ChronosCat

It should actually take less time to draw a furry character without clothing than a furry character with clothing - at least so long as he doesn't put too much detail into the fur. Of course if he was planning on making them as shaggy as the werewolves in Sarah's fantasies during the card tournament and he insisted on doing shading to match, that might have been a bit more time consuming. I suppose posing/camera angle could be an issue too, though he hasn't seemed too concerned about that on furry characters in the past.

Yay, I called it! ...Like many other people on the forums, but whatever. Slightly more likely than Adrian being Susan's father, but still unlikely. Dan has been treating Pandora as a good & sympathetic character for some time; I doubt Dan would reveal something like that about her at this point.

Actually, lithium-ion batteries can be explosive (at least in the sense of spewing fire everywhere, I don't think they create much explosive force) if they are punctured, crushed, overheated, overcharged, or abused in some other ways...

As far as physical mannerisms go, her focus is on examining herself; I doubt a "ditz" would act much differently. As far as speech patterns go, it could be like Scotty said that Susan is actually focusing on resisting the card right now... Or it could just be that Dan couldn't fit the gratuitous "likes" and such into the space he had available. That's why I mentioned Sally to start - in season one of "Sonic the Hedgehog" (the 90s Saturday morning series, AKA "SatAM") and the early Archie Sonic comics the only thing she wore was a pair of boots. In the second season they added an open vest to her ensemble; this would be her default look in the comics for 17 years. On the other hand, given Susan's opinion of skirts (and presumably other feminine or "girly" clothing) I suspect that if given the choice between PG furry nudity and wearing Minnie Mouse's polka-dotted skirt and high heels, she'd go with the furry nudity... As for "multiple comics of that", apparently Dan's okay with doing one or two drawings of a fur-clad character, but not a whole bunch? It's probably the main reason ("too hot for long fur" is a pretty lame excuse, considering Catalina was just wearing a parka) but I don't get it. I heard that to. Why? Because it doesn't look good? At least, I don't like how they look together (particularly white socks; some other colors aren't as bad). In the previous strip's commentary, Dan said: So if Susan hadn't had an animal form, she would have wound up in the collar, bikini, socks and sneakers, without any fur. (As I said in the previous comic's thread, I find that a little disappointing; I don't see why we couldn't have a person with fur but an otherwise standard human body.)

Some of us (myself included) believe that the big revelation here is that human magic users are all descended from Immortals - which of course requires that Raven (and by extension Pandora) was misinformed. ("Box's" conversation with Sarah about her son provides more evidence for this theory.) That said, I don't think Raven is Susan's father - he doesn't seem the sort to cheat. (Also, unless Pompoms is Susan's mother's maiden name, and Susan adopted it after the divorce, Susan's last name would probably be Raven in that scenario.) I do however suspect Raven is both Susan and Diane's ancestor (and possibly not all that far back if their identical looks isn't a result of them being half-sisters). If it was on Susan's father's side, he and Raven might even look similar - which would tie into Susan's current shock. Nuclear weapons never seem to work when they're really needed in the movies. Except in the Alien series for some reason... I mean, sometimes a single Xenomorph will escape from the blast zone along with the main characters, but if there's a whole lot of them around the rest will be incinerated. Then again, the Xenomorphs are a lot like ninja - alone they're nearly invincible, but in large numbers they're much more vulnerable.

True. I was assuming that for the early competition between magic and technology, magic was more cost effective; this would mean that there would be less incentive to make use of the knowledge gained from trying to understand the world, at least so long as the initial technological solution was not much better than the magical one. Meanwhile, if no one (with the resources to pull it off) was visionary enough to predict that a particular form of technology could surpass magic, there wouldn't be research being done for the sake of developing that technology either. And as a lot of technology builds upon older technologies, many inventions would never be made simply because the technologies required to make that invention were never invented (or they were invented and then forgotten). Of course, eventually scientists would probably come to questions they couldn't answer with magic alone, and would need to develop the technology required to assist them, and once they did that more commonplace uses for the technology would be found. So the world probably wouldn't be technologically stuck in the 18th century or whenever; however some technologies would never be invented, and others would be significantly delayed.

I'm guessing Susan would not have been happy to wind up with Princess Sally's classic outfit. EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, Susan probably would have hated Minnie Mouse's classic outfit even more... So, according to the commentary, Dan considered "only fur" but rejected it because it was too warm in the house for long fur. I'm a little disappointed, but oh well, it's his comic. Susan still looks pretty cool like that - and the larger hands are a nice touch. Oh, and yay for starburst background in panel 2!

