This piece was inspired by a portion of my most recent blog, where I discuss a specific scene from The Odyssey (2026). So I am calling this series of posts “As Scene On,” where I’ll look at key scenes of media that I feel mean something important to said media.

For now, I am focusing on the prestige drama, Mad Men, a show very close to my heart.

Mad Men S1E1 – “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”

The first writing I ever sold was a review of an episode of Mad Men, many years ago. It was in the early days of seriously pursuing my associate’s degree, and experiences in my English class had me thinking that, maybe, I could be a writer. I made about $2.50 on it, sold to some content-mill blog. I’ve sold a lot of pieces into the churn since.

I mention this because this feels like a little nostalgic homecoming for me. I have just started a Mad Men rewatch, and the nostalgia for the show is very powerful. It’s also been a very long time since I watched it, so it is about as close to fresh eyes as I can rally for the experience. I remember a great deal of the stories, character arcs, and scenes, of course, but the details around the edges are fuzzy.

I think it is the scenes that pull me back; slices of a story that really sell you on the overall experience. You may remember things around the margins, and you may recall the broadest strokes of an episode. For me, there is always a scene that stands out, Something that, even isolated, speaks to the larger experience.

And scenes can do so much. They can focus on a relationship, show a character shift, or present a thrilling sequence. They can be hilarious, heartbreaking, or aggravating. They can be multiple things at once. They are moments of time that you associate with the feelings about media you experienced – books, comics, film, and television.

Let’s look at the first episode of Mad Men.

The Static Don Draper

I had a client once for whom I wrote some articles and blog posts regarding creative topics: character design, writing, illustration techniques, and the like. One such post was about dynamic and static characters.

Don Draper is a static character. Do things happen to him? Yes. Does he make changes? Yes. But it’s all temporary. It is all an illusion of change.

The Don Draper we get in the first scene of the pilot episode of Mad Men, “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” is the same Don Draper we see on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea in “Person to Person,” the final episode of the series. He is the same hollow man marketing himself to the public. He is entirely transactional.

It is all handled beautifully in this very first appearance. The handsome (m)ad man in a smoky bar, scrawling on a cocktail napkin, is Don Draper (later also known as Dick Whitman – teased out over season one). A man who is a paper lantern projection of success. He looks the part of an ideal male of the period, but he is not in control of his own life and oozes a deep sadness that makes him covetous – Understandably so, as we’ll learn in the season ahead.

But in this moment, in the scene, he is a handsome, stoic man oozing masculine charm, grappling with how to market Lucky Strike cigarettes amid the increasing awareness of the health risks they pose. He’s a thinking man, an intellectual. Sure, his plight is about marketing cancer to Americans, but there is an art to the process, and it is work that has significance. Historical significance at that. So Don Draper sits in a lounge, smoking, drinking, man-ing. And he strikes up a conversation with an older black man, a busboy, about his cigarette brand of choice.

Don is white, handsome, and, for the most part, successful (remember the paper lantern?). He has the power in this exchange. It is March 1960 in the show, and anyone with any cursory knowledge of U.S. history should be shouting “CIVIL RIGHTS.” He is using this man in the guise of a friendly chat about his brand of cigarettes for market research. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. Don is looking for ideas. He is respectful enough here, speaking man-to-man, curious about habits and reasons for something as simple as why he smokes what he smokes. It is all above board here.

When the supervisor approaches, he snidely asks if the busboy, now identified as Sam, is bothering Don and that Sam can be a little chatty – just shy of calling him uppity, really. And that’s when the first transaction happens: a social exchange meant to get Don what he needs- an illusion of kindness.

A paper lantern of empathy.

The Unenlightened Don Draper

Don speaks to the supervisor, seemingly indignant and shocked by his behavior from management. They’re just having a chat; is that alright with him? The manager sheepishly drops his bullying of his black employee, offers to refill Don’s drink, and Don goes back to his chat. Sam is now much more willing to talk about his smoking habits with the white man who stood up for him. Don is a charmer, thrilled with the pursuit. He’s got Sam where he wants Sam.

There is the transaction.

Don looks like an enlightened man, standing up to a bully, and Sam is willing to discuss his smoking habits. Don looks good here in this moment, but as we learn more about him later on, we get the sense that his outlook on civil rights is seemingly apolitical. He is not any more or less racist than a lot of people he works with; this is the 1960s, Matthew Weiner is committed to a degree of realism, after all. But Don does not seem particularly enlightened or concerned with the struggle beyond what he can get from it.

It is hard to call Don Draper racist in the scope of the decade the series depicts; it is more that it is not about him and his pursuits, and only becomes something transactional, just like all of his relationships throughout the rest of the series. His empathetic outreach is like that paper lantern projection – weak and illusory. He’ll stand up for a black employee being browbeaten by a supervisor, but tolerate office Jew jokes. Sam mattered for a brief moment – it would be hard to imagine Don remembering him if he came into the same lounge the next day.

But, back to the scene, their discussion done, the camera pans down to see his cocktail napkin, scrawled with notes.¹ “I love smoking,” among them, the insight of a working man. The not-so-hard-fought prize of illusory concern. The spoils of the transaction. One of many this shell of a human makes over the course of seven seasons, starting at this very scene.

That’s All For Now

That’s where I leave you for now. If you have seen the show before, rewatch the first few minutes of the pilot episode and think about what we see of Don Draper as the series reaches its end. I can understand that people might see Don in the final moments of having finally freed himself of his demons, or maybe at least coming to terms with them. But I simply cannot see it that way. I love Don Draper as a character, don’t get me wrong. But I love him because he is a mess who never learns to grow long enough to effect change.

If you have never seen Mad Men but want to start and have stumbled upon this post, please look closely at this scene and keep it in the back of your mind as you run through the episodes. I think you might see where I was going here.

