ChronosCat

Okay, so my change-blindness here was so strong that even after reading the commentary I had no idea what Dan was talking about; I wound up thinking "But hasn't he been drawing Diane's reflection this young all along?". It was only when I look back and confirmed I was right, then started really looking at the comic trying to figure out what he meant that I realized that he drew non-reflection Diane differently up until the final panel.

Touching on the subject of how efforts to erase words tend not to work very well: The very act of telling people not to say a word keeps it in the public consciousness (though I suppose this isn't such a problem if you only tell people not to say it in response to them saying it). Also in the case of words used as insults, there's the phenomena of the people who those insults are flung at trying to reclaim the word. ...Anyway, getting back to the comic: for those who aren't patrons, the alternate version is now available on twitter: https://twitter.com/egsafterdark/status/1046189366505349120

http://egscomics.com/egsnp/assorted-18a-011 Less-safe-for-work alternate on Patreon (patron only): https://www.patreon.com/posts/assorted-2018-11-21706941 and on Twitter: https://twitter.com/egsafterdark/status/1046189366505349120 [space for reaction] Cowabunga, dude! I totally dig Catboy Elliot and Surfer Tedd. And the alternate version is even more righteous!

Hmm... I hadn't thought of that, but I can see it. Still, I'm sure not all bullies are the same, and some are probably satisfied just imagining it.

http://egscomics.com/egsnp/assorted-18a-009 She's Claire Kent! Wait, wrong superhero.

I'm still rooting for Sarah to get together with Tedd and Grace. But maybe once Sarah and Tedd are comfortable enough with the situation, they'll let Susan watch...

All this talk of secret identities reminds me of how the Sailor Moon fandom came up with the concept of the "disguise field". The fanon is that the Sailor Senshi forms have a magical effect which prevents anyone from recognizing their faces while transformed, or otherwise putting two and two together unless the person actually sees the Senshi transform or is told who they are. (In a way it's like the Super Hypnotism ijuin mentioned, but the magic is on the superhero form rather than the civilian form.) But what if you want to take a bath in another room?

http://egscomics.com/sketchbook/2018-022 On Patreon back in August of 2016. Huh. That means I haven't had a chance to comment on it here... Well, I like the Indiana Jones outfits, and the idea of an artifact that causes transformations, but I'm still a bit underwhelmed by this picture. I think part of the problem is we've already seen Sarah with large breasts, so even when Dan first posted this only one of the transformations was new. A bigger problem is that for me part of the fun of an unexpected transformation is seeing the character(s) coping with it; to truly do this justice there would need to be at least a short scene if not a story. Speaking of which, I'm excited about the "Archaeologists" story Dan talks about in the commentary; it sounds promising. (Based on some tweets he's made, I'm guessing Nanase's outfit will be closer to something Lara Croft would wear. But it's interesting he doesn't mention Sarah being in a different outfit - maybe she'll get to keep her Indiana Jones outfit?)

http://egscomics.com/sketchbook/2018-023 On Patreon back in July of 2017. I like Mr. Verres' look in the final panel. ...Speaking of the final panel, yay for blurry-lights-and-colors background in panel seven!

Yay for bubbly background! Also, I wasn't sure about Ellen's green hair when we first saw it, but I'm starting to like it. I think it really does work for her. ...Now I'm actually a little disappointed she's not going to just keep the color and pass it off as dye.

Regarding the streaks, do you mean this comic and the last one? Because I don't see any streaks in the windows in the flashback in Wednesday's comic. It is a neat effect, but perhaps a little too subtle - I didn't even notice them until now. Also, with how well Diane was reflected in the first panel of Friday's comic (before her reflection morphed into her younger self), I thought for sure it was a mirror - which made me assume she'd stepped into the ladies' room for some reason. Looking more closely, though, there are no sinks or counter, which you would expect under the mirrors in a restroom. If these really are windows, Dan should have drawn Diane's reflection faded and incomplete (probably with the colors shifted towards that of the outside background if he didn't want to draw actual scenery outside; obviously if he had drawn the outside her reflection should be transparent). As for the starburst, the window/mirror has consistently had a darker background than the "real" room; it would have looked odd if that changed just because of the starburst. And if you look at the rays of the starburst you can tell that even they aren't mirrored. However, "Yay for half a starburst in the room and half a starburst in the window/mirror!" doesn't have the same ring to it. ...Actually, it's too bad Dan didn't actually mirror the rays of the starburst, that would have been even cooler.

