Maplestrip

Also worth noting is that, if I were alive for hundreds of years, I'd be interested in the new ways in which people communicate and amuse themselves as well. Isn't a good plot-twist in fiction the definition of something unexpected, and isn't that Pandora has been craving? I assume she's watched all seasons of Game of Thrones at this point Actually, now we're talking about it, it surprises me that Pandora hasn't become a giant weeb or something. Surely, what she's longing for could only be provided by fiction, right?

Either way, seeing as he's been working on this Q&A for a long while now, you would be too late to send anything in for this one. I can imagine him remembering questions for later, though, or perhaps answering them directly (if appropriate)

Honestly, I would imagine a lot of magic people would be attracted to the magic clog in Moperville one way or another, be it to kill the excessive amount of vampires there, try to figure out what's going on, or some other reason. If we have griffins from another dimension* coming to Moperville for this reason, it's only a matter of time before the human family of our very magical cast would do the same. *not actually another dimension

Honestly, I'd think Ellen cosplaying as Link would be an excellent reason to say the Navi line. Anyway, welcome

This lunchtime roundtable discussion could be one of the greatest recaps in webcomic history.

I had not even considered Susan and Diane. Damn, that's brilliant. That combined with Ellen zapping Elliot can definitely result in a good "Sister" arc. I'm getting hype :3 Let's hope this new arc will take place at least a few days after the dozen arcs we have been experiencing the past two years or so.

A "Sister III" would be awesome. Some short storylines that could include the number 3 are those mentioned above, and "Shade" and "Relations". I kinda doubt Dan is going back to his very first storyarc, though. I have to re-read "End of an Era", but that and "Sister" seem the most likely. The title may also be in l33t-speak.

Damnit, I was wrong. This page is adorable, however.

It technically hasn't been ever brought up, though the characters do know about magic's flair for the dramatic. Knowing Moperville North (the school), characters might already not take the world "entirely serious", so I think most characters automatically don't really worry about it like we would in real life? It's like they know they are in a cartoon. Knowing the fourth-wall breaking aspects of the very early days, this may even technically be true. I don't think discussing whether the characters know that they are "perfectly safe" from the "dangers" of magic is a valuable discussion, other than philosophical "meta" discussions Characters would be more worried about being "stuck" in a form than about magic changing their brain or resulting in physical damage. I just realized Vladia falls completely out of this idea. I blame "the early days of the comic" again.

I think this is might be the most likely theory brought up thus far. I would find it rather boring, but I can easily imagine Elliot trying to go "back to male" resulting in him taking on a male identity instead. This is also something I'm considering, and though Ijuin is right that this would be a needless complication, I would definitely find this more fun and interesting than another male form.

To be fair, I did not see this coming. I'm looking forward to seeing how Block will solve this mystery and keep himself out of jail!

You guys do realize something is going to go down in the next page, right? I mean, an entire page focusing on the Cheerleadra landing and getting ready to transform into Elliot? I have a feeling we're going to find out what his spell does earlier than expected :3

This is one reason I pushed against the "Elliot is genderfluid" idea that was going around on the forums before the "gender-neutral / gender-meh" shift in the story. He identified as male regardless of his outer form, so that's what I felt he should be known/referred to as. This has clearly changed by now though, or has at least become much less the case. Dan may or may not have changed the way in which he writes Elliot in these six years. After all, Dan has been learning about gender-related topics a lot since he started the comic. It may also be, in-universe, that Elliot simply didn't understand himself well enough and went for a "of course I'm male I've always been told I'm male"-perspective. Knowing Elliot, this is not out-of-character at all.

Say, I know I am about two weeks late, but if I may refocus the discussion on the page initially under discussion again: I hate that this page doesn't show the title of Elliot's book. Looks rather blank, based on panel 2. This may, of course, be a mistake by Dan, but it creates more doubt that the totally normal book really is Elliot's spellbook. (Maybe it really is a totally normal book?) And, to weigh in on the whole gender discussion; I feel like this page further confirms that Elliot could be agender or gender-neutral in some form, which I have been suggesting since back when this page came out. I am happy ^_^ If Elliot got a new power, may it be "turning other people into men"? That would be amusing, knowing Ashley's comment on this page. It would be the cutest non-binary relationship :3

Today's the first time I noticed the imaginary jock on this page saying "Our mothers love us!" and I'm kinda sad for seeing Tedd being hung up about that aspect of his life and the connection that this would make him "generally unwanted." But I'm happy Grace's love is unconditional and he experiences that so yeah, awesome attention to detail Dan!