If you want to see more of these posts, please comment and let me know. Share your thoughts. I was planning on running through the entirety of Mad Men‘s first season, at the very least. I also may dabble in some other media as well. It would be nice to pull out a scene from literary fiction as I get back into reading more regularly.

If you want to support the work that I do, consider following me on Ko-fi and subscribing for as little as $1 a month. As a subscriber, you help me cover the website’s costs, which is a big deal for me. You can even suggest articles for this very series; name a movie, book, show, or what have you, and let me know. I’ll gladly see what I can do.

Next time, “Ladies Room.”

1. I’m thankful for kissthemgoodbye.net for the massive archive of episode screen captures, including the one featured in this image. Also, thanks to The Art of the Title for the show’s title card.

The post As Scene On: Mad Men S1E1 – “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” appeared first on hpkomics.com.

If you want to learn more about the novel and see the full listing of chapters, check out the project hub for The Swarm. If you want to learn more about Cosmic Dash in general, please check out the series hub.

Previously on Cosmic Dash, Mara Senten completed a dangerous mission under the orders of Ij Far, the Federation’s spymaster, known as the Hand of the High Commander. This mission was undertaken with the space pirate Illyana Mordon, and Mara has had to keep this secret from her boyfriend Dash, given the animosity between Illyana’s crew and the crew of the Lucky Strike II.

Chapter 2. “The Great Game”

Lucky Strike II; Farrow’s Hope, Planet Vumba

Mara Senten felt it odd to be alone, especially lately. Being lonely was suddenly uncomfortable where it had once been a necessary survival instinct. The isolation had come in two forms: the first was that since reestablishing her relationship with Dash, his new state of manic energy had spun him off into his old sleepless habits and obsession. Most of the time it was him being lost in some project, but since his recovery from the pirate attack, he’d fallen heavily into the game he’d introduced her to. 

She’d have played it with him had he asked, but something about his distant opponent had spurred him into his obsessive tendencies. He was lost to her until the mania wore off. But the unknown genesis of it all was what had worried her. She remembered coming back from her secretive task and seeing him in the medbay, his final night there under Dorian’s watchful eye. She’d curled into the bed with him, and they had barely spoken after that. He’d been lost in thought, and her guilt weighed on her.

The guilt had been from the task, and her overall arrangement with Ij Far, the Kemezeckin spymaster of the Federation, known as the Hand of the High Commander. Their meeting had been a coincidence, but since then, she had been pulled into a secretive world of clandestine missions, all while maintaining secrecy around her friends, and Dash most of all.

She knew the work she was doing had been important. She could claim that she had a hand in bringing down two weapons smugglers. The most recent had been especially strange, as she had learned that Illyana Mordon, a spice pirate she’d had run-ins with, had been under Ij Far’s service the entire time. The two had made an amicable exit after the success of their mission, and Illyana promised to keep her husband, Vid, off the case of Mara and her crew.

And that very evening Mara lay down next to Dash in the disinfectant-scented medbay and could say nothing. It ate at her. He didn’t ask what she’d been up to, and she had not been forced to lie. But she felt bad about being prepared to.

But the work was important. Wasn’t it?

Now she was in her cabin, editing her field report for Ij Far, waiting for his after-action interview. She hadn’t even received her first operational disbursement, as a backchannel had yet to be established for wiring funds. She hadn’t been compensated for her work thus far beyond feeling like she did something that mattered. This was for the good of the galaxy, Ij Far had told her.

And that was important. Wasn’t it?

Before the Lucky Strike II had sped off from Teslovia, Ij Far had seen to it that Mara received two things. The first was a “quantum transceiver” that the spymaster ensured would not be detectable by anyone on the ship. It was so cutting-edge that it was being kept secret on the authority of the High Commander of the Federation herself, at Ij Far’s urging.

Dash would have been fascinated by this. When she was living in his village, she would find broken things and leave them outside his window, in secret, because she loved the joy tinkering gave him. She always kept her role secret in his projects over their childhood. She’d bartered with sailors and fishers for their broken goods because it was a way to make him happy.

The other thing Ij Far had given her was a strange card that could slip into her mobile’s case. The card was seemingly featureless and made of brushed copper colored metal. As she understood it, it was a transceiver that broadcast a simple signal so his agents and upper-level Federation military personnel would be trained to recognize. It had been one of the ways that Mara had been able to confirm Illyana’s identity as an agent.

Supposedly, operational funds could be wirelessly transmitted to the card from certain access points. This would be how she would receive what she needed for future missions, whenever those might occur.

She supposed that the expected transmission from the spymaster might even include a new mission. It would be another secret to bear, surely. 

But the secrecy meant it was important. Wasn’t it?

…

Ij Far’s transmission was virtually real-time, which had been surprising. This was the effect of the quantum transponder. She didn’t quite understand the science, but she knew who would, and it sucked that she couldn’t delight in his excitement. 

As the shell-headed Kemezeckian explained, each transceiver had an “entangled” particle that allowed them near, instantaneous connection no matter their distance from one another. The further from the Federation’s core network one traveled, the more time standard transmissions would take, having to be bounced by GIN relays to Jumpgates. The middle span of transmission through the wormholes was pretty quick, but the distances transmissions were sent and received from those wormholes were what made messages take longer and longer. But that was moot thanks to this transceiver.

Of course, she began to gloss over the technical specifications when she saw his new shell-headress.

“You changed your shell. I kind of miss that plate. It gave you character,” she said.

Ij’s new shell was identical to his previous one, but without the plate that had sealed up a crack that had been made on their first meeting. Like all Kems, he wore it upon his head. Apparently there was a whole language associated with shell designs, coloration, and any myriad of things she didn’t understand. But even she could tell the muted brown tones and spiral construction were meant to be unassuming. His three tentacles were still hanging downward, not bound like some of the Kem’s she’d gotten to know over the two weeks in the ship’s current and likely highly illegal transportation scheme. As for Ij, he hadn’t changed that much, honestly.

