NEW VOTING INCENTIVE!!! WINTER SKETCHES!!!
January will be devoted to some winter activity sketches to get us in the seasonal mood! It’s easy for me right now because it’s currently -20 C outside with over a foot of snow. Vote to see this week’s offering! (And remember: fans who donate $5 or more a month get a say in what voting incentives run! If you want to join their controlling ranks, HEAD ON OVER TO PATREON and join the select club!)
VOTE FOR PUCK BUT ONLY IF YOU WANT TO!!!
As for this comic…
This ends the chapter. And represents the last entry of ‘phase three’ for this webcomic. (In other words, if I ever get around to printing Volume Two of Puck, this will be the final strip in that collection.) The fact that it ended right at the very end of 2017 is honestly pure coincidence. But it’s nice when things align like that.
I wish everyone a good new year, and hope 2018 is not a disaster. 2016 and 2017 haven’t given me much to be hopeful for on the global front, but hope springs eternal.
Yay happy ending!
(Of this chapter only. Things never actually end…)
—
About the voting incentive: Phoebe is way too hot for snow. Way way too hot! I don’t know how Mr. Snowman holds it together.
Sadly, snow doesn’t care whether you’re too hot for it. It invades your world up here no matter what your hotness.
Bah. If I were in that scene, I would be hiding someplace trying to get warm. You know, in skiing places like Aspen they have WARMING HUTS????
Warming huts? That sounds like some sad conciliatory gesture to the tourists from warmer climes. Up here you aren’t going to find any warming huts!
I dunno. I think maybe she could do better. And she’s met his family, too.
The problem might be that Colin might not be able to do anhydrous.
Well, yes, she probably could. But I am a firm believer that ‘I could do better’ thinking is exactly what has led to a lot of unhappy single people.
She can do better later. Colin is going to live how long, hundred years top? She’s over six hundred already and she may live thousands of years, if not forever.
Well, living with Colin and having a kid are bound to take off a few millennia from that…
Yeah, Jar-Jar was the worst.
Well, he was Jar-Jar. He’s almost lovable now that I can view him through the thin mist of time, and think nostalgically back on the first time Star Wars was thoroughly ruined for me.
Just saw The Last Jedi (Baldie smuggled me in under his coat so he save on a Ticket).
The Film-Makers have really learned their lessons.
WAIT – NO SPOILERS
Kylo Ren has evolved into the mold of Darth Vader (Kylo will never be DV, but is halfway there now). He is now a respectable villain instead of a pubescent whiney boy.
The Porgs are cute as a button, and hilarious. And lacking any of the cloying cuteness those awful Ewoks were dripping with.
No Jar Jar in the movie – (sigh of relief).
And keep your eyes peeled for some Golden Dice. Other fans tell me they belonged to Han Solo (Kylo Ren’s father), and hung on the Millennium Falcon’s Rear-View Mirror like Fuzzy Dice. They are the dice used when Han won the Falcon from Lando Calrissian.
Even so, Baldie tells me Han had his first encounter with Fuzzy Dice (fuzzy skulls), way back in 1973, in AMERICAN GRAFFITI, when both he and director George Lucas had their first major movie success.
Off Topic: What is really cool is our local AMC Theatre now has RESERVED SEATING. You buy your Tickets online, and CHOOSE YOUR SEATS. Baldie bought them a week in advance and got the best seats in the house. He was happy, indeed.
I was ‘meh’ on the most recent movie. I felt it was a good amount of really cool concepts and scenes wrapped up in a bunch of really sloppy narrative. Everything concerning Rey and Luke and Kylo I was good with and I thought worked. (Interestingly, that’s the stuff most of the vocal ‘angry internet guy’ critics have a problem with, but I liked it.) My problem is everything else. It was messy, or unnecessary, or didn’t entirely make sense, or just wasted proper beats that could have made it far more satisfying.
I do like the reserve seating thing, though. I make use of that myself with the local Imax theater. I dislike waiting for over an hour before a movie to get non-crummy seats.
RESERVED SEATING will be cool until they figure out they can CHARGE MORE for better seats.
Don’t give them any ideas.
