to wait until midnight to check, but I stopped in because my Hulu session and ‘Supergirl’ (on live TV – CBS) didn’t quite match up. So, I winged through.
-Also, I thought that you probably drew the comic on one layer and then placed the bars on another layer in some photoshop-type program.
You’re actually drawing the bars in situ?
Many things are in layers in the comic. The bars are on a separate layer, the characters are on their own layer, and the rocks in the wall are on another layer (of sorts). But the bars require fiddling so that you don’t end up with a bar covering the middle of someone’s face. It’s surprisingly hard to manage.
I’m posting early because, quite simply, I don’t have the time to post later. It’s a bad time of year for my real job, so I have to work around it. (I could delay the post and schedule it to be put up later using WordPress’ fancy delayed posting function, but I’m not that ambitious.)
If it works like my blog, it is not that difficult. Set the time to when you want it released — the time is in GMT, not your local time — then release it. It will not actually be released until the specified time.
Yeah, it’s not that hard. I’ve done it before. But then I ALSO need to postdate all of my social media posts to match it, and I’m just like… enh. I’ll put it up now.
Make more Doggie Dan. Thanks.
Well, it’s the biggest crowd pleaser ever, so of course!
If I liked Dogs, I’m sure I’d love Doggie Dan.
So – make MORE.
‘Cause the World does not exist to please me. Boy, is THAT a given.
Well, we kept making them. I just stopped sharing them.
So their first date is going exactly as he thought it would.
Their first date? Isn’t this way past that and is their first capture. At the least, they’ll have time to talk.
I don’t think they’ve ever dated, really. They’ve hung around. And periodically participated in ludicrous schemes. But date? Not exactly.
i don’t think they have ever dated, or done anything remotely romantic and/or intimate. Though considering what zany schemes they get up to, it is not beyond possibility that they have done a “fake out make out” to avoid detection. Though Daphne would probably prefer knock out any would be detectors.
I think they’ve been through many such experiences before.
Well, well, well, looks like the authorities captured Ms. Big!
No jail can hold her.
I’m glad Miranda’s okay. Depressingly predictable I’d go for in Daphne’s shoes but I didn’t see it coming, strange. With the jail problem can’t you just draw the scene then add bars???
I draw the scene and then add the bars. But I always have to mess around with the bars in order to make it so that you can actually see the characters’ faces. It’s a pain. But hey, it’s needed.
The building inspector must have been paid off in that Doggie Dan comic. There are windows on every floor specifically for that type of situation.
Everything’s to code. Honest.
I, as a* fire inspector, also accept discreet envelopes of cash and cash-like cash…
*former
Like a good fire inspector should.
You’d think that they’d prefer chili recipies instead.
I always ask for “pictures od dead presidents”.
Then they give me Franklins.
Yuck.
Welp, at least Miranda has her big sis to look after her, what a wonderful bonding experience.
I think that Miranda would be better off with an empty room, but that’s just me.
Still, better with Daphne than alone, maybe just me, but I think Daphne would surprise herself by being oddly protective of Miranda.
I think you’re oddly right.
Awwww, you got this one up early.
I forgot, but it seems that with the mention of surf and turf, Tyler may be well accustomed to hanging out with Daphne.
He’s been hanging out with her (and participating in her shenanigans) since they were little.
Every once in a while, I need to.
How about a Puck guest or vote comic in which Puck and company live in a tribal society getting what they need from nature.
Don’t we ALL get what we need from nature?
It’s just that some of us are closer to the nature part than others – while we live in our little tribal neighborhoods.
You said it !
Like food that is “Natural”.
Is there any that isn’t ?
Panel three is the best! The look Miranda shares with Daphne speaks volumes.
I love silent panel threes. It’s a habit of mine.
I’m just relieved it was park security that picked up the baby. Seriously.
Which is why I wanted to drop this info earlier rather than later.
Deeply appreciated, I assure you. 🙂
I think it’s predictable and maybe a whole lot depressing that even at her young age baby Miranda doesnt seem all that shocked or even minamaly disturbed at seeing Daphne behind bars. Well, I have always heard it said animals and babies are good judges of a persons character!
Babies are used to bars. They sleep in cribs. ‘Back to the Future’ had it right on that front.
“Oh, someone put my big sister and her friend down for a nap, but they’re fussing.”
Exactly.
@Rock
Hey, I got your joke ! Only took me 1 year, 4 months, and 22 days. (I’m improving)
It is funny – I wish I’d thought of it.
BTW Get voting fellow fans! There is no way that Puck should be only number 21 in the favourites ranking. Vote daily and put Puck where it deserves to be
This is what happens when I run voting incentive pics that don’t contain (or falsely promise to contain) cheesecake. Oh well. I guess I’ll have to go a smexier route for December.
Doggie Dan is adorable though! It deserves way more votes.
But adorable only gets you so far, I guess. Not in the top 20.
We can vote more than once per comic?
But…but, I don’t WANNA be a Democrat!! 🙁
IT sounds too much like work.
IT *is* work, Information Technologies, :3 ehehe i know you just meant it but i thought i would be literal
It took me way too long to get that.
Is this some sort of multiple choice question horror from the depths of High School English Literature class? 😛 Thank God for the Pure Sciences…
I would say that this situation is “unexpectedly, depressingly, awkwardly predictable…” or some combination thereof….
