Teenage Sith Apprentice

I borrowed the whole idea for Amanda from Dilbert , specifically from Scott Adams' character "Phil, Prince of Insufficient Light and Ruler of Heck." After Calvin and Hobbes, Dilbert was probably the strip's strongest influence. Weird, because the closest we ever get to sending one of the characters to work is when Anne has a job interview to botch or I'm hinting that Ava could use some more sleep. The unnamed girl in this comic is Renee Porter, a character from a World War III story that never got so much as one word written down. She was never seen again in TSA after this particular incident, so a discussion of what she's like isn't really all that important (although you can tell she likes throwing words back in peoples' face. "Try being successful. . . ") Absolutely nothing, Ava. I kinda regret the salt joke now. Not enough to remove it, but. . . well. I just wonder if that was really such a great idea. Admittedly, short of dec

Sith are supposed to be experts at manipulation, so I suppose the ending is pretty plausible. . . This was one of my favorite "Anne and Kylo and their relationship issues" comics. Nothing that comes up is really what anyone would expect. I mean, who tells their date that, tonight, we're going to go to my house and knock down hornet's nests? (Which is what they turned out to be, unfortunately for Kylo.)  The original line I wanted to put in Panel Three for Anne was, "Kylo, my dictionary defines 'disaster' as. . ." and she's holding a little book. But the panel wasn't big enough.  Looking back, I have no idea what I was thinking here. It kinda stands out among the other TSA comics because the macabre stuff is normally down here in the text. . . not up there in the comics.  Nothing really to say here, except that Princess Leia hair is a lot easier to draw than it is to put up. In case my inability to draw perspectively makes

A large part of my point for March 2019 seemed to be to hit my audience over the head with the fact that Anne can't cook. Exhibit A: Here's hoping you can actually read this. The letters are a bit small. I remember thinking this was pretty clever once. Now it just seems like kind of dumb humor. . . This was the first hint of the financial problems that made up most of the TSA storyline into May 2019. This one I came up with in the shower. I was reading the advertising on the back of the shampoo bottles, because, you know, little hard to bring, say, Sorcerer of the North into the shower and read that, and one of the conditioner bottles said, 100% Vegan . For some reason that just cracked me up. I wouldn't find it funny in the here and now, but 14 months ago it was the epitome of humor as far as I was concerned. Siiiiiigh. Going out with a whimper not a bang again. This is one of my cannon fodder comics - a comic that about describes what I draw when

About the end of February, I decided I wanted at least one of my characters to have a functioning relationship. Anne and Ava are kind of frenemies. Anne and Kylo are hugely dysfunctional. Rachel. . .? She's a little out of it. So I decided Ava would get the good relationship. She's probably the only character I have who both deserves it and wants it. (Rachel isn't a disaster-by-choice either, but she would rather the entire human race keep its distance. . . two yards at least.) Sam in Panel Three: "Oh, oh yeah.  With that hair of yours, it's easy to forget."  One of my stupidest lines ever. The guy Ava is going out with here is a clone trooper from the prequels. He is describing a dragon he once fought in the third panel. Sorry if you can't read Sam's line in Panel Three. He's saying: "Gee, I dunno. He doesn't even know he's got a date today."  I really like all the implications of past mistakes in this one. . . sa

As I said a couple days ago in Rachel's introduction, I brought Rachel into TSA for sole purpose of having a Christian character, but she acts more like a Wild West character. That and Anne doesn't like Kylo - Rachel was expecting another fight. Some background to Rachel: She grew up on the streets of Mos Eisly, so perhaps you can see where her paranoid aggressive streak comes from. The cat is named Doomdreg, among other things. Rachel calls him Doomdreg, or Doomie if he hasn't recently annoyed her. Most of the inhabitants of Mos Eisly, and also of the city Rachel recently left because Doomdreg was savaging people, simply refer to him as "that thing " or "IT." That should give you a good idea of how the cat acts. Caveat: at the time of this comic, Rachel was kind of a crazy combative character. (Not a great pick for my Christian character, I know.) But by the time she became a main-cast-member of the strip, she had calmed down a lot. (Doomdreg ne

Using the Force is not Ava's best skill, especially since she wasn't born with the ability, so sometimes there are. . . accidents. Especially when Anne was being particularly annoying in the car on the way here. I just loved the look on Ava's face: "Remind me again why I hang out with you? THAT'S DISGUSTING!!!" Hailin was a previously introduced character with a crazy "Barty Crouch Sr" complex. (He's from Book Four of Harry Potter if you don't remember who he is.) Honor, the girls with the pigtails, is her twin sister whose personal mission in life is to annoy every person on the planet at least fifty times. Hailin's Barty Crouch complex probably came from being paired so closely to Honor.

