"Congrats to Jay and Colum" Thursday February 7th, 2008

Before we go getting into comic news, I wanted to extend a huge congrats to my friend Jay and his wife Colum on having a brand new baby. I don't have all the specifics yet, but I wanted to just spread the joy around first and foremost. I wish you guys the best and though I don't know if your baby is a boy or girl yet, my guess is that it will be a girl. I'll probably be wrong and when your kid grows up they can read Ninja Spirit and first go man my parents and their friends were dorks and then they'll be like this tool thought I was gonna be a girl!! The only thing that's weird to me is that Joe isn't around for this moment. It's times like this when I wish Joe didn't live all the F'ing way around the world. F that sheep hugging fool. No offense to Mayuko who married said fool.

Anyway let me get back to the comic before I ramble on about more people most of you do not know or know by proxy. As you can see the comic takes place a few days after the fights went down at Crescent Moon Island. Key has taken care of most of the injuries, but what you can't see is that Yuki's shoulder, Tom's gut, and Joe's side are still bandaged up pretty good from the injuries they sustained. They are of course now discussing the apparent backstabbing of Julienne. Everyone has a point of course, but I like Tom's mindset most of all. He's really not been treated well at all by Julienne in the recent chapter, but he still has this belief that I think many of you share in that Jules has done this for a reason. Time will tell on that front.

I will say that the first panel is of course an actual photoshopped picture of the front of the Lyell Ave Nick Tahou's (AKA Steve Tahou Hots now...). I'm glad I was able to fit the Tahou's scene into the chapter because it always made me sad that Chapter 3 didn't end with a scene at the iconic restaurant. I will mention that the interior backgrounds has been given a facelift similar to the one done at the Lyell Tahou's. I'm actually kind of proud of doing all the backgrounds besides P1 and a "outside" of the windows in P2. I really liked the way P9's turned out especially since I'm not working off any sort of reference material other than my own memory of what the inside of Tahou's looks like. Also astute observers will notice this yet another variation in hairstyle for the kind Key Lime Pitrowski.

Anyway the comic will be taking a rather unusual experimental turn in both style and story for next week so be forewarned. It's basically a bunch of back story that I felt would make for an interesting change of pace while also give weight to the actual danger that Yuki and the gang finally know of now. If it sucks than I apologize in advance and say that in my defense I have the image of what I want the style to look like in my head, but whether or not I'll be able to pull it off is another thing entirely. Just know that we'll be right back in Tahou's the week after!

Well I hope you enjoyed today's comic and I will see you all next week!

River's Top 5 Alfred Hitchcock Movies
1. Rear Window
2. The Lady Vanishes
3. Vertigo
4. Spellbound
5. North by Northwest