“I had to make a public appearance,” he said absentmindedly. He wasn’t really paying attention, though on screen, his focus was elsewhere. “Were there any issues with Agent Ransom?”

“I was surprised to see it was Illyana. Did you know that she and her crew had run-ins with us a few times?”

“I know everything,” he said, flatly. “She was in the area; I needed two hands on this, and I assumed you both could be professional.”

“Did you consider maybe why she was in the area-”

“Yes, that was her husband’s intent, but she’s quite an effective agent and curtailed him. Your crew’s actions certainly did enough to hold them off. I have the headache of figuring out a transportation plan for Captain Crayd, a half-dozen other pirate captains, and their crews. So thank you.”

Mara’s brow furrowed. “Isn’t capturing space pirates a good thing?”

“They’re better pointed in a direction. They are agents of chaos I can use. That took a lot of pieces off the board.”

Mara leaned forward, staring at the Kem who was now looking at her. 

“They came after us.”

Ij sighed, his features softening. He was weirdly stern-looking for a creature without a single bone in his body. “I am not criticizing the survival actions of your crew. It was an impressive feat and had the pirates been on a capture list I’d have been celebrating the success. You have to understand that these unaccounted variables put myself and my…”

Ij went silent, catching himself from saying something he hadn’t meant to reveal. Mara suddenly noticed how tired her looked, like he’d been running non-stop for a week. He looked like he wasn’t as moisturized as he should have been. He continued.

“This work I do, the work you are helping me with; It’s delicate, and anything unaccounted for has a chain effect on any number of operations I have going on.” 

He smiled a stiffened smile, apparently unused to the expression.

“Really, you and your crew did an amazing thing, but I just have to make it work. I’ll figure it out.”

“You seem tired,” Mara said, concerned.

Ij’s face suddenly went sour and his mouth puckered, unsure of how to respond. He finally replied with “I suppose I am. I generally am not prone to letting my agents  be so familiar, so we’ll just leave it at that.”

Mara knew not to press further.

“Now, before you relay your after-action report to me, I want to let you know I have secured your operational funding. You are free to keep this first disbursement of funding as a bonus for your work, as the money was earmarked for this recently completed operation. Securing funding won’t take so long going forward. I can’t speak on what happened, but it has been dealt with.”

Ij paused, seemingly waiting for Mara to say or do something. All she did was nod an affirmative. He continued to speak.

“For now, please send your report, and we’ll begin the debrief.”’

…

Ij was still reading after Mara had recounted her view of the events. This took a while, and she sat in silence the whole time. When he was done, Ij finally spoke.

“The events line up between both of your reports. Good. Now let’s move on to your next mission.”

Mara stiffened, not expecting a new mission already. She must have done well.

“Based on the itinerary set for your ship by GalactiCorp, you appear to be heading to the planet Cosaya. This is good because I need a set of eyes on the mining colony on the surface. There have been a few missed shipments, and no word back from a security detachment that was sent out to investigate. We are pulled thin on the frontier, and I can’t afford to pull another investigatory force from any of the fleet admirals in the area, nor are they concerned about the colony as the Empire is pushing closer to our borders.” Ij Far gripped a tendril at his jawn and tugged it slightly as he was actively processing operations in his head. He continued, “As GalactiCorp is already contracted for maintenance of the formacye mining equipment used on the colony, you are arriving for a scheduled inspection, or more to the point, your engineer is due to inspect the equipment. This is good cover for you to investigate and see what is causing the delay.”

Mara noted that, with the distraction of mining maintenance, she’d have room to do what she had to do.

“If this is merely technical, I am sure your crew can handle it. If it is sabotage, you’ll need Kameku to confirm hostile action, so be sure to stay in the loop of his findings.”

“Sabotage?”

Ij Far ignored the question. 

“Whatever Kameku uncovers, whatever your pilot, the hacker uncovers, find out and note it. That’s your mission. I am not expecting hostility, but be aware and be present. This planet is essential for defense.”

Mara was curious. “If it’s a foramcyte mine, sir, why aren’t forces being sent there to secure it and investigate further?”

Ij shook his head. ‘We’ve not officially made the information about the mine public. We have a shoestring colonial operation there and have yet to reinforce it in full. The temptation of formacyte might pressure the Empire to secure the colony through any number of means. Reliable starship refueling is essential for colonizing further out from our central systems. This is a major priority.”

“You can’t trust the information to fleet commanders?”

“You can’t trust anyone, Mara.” Ij’s voice sounded almost disappointed. He continued, “Information is compartmentalized for a reason. This colony is small, and we’ve done everything we can to make it seem larger than it is. We can’t risk information slipping out about such a large supply of formacyte.”

“I think I understand, but how is it so dire that we can’t afford proper colonies?”

“That’s all politics, I’m afraid. And that is beyond me, as the work I do should be above them. We’ve had to leverage seized assets for our black budget, as it is becoming harder to access funds from the Federation without scrutiny. But beyond the scope of what we are doing, imagine the public pressure of colonization and the funding of those colonies. This is all the result of the ‘Landfall Protocol.’”

Mara remembered studying this in galactic civics during her first year of university. A couple of decades after The Dividing War, pressure was on the Federation, Empire, and Neutrality to expand their respective reach without triggering armed conflict. The compromise was the “Landfall Protocol,” which established the rule that the first government to establish a self-sufficient colony on a planet would have claim over it, and could then license territory to whomever, as long as that initial colony existed and had been consistently maintained by an active population. Recalling this, she understood why things had turned out the way they had on Cosaya.