At last, the explanation I was looking for (though after the past few flashbacks this doesn't come as too much of a surprise). Also, yay for mirrored starburst background in panel seven! (Seriously, that's a neat effect.)

http://egscomics.com/egsnp/assorted-18a-007 Also, some scantily-clad variants on Patreon (currently only available to patrons): https://www.patreon.com/posts/assorted-2018-07-21521807

Well, with how long ago Raven fathered the child who was ancestor to Susan, there are likely a large number of descendants of Raven around the world; there's no reason Sarah couldn't be one of them. Alternately, Sarah just has an overactive imagination. (I'm mostly joking about this entire scenario, but actually I do find it a lot easier to buy the highly creative Sarah having imagined conversations with herself than people like Susan or Diane visualizing their internal debates in the manner illustrated in the comic.)

You can actually buy replicas of it, or read a digital copy of it as part of the "Complete National Geographic" collection... (SPOILER: That issue is incredibly boring.)

Hmm, Grace as an anti-hero... I find this concept surprisingly plausible (particularly if she had fell in with a different crowd after escaping Damien, or Painted Black had gone differently) but rather scary.

Huh, it runs in the family. I wonder if anthropomorphized personality traits (Diane's shoulder angel & devil, Susan's curiosity/logic/nature/nurture) are inherited from Pandora as well? I've always heard it as pink elephants. In fact, before I read the commentary and Dan said nothing about color, I assumed the only reason it was an "elephant" instead of a "pink elephant" was because the comic is in grayscale. (In retrospect that train of thought doesn't work so well; after all the comic being in grayscale didn't stop Dan from having the characters tell us Ellen's hair was green.)

Yes, just like the war on certain chemicals, officially declared by President Nixon.

As mentioned in Dan's patreon commentary, there's no reason Variant 1 couldn't be canon; presumably the only reasons we got the fully clothed versions as the main ones are because Dan usually doesn't show characters nude or in underwear in the main comic or NP unless the story requires it, and also because Grace's lack of clothing is distracting from the conversation (which was the main point of the comic). Variant two makes sense if they're going to be conducting experiments and don't want too much clothing in the way. However, it's not like Grace to be the one wearing the most clothes in the room, so if she was expecting Sarah to be showing up dressed like that, Variant three makes more sense. I like to think Variants two and three are set in the "Casual Sarah" continuity, though I'm not sure if it makes more sense for this to be while she's still getting used to being naked around Grace and Tedd (which would actually probably put it back months prior to the current story comics) or after she's gotten to the point where she's comfortable being naked around them even beyond transformation accidents (which would raise the question of why she even bothered with underwear).

I remember trying to run a mile in school once... I wore myself out in a minute or so, then wound up walking the rest of the way exhausted the entire time (it was very unpleasant). I wish the teacher had taught us about pacing ourselves first... Everything on this page except the final panel takes place while they are running as part of an outdoor class (gym class, presumably) - as Dan says in the commentary, they are being timed on how fast they can run a mile. The talk about lunch is making plans for later. But yes, Nanase is lapping the trio.

Well, presumably MSHS is the default public school for the part of Moperville she lives in. It might have been difficult for her to arrange for Nanase to go to MNHS (at least without getting Mr. Veres to pull some strings), and she might not have had the money for private school or have been up to homeschooling.

http://egscomics.com/egsnp/assorted-18a-003 [Space for I-don't-know-if-they-count-as-spoilers just to be safe.] So, apparently in non-canon EGS world, it's now acceptable to wander around in public in bathing suits and anthro forms. I mean we've seen Catalina with her cat ears out, and Grace going pretty far playing with change blindness, but just walking around casually this transformed and wearing this little is new. ...Perhaps the TF rampage from Goonmanji caused so much chaos that the people of non-canon Moperville don't care about such things anymore? (Or maybe Dan just decided that in non-canon anything goes... but I prefer my theory.) Incidentally, in case anyone skipped the commentary, that's Tedd there with Susan. I wasn't sure myself until I got to the commentary; it's hard to tell with his face so changed from normal, and it's rather unusual to see Tedd and Susan hanging out together without any of the others.

In my mind, this is the end of the first act of the story - and you're right that what leads up to it is implied well enough. However what would really interest me is a look at the second and third acts. In other words, this picture makes me want to know what happens next more than it makes me want to enjoy the picture for it's own sake.

I've never trusted any mushroom I encountered outside the Mushroom Kingdom (and even there some of them want to kill you).