Comic for Monday November 17th, 2003

"A title that means more things then one" Sunday - November 16th, 2003

So here we are with the opening strip for Chapter Two. I can imagine that many of you were expecting to see good ole Misaki or even that fool Joe. I'm sure some of you were even hoping for the return of the seldom used, yet much appreciated Keylie. I'll take for granted that almost all of you regardless of who you came to see, expected to read something funny.

I apologize to all of you. All I can offer is something that includes a guy named Tom and a girl who's name has yet to be mentioned. They do mention a girl named Beth and as you can see she is not very much a part of the mortal coil any longer.

I think I will point out that the sign from panel one is nicely translated in the caption. Also I thought it was a nice touch that the cemetery looks like one you might find in Japan. All the ones I've visited do not have tombstones and instead have these wood or stone panels or pillars. When I went to visit my grandparent's grave we lit incense to place in a little gravel pit in front of the stone. We also poured fresh water over the stones. I'm not quite sure of the reasoning behind it, but I just thought I'd share a little cultural background with you all.

I'm sure many of you can already see where this is going to go. I'll be sure to make it interesting though and keep you surprised.

Oh and the DNS propagated sometime yesterday almost a day and a half earlier than I had anticipated. Which means many of you who came by during the weekend and were prudent enough, got to see some new things lying around the site. We're talking a wallpaper that someone, I won't name names, had hinted would be arriving soon is now in the bonus section. Some of you also might have noticed the addition of Reiko and Dave to the little animation in the title frame. I've also cleaned up the archive so that people won't have to scroll down a huge page to get to the latest comic. One last thing I'd like to mention is that the newspapers in the News section of the Info page now has links to the past papers that had been released during Chapter One. I'm sure they'll be as amusing as they were the first time around.

Right now also might be a good time to mention the holiday schedule for Ninja Spirit. I will be heading back to Long Island for Thanksgiving weekend to partake in the greatness that is my mom's Thanksgiving dinner. Believe me, there's a TON of things I'm thankful for this year. I had contemplated doing the comic over the weekend, but I know that probably won't happen so there will be a special Thanksgiving picture on Thanksgiving Thursday and a Omake or Production sketch for the Monday following. I had thought about just not doing the comic till after Thanksgiving, but as you can see, I vetoed that idea. So in closing there will be a regular strip this Thursday and the upcoming Monday next week. Then NS will switch to a special holiday drawing for Thanksgiving and an Omake for the Monday after Thanksgiving. NS will then resume normal strips on the Thursday after Thanksgiving. I'm sure all of you are running to mark this down in your PDA's, but I just thought it'd be nice to give you all a head's up.

I'm happy to finally be on Chapter Two. As you can see there will be some darker points in Chapter Two, but that doesn't mean everything is going to be all gloomy and sad. Just when will this strip finally be put into some context where you know who these people are and what the hell they are talking about? Not for a while, but there's a lot of things to take out of this one, including, as mentioned, the title.

Anyway... thanks to everyone who wrote or otherwise let me know that they have liked the comic and Chapter One. My hope is that Chapter Two exceeds your expectations. They always say that the follow up to any project is always the most difficult. I can only hope that whoever "they" are, that "they" are wrong.

Vote for Ninja Spirit!!

River feels loved.