I've been looking at this image for a while now and I just have to come out and say it: this is one of my favorite pictures that has come out of El Goonish Shive and I want more of it. I mean, I kinda hate that it is a (somewhat sexualized) pin-up, but it has a lot of elements that I really love. So yeah, awesome > u <

Say, I don't know if this has been discussed before and I don't know how much sense this makes, but how big is the chance that Susan's father had a child with a blonde lover, then married Susan's mother, who adopted the father's daughter (Susan). Six years later, when the father still had an affair with the same woman, he got kicked out of the house, but for some reason, Susan stayed with her stepmother. This sequence of events could have happened as followed: Susan and Diane were split up at birth because the father didn't want both children (and for whatever reason, the biological mother couldn't take care of either of them). Susan may have stayed with her current mother for financial reasons and because she lost respect for her father. If all of that is the case... Oh boy, that soap opera comment above would be accurate. I'm looking forward to seeing Dan try to explain all that, though XP This is one theory, I suppose.

This should be pretty interesting. Another complication for Diane to make contact with Susan. I still think it is more likely Susan and don't really understand why they think she would be, but I can definitely understand how this would make Diane feel difficult about confronting her. I actually really like the idea of Nanase and Diane being in this boat together right now

I'm not big on censor slays, but this panel is kinda begging to be edited and I am too lazy to think up any new text or figure out what font to use. So, anyone have any good ideas for alternative text for this panel? ;p

That is simply beautiful. I really should start reading everything Munroe has written in his blog. That and Thing Explainer are literally the only things I haven't read from him yet. (I'm pretty sure I've even read all major interviews including him by now) (We might be getting a bit off topic though, unless someone could somehow turn all this into a strip slay (that would be cool))

Wait, Dan turned the panel into a freakin' rebus?? Huh.

So there is this website called Deepart.io that allows people to submit photographs and artworks, and renders photographs as they would look if painted in the artstyle of the second picture. The front page explains it quite well, and the list of latest created images has plenty of boring but pretty examples: https://deepart.io/latest/ It takes over three days to generate an image, or less if you want to pay up Naturally, all I'm trying to do is abuse the system, with incredibly ugly results. Don't try to render a photograph in Super Mario World graphics. the results are horrendous. I tried to do some fun stuff with webcomics (like El Goonish Shive), but it just doesn't work well. I don't think the algorithm likes solid outlines and simplistic coloring. It just doesn't work at all, but I love trying: image Trying to render Ted as a photograph of a regular human being, however, resulted in something surprisingly pretty. I'm alright with this one: https://deepart.io/result/636347/ I have a few more in the work, but I doubt any of them will look any better than this one. So I'm challenging you guys to do better! I'd love to see someone using the El Goonish Shive artstyle to render something like Dan drew it, or to render an El Goonish Shive image in a different style. (or, you know, you can do something else with the algorithm - anything interesting :p)

Though I think it doing wonders for the sinuses may be very true, I doubt that Elliot knew what he was talking about while saying it increases longevity (in particular because I assume no such "studies" exist (or at least aren't easily available to the group) and Elliot doesn't seem like the kind of person who would read them (though I guess Tedd would know this kind of stuff)). I love nesting brackets, by the way.

Nothing warms the heart more than a webcartoonist encouraging fan speculation ^ _ ^ {Well I suppose plenty of stuff does like puppies and stuff but youknowwhatImean) I have to appreciate the fact that Dan avoids fanfiction because he's worried his story might take a similar direction. Like, El Goonish Shive is just one big original fanfic. I love that. But yeah, I'm still active on a forum where the moderators are trolls that hate half the other members (including me), so I know how shitty that is. Still wouldn't call the environment toxic, though, because many of the members are really kind. It's hard to create a perfect balance: since I've come to this place, I've found it a very kind environment, though somewhat strictly enforced compared to what I'm comfortable with. I also often feel like this place doesn't really encourage any kind of meaningful conversations, with everyone just kinda talking past eachother... But I guess I'm going way off-topic now ^_^; Point is, El Goonish Shive has a good fandom and I'm happy with the way Dan handles it :3

Alright, I give up on this idea entirely. Also, I'm gonna go do an exorcism.