NEW WEEKLY VOTING INCENTIVE! VOL 2 PREVIEW!!
Follow along as I draw the cover for Puck Volume 2! The third entry is up now, so…
VOTE FOR PUCK AND MAKE RUTABAGAS EDIBLE!!!
ALSO…
I recently put a bunch of work into updating the PDF collection of voting incentive images, and the results are finally assembled! This new PDF volume contains all the voting incentives from 2011 all the way to 2017 (including some that never even ran) in a print-ready high resolution! That’s almost 200 pages of stuff! So if you’d like to buy a copy, please do!
As for this comic…
Nothing much to say about this one. I was a bit time-crunched because I spent a large section of the week on vacation in Rochester – the first time I’ve been stateside in many years. It was fun. I bought fourteen boxes of cereal to take back home – all varieties that (for whatever reason) are not sold in Canada. My wife thought I was absolutely insane, but things like Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch are not exactly for the sane mind.
EMILY in every PANEL ?
Purrrrrr…..
You noticed.
They must be deep nerds. She looks ready to make a purchase and they don’t even notice her.
I don’t know, maybe there’s another employee in this store. (I actually planned to show at least one other employee, but never really found a visually clear way to place one in the panel.)
Maybe she’s considering switching from cute cat girl to cute devil girl with that Morrigan cosplay in Panel 4.
We already have too many cute devil girls in this comic, so…
I understand the individual words, but “too many cute devil girls” just becomes gibberish when read together.
so im not the only one.
Did they make it out of the same stuff that they used to build the Space Shuttle?
Maybe? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I remember those things exploding a lot.
To be fair, you load anything with oxygen tanks and fuel that burns quickly at high heat it’ll explode more often than not.
If you drop something from orbit, it doesn’t even need the oxygen tanks and fuel to explode.
Hey! What kind of movie is this?
Robot leg AND a walking stick: double the cool!
Well, if you gotta be bionic, why not do it with some style?
Rochester ?
To be honest, our Fambly has never visited Rochester.
But if you ever visit SALEM, the City of Witches, Baldie sez we can treat EG and family to PIZZA and SODA !
(and a pointless and boring rant or three)
Sadly, he demands I stay home. I’ve been … BANNED … for totally justified behavior in most (best not discussed).
Rochester is honestly a beautiful city. I’d been there before (briefly), but I’d never spent much time there and was pleasantly surprised. Many other parts of upstate New York (read ‘Buffalo and Niagara Falls’) are ugly eyesore armpits. Rochester, though, was very different, as was the surrounding countryside.
Salem is very nice – if you’re not looking for wild theme park rides and such.
Everything worthwhile is historical – architecture and genuine history.
Baldie and Janet like the Historical House Tours (that very few ever take advantage of).
The PEM is a world-class Museum (really).
Several Walking Tours are quite enjoyable (at night – shudder).
And although most “Haunted Houses” are extremely lame, there is at least one that is fun (The Lost Museum – Salem).
It’s far less hectic and expensive than a visit to Boston or NYC, that’s for sure.
PLUS – you can easily stay 5 to 10 miles away to save on your room, and the trip into town will not be onerous.
Just AVOID October.
October has more events and is more fun, but the expense and crowds will likely offset any fun.
Bostonian here. I can verify that Salem is a lovely place!
I will have to visit one day.
I’ve heard so many amazing things about Massachusetts and it would totally be our speed. My wife loves peace, quiet and New England-style architecture. I think I’d even like Boston, though it’s a bit big and hectic for my wife’s tastes. Salem sounds cool. I have no interest in the witch stuff, but love old historical towns.
You’d love Salem’s neighbor – MARBLEHEAD.
Old Town cradles the ancient harbor, and the town itself is a large area of period homes.
Take a stroll thru there after sundown, and you’ll be transported back in time.
An ancient could be reborn here for an evening, and feel right at home.
Unlike Salem, Marblehead has no Tourist Traps, and very few Restaurants or Gift Shops.
But Parking there is a real chore !
I think I can understand about Peanut Butter Crunch… my father (and by extension my brothers and I) used to love that stuff.
I might buy a box again one day, but probably not soon. I don’t think I’ve eaten cereal in about ten years… maybe longer.
I honestly don’t eat cereal much either. My morning routine is oatmeal. BUT I lived life as a kid who constantly watched American television, and you have no idea how painful it was hearing all about Fruity Pebbles and not being able to ever even try Fruity Pebbles because they just weren’t in the stores. (Note: I tried Fruity Pebbles this week. They were okay, I guess.)
Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch, though, I give my full approval to. It was not nearly as sweet as real Cap’n Crunch, and the peanut flavor was subtle. It was pleasant.
Breakfast isn’t generally a thing I do at all as an adult. I know about the whole”most important meal” thing, but I just don’t function well with a stomach full of… well much besides my morning caffeine and sugar beverage. Lunch and supper is what I deal with.
Maybe as a kid I was the odd one. I actually liked stuff like Raisin Bran, Grape Nuts, Kix, or even Life Cereal if I wanted something especially sweet. I probably took all that stuff for granted. I seem to recall choosing a sweet cereal once and I hated it (it may well have been Fruity Pebbles), but I had to eat the whole box if I wanted to get a new cereal.
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” was totally a scam dreamed up in the U.S. to sell bacon and other stuff. Witness the many, MANY countries that really don’t care about breakfast, and function well without it. In Italy, breakfast is a cookie (maybe) and a coffee. That’s it. They do well without it.
@EG
BREAKFAST FOOD is totally awesome and delicious !
Just not when eaten in the morning.
I’d eat Eggs, Bacon, Cheese, Toast, Hash, etc., quite happily for an Evening Repast.
My human pet Baldie prefers to eat nothing at all until late afternoon.
If he even eats Lunch, he needs a nap.
(I’ve seen it happen)
Ah, but will they love the leg or the man who wears it?
Why choose?
When it comes to prosthetic limbs, I have a guilty pleasure for ones that are weaponized. I blame video games for that.
Also, fourteen boxes of cereal? Let’s hope you have a family big enough to finish all of those boxes.
I guess. Though I think in real life it doesn’t always work that way. I’m just thinking of Netflix’s Punisher, where poor Curtis was beaten unconscious with his own leg. Weaponized in a different way, I suppose.
@Bunmi
Baldie has a small family, and 14 boxes lasts a couple of weeks – TOPS.
Well, I’ve got two kids who both like cereal, so honestly, if it lasts a month, I’ll be surprised.
@EG
But … but … while in Rochester you did not forget THESE ?
Two Bags could have been a LIFETIME Supply !
Umm, ketchup potato chips are extremely common up here. If you want something that will blow Baldy’s mind, see if you can get someone to import some “all-dressed” chips…
All-dressed are great. I love those.
“Silverhawks”… :O
Wow… I COMPLETELY forgot that show existed. I was a big fan as a kid, even had some of the action figures… I remember the shiny foil paint peeling off and looking like shit. LOL
Let’s see… 1986… I would have been about six years old.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane, man!
I loved Silverhawks. I once pulled a digital readout from an old clock and built it into a vest made of Construx so that I could be Timestopper, and change time to whatever I wanted. It didn’t work, but the local convenience store owner was so impressed with my kid ingenuity that he gave me a discount on candy that day.
Chrome on 80’s toys, sadly, never survived long. Which was a shame, because it looked SO cool.
Specifically I know I had a Quicksilver figure, and the chrome paint naturally wore off on the parts of his shape that protruded most and rubbed against surfaces most often… therefore his metal armor quickly began looking like a gimp-suit with nipple-holes cut out.
…Looking back as an adult, it wasn’t such a big jump from already being in a shiny skin-tight bodysuit that clung to every masculine curve… but still. -_-
I often also found it funny that a lot of chromed-out toys put the chrome over top of plastic that was completely the wrong color. I have a G1 original Bombshell Transformer in my collection, and the chrome on him was applied over YELLOW plastic. Which made it all the more evident when it wore off.
Silverhawks was certainly one of those shows that existed at a time when boys’ entertainment took on a slightly gay tinge. I mean, they were a rainbow in the night, according to the theme song. It makes sense.
Have you ever seen THIS? It’s a fake 80’s show intro that perfectly, PERFECTLY encapsulates everything that was both so right and so wrong about kids’ entertainment in that decade. Lots of Silverhawks-like qualities to this one.
Nope. “Space Stallions” was a new one on me.
Should have just called the villain “Dr. Hetronormative” and called it a day. 😛
@EG
SPACE STALLIONS was compelling, yet genuinely painful to watch. GENIUS.
I will admit part of the goodness here was a genuinely attractive female hero.
Most 80’s cartoon women were far less “interesting”.
In my opinion, the real star was the moustache.
Need a keytar sword!!!!!
It’s one of life’s greatest joys.
Okay, about the pic of Daffy: *BLARG!!!* Only my love for this strip and EG will keep me voting. But it will, it will.
Cereal? I eat Grape-Nuts. Have since a child. Buy it from Costco by the case. I hate sweet stuff.
