Casual Friday–The Horror

This is just awful.  I can safely say that this is among my worst comics—possibly the worst, in terms of the artwork.  The hell of it is that panels 1 and 2 would be okay if I hadn’t done such a horrible job drawing Penny’s face.  And man, did I do a bad job.  She looks like she’s wearing some sort of horrifying spirit mask.

So, yeah, I said I was going to fix the really bad ones, but it turns out that those two panels are so integrated that the only way to fix them is to completely redraw them from scratch.  I’m working on it, but I wanted to keep to my every-Friday-update schedule, and I ran out of time.  I will eventually replace that one with the update, but not right now.  Right now, all I can say is that women, children and those with weak hearts (or stomachs) should feel free to scroll down without looking.

Capture

Added a simple CAPTCHA that uses text/number mixing and first grade math to determine the humanity of posters/registrants.  I believe it has enabled me to go back to open comments, as I have it set up so anyone can post as long as they answer the CAPTCHA.  If you get tired of doing that, feel free to register, and you won’t see it any more.

Casual Friday — Phone Knocking

So the advent of the cell phone brought with it the concept of phone knocking.  Here’s what happens:  Someone unexpectedly shows up at your door, might be telling you to click here to learn about Commercial door repair sacramento, instead of knocking, they call you on the phone to tell you they’re there.  This is disconcerting—even now—but in 2004, when this comic was posted, it was alarming.  For a while after cell phones became ubiquitous, the assumption remained that people called from landlines.  No really good reason for that except that human perceptions are slow to change.

Anyway, the phone knock, unlike other means of announcing your presence (the doorbell, the conventional knock, laying on your car horn like you’re an unsupervised five-year-old with no concept of “3am”), has (or had) the double whammy of allowing your victim to breathe easy for a few moments, thinking they had time to prepare for your arrival, before pulling the rug out from under them.

What I’m saying is, if you’re going to phone at all, phone when you’re about to leave, not when  your purse dog is doing his diddles in the petunias.