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Guys, I like you too much to make up stories. The backgrounds are a bit phoned-in because I’ve made some iffy time-management decisions today. I’m tired and going to bed, but will punch-up the backgrounds and add the usual shading this evening.

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While we’re here, I want to talk about Chanelle for a moment.

As the snowball fight portion of the arc drew to a conclusion, a few astute readers questioned something of me: where did Chanelle disappear to?

I mentioned in Director Commentary earlier that I was doing a mid-stream shift to downplay Chanelle’s involvement in favor of Ricky (a more long-standing character who was becoming overshadowed by tertiary cast in terms of screentime). An unintended consequence of this is that Chanelle sort of… disappeared. She’s not visible with either the punished “Mean Kids” or the unpunished “Orphanage Kids”.

Looking back on the strips in question I feel like Chanelle’s lack of visibiity is less of a “mystery” and more of a gaping plot hole. So when I get a chance, I’m going to go back and add her in to a few key crowd scenes to make her resolution to the event more visible. But until I get around to that, I’d like to offer those wondering about Chanelle’s fate my official stance on her outcome: As Heather and Keisha’s friend, she changed sides with them when they turned on the others and ultimately avoided trouble by going along with the crowd when they set-up the “Mean Kids” with all the faked crying.

The issue of GPS tags for child safety is something I am going to invoke “character opinions are not necessarily those of the author” for. I feel attaching your kid to a GPS beacon is a personal decision that should be made one on one, but if my google-fu on the issue holds water, GPS implants are more of a sci-fi thing than reality. In real life you would also have to implant a battery into your child for the chip to work. GPS-tagged bracelets are a more realistic approach.

-EDIT- Gang I’m sorry, but I’ve screwed up and the Friday comic this week will be on Saturday. I am out of town until Friday evening. I have it inked and ready to color, but an hour down the highway I realized I forgot to transfer the files to my laptop so I could finish coloring them. So, Check in Saturday for the third comic this week.

Also, because the song is stuck in my head and has been a constant factor while drawing the last couple strips, have some Mars Volta. It’s loud, so be careful if you’re at work. XD

(I feel a little bad that this Selkie-less strip is the one to air after missing two updates, but it would have been next anyway. I know a lot of you are worried about Selkie though, and we will jump back to her soon.)

As for the Mystery Update, I present to you… a coloring page! This is line art for another watercolor illustration, but I thought for the Mystery Monday update the uncolored lineart would make a fun coloring book-style “activity page”.

The drawing is available here at 300dpi, high resolution and ready-to-print. You may print it off and have clean sharp lines for coloring with. I hope you enjoy the rainy day activity page. Have fun, and don’t forget, regular storyline strips resume on Wednesday.

And thank you again Merry Lurker for giving me Friday’s guest strip so I could participate in all the running-around of the wedding preparations. We had to convert an outdoor wedding to an indoor wedding pretty darn fast!

Thank you TML!

FYI.

I received a fantastic guest comic to show, and I’ve decided to air it on Friday so I can be available for last-minute wedding things. As for Monday, there will be an update but it’s content is up in the air since the weekend is going to be busy. So, check back Friday for a guest comic and on Monday for a mystery update.

Regular story comics resume next Wednesday. Sorry for the long wait.