It's only partial nudity, but: Grace without her shirt on in Sister 1. (Scotty Ninja'd me on one of them.) Grace was completely naked in Sleepy Time. I'd forgotten about this, and it isn't quite the same thing thanks to strategic arm placement, but we actually saw the werewolf naked. The panel cuts off just high enough we don't know how much detail Sarah was imagining (given the next panel it probably wasn't PG), but naked werewolf Tedd and Sarah. Also from Sarah's fantasy sequences (and without strategic panel border placement), Werewolf Sarah and Werewolf Nanase. I also can think of a few naked furry Grace images in the Sketchbook section, but I don't feel like looking up the urls right now.

Yay for starburst of super-jumping in panel two! Boo for starburst-outline of tripping and falling in panel three. (Well, it's the tripping and falling I object to more than the special effect. That looks painful. I'm also a bit surprised to see it happen to Susan even if she was swinging a sword around with no idea what she was doing.) At first I was sure someone must have mentioned it before on panel, but then Dan didn't provide any reference links. My current suspicion is that Pandora told Raven after the end of the last comic we saw them in. Dan has always written for the archives. I'm pretty sure every "Friday Cliffhanger" has just been a cliffhanger that happened to fall on a Friday, and would have been written exactly the same if it had happened to fall on another day of the week. That said, I am curious to know if Raven looks like Susan's father.

Maybe not on males, but he's drawn females "clothed only in fur" before. Most recently in pinups, but he did draw Grace that way several times in the main comics. Still, I could definitely see there being some actual clothing with the fur as something Susan insisted on.

Yay for starburst of transformation in panel three! ...Speaking of backgrounds, I had refresh my memory on where the players are sitting and reference the board charts below the comics to figure out exactly who and what we're seeing in the background of panel one. (To any who haven't figured it out, we have Ashley's stocking foot, and behind that Rhoda's leg and sneaker-clad foot, with Rhoda's tail behind that.) And I still can't quite figure out what those lines in the lower right-hand corner of the panel (just under Rhoda's leg) are. Moving on to the transformation, it's interesting that the "furry" clothing card comes with skimpy clothing and a collar (and as mentioned in the commentary, doesn't actually result in fur if the player doesn't have an animal transformation going). The collar is a nice touch, but personally I think it would have made more sense (and would have been more fun) if the player grew fur even if they didn't have an animal form, the fur was thick enough to keep things PG, and the fur was all the "clothing" the player wound up wearing for the length of the transformation. Oh, and like, I didn't think to mention this before, but it's like really cool when the ditzy card affects how Susan talks and stuff. That's, like, not Catalina, Pharaoh. (The only way Susan could have transformed Catalina is if she was taking the space from her, but Catalina never actually bought the 3 space, since she didn't have the cards for it.)

Yay for starbursts of thwacking in panel six! I don't remember seeing thrown hammers before. My guess is it's an upgrade. ...By the way, any opinions on what Koala means by "the face"? Is he complaining Susan hurt his face? Commenting that her face looks familiar? Cursing someone who goes by the alias "The Face"?

My thinking is that in the 18th and 19th centuries, magic could do similar things to the inventions made in those centuries in our world, and as such many of those inventions were never made or never became well known. As a result of this the technological growth of this alternate world was stunted, and they're still decades or more away from developing the miniturized electronics required for cell phones (and PCs for that matter) - assuming anyone has thought to research such things at all. For instance, if they already possessed a magical means of two-way audio & video communication (something which has to be set up in specific locations and cannot easily be moved, like say a pool with runes carved into its stone walls), they might not have invented the electric telegraph or land-line telephones. And if they could light their homes with magic lanterns instead of oil or gas based lanterns, there might not be any incentive to build an electrical grid. And so on. ...It occurs to me this is a lot of speculation built on the facts that we weren't told that Magus took Ashley's phone, and we haven't seen any modern technology in the brief flashbacks we've had to Magus world. I still stand by my claim that my scenario is possible, but knowing Dan it's more likely Magus world has modern tech and either Magus and Sirleck did take Ashley's phone and we don't know it yet, or they simply forgot. (We could even wind up with a scene of "I thought you took her phone!" "No, you were supposed to do that!")

I doubt Dan would have the magic change before Magus gets his body, as that would really complicate the story, even beyond what's normal for Dan. (I also doubt anything too drastic would happen to the Aberrations, though I don't have any good reasoning for that.) However, as far as "the next incident" being "the last straw" goes, I've been thinking this might be the incident that triggers the change ever since I saw the chapter's title ("Apocalypse").

In my role as a self-aware avatar (online and in some fictional worlds), I notice the person behind the keyboard all the time. As for the next level up, my player does occasionally notice some "Inside Out" style shenanigans going on inside their head...