We have a patient who has had a prosthetic limb since early childhood. Lawnmower accident. She has worse problems than that, unfortunately. My boss says “Poor self-image” and shakes her head. Nuff said. She is not a nerd, but in this one case, I wish she was.
The great thing about being a nerd is that it allows you to be proud of things that the rest of the world would view as negative. One of my ears is kind of misshapen and weird, and has a little bit of a sagging point to it. (It’s the kind of thing that no one would notice unless I pointed it out, but it’s definitely weird.) The rest of the world would view it as a deformity, but to nerdy me as a kid? It was obvious evidence that I was at least part-elf.
@Susan
Did you know GRAPE NUTS are really just Wheat & Barley ?
Baldie used to PLANT THEM, and was continually disappointed with the lack of Grapes.
Of course they are, cat. It says so right on the box that I have been reading daily since I was, like ten.
“Despite the name, the cereal contains neither grapes nor nuts; it is made with wheat and barley. Post believed that glucose (which he called “grape sugar”) formed in the baking process. This, combined with the nutty flavor of the cereal, is said to have inspired its name. Another explanation originates from employees at Post, who claim that the cereal got its name due to a resemblance to grape seeds, or grape “nuts.”” – Wiki
I wish I could have known that as a pre-teen. I would have made *comments* 🙂
Oddly enough, I had dinner at my sister’s house today and she served a curry with rutabaga (substituting for potato).
Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch is *much* better than the regular kind. Do they sell Alpen and Weetabix Minis in Canada? They had them in Michigan when I went to grad school there, but I can’t get them in Missouri.
They sell Alpen AND Weetabix Minis here, I believe. Though neither is the type of cereal my eight year-old soul craves.
My uncles would bring Weetabix when they visited from Saskatchwan – not often enough. It’s the perfect food!!!
Really? I don’t like Weetabix much. And now that you mention it, I don’t think I’ve seen it in a long time. Maybe they stopped selling it around here? Or I’ve just mentally blocked it out because it’s too boring? I think it’s an Australian cereal, believe it or not.
Emily in every panel, Morrigan Aensland cosplay in the background and a guy with a robot leg and is called Cy?
Great, another reason why this is my favorite webcomic.
I’m glad I’m keeping my target audience happy. (Especially because this little episode has meant that we haven’t seen Puck or Phoebe in many weeks, and I’m worried that people will soon revolt.)
@EG
Robin may be a little too “realistic”, if you catch my drift. So, for me, a little Robin goes a long ways.
On the other hand … TRACEEE TRACEEE TRACEEE ! (and Emily)
And…. I take dibs on PRESIDENT OF THE EMILY FAN CLUB !
Too “realistic” (with the ‘realistic’ in double quotation marks) is perhaps the most confusing phrase I’ve ever encountered. I am unsure the level of sarcasm implied in the term, and what particular elements it addresses.
@EG
Robin can be a “Beech” … tree.
Those she has been getting nicer to Colin, I will admit.
He’s not hidden under the Kitchen Sink for a while.
A) I find it interesting how you equate “beechiness” with “realistic”. Not sure what that says about your life experiences.
B) I can understand your preference for Emily, given the fact that we have thus far learned nothing of her personality, so you can attribute to her whatever persona you’d like. But Tracee? TRACEE? You’d seriously prefer HER personality over Puck’s? Puck’s got a temper, but she actually does have the capacity to love. Tracee would just as soon kill you in your sleep, steal your cash and pull your fillings out to smelt down and sell to metal mongers.
@EG
Don’t take things so seriously !
If it really came to choosing TRACEEE or ROBIN (the woman who so intimidates her partner that he hides under the sink) as a life-mate, I’ll take PHOEBE.
😛
@EG
My “realistic” adjective is based on this:
Women like TRACEEE do exist, but women like Robin are, sadly, a dime-a-dozen.
They’re unhappy with their lives, and have little appreciation of the love and devotion their husbands provide.
They are constantly critical of EVERYTHING.
To be fair, I’ve seen HUSBANDS who act that way, as well as WIVES.
And CHILDREN as well (Daphne anyone ?).
Now we all know a well-adjusted family is rare in real life, and would be a very poor basis for a humorous comic.
We all love it when Robin goes ballistic in PUCK.
It simply would be unpleasant IRL.
Okay, true. I accept your intelligent analysis.
@EG
KEEP Robin “realistic”.
I’m betting the comic is neva more popular than when she has an “episode”.
Heck, I prolly don’t even want DAPHNE to lose her edge.
” “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
@Salem: I not only want Daphne to lose her edge, but her head, also. Then Robin could adopt, say, Annah from Planescape:Torment. Now, that would be a “edge”!
