Teenage Sith Apprentice

  ". . . it's called a lightsaber. . ." Sorry about the false start (that assuming anyone's reading this?). More to come soon, I promise. My family recently did a Lord of the Rings marathon and Anne's getting married, so expect a lot of bad ring jokes. And jokes about how unoriginal I am. I find the best thing to do when you're writing comics and you have writer's block is to write comics about writer's block. 

  Well, I did promise, didn't I. . . Hopefully anyone reading can actually make the words out. . . this is a first draft I did in pencil.

 Hi, I know it's been a while. . . Erin and Mom. . . the next TSA comic will be up by the 16th. I'm putting that out there now because I need some sort of deadline to force me to actually write it down. It's pretty good, though, I can promise that. . .

  I wrote this one after offhandedly referring to a female friend of mine as "a girlfriend" and realizing that my first reaction to hearing my own words was "that sounds creepily homosexual." I'm not a big fan of any sort of LGBT behavior. The first three are just gross; the fourth is literally a form of delusion. (Mind, I'm talking about the BEHAVIORS not the PEOPLE.) And I hate the way the PC surrounding LGBT issues sexualizes some of my day to day language. For instance, I can no longer refer to my female friends as my girlfriends without feeling all creepy and weird. Thanks a lot, pc. I also wrote this one trying to purge creepy feelings. I was unbelievably dumb enough to read a UFO spotlight bizarre conspiracist post about how coronavirus was really some secret Chinese plot and really they had concocted it in a lab to quiet the Hong Kong protestors and it turned out to be super deadly and people were dying of a super Ebola blah blah blah and how covid w...

  Translation: "Please evict my little sister." I got into slightly more abstract art during the Covid Files. Rather than being a linear story or gag, this is a somewhat melancholy portrayal of Rachel Bucket (felt I had to throw the name in there as a comic relief) as a paranoid PTSDer. I'm a little afraid to label Rachel a PTSD sufferer, actually. I always worry I won't portray it right. I try not to mention it except as "paranoia." But yeah - she freaks, whips around, realizes nothing's wrong, gets irked about having just tricked herself again, then whirls around and punches the air under the influence of a delusion, then realizes yet again and sinks to the ground, exhausted with the effort of fighting it and wondering if she'll ever be mentally intact. It's kinda sad, and it was supposed to be. This is a side of Rachel I rarely show. All right, now for something a little more lighthearted. If Anne, Ava, Esther and Rachel were D&D 4e charac...

  I originally wanted to use the Covid Files to show the relationship development on Nick's side. You see, sometime early next year, I plan to have him propose to Ava. So I wanted to follow him through some time. One of the running jokes I have planned up through his preparation to propose is that his cat, Mindelle, knows what he's planning on but doesn't quite get it. Cats don't mate for life the way humans do. Feline love lives tend to be reproduction based only and don't last much longer than the females' heat periods. (Someone nail me if that was over the top.) So she can't understand why he's so nervous, and she says some really weird things that didn't help much at all, and frankly she sounds really insensitive throughout.  This was the only Nickcentric comic I wrote during the Covid Files. Also, I made a spelling mistake in Panel Two. It's then, not than.  Aaaahh, this was my favorite Covid File joke. Generally, one would assume the name T...

 That title says "2020 linear " to drive home the point that these were my last daily comics of 2020 so far. After this post, there will be no more dailies until December 1. I will put something up for election night, and there are the Covid Files and the Missing April 2019 Comics. But there will not be daily comics, just sporadic posts. So, this is April Seven through April Twelve. That line should be "Quarantine. Gotta love it." This is one of the few Ava comics where Ava expresses a view completely different from mine. I mean, my first reaction to quarantine was, "What? I can't go to church activities anymore?" It could have wreaked greater havoc on my social life. It's not like I was more social than the average desk. I mostly stood in the corner and watched at most social events. But I still hated missing out. I like being on the social scene even if most of the time I don't participate. This moth will stay a comfortable distance from the ...

