Tuscahoma

But then there would be no wacky hijinks punctuated by sheer terror... sitcom vampire battles!

It's true, hers and Diane's eye for detail and memory almost appear Sherlockian, but I guess I was suggesting this was a way of her subconscious slapping her down from feeling beautiful. Sort of like how someone might have a self-critical voice in their head. Of course, this current scene suggests we might get another flashback of that past episode with her father soon, perhaps to actually see Susan's fathers face (now if only we could see Tedd's mother's face soon as well).

I was thinking it was more a matter of Susan misremembering symbolically? She was in the midst of seeing herself as beautiful, and suddenly she remembers a beautiful blonde women who was with her father who was in the midst of doing "things", and projects her own image there. She has associated blonder, beauty and doing "things" with being bad.

Oh snap indeed. How about shoot me now or wait till you get home on when to tell Susan that she is related to Adrian and Pandora, and will Pandora get a chance to tell her why Adrian has not revealed this himself. Oh wait, haven't told Adrian yet, have we; hope he doesn't learn this in an awkward way, like In the middle of a fight with a vampire. Yes, aberrations are so rude to interrupt a family reunion.

<Bang!> <Cue image of duck with Ash covered face and his bill on his head. He snaps his bill back in place.> Let's try that again. (Thanks for all who participated!)

Okay, that I was not expecting. Tip of the hat to you, my good man. Do we know if Aberrations require beheading to die. Seems like the three times we have seen an Aberration killed, they have been beheaded or, in the case of the Spider-guy, was split down the middle. I ask because I wonder if a stab to a vital organ would be sufficient to kill one?

Okay, Susan and Adrian meeting. There are so many things about this scene that bring on the feels and deliver the bad-ass at once. And granted, I am a little disappointed to learn that Susan hasn't already taken sword lessons, but that would be more than made up for if in the future Adrian becomes her teacher. Also, why does Susan summon little Nase. Why not little Susan? She went to the trouble to make a Susan doll, but it seems like she is more used to summoning little Nase. Or perhaps subconsciously she thinks of little Nase as a fighter since Nanase is.

He is prone to painfully astute comments? That and insulting the Robot. Here is truly a grand list of the epithets has slung at our long-suffering automaton, also known as Class B-9-M-3 General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot. Of course right about now, with the aberrations attacking, the Robot would be saying, "Danger, Will..." but you get the picture. Eek, imagining Dr. Smith as a Vampire. Kind of weird. Right now, let me say that I am so glad that Dan's version of the "vampire" is both so varied, but also something only that the person can do; they have to be willing to give up their humanity. I admit, there is a certain horror in a vampire turning his victims, but I always thought at the least it should be hard to do, the possibility of a vampire plague seemed to likely with various versions of vampires. He might have expected a possible need to pay it. I still don't think he cared. I agree. I think he would have smiled if any vampire hunters were killed, and the child of an immortal, but he would have been happy to see all of the vampires he hired dead as well (less competition in the long run and less money), but honestly, his main goal is simply distraction while he and Magus do their thing. Also, I think so that Sirleck can accomplish his true objective, somehow backstabbing Magus, taking his body, and escaping in the chaos.

Shoot him now! Shoot him now!! You be quiet, he does not have to shoot you now! Thank you!

Wow, upgraded Fairy Summon Spell allowing for custom fairies. Now I am imagining little Nase with a sword and armor, little Susan swinging double hammers, and muscle-y little Grace ready to punch someone out.

Well, if they saw Diane she could be the Face and then, surprised by Susan almost identical appearance, she could be the Other Face.

The first is plausible since he got hammered in the face and is holding his cheek (and isn't that the wimpiest behavior you've ever seen in a vampire?). But put it together with his first-panel thought about the the actual target approaching...? Or perhaps the Aberrations have started referring to Diane as "Face", as in "I hope one of the others gets you and the Face." What? It could be a nickname.

Ok, you got me, Doc. It's wabbit season. So, do you want to shoot me now, or wait till you get home? <pregnant pause>

Well, wait for Susan to go through some upgrades to her spell, and perhaps she'll get closer to Mjolnir. Argh, a smart villain. Yeah, he was definitely already shaping up to be the one to watch out for. He seems to have opted for a more low key aspect of Aberration-hood, and also seems more concerned with tactics and evaluating his enemy. I am concerned as to how his monsterness will manifest, given how calmly he threatened the big beast aberration. He is disdainful of fancy magic; he could have something more straightforward but potentially very dangerous, stealth and speed for example.

I, for one, am happy to see the stun hammers again, but throwing stun hammers? Sweet! Could be an upgrade, could just be that she read threw her spellbook and realized it was an option. Wait juggling hammers? Was there an instance after this one where she juggled three hammers using her spell? Just wondering if the hammer spell from the artifact might have different options than Susan's spell. Of course, since she was a master hammer user before she got her spell, I can see her trying to figure out and master her version as well. As for the use of "Sheila", I think Dan has bought himself plausible deniability with the commentary mention that our "Aussie" vampire has never, in fact, been to Australia.

Oddly enough, it was an X-Files episode with a teenager who was(?) a vampire that mentioned that vampires have a compulsion to count things, so Mulder spilled his sunflower seeds to distract the vampire. Apparently this trait shows up in East European vampire mythology. So the Count, despite being a muppet, might have been a truer vampire than we thought.

Doh! Of course, not the purple dinosaur, the purple vampire. There was once a webcomic called Faans that had a "real vampire hidden among the LARPers" scenario, with our Scooby-esque group of protagonists accompanied by that universe's version of Mulder and Skully (who co-existed with that universe's version of X-Files, a TV show based on their exploits used to disguise the truth). Turns out the real vampire was the one who looked like our counting friend above. That said, perhaps it is true that certain types of monsters in Dan's style of art tend to look more cutesy. Well, excluding Sirleck and the alien versions of Tedd and Grace which are creepy as all get out.