@Susan
I knew “someone” would object to my DAPHNE comment !
🙂
@EG
Bottom Line is I do enjoy exploring these other characters a bit.
They all have lives we’d love to see fleshed out a bit more.
If we don’t see Robin or Phoebe for a while, I would be totally cool with that.
So, this contest of being “the one Indian one Legged Nerd”:
Does it involve saying “there can be only one” a lot?
It does. Indeed.
Is Cy a combat veteran who got an honourable discharge due to an injury, by any chance?
Well, seeing as he mentioned being one-legged in high school, my guess is no.
I thought he might be being facetious. ^^;
Combat vets are not nerds, by and large, 😛 but I’ll wait on EG.
Very, very true. Though I’m sure that a number of nerd combat vets will now tell me how wrong I am to agree with you…
I’ll wait, too. I mentioned my ex-Marine friend and helicopter pilot in Iraq who likes Honor Harrington and David Drake books. I called her and asked her if she considered herself a nerd. She just snorted.
True, even if you’ve got nerdy hobbies and nerdy obsessions, combat veteran status makes you a badass, no matter what. 🙂
You’d be shocked at how many D&D games are going on downrange as we speak…
Yeah, my Marine friend said that there were at least three tabletop D&D games going on while she was in country. They would play till Taps but couldn’t drink anything for an hour before Taps cause snipers were targeting their latrine.
Chocolate granola and vanilla granola from Trader Joes: heaven in a breakfast bowl!
Guess what store we don’t have up here in Canada? (Answer: most stores, but yes, that includes Trader Joe’s.)
What? No Aldi’s?
No Aldi’s. No Wegman’s. And more importantly, no Olive Garden. And no IHOP. (Guess where the family ate when we visited Rochester? O.G. and IHOP.) In truth, there are a few IHOPs in Canada, but they’re rare and there are none within driving distance of me.
I’m gonna stand by my comment from last week regarding Daphne, and this strip being about showing that she loves Colin…. In just about every panel of this strip she has a look on her face that most people will only get while watching everyone eat the first batch of successful cookies that he/she baked.
(Yes, I know how to bake…. Yes, my cookies and cakes are delicious…. No, you can’t have any, it will make you FAT… don’t believe me? Just LOOK at me!
)
Mmm. Cookies.
Don’t worry. I don’t eat cookies. Sweets are bad for a runner and a lady’s fundament. On your lips for a second, on your thighs for a lifetime.
I’m sorry, but I have to admit that I like ladies’ thighs to have some cookies on them. Not too many cookies, but some cookies.
My thigh gap does not appreciate cookies or cake. It rebukes them as a friend of mine would say. 😛
And I view “thigh gap” as a pathological condition which indicates that a lady needs intensive cookie therapy. 😉
I think you should go to that cool NYC gym that the Victoria’s Secret models use and they make videos of for their e-ads. Try to convince those women like Romee Strijd, Sara Sampaio, Josephine Skriver, and Stella Maxwell that thigh gap is pathological. I will be the one in the corner eating unbuttered popcorn. 😛
They wouldn’t let me in. I’m too doughy. Must have been all that buttered popcorn.
Props for the Silverhawks reference 🙂
Some people really liked that. They’re my kind of people.
I really don’t like to think that anyone, anywhere has a frame of reference that suggests “gimp suit with nipple holes rubbed out”.. eewww….
I hate to be “that guy”, but in what sense is what looks like a commonplace, unpowered prosthetic, a “robot leg”?
Or is this a Forrest Gump shout-out, about Lt Dan and his “new legs made from space shuttle material” or whatever it was?
Well, it’s not a robot leg, except in our hearts. And it’s sorta kinda a Forrest Gump ref. Kinda?
I don’t know about Canada, and I don’t CARE about Italy, but a big cooked breakfast (served around 9-10am) is the main meal of the day for a lot of British manual workers.
Yes, the famed ‘British breakfast’. And honestly, I like a huge breakfast. I enjoy breakfast food more than anything, but I find eating a huge breakfast means the shape of your day is different. Lunch isn’t going to be very large, and your next sizeable meal will be dinner. Compare that to the continentals, where breakfast is nothing, lunch is HUGE, and dinner is an afterthought.
In Canada, the standard is the ‘bowl of cereal’ breakfast that isn’t that large, but it’s something.
