I like this scene a lot.  Actually, it’s going to look a lot better as a spread when the other page is finished, so I’ll stick the whole thing somewhere for you to see it next Monday.  But I like that it accentuates Mike’s bigness.  He’s not a small machine.  And there’s good reason everyone is afraid he’s going off the rails – he could really ruin everyone’s day if he decided he wanted to.

As for me, well, I’m turning in.  It’s going to be another big one this week, but I’m up for it.  And now that we’re “over the hump” with this chapter and events are starting to accelerate, the prospect of getting to draw the rest of the chapter is really exciting.  And this one is building up to my second-favorite scene in the entire story, which I’ve been dying, just DYING to draw for three years now.  So I’m really starting to have fun with this.

Anyway, until next week, folks, be well!

So, yeah, I’m getting a little burnt out, I’ll admit.  I’m still plugging away at the comic, though, and I’m glad to say that, unlike the first three chapters, Chapter 4, which is now about 2/3 complete (I think), is one I would feel confident sending to print right off the website. Well, fine, the next to last panel needs a tweak. It looked better in the inks. But still, no major “this whole page needs to be redrawn” situations.

God.  Print.  Now there’s something I haven’t thought about for a while.  Maybe I’d better not go there at this time of night.  Suffice it to say, another week’s gone by, and another page is drawn.  So, I call that a net gain.

Have a good one folks.  See you next week!

Pulled this one out of the fire, somehow.  It was an extremely busy work week for me.  A lot of traveling, into the bargain.  But here we are. I also just realized I never put up the back of the T-90 spec card for you.  I’ll have to do something about that.

As to the rest of it, well… not much to say about this week. Just a lot of hard work and some longer than usual hours in the Studio.  I still have to get these exams ironed out, too – work has been so time-consuming – there’s just so much to do with earning a living – that I haven’t had any time to plan in my licensing examinations yet.  I really have to start carving out time to do that. But I work twelve hours just about every day… I don’t know how this is going to work.  But, well, as they say, “By the grace of God and this casino…”

Anyhow, I’ll just leave it at that.  Work work work work work work work…

Be well, folks.  See you next week.

Wider exploitation of electromagnetic technology by the FSR has long been a tactical advantage against the UNA; the T-90PG tank, however, was the first vehicle to use a true Gauss weapon as its main gun, with no conventional secondary or coaxial weapon to back it up.  It has performed very well in combat trials, and in actual tank-to-tank combat has shown to be superior to UNA smoothbore guns, and at least the equal of the newer generation of magnetically boosted conventional cannons.  Its real limitation is in field maintenance, which has proven tricky in some more variable environments, especially desert, where sand and dust can interfere with electrical systems.  The T-90 chassis as a whole, however, is a rugged and dependable machine, operating on a conventional diesel engine that has proven easier to operate and fuel than gas-turbine or atomic battery units based on UNA designs.  The PG variant is scheduled to supersede the older S types in frontline combat in spite of the maintenance issues with the magnetic cannon, and research on the doctrine of FSR operations have already yielded significant improvements in the repair and refit cycle for the weapon, improving its performance in the field.  Its distinctive triangular barrel makes the tank easy to recognize, and the T-90PG is becoming a very common sight on the battlefield, leading the UNA to accelerate its own weapons development to counter it; at the moment, the UNA has no comparable “true” Gauss weapons that can match it.

As for me, the wedding I was attending was wonderful, but very exhausting; and of course, as seems to be my habit, I ended up losing something.  Somehow, I do that whenever I go to a wedding, without fail.  This time it was my damn suitcase, which I left on the train when I dragged myself home this afternoon.  I won’t rant and rail about the shiftless and rude MTA bureaucracy (with the sole exception of the two ladies at 511, who were wonderful and helped calm me down enormously – Tina and Susan, you’re the best!), but suffice it to say, I’m not terribly hopeful that they’ll return my belongings to me.

Anyway, I’m gelatinous with fatigue, as the man wrote.  So I’m turning in.  All the best, folks.