Colonization had become a landgrab. A tangle of governments rushing to any habitable rock on the frontier and working to establish a colonial holding first. Industries boomed that revolved around “start-up” colony devices and the expansion of the GalactInfoNet to link far-flung holdings to the larger concentration of the central worlds. The idea of understaffed, undersupplied bootstrap colonies to get a toehold made her sick. She’d mostly heard it in the context of the Empire or Neutrality. The Empire had hardy citizens who could stand isolation and limited resources, while still maintaining the proportional population required of a colony. Meanwhile, Neutrality mercenaries would claim territory until a planet or moon was either integrated into the larger compact or sold to the Federation or Empire based on a brief, intense bidding war.

Something about the Federation engaging in such activity made her feel a little sick. That the lives of colonists were being risked for a race to collect planetoids in some galactic game had rubbed her the wrong way. It wasn’t that this was new to her, but rather that deep down she understood and had expected that the whole time. It was like, thanks to the work she was now doing for Ij Far, she was at the table, behind him, observing the game, realizing the scope – realizing the stakes.

It was uncomfortable, and she couldn’t talk about it with the person she trusted the most.

“As for you, Agent Senten, I have authorized your quantum transceiver to transmit to my network at will. The AI will field the transmission to the appropriate parties, so you are not guaranteed to contact me directly. Rest assured you will be able to contact someone who can provide you the information, assistance, or possible rescue that you require.”

Mara felt like she was being pawned off, but she tried not to let the disappointment show on her face.

“I also have authorized you some additional autonomy. You’ll be able to decide on your operational development as it occurs in the field, but you’re still encouraged to use the quantum transceiver for suggestions or resource allocation. Is that understood?”

Mara nodded.

“Additionally, while you have your identification card, you will also need to memorize this code phrase in case further identification is requested by a fleet commander or those who may be field agents. The phrase is ‘I see you have things well in hand.’ Any fleet commander, when relayed this information, knows to take you aside and listen to your message.”

The spymaster was silent for a moment, and then smiled at Mara, genuinely.

“You know, it took Agent Mordon about three years to be given operational autonomy. You’ve managed it in a matter of months.”

Mara said nothing. Ij Far nodded curtly and switched off his transmission.

When the transmission ended, Mara slumped in her chair, exhaling. She felt herself shaking. This was huge. She’d been fascinated by the Federation Marines and had considered applying so many times -every missed opportunity embittering her. But this was even better; she was an operative, a spy like in the vids she watched growing up.

But the fact remained that she could not tell a single soul about this.

What she was doing now… it was important, wasn’t it?

Lucky Strike II; Farrow’s Hope, Planet Vumba

The medbay had been pretty active for a few days, but now the space had emptied, only occupied by Dorian D’lazmuh, the ship’s medic-in-training, and the comatose body of the strange Wot, Guugel. Here in the silence, observing his patient, Dorian missed the noise of Dash arguing with him about his role as a bedridden patient, and the occasional crash of Kracker toying with various pieces of equipment.

All that was here was Guugel, still silent. The Wot was alive, as Dorian could understand it physiologically; the diminutive security officer’s status was so alien to him that Dorian had been agonizing over how to treat him. On the one hand, this was a major boon, clinically speaking. Knowledge of Wot physiology was very secretive, as their species were intensely private and isolationist. The literature on them was thin, at best, and there had been nothing about this strange coma Guugel had fallen into. No records or guidance on a treatment, and the ship was light-years from any major medical facility. All Guugel had was Dorian, and Dorian took it seriously.

Dorian, the Oonooan, the Grey, dictated into his medical scanner, “Subject A continues to remain in this coma, and the chrysalis continues to respirate while enclosing the patient. Digital imaging of all forms has yet to reveal what process the subject is undergoing.”

Dorian paused. “Subject A” felt so impersonal. He liked Guugel. Not that the Wot gave him much to work with beyond signing and written languages, which even then felt sparse, but the Wot was good at keeping an eye out for the rest of the crew, and not just because his body was nearly entirely an eye. Wots were curious, a squat, monocular species without any perceivable orifices who had arms and legs. Even digital imaging before the coma provided few answers to what the species was.

Dorian continued his dictation. “It has been observed that before the coma, Subject A had been able to contact and communicate with Subject B through some form of extra-sensory perception. While this was a one-way connection from Subject A to Subject B, the two could carry out rudimentary conversations, albeit with one party conversing entirely through apparent psychic messaging to the other, who would respond verbally in most cases. Though details are hard to confirm, I believe that Subject B was able to converse with Subject A through thinking that was ‘read’ by Subject A. Attempts to make contact with the comatose Subject A through Subject B had not yielded any results.”

This had been the strange nature of Guugel’s communications with Dash, as apparently Dash was able to hear and communicate with Guugel. Dash said it was a melody with an undercurrent of static. Something pleasant but invasive. Dash had not consented to deep brain imaging, and Dorian could not force the issue due to the Medic’s Code. It would take time, and he’d make his case. Finishing his degree would help.

The dictation was part of Dorian’s medical archives he’d been collecting on his internship with the Lucky Strike Delivery Company, before it had been swallowed up by GalactiCorp, in a flurry of sudden transactions that Dorian had failed to fully understand. It had something to do with their recovery of a certain experimental device that had been stolen from GalactiCorp. Dorian and the rest of the crew had lost the original Lucky Strike in the process of discovering this. Dash was the one who had figured it out. Before they had even reached Teslovia, a new ship was being manufactured for them on GalactiCorp’s credit chit with a tentative acquisition agreement.

Dorian had chosen to intern for a small delivery company because he had figured the job would be mostly uneventful. It would give him time to study as he wrote cursory field reports for publication. But he didn’t realize the kind of people Bernell Marken, the Astro-Mole who had hired him, had surrounded himself with. And before Dorian understood who they were, he’d become pulled into a series of misadventures that challenged him in ways he had never expected.

And it gave him friends he never realized he could have. He hadn’t felt so close to anyone since his brothers.