“Eat a big breakfast if you are going to do physical work; eat a light breakfast if you are going to be doing mental work. ” Alexandre Dumas pere translated by SS
“Don’t eat any breakfast if you are worried about your figure” -countless teenaged girls
And, yes, I always ate breakfast. I was on the track team second period 😛
Well, that’s true. The sort of manual worker who eats a breakfast like that, has probably been up several hours and already done a fair slice of the day’s work. It’s also the sort of thing that would follow hunting or something similar, a heavy outdoor activity.
No lunch, just a cup of tea most likely.
Heh, for lunch, I usually had a half-pint of chocolate milk and a fresh baked roll. Worked for me. 🙂
I thought Canada also had cereals and soft drinks that we don’t have in the states, too.
Yeaqh, like Molson’s. Wait, we have that here? Son of a gun!
Most of the stuff that Canada has is honestly not very special. Honestly, the best part of Canada food-wise is that the British import ban on candy isn’t in effect, which means that you can get a whole bunch of fun British candy which is totally contraband in the U.S.
There ARE a few good things only in Canada. Most are chocolate bars. Crispy Crunch is, in my opinion, the best chocolate bar in existence, but it was discontinued stateside years ago. It’s still going strong up here, though.
Also (at least at the time of me writing this), Canada still has a functioning Toys’r’us chain. That is, perhaps, the most important thing of all for me, a toy collector.
Amazon.com : 12-pack of Crispy Crunch Candy Chocolate Bar,
https://www.amazon.com/12-pack-Crispy-Crunch-Chocolate…/dp/B000MWCMXE
Rating: 3.7 – 21 reviews
This item:12-pack of Crispy Crunch Candy Chocolate Bar , Made in Canada
Learn something new every day
@Susan
Fixed Link
They’re closest to the U.S. Butterfinger, but crunchier, like a brittle hard peanut butter toffee. They have Crispy Crunch Blizzards available at Dairy Queen up here. It is the ONLY thing I ever order at Dairy Queen. It’s that good.
ITS BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE WE HEARD FROM CRACKISTAN maybe a short arc involveing crackistan blowing up heh
I actually had a plot sort of involving that in mind, but it’s never really come together. Maybe later.
Maybe they moved where there are better neighbors.
@Robert Nowall
Surely you mean CRACKISTAN moved to a get away from the MacTavishes.
Definitely. Their mere presence must have substantially lowered property values…
I like Cy. I hope he’s a mainstay 🙂
He will be. Sly readers (and people who know the craft, like you) will note that I’m setting up this character with a bit more framing than usual for an ancillary character, implying that he might become a more major character later on.
RochestERRRRRRRRR!
Wait, New York, right?
Yes, New York. Is there another Rochester? Is ‘Rochester’ one of those American city names like Springfield, where’s there’s ten of them scattered across the lower 48?
Minnisota and Massachusetts if we’re going to list states I’m absolutely sure of.
Also: ROCHESTERRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Interestingly, it’s not named after a place called Rochester, but a guy called Nathanial Rochester who lead the original town and “somehow” it was named after him.
Also, it’s not the only Rochester in New York. There’s another in Ulster County. O.K., enough of the trivia. Just go to the photography museum and the Strong museum if you ever go back.
I’m from there. How is it?
Rochester is a gorgeous city. I’d love to go back some time. Everywhere you look, it was picturesque and nice. People were friendly. The Strong was fun. 10/10.
: DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
A weird thing I noticed when I came here, if I gave someone a Canadian coin, they acted like I was trying to poison them. I didn’t even see them except for the art. They were just quarters, dimes nickles and pennies. Anyone else: massive radioactive substantives.
Oh, and EAT. Especially Country Sweet but also Dino Barbacu and Nick’s and Gits’ Hots.
@Frank Harr
I have neva heard of ANY of those places.
But each one sounds perfectly yummy.
Where they be ?
It’s been a long time.
https://www.grubhub.com/restaurant/country-sweet-chicken–ribs-1691-mount-hope-ave-rochester/339137
[They could use love]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Tahou_Hots
[I forgot the name. I never actually ate there. Not in a quarter century]
https://rocwiki.org/Gitsis_Texas_Hots
[This was near where I lived. It’s closed now. :(]
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g48503-d415734-Reviews-Highland_Park_Diner-Rochester_Finger_Lakes_New_York.html
[I didn’t put it above, but now I’m sad]
https://www.dinosaurbarbque.com/rochester/
[I think I may have been there once, but everyone loves it and the building is awesome.]
Cyborg limbs are definitely the cool upside to the admittedly unpleasant aspect of being limbed! 100% agree with Colin here.
I want one.
Not quite badly enough to high-five a bandsaw, but nonetheless…
They tend to be less thrilling than you might expect.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1TkiN309_4