Teenage Sith Apprentice

  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...

 I'll often do some work early, only to fill the time I just "saved" by doing more work. The bright side is that I only have about two more years of school to get through, so there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Not so with Ava's spring cleaning. Ava's stuff: pencil box (top half of her pile) and pink Sabbath dress (bottom half of her pile). Aside from the two sets of clothes she's wearing (blue shirt & skirt over a Jedi uniform), that's literally all Ava owns.

 Comic swearing is just great, huh? Post script. (Well, I guess everything in this commentary is a post script, since the actual comic is the script. . .) That girl in the third panel? Slightly shorter hair than Anne, shorts instead of a skirt, but otherwise identical to my main character? That's me. "Ceinwen." (Not my real name.) I got the idea from Pearls Before Swine , where the cartoonist quite frequently uses himself as a character.  I'm not sure why "potatoes" was the first word that came to mind. I mean, I live in Idaho. (Then again, Anne is often kind of my inverse.) In case you didn't get the reference in Panel Two, Ava has a learning disability such that she can't count from one to five without some sort of mistake. (The secondary joke being, of course, that that only applies when I want it to. Ava's and excellent mathematician whenever I need her to be.)

 I really have a hard time drawing beds. The only way you can really tell Ava and Rachel are in bed trying to sleep (over Doomdreg? Good luck) is the little "2 AM" banner in Panel One. Credit to my brother "Mark" for this one. I wanted to skew the joke away from it being about Anne being stupid - my brother's comics tend to be skewed that way, as do a lot of mine, and it's one of my pet peeves. The point of the Anne character is that she's quite clever! Stop treating her like a moron!  That last bit is in the third person and clearly directed at my brother, but it's aimed at my past self, too. Anyway, I wanted to move the joke towards joking about how annoyingly complex some of the simplest of technology is getting, and away from calling Anne a moron, hence the first panel.  Okay, this one I didn't have to skew in any direction. This is easily believable of Anne. (No hand eye coordination. Just none.) Anne, do you always ...

D'you remember the sports jokes about organized chaos a few days back? Here's a link. . . Organized Chaos I think that goes where I want it to. Okay, now onto the comics! This was the only way I could explain why even the girls ended up playing the game, considering how crazy things got in the original organized chaos post.  A year or two ago, I went to this church fireside activity. . . the guy speaking, Brad Wilcox, was pretty funny. At some point, he said that some people get a little upset because the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (stop telling me what I can and can't capitalize, Autocorrect!) claims to be the one true church. He then went on to say that he'd never been at a baseball game where the fans for whatever team were chanting that they were any number besides one. The point being that people don't go out, put up institutions, and then promote themselves as the third best. Anyway, it gave me a really straight line. It is inh...

I wonder if you could sort of, kinda, maybe call this a Word of Wisdom joke. Probably not; it doesn't focus much on the actual guidelines in D&C 89 - just on how hyper Esther Skywalker is. Just FYI, 80 cups of coffee is a fatal dose of caffeine. So I guess Esther got her first two deus ex machinas here - stupid autocorrect - namely, she somehow managed to drink a massive amount of coffee, and she also avoided caffeine poisoning. Admittedly, she probably didn't drink all of the coffee. Just ten cups or so. . . Rachel, why do statements like that not count as reason to kick Anne out of the house? I know you want to. You're doing an awfully good job of hiding that vengeful smile, Rachel.  See, Anne! I'm not the only one who makes bad puns! (The comics I'm referencing here will be posted in a couple days.)

Also, Anne, Rachel can do that, too. Whatever it was you were going to say. Even if you were going to describe throwing Force lightning. I'm sure Doomdreg could approximate the results of that. Yeeaaaah, maybe telling the truth about your being a terrorist wasn't such a great idea, Anne. Yes, I know you're proud of it, but do you really expect anyone to hire you while you're wearing that on your sleeve? Breakup #67.

As you can imagine, it was quite the case. C'mon, Shylock, lay off the girl! Lest there be any confusion, I was directing that in a very sarcastic manner at Ava. Ultimately, if it's Rachel who gets Ava off her self destruction mania it's probably going to involve threats and extortion. And by now, I'd probably stand by her - Ava really could learn a thing or two from Shylock, such as how to not let people stomp all over you.  As I said. The only way Rachel is going to get Ava to be in any way sincere about this is going to involve either the threat of physical violence or someone else pulling a mind trick. Neither one would be permanent, which is why Rachel probably won't be the person who pulls Ava back from the brink.  In the unwritten fourth panel, Ava randomly started hitting Anne with the nearest object. This is a sensitive subject for her. And by sensitive subject, I mean she would talk about her sister Danielle's death in an Xwing acciden...