Those space battles in The Last Jedi were stupid enough to ruin immersion for me. Sadly the movie was still better than the prequels. Also, Salem is the first one I’ve seen praising porgs. Most people seem to hate them especially after they were marketed so heavily before the movie came out. Master Yogurt must be rolling in his merchandising money.
@Marduk
There was a really DELETED SCENE where after Chewbacca tosses away a Cooked Porg, I snatched it off the Studio Floor and chowed down.
Those things make TUNA look like Chopped Liver.
More PORG – Pleeze !
There actually was a deleted scene where the porgs are fiddling with the light sabre and one gets the light sabre right through its head. That never got out of the storyboard stage.
I have no problem with porgs, myself. Mainly because these intensely marketable toy advertisements don’t actually AFFECT THE PLOT, unlike other cute fuzzy monstrosities. (I’m looking at YOU, ewoks.)
@EG
“There actually was a deleted scene where the porgs are fiddling with the light sabre and one gets the light sabre right through its head. ”
OH NO !
That would have started me bawling out loud !
Um – I mean – that could have traumatized children.
@EG
I was waiting for that to happen when one of them was stomping on the lightsaber and so disappointed when it didn’t. Then I hoped they’d be like the Dodo from American Dad that constantly tries to kill itself only to be casually saved by people. Sadly, Disney wouldn’t even make them a running gag. The one moment with a porg I liked was the one shouting along with Chewie. Chewie’s frustration with the porgs was well set up making that moment fairly funny.
I thought Han won the Falcon from Lando playing Sabbac (a card game)?
Yes, and we’ll totally see that in the upcoming Han Solo movie! Yyyyyyyay?
Jeepers, I hope it’s a good movie.
And that Han SHOOTS FIRST.
“those awful Ewoks”
What?
Well, I stayed away after the last trilogy. But I never much liked going to the movies anyway—I may yet catch up on home video.
@Robert Nowall
Baldie waited for the DVD on THE FORCE AWAKENS and ROGUE ONE.
Prolly a good move on TFA, but not so for R1.
If I were you, and you have a good theatre nearby, go see TLJ while it’s on the big screen.
It will be worth it.
“The Force Awakens” was ruined for me once I realised IT IS EXACTLY THE SAME PLOT AS EP Four! Rogue One was okay. Darker, but okay. We are going to see TLJ this weekend (we have been planning to for some little while, but things kept happening) and all the spoilers I have been obsessively reading (I hate suspense) had better be right.
@Susan
Don’t be disappointed if TLJ contains some repeated elements as well.
What works – works.
Also, I’m pretty sure 99% of every worthwhile tale is basically a rehash of Shakespeare, or even Greek Tragedy.
Best of all, as I’ve said, TLJ demonstrates that the film-makers are repeating elements that fans enjoy, and dumping obvious errors.
E.I., Ewoks and Jar Jar.
TLJ is a wild ride that leaves the doors wide open for more future fun !
We’re glad we went, and are looking forward to viewing it again on DVD this Spring.
Here’s one more spoiler Susan. The Millennium Falcon makes a dangerous trip through a narrow space so that the Death Star can be blown up. And no, I didn’t accidentally describe Episode Six.
The crystal fox dogs (Vulptex) were pretty cool looking though.
I liked the foxes. I did not like how they sort of saved the day.
@EG
“I liked the foxes. I did not like how they sort of saved the day.”
Now, now.
Except for a certain someone, and a certain something, the Ice Foxes would have just been engaging in a cruel tease.
That’s what foxes do.
Yay! Congrats to the happy couple! Can’t wait to see what misadventures occur during the planning and execution of this wedding!
Whatever happens, it’s bound to be awful! And yet come together in the end in a somewhat acceptable conclusion.
Puck has family, doesn’t she?
I’d like to see Colin’s family meeting them…
With Puck being a faerie and all… That’s going to be amusing.
No, I do not think that Puck has family. Or at least none have been established.
@EG
She killed them all, right ?