I don’t use multiple choice questions. Multiple choice questions really don’t belong in a lit class. You should always have the ability to make your own answer, as you just did.
Tell that to the people who set up the AP exam…
I’m with you. Stupid system. Says the certified AP instructor.
“…everything’s less funny when there’s a missing baby…” sounds like a good rule of thumb. It was also kinda funny that Tyler never got around to learning his not-a-girlfriend’s baby sister’s name – teenage boys have priorities after all, and if you offered me money, I could never remember the name of my first gf’s brother.
—
The bar/layer thing reminds me that in figuring out what we are seeing IRL we just unconsciously ignore things like jail bars or … more commonly, for me anyway … tree branches. For some reason that doesn’t work with drawings.
—
“When surf n turf is on the menu, why choose?” is a line I may have occasion to use in conversation. Thanks!
Yeah, with the bar thing, it’s not an issue in real life, or even in movies, because the motion of the characters or the camera means that your brain can piece together the image of the person with little difficulty. But in a static image, the rules are different. You can’t place a bar over a character’s eyes, or between a character’s eyes. And when you have two characters behind the same regularly spaced bars, it gets … challenging.
And as for baby names, I find baby names hard to remember, because really, baby names are just an artificial construct for the first many months. This is a baby: it is a primordial creature of sleep and milk and barf. It may only barely recognize its own name. Names only make sense, I feel, when you answer to them.
I find it funny when artists/set contractors will space the bars so far apart that a person/cartoon could easily walk between them, but it fits better for viewing the characters’ faces. 😀
I do that here. But hey, it’s the bar thought that counts. So what if it’s not really a strong jail.
Was it ‘Canadian Bacon’ were the Canadian prisoners were so trustworthy that the jailers actually hung the keys on a nail within reach of the cell?
(If they even locked the door, anyway)
I once met a South African at a party who expressed his amazement at the trusting behavior of Canadians. “Canadians,” he said, “will pull up to Tim Hortons, get out of the car, leave the keys in the car with the ignition running, and go into the store for five minutes with the firm expectation that no one will steal the car in the interim. And the craziest part of this whole thing is the fact that he’s right! No one steals the car! If you tried to pull that in South Africa, your car would be stolen in three seconds, guaranteed.”
I can’t vouch for the accuracy of his depiction of South African society, but I can vouch for his astonished sense of wonder upon witnessing the Canadian norm.
I believe it.
South African Car Flamethrower [CNN]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDrzMGdYWZc
Well, that’s taking things far.
I am liking one thing in this storyline especially: Daphne has gotten more varied facial expressions here than in the entire previous run of the comic. Up to now, she’s been mostly limited to (1) puppy-dog-eyes, and (2) snark. Just a few comics back, she was unambiguously happy. (Okay, that happiness was inspired by criminal activity, but that was kind of inevitable.) It’s just nice to see she is, in fact, capable of the full range of human emotion, even if she usually chooses not to bother.
It’s been fun taking the opportunity to flesh out some of the less developed corners of this comic’s small world. Daphne’s certainly one of those. I wanted this story arc to just focus on the main characters and not introduce any new ones. (Well, as long as we don’t count Papa Shnorf.)
We’ll have to wait and see what happens next.
When is Puck herself coming back?
SOON. One more comic about Daphne, Tyler, Colin and baby, then back to Puck and Phoebe for a while. This most recent run has been the longest the comic’s ever gone without an appearance from Puck. I don’t plan to make a habit of that.
I think the occasional subplot without Puck would be fun. You’ve made a great supporting cast and I’m enjoying seeing the trouble they get into when they’re out of earshot of her.
I’d agree, but I don’t want to lose focus. I’ll use the non-Puck storylines sparingly, I think.
Well that’s a huge relief knowing now Security took the baby…
Although I think that Colin’s going to get yelled at regardless.
If Colin only gets yelled at, he’ll be the luckiest man alive.
UPDATE: After my Supervisor, Karen, at the Daphne-Bashing Unit fired me, I led an aimless existence. But no more !
It was a bit before noon, a few weeks ago, when I arose for the day, with a brilliant inspiration. I immediately set off to make the proposal to Sigmund, Satan’s Butler, who ran it by old Purple-Face. He bought my idea !
Here’s the grift: Sigmund stuffs me in an old shoe box, and drops SalemCat off at the local no-kill shelter. Before you know it, I’m in a cage, where I scout my prey.
As a likely family approaches, I begin pawing the bars, purring, wide-eyed, all that yucky, hackneyed, kitten-stuff. Oh, they buy my act, alright.
So I’m in a nice warm home, plenty of food and cuddles. Meanwhile I keep Sigmund updated using a burner phone. I even send him videos (snicker).
Then, after a week or two, I disappear. Leaving a Suicide Note. “You are an awful famiwy. Life wid you guys is like wotten tuna. Good Riddance.”
The “Lost Cat” flyers, the fruitless searches, the tears of children, Sigmund and I record it all. We even snatch a flyer as a souvenir.
Then Sigmund, Satan, Tracee (who, as it turns out, has a heart of coal), and I, upload it all to the big screen, and laugh ourselves silly.
It’s good to have a purpose.
I’m glad you found your calling.