A bit of an experimental layout in the top part of this one! That’s always been one of my stylistic goals with this series, though: making comics that aren’t quite like how anyone else would do it. And thanks, as always, to our letter writers (and all of you whose mail hasn’t been drawn) — the form to submit new ones is here, and I’d also accept character questions in the form of Tumblr asks. (PS: FYI: there are a couple of things that make otherwise-good mail questions unusable for this comicworld, including swears, and referencing something that doesn’t exist in-universe (ie: internet.))

…As a gay rather than a bi, I have a more limited range of birds I can supernaturally control. Swans, mostly.

Well, hey, the last story named a new release for each of our main bands – let’s take a closer look.

(The previous editions of this were here and here.)

Occasionally asked question: This woman is not, in fact, the same person as Arsenic’s mom. She just has similar interests and hair color.

Also: I’m so sorry for how long it’s been since the last page! I had a deadly combo of other work / personal stuff that set me back with these comics. Bonus, tho: if you haven’t already seen it on social media, another thing I released during this time was my story from the Cloudscape Comics Mega Fauna anthology, Little Tiny Giraffe. I think it’s pretty cute.

Aaaand, we’re back! It’s pretty obvious how much I love expanding on this world of alt-universe bands and their discographies. I meant for this record-nerdy store clerk to get a name in this one, but…nope, didn’t fit in.

…Turpentine and Arsenic have never admitted to each other how much they both independently kinda love Space Wizard Awakens in a way that’s not even half ironic.

Something I know I’ve written about elsewhere: I’ve thought a lot about the relative scale of stories in the Band Vs. Band world. It’s specifically not about The Biggest Superstar Bands In The World, and it’s ALSO specifically not about Hopeless Bands where the joke is that they’re awful and going nowhere. I want it to be at this medium-level human scale, basically: the main bands are each implied to be pretty good IF you like their kind of thing (which is split in-universe!), they have setbacks and successes, and, at this point, though they’ve made some progress, they still need day jobs. And this record store would be an especially sweet day-job option if there’s a discount.

I actually feel kinda bad that, with the exception of Domme getting a spotlight moment, the other bandmates besides Honey and Turpentine haven’t had much to do in the last couple of sequences besides tag along. It’ll balance out, though! I’ve got tons I wanna do with these characters, both ensemble-wise and individually. I like this cast of characters a lot.