Here in New England, it’s been a wild and hairy week, with a bizarre action movie-style finish.  I live quite close to Boston, and so it was with some uneasiness that I watched the entire criminal situation up there play out.  I have to admit that it feels, recently, as though people in the Northeastern U.S.A. are starting to go radically off the rails in a very unfunny way, and the answer people seem to have to it is more repression, more laws, more violence.  I don’t get it.  I don’t understand how “not killing people” became such a difficult thing to do.  I don’t understand how “passing the toughest laws in the country” became a thing to be proud of.  I don’t understand how declaring that you aren’t giving a criminal suspect the benefit of his constitutional rights became something meritorious, or at the very least, acceptable.  I don’t understand any of it.  The conversion of conscience our world desperately needs is just not happening, and it doesn’t seem to be getting much closer.

Before he died, my dad told me, I think prophetically, that God was going to send my country a great test, and that we may not be up to the task it sets before us.  I sometimes wonder whether this is it, or if there’s something even worse yet to come.  All I can say is that so far, we haven’t been up to the task, and we all need to start shaping up, and stop killing each other.  This is just crazy.

Anyhow, I’m off to another week in paradise.  Next weekend, I’m going to be occupied at the wedding, actually that of my oldest friend; we’ve known each other for over twenty-five years.  In the midst of the chaos and violence of this week, it will be a welcome relief, and a hopeful moment amidst so much bizarre and pointless tragedy.  I’ll see about getting a page done for next time, but if I don’t you’ll know where I am.  Until next week, then… well, just be safe, be happy and be kind to each other.  God bless.

Anyway, this was another “how the hell did I get this done” kind of page.  Oddly enough, I owe it all to taking a nap this afternoon.  Only about half an hour – but I was totally back on top of the task afterwards.  Who knew?  Strange things, these weird sleep habits I have.  In any case, I haven’t really anything substantive to add this week other than to say that I’m still truckin’, here.  Have a good one, everybody!

So, anyhow, yes!  Here we are.  With the tension breaking in both of the parallel scenes.  You can probably see now why I have been intercutting the two – astute observers will notice that this page and the last one make up a single spread, so the big “moment” is happening at the same time.  Well, anyway, I thought it was clever. But what the hell do I know?

It’s a bit odd to be writing a comic about nuclear war when we seem to be on the verge of one right now, if the media/propaganda machines worldwide are to be believed.  The North Koreans are currently threatening to use the Bomb against us Americans, though Christ alone knows what we did to them THIS time, aside from asking them not to do that.  And, yes, the sanctions thing, but I mean, come on.  The North Koreans have been imposing sanctions on their own people for sixty years, now, so I mean, what the hell?  My rational side tells me that this is all just the outward signs of a bizarre internal political dance that always happens in totalitarian dictatorships when there’s a change in power, but good God, guys, can you solve your problems without threatening us with the Bomb?  Seriously.

It only really came to my mind because I happen also this week to have watched a documentary (while I was working, actually – a rare multitasking moment) on the disaster at Chernobyl in 1986, which is basically as close as we’ve come to knowing what the aftermath of a widespread modern nuclear war would be like: a total ecological and human catastrophe. Which is, of course, to say nothing of the disastrous way that World War II was brought to an end in Japan.  So to think that threatening that kind of destruction is such an offhanded thing, as some kind of internal political ploy, really makes me sick at heart.

But anyway, enough rambling.  War or no war, life goes on, and I have a job to get to in the morning.  See you next week, folks!

Anyway, I’ll just leave it at that.  No long, drawn-out commentary this week, just business.  For all those celebrating Passover and Easter, I wish you all the best, and I’ll see you next week!

So, I am sorry about all these on-again, off-again delays, but things are kind of unpredictable for me at the moment.  It’s nothing like a crisis, just a lot of things that are taking priority over comics.  I’ve explained all this previously, so I’m not rehashing it now, but I do just want to thank everyone who sent me their words of support this past week.  Really and honestly, everyone, THANK YOU!  It does me a lot of good to know that you not only get some entertainment from this comic, but that you understand that doing this in the independent way that I do, with a really heavy regular job into the bargain, is not easy.  So to hear that everyone understands, and also that everyone who has come to this comic reads it in as intelligent and sensitive a way as I could possibly hope for, well – it makes me feel like a success, and that’s really what I’m after.  So many of the comics I love have come to unceremonious ends because of a lack of confidence or a change of heart on the part of the artist, or a feeling that they aren’t making a difference or that nobody cares.  And it does me a hell of a lot of good to know that you are all sticking with me while I do this, and it makes me want to draw, more than ever.

So, I’m off to bed, to face another week of the same.  Again, to everyone, thanks so much!  I’ll see you next week – by hook or by crook!