I’m back, I’m back, I’m back! Moved into my new place, back on schedule, and so happy to be doing comics again.

What’s this? A new comic? Finally? Sorry about the delay, all — I’m about to move apartments, and everything’s a little chaotic. There’s probably going to be some more comics-schedule crumminess in September, but once the dust settles it should be back on track.

I was thinking about how these tend to be more ensemble-focused, and it’s kind of unusual to have several in a row like this with a scene just predominantly about Turpentine. It’s been interesting, digging a little deeper into this character.

(PS: the way I imagine it, if she’d been like “Hey, Nick, stop what you’re doing RIGHT NOW because I need an emergency midnight best friend talk”, he probably would have…albeit with some reluctance)

This has totally thrown her off balance. Does the apparent status quo of not being in the closet per se but also not really being open and not getting involved with anyone in all the time we’ve known her lie in ruin?

This was kind of an interesting character design exercise: coming up with a girl similar enough to Turpentine that they look visually parallel and could probably be mistaken for each other across a dimly-lit room — and yet, their faces aren’t that similar, and a conversation like this shouldn’t have any confusion about who’s who.

This one also digs into something that I think has been a little bit of an elephant in the room in this comicworld. So, clearly, Honey Hart’s thing is that she’s making slow progress against being waaaaay too repressed to really admit that she’s a lesbian. But what about Turpentine? We know that she’d be loath to admit that she’s got a thing for her “enemy”, specifically…but what about in general? She hasn’t really been seen with anyone, and turns guys down in a second flat — but it seems like, with her friends and the scenes and parties they run in, sooner or later she’s going to run into a socially and aesthetically similar lady who makes an overt move on her. AND WHAT THEN?

(ps: clarifying just in case it slipped from your memory from last week: this page takes place directly after the scene in the last one.)

Sorry about the no comic thing last week — but hey, this one’s kind of a double.

I bet it was some blatant act of eco-villainy where a corrupt industrialist wanted to dump a barrel labeled “pollution” directly on some swans entirely out of spite against nature.