 Well, I'm about six months late for this particular Jewish holiday, and a few days late for this post specifically. Nevertheless, here you go, here is the magnificent four paneled I wrote to celebrate Passover. And I swear I wrote this on April 9. It just took me forever to scan and post it. So, here you go. That's all for today. I figure I don't need to comment on this much. This is like my favorite comic of 2020, but then, the holiday ones are always my best.  Have a great day!

 So, finally getting another character sheet up. It's been a while.  Today's topic is Esther. My only genuinely bad character. Anne is brainwashed. Rachel is mentally ill. But Esther? Esther was raised as a Jedi but chose to walk in paths of darkness. She is a psychopath, a sadist and a masochist. She enjoys listening to bad rock music at 230 decibels while everyone else is at home. Unfortunately, just like Anne and Ava she lives under Rachel's roof. I guess Rachel doesn't feel that "she's a jerk and she's physically harmed everyone here at least once" is a good enough reason to kick Esther out. I get the feeling Rachel may be catching Ava's guilt complex, just a little.  Here's a pic: She doesn't normally have vampire fangs. One thing I like to say about Esther is that she's Jewish, by conversion not birth, but only if it annoys Ava. (Also, it was demanded of her that she disavow all religion when she converted to the Dark Side and bec...

Prep:  This was me living the dream through Rachel. Total unhealthy behavior through proxy. TOTALLY. On the opposite note, I'm a bit disbelifful as to Ava's standards for what qualifies as junk food.  I have no idea where this one came from. Some of these comics make me seriously concerned for my sanity. Scouting the area:  The always culinary compromise: make a pizza with as many slices as you have people, and customize the toppings. And pray the melted tires from Esther Skywalker's piece don't mix too much with the Hershey's bars from Chi Rita's piece. I only have one character who eats healthy, and that's Ava - little miss "Eat Only on Weekends and then Restrict it to Whatever Pieces of Anne's Stew Are Probably Kosher and Can Be Eaten Without Too Much Gagging." Okay, never mind, let me rephrase that. I have only one character who tries to eat healthy; that's Ava. By the way, that's supposed to be a chef's ha...

As per tradition, this little gem goes up here. Check out the original this is based off of here .

As you know, one of the biggest problems with the Ava character is that she is in a near karoshi state far too often. So I'll bet you can guess what I did with the covid lockdowns:  Rachel  really wants Ava to leave that job. Actually, Rachel's preference is that Ava stop knocking herself out trying to pay back what Rachel considers to be pocket change and focus on her education. So covid 19 was an unexpected boon to Rachel. Of course, the argument she used here was flawed because, even as she and Ava spoke, the virus was growing and dividing inside Ava's lungs. More on that later.  Great, because you're about to feel a lot worse than you have in a long time. Or maybe you'd have felt that way anyway, without getting sick, because I hear exhaustion is a major symptom of covid, and your 24/6 work/school schedule would cause that too.  If Ava's sitting still, it means she's abandoning/inconveniencing someone. Someday I'll get Anne back for insti...

 Five minutes later, Anne walked up and made a similar request (well, superficially similar: "Can I invite a whole bunch of crazies over for a loud and annoying shamanistic ritual?" The form is the same to Ava's request, but the substance is quite different.) I assume you know what Rachel said. Just to give any possible new readers a hint, Rachel is a devout Christian who happens to enjoy being able to sleep at night without a whole bunch of Dark Siders yodeling on the front lawn. Plus she doesn't like Anne and thinks of Anne's religion as a terrorist manifesto (which it is). On the other hand, no such problems with Ava. . .  The correct answer is actually "I don't have a personal vendetta with you and don't see any reason to get in the way of your practicing your religion," but if Rachel says that, Ava's going to bring up the fact that Rachel frequently threatens to call the cops if Anne "practices her religion" and wonde...