True, I'm sure he knows about phones - the question is, is he familiar enough with them to think to plan around them? Incidentally, be careful when editing quotes; you credited the following one to me when it was actually in response to me. I doubt everyone would have the Fairy Doll spell, but there might be some other more practical means of magical communication. Of course for non-magical individuals to use it, it would need to be a "wand" or other magical device, which would make it similar enough to cell phones (not necessarily smart, but that's not the point here) that it would make it unlikely Magus would overlook Ashely's phone. However, this is assuming they had the technology for cell phones but didn't invent them because there was already an easily available magical equivalent. It's possible the presence of easily available magic stunted technological growth centuries ago, and they simply don't have the tech base to make cell phones despite not having a similarly convenient magical means of communication.

The "Apocalypse" part of the title makes me expect that much of this battle or series of battles will be highly public, smartphone videos included. It's entirely possible that Pandora floating, Raven's transformation, and maybe even Susan slaying the dragon-Aberration were all caught on video, but we won't find out until it's all over. (After all, the revelation it was all recorded will have more impact for the reader if it's at a point when our primary focus isn't on the fighting.) As for Ashley's phone, she might still have it on her; with that "calm" spell on her she probably hasn't realized she has a reason to use it yet. (I don't know if Sirleck would have thought to take her phone away, but it wouldn't surprise me if Magus didn't think of it - if his world's a medeival one, and/or one where magic is commonplace, they might not even have phones.)

* Pictures several groundhogs floating around in a space shuttle. * This raises the question, if a groundhog sees its shadow on a space shuttle or space station on February 2nd, who gets six more weeks of winter? After all, space craft are supposed to be climate controlled...

It's not quite "yay for backgrounds" worthy, but I love seeing the players (or more often, part of a player) in the background when the focus is on the player pieces.

...Um, yay for half-starburst background in panel eight? I wonder, is Dan trying to reduce the darkness of this storyline with these deceptively cuddly-seeming Abberations, was he in a silly mood when designing them, or is it just a coincidence that we got two in a row? I agree with you on why Lucy wasn't happy about Diane wanting to get a real relationship. As for the way she treats Rhoda, I initially assumed she was just a bit of a bully and Rhoda was an easy target, but Dan doesn't usually go for such shallow characterization these days, so I expect that sooner or later we'll get a different explanation that paints Lucy in a better light. (Perhaps a bigger question: Why had Diane let Lucy pick on Rhoda, when Diane usually is protective of Rhoda? Does Diane just not notice?)

Actually, I said "generally" for a reason; some pacifists base their pacifism on the belief that killing another human being under any circumstances is wrong. I don't think Helena would know enough about Susan or Susan's magic to make this narration.

As a fan of colors, I much prefer the aesthetic of TOS over the "gray on black" aesthetic of many of today's movies and tv shows. (One of my first thoughts upon seeing the bridge of the starfleet vessel in the pilot of the latest series was, "What happened to the ship's lights? Is the ship low on power or something?" ...Actually come to think of it I had the same reaction the first time I saw "Generations", so I suppose that aesthetic has been around in the movies for a long time. Still, it seems like it's become a lot more common in the past decade or so.)

http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=702 I'm not sure if my reading comprehension is down today or if the phrasing is just confusing, but it took me several re-reads to understand what Rhoda was saying in panel 2 (and thus the significance of what she's saying in panel 3). Anyway, moving on to the fun stuff: Yay for double-layered starburst background in panel 2! Also, this has nothing to do with backgrounds but the phrasing is too good to pass up: Yay for cuddling dog-girls in panels 1 & 3!

So, our narrator clearly isn't omniscient. Is it a character? And if so, who? (If so, I'd guess one of the immortals, probably Pandora or Voltair. Jerry would work too, if he wasn't dead.) I wonder if Aberrations get to choose what their monster form will look like ahead of time? That's a really fuzzy and cuddly-looking "vampire" there... I love the effect as Susan summons her sword, and the look of that Aberration burning. And speaking of effects... Yay for starburst background in panel 2! Yay for... wait, the starburst in panel 3 isn't a background, it's actually overlaid over the Aberration - I guess it must be the light from the Fairy Doll exploding? Does that mean the starburst in panel 4 is actually light from the fire? Oh well, whatever, yay for starbursts in panels 3 and 4! ...I'm starting to get the impression Dan really loves starbursts... Not really; the nose is a little too wide and the fur too dark. What it reminds me of is those Chinese dragon puppet/costumes. In addition, it's generally considered okay to kill enemy combatants in war (assuming the method used is not unnecessarily inhumane and they haven't surrendered first). And sometimes (particularly in fiction but to an extent in real life) the same principles are applied to any combat even if it has nothing to do with war.

I don't know, maybe copyright/tradmark reasons? I'm not quite sure where the boundary lies when it comes to referencing other properties. (It may also be relevant that Dan calls it a "Star Trekish" uniform instead of a "Star Trek" or "Starfleet" uniform.)