Dorian glanced sadly at the comatose chrysalis and felt a powerful sadness overtake him.

“C’mon, buddy. Give me something.” His words were met with the steady beeping of scanners and life support systems.

He sighed and returned to his report. He wasn’t sure about including this next bit, but the theory had some merit. He’d had enough genuinely fascinating cases on his current logs; no sense that he couldn’t indulge in something wildly out of pocket. And if he was right…

He spoke into his scanner. 

“Neural signals, as much as they can be understood in Subject A, are a repeating pattern. The pattern isn’t anything I can currently decipher, but they are consistent and repeated with little variation. See imaging folder ‘Subject A Neural Pattern’ for examples. Given the extrasensory perception present in the subject and the consistent pattern, I cannot help but consider the nature of a beacon. As of now, my evidence is limited, but I hypothesize that this pattern, combined with this comatose state, is a communication strategy and that perhaps Subject A is, in effect, broadcasting a message. To whom and to what end I am unsure, but I continue to monitor this and, with luck, speak with Subject A for confirmation upon potential recovery.”

Dorian did not like how “potential” hung over that last sentence.

“Computer, strike ‘potential’ from the transcript of the last ten words.”

The scanner beeped the affirmative. Dorian set it down and then took a seat on the rolling stool at his workstation, spinning it to look at what was once Guugel, the Wot, and a friend. Who would be again. Dorian would see to it, somehow.

Project Dispatch Base; Outside New Nova, Planet Aurin

The array of tunnels carved into the mountains east of New Nova, the Federation capital, were sweltering. Ij Far had already processed the water of three hydration collars in the span of six hours. He now returned to his office for a fourth collar. There was no shortage of water to maintain his moisture level and, more importantly, breathe; yet, the rate at which this heat of the facility caused him to process it had made him take mandatory breaks every couple of hours, and he hated the disruption to his pace.

It did not help that the heat left him disheveled, his uniform wrinkled from constant sweat. Again, there was no shortage of water for rapid laundry of his uniforms, and no limits to access to fresh, clean, and sharp replacements, but he hadn’t needed to redress this much since he was a messy little child. He was no longer a messy child, all present evidence to the contrary.

But all of these discomforts, the amount of water collars and shirts he’d have to swap out, were well worth his exclusive use of the most advanced communication technology ever conceived, run on a black budget, unknown to most beyond the most important leaders in the Federation, and even then mostly among the highest ranking of the Marine and Naval forces.

The Hand of the High Commander was an oft-rumored entity within the public consciousness; once the role had been revealed in a data breach, but Ij Far had seen quickly to muddying the waters and making his office murkier and murkier to the point where it was mostly a story to be passed around the paranoid, which further delegitimized the idea. The problem with conspiracy theorists was they could sometimes be right, but their often being wrong was their biggest asset for his operations. They just had to be cranks once.

Among the Federation’s military hierarchy and the Prime Minister of the Federation itself, he was a shadow with authority that the public could not understand. Among those he reported to, he was able to get his way as needed. He’d encountered some resistance in his early tenure, but he achieved results and effective blackmail – some legitimate, most manufactured. He set the record straight among the hierarchy of the Federation, with authority in emergencies that put him above his own commanding officer, High Commander Ijell Yureh. He was deferential to her, of course, but when they had agreed to this scheme as they had come to power, she recognized a strong hand would be needed in times of crisis. That is where his role had been named, the Hand of the High Commander. Tasked equally with force and manipulation, things a hand could do well. A hand could be firm; it could be gentle; it could rifle through pockets without being noticed.

All of his authority – his effort –  resulted in this, his greatest project: a communication system and artificial intelligence that amplified his efforts a million times beyond what he had begun his tenure with. A mountain turned into an intelligence machine

The trek to his office was arduous in this heat, and his single, muscular foot had begun to chafe as he undulated along the corridor. The complex, despite its size, had been very small when it came to space for workers, of which he only had a handful. Most of the complex had been built around the gigantic communication system that ran his operations and the particle accelerator that entangled particles to be split between transmitter boxes. Agents would receive one particle box, while the twin would be installed within the vast bank in the facility, with the AI redirecting transmissions from various particles to specific destinations or to other box owners. The automation was necessary. 1,032 boxes were too much for a lone Kemezeckian to deal with.

Four of the boxes were also grounds for treason if discovered. Two of those boxes were lighting up for him within his office. He did not accept transmission right away, opting to change his shirt and replace his water collar. The office was much cooler, and he could be here for a while if he needed to. He expected that he would be a while because both of these private boxes were blinking. The processing power to have these quantum communication tunnels on hold would be enough to run a dozen colonial outposts for a year.

He activated both boxes, indicating the line was open, and he waited. After a few moments, he was in contact with Jao Faom and Chirrik Zei, his counterparts within the Blassnaught Empire and  Cyclopasian Neutrality, accordingly.

He leaned back in his chair, observing their projections on his incredibly expensive holotable. He chose not to platform himself this time. He found his chair far too comfortable.

“Camera shy, Ij?” asked Jao, the Tentachlid, mockingly.

“Maybe he lost his hat,” Chirrik, the Mantoid, clicked.

“It must be a bad sign when all three of us are on at the same time,” Ij added, ignoring them.

“I never sleep anyway.”

“Jao is more paranoid than you, Ij. You know that,” Chirrik joked.

“I have a lot on my plate here, my friends, so if we can get to the point and skip the pleasantries for the next security conference…”

“We know you’ve lost contact with your formacyte mine on Cosaya,” Jao’s voice, normally gurgling, had turned craggy.

“We both know,” Chirrik added.

“Well… shit. Should I expect movement from your respective militaries?”

Chirrik shook her head. “We’re burying the information for you. Give you time to identify the problem, but we can only do so for so long. Tell me you are moving to secure it immediately.”