Around the middle of February 2019, I finally realized there was no way I could pack the number of words I was using into those tiny little panels. Here's the first upsized comic: This was written after Ava got into a fight with Susan. That happened off camera because the comic it happened in was awful. It also introduces Doc Blain, probably some sort of time traveler from. . . who knows when. . . maybe the Cretaceous Period by how much he knows about medicine. This is one of the few TSA comics that shows Anne's dark side. Anne can be pretty violent at times, but the strip usually hides that. . . Sorry about Ava's lame final line. I couldn't think of anything better. Any suggestions? The box says "Dollar for Gwen's Thoughts." The hole I punched in it hides the "f" at the beginning of "For."

This is the first appearance of Rachel Bucket (no, I'm not kidding) in TSA. She was my attempt to write a Christian character, although she was originally from a failed post apocalyptic (also not kidding). It never even got a word written down, and that was mostly what channeled into her character as a TSA cast member. The original line was, "NEVER say that to a Christian!!!" Like Ava's intro comic, it's a religious gag and I wrote a second (third?) copy because I crammed a ton of words into the third panel and then doubted they were legible. Here it is. . . Can you read that one better? I hope so. It's about like any other comic I drew after I got bigger panels. (Thank goodness. I can't write that tiny anymore.) Unlike Ava's intro, this is something I do. Not in front of other people, but, if you are for some reason  into reading books of conspiracy theories about how the world is going to end next Wednesday, it is really good for you

Quick explanation: In the comic you're about to see, the girl who isn't Ava is my "bad guy" character, Susan McCombre (just in case you didn't read the title). Susan was introduced in an earlier comic that I decided not to publish because it was lame and had no point. She is a gangster and is kinda a jerk, and she strongly dislikes Ava. (She strongly dislikes Anne, too, but Anne wears her combative abilities and capabilities on her sleeve strongly enough to scare off any bullies.) I introduced her character, then regretted it and spent a while trying to get rid of her. Eventually, she just vanished. As I said, Susan dislikes Ava. As a side note: this was the first of several jokes in which Ava walks into a bank and gets either scammed or shortchanged somehow. Later this crystallized into a severe learning disability that makes it impossible for Ava to so much as count - trying to explain why she's such an easy mark! (It also had the advantage of making

Yeeaaaah, Anne's far from being a paragon of anything (except maybe driving Ava crazy and blowing up buildings via Force lightning, neither of which you'd want to teach to teenage children). Anne hates Kylo and it's always been that way and it always will be that way, even if they get married. (They do.) I scribbled this one down while watching "Toy Story." In case you can't read my handwriting in Panel One, Kylo is saying, "And as you travel life's highway, don't forget to pick everyone's pockets." This is one of my favorites of the early comics. It was inspired by a Gary Larson comic where there's this cow in a toga talking to a bunch of calves: "And as you travel life's highway, don't forget to stop and eat the roses."

Actually I do know where this one came from. I was fascinated by twins at the time (still am), so I wanted the twin characters, but I couldn't have shoehorned one more person into Ava's apartment (she is paying rent for both herself and Anne). That and I wanted to give Ava more air time. This comic is lame, but it starts the "show" story and some of the other "show story" comics were great. I decided to skip Day Two because it was basically just a repeat of Day One. Day Three is also. . . well. . . Kinda pointless. Now this one was great. Or at least, I sure think so. It's also one of the last times Ava sticks up for herself. I dunno. I just thought this particular bit of nonsense was hilarious. Another personal favorite. The ideal line - not my original line, but what I would like to be able to edit in - has Ava in panel two saying, "Anne will be representing five other religions she hadn't heard of until yesterday." Obv

Yes, Anne, she's right. You're only good at things that have no bearing whatsoever on taking over the galaxy - or anything else for that matter. BTW, the advice given to Ava is completely off base. Ava can't even take care of herself . She wouldn't do too great at giving others advice. Um. . .