Tom Sewell

Don't be too disappointed if that doesn't happen. If you haven't noticed, and haven't read all the comments Dan makes on his character designs, Dan is obsessive about the details he puts into designing ANY character and he doesn't like to waste work. It's much more likely that incidental characters Dan has already laboriously created, like those two boys and two girls who just didn't recognize Diane, will repurposed to fit into new plot holes. Remember how Good Tom and Good Tom's girlfriend started out? Candidates at Moperville South could include the girls who swooned over Justin after he booted the first of the fire guys into oblivion, and the screaming girl at the mall running away from the giant flying snake while it still had its head attached. I wonder if that girl knows the screaming girl at Moperville North with raccoons in her attic.

Charlotte is important to Diane now, but there's no indication Diane was even aware of Charlotte before the New Year's Eve party. Nanase didn't know that Charlotte had gone to MSHS until that party. It's interesting that Charlotte seemed to link with Diane so quickly, though; maybe Charlotte was aware of Diane when they were both at MSHS even if Diane wasn't aware of Charlotte.

I think you're forgetting Justin. Remember when Diane was seen in a flashback spreading the nastiness when Justin got outed by Melissa? (Third row, first panel) It's not in canon exactly why Diane began hitting up her dates for money, but the only time we actually saw Diane actually getting money from a boy was after Justin became friends with Nanase, as seen in this flashback from a little later in Grace's Birthday Party (First row, middle panel, guy reaching into his wallet while Diane strikes a cute pose.) There's another factor that might be very relevant: Just how much older are Rhea and Rick than Diane? Nanase was surprised to find out Rhea was actually Diane's sister even though Nanase had met Rhea before in the mystery of the locker room ghost. This suggests that Rhea wasn't in Moperville South when Diane was, and that Diane hadn't met Nanase and maybe Justin until she started high school herself--after Rick and Rhea went off to college. That might also be the time that Rick met his boyfriend and Diane found out Rick was gay.

From the pain-lines coming from Diane's right hand in the first panel, I'd say Diane recently delivered a punch something like this one.

There was a rift when Diane got in touch with Lucy on New Year's Eve. The real shocker of the last two comics is that Lucy is showing affection for Rhoda for the very first time.

Lucy's dynamic now might have a lot to do with Diane spending all her time with other people, particularly Nanase-tachi, since New Year's. On New Year's Eve Lucy was showing at least as much concern for Diane as Rhoda's. And maybe Lucy will wind up together with Diane. After all, Nanase and all the Elliot/Ellens that might be available to Diane are spoken for, and Rhoda and Catalina are clearly headed toward an altar or maybe a chuppah.

I wonder if Dan has a design for Nancy? Diane seems to be all alone in the hallway in the last panel, suggesting maybe that classes have begun. That means that only staff or students with hall passes should be where Diane is. Or maybe hall monitors, although we've never seen any at Moperville South. Who is the staff person Diane would like the least to come upon her in Friday's comic?

Well, what I actually had in mind was a guy or two either getting physical or bringing Diane to tears. I didn't think about Diane actually dating some of the same guys Nanase did. Now that you brought up that idea, though, I can see Diane trying to date a boy Nanase dated to see if she could find out more about Nanase. But considering how little Diane really knew about Nanase until very recently, I don't think Diane found out a lot if she did date one of Diane's exes. I have my doubts Gerald will ever return to the story, but if he does, I think it would be interesting to see him threatening someone giving Diane a hard time. Plus, he might see this as an opening to be the first and only guy at Moperville South to actually go steady with Diane.

Remember what almost happened to Gerald when he was mean to Tedd and Grace? Note that Nanase, Ellen, and Grace all go to Moperville South. Plus, Lucy looks like she could mop the floor with those two trash-talking bozos by herself. And then there's Noah...

Well, "Deadbeat Dad." Gee, I wonder if that's going to be another problem for Diane, what with being at the school where he's been teaching since before she was born? Also, from the way those guys who walked right past Diane without recognizing her were talking about her, Diane has developed a reputation at the school as a that word that starts with an "S" and ends with a "T". What a surprise, that. Gee, you think one or two or two dozen of the boys Diane led on and dumped might have gotten a little ego-enhancing revenge by saying she she came across with what she never did? What's next on Diane's agenda? I'd be willing to wager a cookie or two that Noah is suddenly going to be very interested in Diane and show it before the school day is out. Maybe even before the first class. Speaking of classes, is Diane taking any classes from Mr. Raven this year?

Mark Twain famously said once that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. It's August in San Jose now and I'm cold enough to be wearing an insulated jacket and a knit cap indoors. Now some of that has to do with being 67, but Mr. Twain had a point. I was freezing in a San Francisco summer when I was twenty. Where do you live Nome? Norway? Are there a lot of polar bears or penguins around? Reindeer? Elves?