Jao was silent for a moment. Ij and Chirrik waited for the Tentchlid to gather his thoughts. He finally spoke, his voice soft and concerned, “We can’t let anyone get wind of the fact the Federation found formacyte on Cosaya with such a small force to hold it. That’s inviting a conflict. We’re the cooler heads here, but if any of this bears fruit for the Empire, they will force the issue and try to occupy the territory. Then the Federation will respond, yes?”

Ij sighed, thinking of Cosaya and the nearest fleet – led by one Commander Scott, whom Ij held no faith in. 

“Yes, unfortunately we have a particularly quick-tempered fleet commander who would be the first to arrive.”

“So you do have someone heading there now, right? We’re not just scrambling here, right?” Chirrik had begun to sound more anxious.

“Yes, I have an agent on dispatch.”

“Is it the Terrakin woman?” Jao’s single eyebrow on his monocular, squidlike body arched.

“And if it is?”

“Considering her close associations with two of the Ten Triggers. Can she be trusted, Ij?”

“Absolutely; besides, we are surveilling Motari and Kameku through this agent.”

Chirrik shook her head. “Does she know that?”

Ij Far said nothing. 

After a few moments, Jao spoke again.

“That’s a dangerous game you’re playing with your agent, Ij.”

The most important games are the most dangerous, Ij had considered saying. But he chose to say nothing.

Thank you for reading Cosmic Dash: The Swarm. Click here to read the next chapter when it is available.

Your comments and feedback are welcome. Please feel free to share your thoughts on the story in the comments below! They really help motivate the writer.

If you want to support this project, consider a donation or subscription on Ko-fi. Even $1 a month helps cover hosting fees for hpkomics.com

The post Cosmic Dash: The Swarm – Chapter 2. “The Great Game” appeared first on hpkomics.com.

But I’ll get into that in a bit. For now, let’s talk about projects and some other thoughts.

Projects

As usual, I wanted to update readers about my project status. I’ve found the most efficient way to handle this is through a bulleted list. It also helps that it is a good format for SEO when it comes to posts. This is why you see lists so often in articles on the web.

Anyway, project updates…

• Regarding RGBots, I took an unintentional break this week. I have a couple of strip ideas down, which I’ll roll out next week. I have been dealing with a lot of “life stuff” piling up, and I just did not make the time to make any comics this week.
• This Sunday is chapter two of Cosmic Dash: The Swarm. I have to take a week to write it and a week to work on the art, since I am insisting on including illustrations even though I really don’t need to. I just like drawing the characters too much.
• The second HPKOMICS LIVE went well, and I am very excited to stream tonight. The ability to record the whole thing on my computer is, frankly, a marvel to me still.
• Regarding Supernatural Selection, I am still in my head about my Ouija board episode script. I need to finish it, but the summer class I am teaching is burning me out. I think I’ll have it done by mid-August. At least, I hope so.
• Next month, I intend to start actually creating Thorn By My Side comics. I feel confident enough in the concept and feel like the designs are locked in for the duo. My big question is whether I create a syndicate submission first, or just skip the middleman and post online.

And while I have you here, can we speak candidly?

Patronage

So, due to the things I explain later in this blog, I am down to about 1/3 of my regular income. I’ll be updating my resume, applying to places, of course, and generally doing what I can to survive a new financial reality. But I also offer commissions and the like. Those help, of course, but I also want to try to leverage my writing into something that pays. I am good at criticism and analysis and have a long track-record. Most importantly, people have enjoyed these things I’ve written.

So my thought is this: It has been a while since I wrote a proper review. It cuts into the time I can spend doing other work. But if there were some money in it, it would encourage me to write. My proposal is this: If I can get to $25 a month in donations on Ko-Fi, I will write reviews or analysis articles and work them into my rotation here on the website.

If you enjoyed Revenge of Graphic Content, Panel by Panel, or other things I have written, that is a way to get me to do more of that kind of work. I think we can pull it off this month, and I can get back into things like that. Right now, the monthly total of donations on my Ko-fi account is $10. If we can get fifteen of my readers to donate $1 a month, we can easily hit that $25 milestone.

I fully intend to write articles anyway, but when it comes to finding freelancing work or job hunting versus writing an article, the former wins out over the latter, and I don’t think anyone can blame me for that. I could also use this to let subscribers tell me what they want me to write about, which could be fun.

So, if you have enjoyed anything you have read here, or enjoy my art, please consider supporting me in the regular, reliable way by subscribing through Ko-fi.

The Odyssey: The Theft of Cheese

This is not going to be a review of The Odyssey, as I am going to be discussing it on The Distraction Hole when we record this Sunday. What I am going to do is look at an interesting detail from the film that I really appreciated. There was a lot to love about the movie, but I was very impressed with the emphasis on Zeus’ Law as it is woven throughout the entire film in fun ways.

Spoilers for an ancient myth, I suppose, but Odysseus’ plan involving the Trojan Horse is considered a violation of Zeus’ Law because it was offered as a gift (a lie) and leads to the sacking of Troy. The film revolves around this concept and explores it in a number of ways, portraying it as the destruction of civilization that it is.

A portion of the film that struck me, perhaps the most iconic chapter of Homer’s epic, was the encounter between the Ithacans and Polyphemus, the Cyclops, son of Poseidon. While the perils of The Odyssey itself are set in motion initially by Odysseus’ actions in Troy, it becomes so much worse in the cave of Polyphemus.

Allow me to divert a moment to praise the film for presenting Polyphemus as a sympathetic character while I am in this moment. Most often, he is rendered a monster (he is a giant cyclops who eats Ithacans after all), but the film does a great job rendering him as a person, down to pathetic, wounded prayers to Poseidon.