Darn, I was looking forward to Oberon and Titania coming to the wedding. Well, they are not exactly family, I guess, but “connections,” as the Brits say. Surely, EG, you won’t turn down the chance to draw Titania? And Oberon. He’s my fave. *Puppy Dog Eyes*
Nope. No more fairy creatures. Or any other fantasy elements. This isn’t really a conscious policy, really, but I’m making it a conscious policy right now: NO MORE MAGIC BEINGS OR NON-HUMANS ALLOWED. I just realize that I’ve carefully avoided the introduction of any such beings after the first few comics, and I think it’s for the best. Probably.
@Susan
One must wonder if Titania was the actual inspiration for the Modern use of the word.
Much like TRACEEE has become synonymous with an Innocent Angel of Uncommon Beauty.
@EG
“NO MORE MAGIC BEINGS OR NON-HUMANS ALLOWED.”
What a shame this was not policy before DAPHNE strolled in.
*pouts* 😛
Awww… But one could show up, turn Colins head into a donkey, make puck have to ask politely to get it back, then disappear again, never to be heard from again, other than a few references… No?
I just think it would make an amusing short arc that shows some characters differently. Or now that I think about it, do it to Daphne when she steals from them.
But if you’re sure about that rule…
I’m pretty sure about that rule.
I’m gonna try and get my bf to draw Oberon and Puck together. I have no idea what I would have to do in exchange, but it might be steep 😛
Aw, c’mon! No childhood friends, at least? Zombie Shakespeare? You’ve mentioned zombies before!
They might get a passing mention, but no appearances.
@Susan
Susan: “Oh dearest BF, if you do this for me, I’ll do anything you can imagine !”
BF: ” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMFs1rQxY_8&feature=youtu.be&t=12 “
Well, to start off with, it might be strenuous, but would not involve pain. I draw the line at pain. Let me just say that “submissiveness” never shows up on my yearly evaluations. 😛
Oh, forget it. He just looked at me over his half-glasses and said, “NO!!” Even though I was trying to be cure. 🙁
@EG
@Susan
Poor Susan !
No cool BF drawings, and then EG deletes your corrected post where you say cute in place of cure.
(sad)
You told me to delete something. I kept the one that had a working link. I think.
Well, to quote Horatio Hornblower, “The Fates may be against [me] but I’ll show them I still have a will of my own, by”…golly. 😛
i know why i steadfastly refuse to watch those prequels….anyway, now that this chapter is over, i´m guessing the next will be the wedding madness? i mean come on, between phoebe wanting to be a bridesmaid wearing pink glitter and colin family making a reappearance, there´s no way this wedding will just happen nice and quietly!
Well, the actual wedding stuff won’t drop for a while yet. It takes planning and time. When it does occur, though, all of your observations will be pertinent.
Happy new year to you as well, EG!
As for the comic, it’s weird to see Puck (or really, anyone) having a fully white speech bubble (in this case, Puck in panel 3). I’m so used to it having at least SOME color in the bottom, it threw me off when reading it.
Still, it’s a cute end.
…I mean, for now.
Knowing Puck, things are probably going to go downhill fairly soon with the wedding plans and whatnot.
The bubble does have some green to it, in theory. But not much.
Is it just me, or is that snowman feeling up Puck’s left bewb?
It’s probably not just you.
Love this. Grand ending to this. Well done. Stuff like this is why I love this comic.
I am glad it works. I’m never sure whether this stuff really comes together or not for the reader, but if you’re happy, that’s a sign.
Happy New Year to you, Gecko of the North!
2016 threatened us all (and news media never let us forget it), but 2017 turned out to be a whole lot better than anyone hoped or predicted. Don’t be so gloomy! 2018 will be a fine year.
Thank you for the insights of dealing with cancer at a young age. Glad that you and Colin are both doing well.
This is one of the sweetest, most romantic instalments of the whole comic. 🙂
Glad you think so.
Darth Maul shouldn’t have been killed off so easily. Imagine 3 movies with a Sith as dangerous as Vader was at the end of Rogue One.
@Marduk
Darth Maul – YUKK !
He began the idiotic notion that Light Sabers could vary from the Obi-Wan standard of a SINGLE BLADE.
Good Riddance.