Diane's hair also looks a little like Tiffany's in Luann, at least to me. Perhaps there's a point to having a hairstyle that makes the tips of Diane's ears prominent, especially if her ears get pointy later on. Incidentally, way back in the early days, someone told Susan she had Vulcan ears. I don't think Rhoda would enlarge Lucy's breasts unless Lucy asked her. It's been a long weekend, and Lucy might know that Rhoda has magic now. BTW, does Lucy have an even more buff build now to go along with the fortified breastworks?

It is harder, but far from impossible. There's also the very realistic possibility that Diane's adoptive parents are divorced now, something that would give Diane something in common with Tedd. Come to think of it, I don't think we know if Diane knows that Susan's parents are divorced.

Well, now we have more factoids about Diane. First, she has two adoptive parents, one of them a man. Or at least she did when she made that report. I kind of pictured her with a single parent. Second, we at last are clued in to why Diane was so comfortable with manipulating boys to get stuff from them.

Lucy has lots to be a negative Nancy for. Clearly Diane is very important to Lucy, and think the the last time they actually communicated in canon Lucy really was really feeling threatened by Diane's actually looking for a relationship with Elliot. That was years ago in our world, but, story time, maybe less than two weeks ago. Also, when did Rhoda's hair get so long? I mean, with her growth and shrinking magic, she could probably make it as long or short as she wants now, but hair getting like a foot longer in a week or two might attract some attention.

Remember that seers are a rare type of wizard that don't get innate spells. Conversely, most wizards should have innate spells. Susan's acquisition of additional fairy spells, the vast elaboration of Nanase's spells, and the plethora of new abilities that Ellen and Elliot have acquired kind of look like they may be learning elements of other people's spells and modifying them for their own use.

Adrian Raven fathered his first kid a long time ago, so it is quite possible that our Grace got some of her DNA from that same kid (like Susan) through the original Grace.

http://egscomics.com/sketchbook/2008-02-08

...who just happens to be a monster hunter who uses magical bladed weapons.

Tedd's guaranteed to be destined to do things, but what tickles my curiosity now is what will happen if and when Van tells his mom Noriko that he knows about Tedd. Obviously Noriko hadn't told Van about Tedd since Van didn't show any sign of recognizing "Tedd" after Arthur mentioned Tedd's name, which kind of implies she didn't tell Van about a lot of things that maybe she should have.

The current (and allegedly final chapter) of CD Rudd's Sailorsun.org just posted its 612th comic. I'm pretty sure Dan will at least toy with the idea of breaking that record. I've also noted that Dan hasn't given us any specific time for Pandora's rebirth, giving himself room to jump the story forward by any amount he wants. Of course, since time travel doesn't happen in EGS (in contrast to Sailorsun.org, I Dream of a Jeanie Bottle, I Dream of Jeannie, any version of Star Trek, Teen Titans Go to the Movies...) and never, ever, nope, not even a teeny bit, even if Dan has just placed this comic outside of time as we know it which is kind of time travel itself... Well, except through flashbacks like, for instance, the entire Part One of Sister 3, we can be sure that the next story will begin some time after this one. Maybe.

Y 0?

Why do Immortals seem to have some kind of fixed human forms? The obvious real-world answers are so Dan doesn't have to make too many new character designs and so the readers will know who's who without so much hard thinking that their heads will explode. However, for the in-story justification, perhaps they began as mortals. Roman emperors did it all the time, starting with Julius Caesar. Or, maybe, they played with humans for so long they started absorbing human nature. This would look to be the end of Sister 3, except that there's supposed to be one more comic. I kind of think someone else will dominate the last panel and the last word of the last comic: Pandora.

Most assuredly; I had both volumes. They were compilations each of four comics published by Warp Graphics; I also had the rest of the comic series before Warp warped into the black hole that has swallowed up TSR, Tokyo Pop, West End Games, Borders, Blockbuster, etc. A different black hole swallowed my collection along with everything else in my house that wasn't nailed to the floors while I was hospitalized.

I know of two precedents for something like this version of Lord Tedd. The first was Mythadventures, a series of graphic novels by Phil Foglio, based on the novels by Robert Asprin and later continued by his widow Jody Lynn Nye. The big-time baddie of this one was a crazy wizard named Isstvan who kills off wizards and steals magic from other universes. Phil Foglio and his wife Kaja, of course, now have a webcomic, Girl Genius. I The second was the TORG series, a roleplaying game featuring invasions of our world by several alternate universes at the same time. Basically this was a sort of cross-time Axis, with the Gaunt Man as the biggest baddie. There weren't any redeeming qualities in this villain. There were also a few novels, and the art was good. Now I'm a really old gaming grognard and I found this one interesting for awhile, but it didn't last all that long, and I doubt if it was ever on Dan's radar. EGS is a lot more like Foglio than TORG, so I think any Lord Tedd arc is going to be more of a comedy than a tragedy.