Usually, we see the concept of Zeus’ Law violated in this chapter by Polyphemus’ actions. However, the film does something very interesting by showing Odysseus violating xenia first. This doesn’t mean the Ithacans deserved to be eaten, but Odysseus casts the first stone. Within the cave, the Ithacans discover that whoever lives there raises sheep and creates cheese. But in this adaptation, as Odysseus orders his men to build a fire to welcome their potential host, Odysseus goes and eats the cheese made by Polyphemus. Odysseus enters a home and steals food from the homeowner. Thieving of a host absolutely is a violation of xenia.

Again, none of this justifies Polyphemus eating Odysseus’ men, but it is important to understand that this represents the heart of the film, the dissolution of the golden rule, and that Odysseus is repeating a disregard for the guest-host relationship that began back in Troy with the horse. The destruction of the thing that represents civilization as a concept: hospitality and etiquette.

I just think that’s neat to see in the movie.

Where To Now?

My own journey has come to a strange stop. If you have followed me on social media, I discussed the loss of the full-time teaching role I had worked hard for. It was an interim assignment, and I know it was only ever temporary, but I have been fighting for years for such an opportunity, and it just… ends. It is painful in many ways, and not even getting an interview to continue the duties was particularly hurtful, considering the success of the job I had done.

Well, when it rains, it pours. I was made aware this week, in confidence, that I will no longer serve as the Writing Center Coordinator because a full-time faculty member was interviewed for the position and got the job. Again, the circumstances of my year-long run were like the full-time teaching position: it was an interim assignment. Regardless, I worked very hard and accomplished a lot in terms of outreach and accessibility. But because I am classified (again) as an adjunct faculty member, I am out. This one really hurt, honestly.

I’ve wanted to be a Writing Center Coordinator for a long time, since I was a tutor. I also want to be a full-time teacher because of the financial security, naturally, but also because I love the job and could settle into this for decades. It feels like I got to experience these things for an academic year and have had them ripped from me. Effort and accomplishment didn’t matter.

Not to universalize my experience, but growing up, you are taught that if you work hard and accomplish things, you get a chance to go on to do better things. It’s all merit, right? Work hard for new opportunities, and you eventually get there. Unfortunately, it really doesn’t feel like things work that way, and that sucks. What has your experience been in that regard?

So for now, it is time to update my resume, hustle my way to cover bills, and hopefully make something out of all this writing and art. This is just an island on a long journey, and I’ll eventually set sail again for my Ithaca – a living wage and the opportunity to teach.

Anyway, here is “The Struggle.” This goes out to my homie, Odysseus. You’ll get there someday.

As always, please consider donating or subscribing if you enjoy what I do.

The post Blog: What a long, strange trip it’s been. appeared first on hpkomics.com.

So, here we go, another goblin. Why not check the art out and read on for more info?

So Kevin Heyman and I have known one another for a long time, and I have been thrilled that he’s turned to writing, to the point where his output is blowing me away. It’s all very good stuff. This character, Bandy, first showed up in his romantic comedy story, I Fell in Love at the Goblin Bistro. Bandy was a very appealing character right away, and I’m glad so many people are enjoying her appearances.

Kevin commissioned me to draw her, and since the story is set in Mississippi, I figured a little bit of the Daisy Duke style was appropriate, especially as she does some modeling for another character. Ideally, this could be an in-universe photo he can reference in the story or to provide art to supplement the story.

Here’s the full “Polaroid edition.” For those curious, the piece was $35 total.

Watch Me Draw It

If you want to see the drawing process for the piece, including the photobashed background creation, then please check out the latest upload of HPKOMICS LIVE on YouTube. I walk through the entire design process.

With that said, my schedule has opened up for new commission opportunities. If you are curious, check out my commission info and reach out about a job. If you’d rather just donate or subscribe via Ko-fi, that would be great too, as it really helps me out and keep my website around.

The post 2026 Sketchbook #017 – Bandy appeared first on hpkomics.com.

Leaving comments and feedback on chapters unlocks new chapter images. Visit the chapter image gallery for more information and to see what chapter images have been unlocked so far.

Previously on Fang & Bone, Corea, Fang, and Erryl had encountered a ghoul, and Erryl’s tough teaching style is creating some tension. However, the intrusion of a ghost quickly diverted their attention.

It had become very clear to Garen that these tunnels were the work of the Necromancer. When he had emerged from the hidden church, he had wandered into an ancient crypt that ran below Gordhurst, but as he traced his way south through the damp stone tunnels, they gave way to raw earth and rock, bored through haste and with little support. It was as though a tremendous, frantic mole had hastily carved its way through the soil in an attempt to flee from something.

But Garen also knew that it was no mole, but rather the torn and broken fingers of ghouls with the meager accompaniment of old tools and boards. Chipped finger bones and broken, rusted equipment littered the path as he continued to move out. But all of that paled in comparison to the unearthly green, glowing tendrils of light that were weaving through dirt and stone, and even between the cobbles and blocks of the old catacombs from where he had emerged. Whisping trails of light that seeped from surfaces all around him.

Garen had seen someone in the barracks once who had been poisoned in a skirmish with a bandit. This must have been a few months back. Garen did not know him well, but his name was Thurmin. The man was carried back, limping, to the small barn that had been designated as the barracks for the town guard. He was placed on a cot, more a bale with a blanket on it. Garen had been ordered to summon the healer – “healer” being a charitable term for the old man who mostly tended to bleeding goats and dabbled in hedge -heals. When Garen had finally returned with Old Fenwyck, Thurmin’s pale flesh had become latticed with dark purple, zigzagging marks. As Garen had overheard, it had been the poison spreading through the man’s veins. It was the first time Garen had heard that term, “veins.” That stuck with him.