I’d sooner Yoda train an Army of Porgs, all dressed in Minion Overalls, armed wid cute widdle Lite-Daggers, commandeered by Jar-Jar Binks (who now identifies as a female, in a dress with an enormous curly blonde wig), and the entire film re-invented as a Musical with score written by Rankin/Bass (a la 1977 HOBBIT than see that moron DARTH MAUL on screen again.
But give me a moment and I’ll tell you how I really feel about Darth Maul.
😛
If you don’t watch LEGO STAR WARS, this is a must-see.
Jar Jar Bink DIES
(it’s a real thing – not fan fic)
I prefer this one, which is actually voiced by Ahmed Best and carried the stamp of Lucas approval. I consider it canon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdS2kCUGvfo
@EG
Now THAT’S a Nightmare with a capital N !
What a charmer
Gecko uses charm. It’s super effective!
Her eyes have a colour?
(Picks up his laptop and holds it inches away from his face.)
Huh, There it is; how about that. How many years did I think your art style just didn’t include irises?
Puck has green eyes. Colin and Daphne have blue eyes. Phoebe has purple eyes. At the small resolution they’re posted at, though, it’s hard to see. And the colour only appears in close-up shots.
My God, they *are* green!
They’ve been green for years! YEARS! Like, almost a decade!
They.
are.
too.
tiny.
to.
see.
Either accept that, or start posting your comics as vertical strips in higher resolution (you know, like you were expecting people to view them on a webpage or something).
No one gets to see your full-sized, 400% WIP version of these panels except you.
Well, they’re posted in high res on Patreon, and these older ones are actually now up in very high resolution (and vertical orientation) on Webtoon for all you phone users, so … change is slowly occurring.
Getting a bit excited for the wedding arc for this. Please, please have my boy Satan make an appearance! 😀
You better believe it. Satan will almost definitely have a very, very major role in that arc.
Wait ! The Puck gang is still in Hamilton ?! And here I thought the lack of Winter Scenes was due to them moving out to warm places in B.C – like Prince Rupert, Comox, Victoria or Vancouver….
The last thing I though of was laziness on the writer’s part… (My own style of laziness would just have speech bubbles and say that the gang is in the middle of one of those famous East Coast Pea-Soup fog banks…)
I used to map out exactly the month and time relative to the comic’s passing time. So for instance, in and around the ‘Satan for Mayor’ comic arc, things looked decidedly fall-ish. In fact, there’s a fall comic and a Halloween comic, and we seem to extend into November (election season no less), and after Satan is elected mayor, he looks out on a snow-covered landscape. A few comics later, there’s a time jump, and it’s spring. It works. Then it stops working.
Miranda is about one year old now, if we can guess from development. That means the comic should be about one year from her point of birth, which seemed earlier to be during the spring. Fine. But that means that the previous comic arc should be early spring/late winter, but Puck opens the door in comic #359 and the grass is green. Mind you, that was a dream, so … maybe it actually WAS the winter in real life? The comic arc before that was the amusement park story arc, though, and Miranda looks around 5-7 months old there, and that makes NO sense. If she were born in the spring, they were visiting the amusement park in the fall. But things looked mighty green.
That said, I reserve the right to make the comic become winter again whenever I feel like it. (Honestly, the real reason is that story arcs in a weekly comic carry us throughout the calendar year in real time, and no one seems to care when a comic features green grass in the dead of winter, but people get weirded out when a comic features a snowy landscape in July.)
Canada weather alert! It’s above freezing in Hamilton. In other news, it’s 47 F here in Texas
It wasn’t above freezing today. It was -10 C at the warmest point in the day. As I write, at night, the temp is hovering around -20.
Okay, my bf posted his final project here: https://attalus.deviantart.com/art/My-Lady-Greensleeves-723789854?ga_submit_new=10%3A1515095495
The sketch I got him to change to look like Puck is here: https://imgur.com/a/5pC1P
@Susan
It looks like posing cure worked afta all !
Nah, he still won’t draw Oberon and Puck for me. He says he is sick of drawing her. Imagine! *pout*
He’s sick of drawing her? Imagine how I feel!
Hey, she’s your character. I wanna have a pic with Oberon meeting Puck and Colin. I wonder if I could do that.