When first read this, I had trouble reading "inhuman-looking peeping Tom", and briefly thought of the inhumanly-enhanced Good Tom (who senses puppies in danger), but thought, wait, Good Tom would only be keeping his peepers open for puppy-mistreaters...oh Peeping Tom, or at least Bad Tom in a weird mask. Then I wondered, what would Good Tom do if he were at the mall. I mean, yeah, try to either rescue people or stop the vampires, goes with out saying, Good Tom and all, but what actions or how? What if he had awakened from all of his puppy rescuing? What spell would he have and would it be helpful in this situation. And then I decided to step away and have some more coffee. Too easy to walk down the rabbit-hole of speculations on Moperverse characters.

Or she could appear as a normal human, get in the way and be attacked. If an immortal is attacked, aren't they able to defend themselves? I presume that is how Pandora killed those werewolves without being reset (just as Voltaire was trying to bait Elliot into attacking him). I am so happy that I completely missed out on the existence of MS Barney. Sheesh. Yeah, a Barney-esque vampire, especially one that sings as it attacks you, would be suitably horrific (note, I have threatened my misbehaving kids with playing Barney music before; I think I have only actually played it for them once). Of course, mentioning horror and Microsoft, I promptly imagined MS Clippy as a vampire ("Hi, it looks like you're trying to escape a vampire. Let me help you with that. Just jump into my open mouth...")

Someone related to Della Street? Mention her friend Paul Drake and you're almost back to our previous topic. Interestingly enough on the topic of naming characters, while I was going down the Wiki rabbit hole on Perry Mason and company, it appears Earl Stanley Gardner picked the name for Perry Mason from the name of a company that published his favorite childhood magazine. Going the reverse route and naming the real after the imaginary, the name I created for a character in a fantasy short story I wrote got used for a cat of mine.

Now this is just... wow. I know it's a tense situation and Susan is in real danger, but come on, a koala vampire with a little hat? He's not cute but he is. I don't know; makes me want to hug him with a wooden stake. I mean he and the bearded snake vampire are halfway to a muppet band.

Thanks! Have to admit, the pun had to be made. Oh my gosh yes, the mythology of Scandinavia has so many fun stories and beasties, is it any wonder Tolkien drew so much from that region's mythos. A friend of mine, who was such a self-avowed English nerd that she got her Ph.D. in Old English, mentioned that to really understand Tolkien, Christian influences weren't enough. You had to understand the Norse influences including the mindset born from the belief that Ragnarok would end everything (where the Dragon Jormugand and Thor would kill each other), but you still fought on. Cool stuff.

Thanks, guys! Yeah, the way I reacted could be traced to a number of things, including other graphic fiction I have read. But for me at least, this was a highly effective comic in terms of emotional punch.

Dragons, oh my. That is a fine can of wyrms. Warning, I am going to go off into a long and rambling, but hopefully polite, rant. Many fantasy writer of European style dragons trace their lineage from Beowulf's Final Battle with the Dragon, which was quite a beast and introduced fire-breathing and horde of gold to the pot. Have you seen the classic St. George and the Dragon? It seems like such a small wyrm compared to the Smaug of the Hobbit, but of course, size is not so much an issue; the thing was deadly poisonous and from the legend, threatened to poison the lake if not appeased. Or the Lambton Worm (Dragon) that the Lair of the White Worm was based on? It kept reattaching pieces of itself that were cut off, making it ever so difficult to kill. The real danger, was that once given the way to kill it, the hero had to kill the first thing he saw after dispatching the worm or have his family cursed. That didn't work out so well. On the other hand, the eastern dragons are hard to match for power, being more deities with control over water and weather, but they are thought of as symbols of prosperity and good luck, not evil princess-stealers. And do Mesoamerican Feathered Serpent deities count? Or the Philippine's Bakunawa that causes eclipses? Or the Great Horned Serpent of many Native American tribes (this one was so poisonous, the tiniest bit of breath would kill any creature, and to even see one sleeping would bring death to the hunter's family. Ouch.) The varieties are amazing and wonderful and I love that about mythology and fantasy. The problem can arise when you start comparing them. It's like my son talking up One Punch Man as so overpowered that he could take on Superman. The point, I tell him, is not how powerful each is, but in their universe, how interesting are the stories? My daughter was running a game without rules, and was allowing any type of character. My son wanted to be a Primordial Being of Knowledge. She asked me if that was more powerful than a God of Knowledge. Hoo boy. I riffed off an answer (Primordial Being know things outside of the universe that can cause madness and can change the rules of the universe but a God of Knowledge knows rules that can bind the Primordial Being. Now, who gets initiative.) I then gave her ways to have such a character but keep it balanced in a role-playing group of beings of mixed power levels (for example, have it trapped in the body of a little girl and most of the power kept in check except in the presence of certain kinds of danger, i.e. the-younger-and-more-helpless-the-more-powerful-it-is trope, not sure what the real name is). Bottomline, the Moperverse has a certain power level, and Dan tries to keep certain balance. The bulldog dragon was challenging and dangerous to the protagonists. It worked well in the story. Sucess!

Well, we do know he was training to fight Damien, and Melissa assumed (before the summons proved unkillable by virtue of being pumped full of Immortal power through the summoner) that the bulldog dragon would be easy compared to... we don't know, Melissa didn't get to finish saying what Noah has already fought. Hmm, makes you curious, doesn't it? Perhaps an aberration?