Does Colin have… two right arms? It looks like his hand on Puck’s head, but his arm’s tucked into the blanket. And it wouldn’t make sense for her hand to be there unless her elbow were up. Did someone throw a spare hand in there to make it weird? (It is a hospital and we know the cast.)
Curses! I thought no one would notice that. But YOU DID. Honestly, the only answer is for me to get rid of the hand, because the framing doesn’t work for his arm to really get there. So I cheated. Then I forgot about the cheat and drew the arm at the side of his body. Then I inked it and colored it and it was too late, but I thought it would slip by.
IT DIDN’T SLIP BY!!!
Busted! (I missed it cause I didn’t look carefully at Panel Four cause I was thinking of what I wanted to post!)
I worked on Oberon last night. All it got me was immoderate laughter. 🙁
@EG
You did the right thing.
Baldie tells me very few women like a man’s hand on top of their head.
He refused to elaborate.
The great Bill Mauldin of WW2’s “Up Front” drew the extra hand at least once – Willie and Joe are holding each other up, each has a hand on the other’s shoulder, their other hands holding bottles, and their other other hand gesturing at a sergeant “Honest, we’re just a couple of red-blooded American boys”. Funny stuff for the time. Mauldin wrote that he didn’t notice the mistake until after publication, which meant paper. It would be funny to see future art critics explain how, like the extra leg on an Assyrian lion, the extra limb (whether Willie’s or Colin’s) is a powerful artistic statement.
If it helps, I didn’t notice the first couple days.
HAPPY TWELTH NIGHT EVERYONE !
http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2018/01/ending_christmas_twelfth_night.html
But lest you think this is all “FUN & GAMES”, allow me to warn you that, all NATURAL TREES and WREATHS must be removed and placed outdoors tonite (plastic doesn’t count).
Poinsettias also are exempt (my rule – don’t ask me to verify this one).
You see, Robin’s Relatives (tiny fairies) live in all natural decorations, and although they enjoy Christmas as much as anyone, they do become bored of it all (not me, tho), and become quite angry if they are forced to remain inside after the Twelfth Night.
Please do not Risk their Wrath !
Hmph, all our decorations were gone after Christmas Day. My bf is very particular about things like that. And I don’t buck him (about THAT!) because I am out of the Christmas spirit on the afternoon of December 25th. About the time I make him clean up all the discarded wrapping paper. When he gets back into the house, he says, “Down with the tree!” and I join in.
My wife’s like that too: once Christmas is over, she wants the decorations and tree gone. I don’t care, really, though a bunch of the houses in my neighborhood still have their Christmas lights on, and I’m not cool with that. They’re not winter lights; they’re Christmas lights.
I’m pretty much with you guys on the AirBlown Santa’s and Snowmen.
I don’t mind them loitering around until Twelfth Nite, tho.
But LITES are pretty ! (except for those moving laser abominations).
Moving on: Baldie’s SAINT VALENTINES DAY Door wreath is already up.
Sadly, it has no wonderful evergreen odor – which may be the best part of Christmas.
Already nagging/pestering my bf about what he is going to give me for St. Valentine’s. He just looks mysterious and says “You’ll see.” So, I guess a trip to Hawai’i is out. I’d have to start shopping now. Cruise wear is in all the stores. 🙁
@Susan
Ha-Why-Eeee ?
Oh, you must mean the SAMMICH ISLANDS.
Yum Yum Yum….
They have lots of coconut crabs there. You would like it. Watching the kitty mascot at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel chase them is worth the price of admission. Well, for me, it’s free, since I’m not paying for the room or the Modified American Plan.
@Susan
What part of you is Modified ?
I know TRACEEE is highly Modified, but no one expected that of you.
Why mess with Perfection ?
😛
(this time I remembered Susan wields a mean Benelli)
Go check out the Darth Jar Jar theory, it all makes sense.
I thought about Puck’s last statement in this and decided that and heartfelt, serious proposal of marriage is automatically romantic
Yeah, I’m firmly of the opinion that simple, heartfelt actions are always more meaningful than complex premeditated actions.
Yeah.
Just wait until Saint Valentines Day, and we’ll see how far “Simple & Heartfelt gets you.
It’s because it’s him.
I think there’s gotta be something more going on.