Now, in this dank and darkened underground, the only light present came from similar marks, but as a bright and unnatural green. These green veins ran the length of the tunnel in a seemingly incoherent series of lines that would dart, split, and converge in ways that reminded him of early-winter fungus and the sickly threads stretched out along darkened soil, beneath rotting leaves, feeding on death. The veins he saw here and now would glow, casting a sickly light within the tunnel. But the veins would also pulse irregularly. For some strange reason, Garen was reminded of water lapping against the edge of a pond or puddle, something that felt like a pattern, but was not.

Garen knew it to be magic. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did. He made a wide berth around the veins where he could and made sure he did not set a foot on any that snaked across the tunnel floor. He wasn’t even sure if they could be stepped on, as they did not appear solid.

He had yet to see any actual ghouls since he made his way from the crazy old bandit’s hovel, but he heard them, constantly, ahead. Down splitting paths carved into stone that led to stranger, darker spaces where even the unholy green tendrils would fail to cast light. Whenever he came to a cross tunnel, he’d steel himself for attack and then encounter nothing beyond his increasing unease. He’d been following what he felt was the central tunnel, larger than the offshoots and with the greater concentration of green veins. But just because he hadn’t encountered a ghoul yet only meant that an encounter was inevitable the further he crept.

After about an hour of his slow march, he’d come across something new. The sound of ghouls was rampant as he approached a hole in the earth above his head with the slightest cascade of sunlight spilling forth. He stepped into the pillar of light long enough to look to the green sky above him. He quickly stepped away, back into the dark, the moment he saw a moving shadow above.

This was the first tunnel to the surface he had encountered, but it was wholly useless to Garen as he could not reach the height of the hole and did not trust the soil not to collapse upon him even if he did manage to reach it. Perhaps the undead had been using it, but he didn’t know how.

A sudden and violent crash of a ghoul to the ground before him explained how. The ghoul was followed by tumbling remains: feet, hands, and a head. Garen had taken several steps back, further into the darkness, and the ghoul who had landed on the ground began to shift. Garen watched it slowly rise into a sitting position, adjusting and resetting a dislocated shoulder with a sickening snap. It paused, almost dazed, but then began gathering the assemblage of remains that had tumbled down with it.

It had yet to notice Garen in the shadows. The boy had slowed his breathing as best he could, taking shallow breaths. He gripped his spear so hard he worried for a moment that he was going to snap it in half. But the spear held and Garen continued to observe the strange display.

The ghoul had gathered the assemblage of parts into a pile and began to rise to unsteady feet, clumsily reaching for them. The ghoul’s fingers were in no way nimble; instead it relied on stiffened arms with cupped hands. After a moment, it had completed its work and began to step lazily north, toward Garen. It hadn’t seen him, at least as far as the boy could tell. Without hesitation, Garen thrust the spear forward with all of his strength, shoving the tip right into the face of the ghoul, just at the rotting nose, and pierced into the head. Garen rapidly shook the spear tip to scramble its brains and swiftly withdrew it with a steady hand, a ribbon of gore lingering from skull to spear until it finally broke and plopped. Within a moment, the ghoul collapsed, and the hands, feet, and the head it carried spilled onto the tunnel floor.

Garen did not recognize the person to which the head had once belonged. It was little comfort. He chose not to linger and pushed further into the tunnel, putting as much distance between himself and the earthen chute as he could.

…

He could not be sure where he was relative to the surface. While Old Gordhurst was not a large town, it had seemed that way to him as a child in the time before fleeing from it. Childhood memories did little to give him a sense of where he was, and he was growing increasingly convinced that somehow he had become turned around with the tunnel. He knew it was impossible; he’d only been walking in one direction, and the curves of the tunnel did not seem particularly tight or looping, but he still worried that he’d become turned around somehow. Between the darkness, the echoes of the undead, and the unholy green trails, it was not surprising he’d begun second-guessing his route.

The few ghouls he’d encountered so far told him that this tunnel system had given the Necromancer an incredible amount of reach. Garen had only followed one path, and it seemed like it had gone on and on. He’d not strayed into other major lanes, but if they existed, that meant this tangle was so much larger than he could comprehend. Even the path he was on seemed like it would not end anytime soon. Whole legions of the dead could be moved around, and if they were still digging, who knew how far the Necromancer could reach?

The grim realization of this all was this: they were likely beneath New Gordhurst even now, maybe for a long time.

The people of New Gordhurst would need to know about this; he needed to survive and get back to them, to warn them of what all this was – an invasion. As far as Garen could piece together, the tunnels would allow the ghouls to tirelessly spread further and further from Old Gordhurst and out into the surrounding lands, creating spaces where ghouls could emerge and harvest whatever it was the Necromancer needed. As Garen had gathered, these chutes were a tool for the harvest. Garen was not quite sure of what these green magical trails meant, but they were certainly a key part to all of this.

Soon, the boy came upon another chute dug into the earth above him, and like the last one, it was out of reach. The only thing that broke up the similarity between this chute and others was the presence of heavy, gnarled roots emerging from the tunnel wall, just past the hole.

In the center of the rough-hewn chamber were remains scattered beneath the chute and bathed in sickly light. Nothing together enough to function as a ghoul, but Garen gave it as wide a berth as he could as he worked his way toward the roots. He stopped before them and took them in. They were thick roots, some-nearly as thick as his waist in some cases, and about as thick as his arm in most. They had heavy, knuckle-like joints, and spreading off those roots were much thinner, finer ones, similarly gnarled and drawn like an uneven curtain. Many dangled from the soil and stone above like burlap strands.

He had a suspicion he knew where he was, looking at these strange roots.

He remembered his parents taking him and Corea to a large tree a couple of miles south of town, not long before the fall of Gordhurst. They had been quite upset those days, and as Garen remembered, the strange tree was a place of respite because his father loved plants and his mother loved the forest. These were not the same thing; he recalled his father constantly writing and drawing about plants, while his mother preferred to wander.

He wished he’d had his father’s writings and drawings. But such was the past. In the present, he knew these roots for what they were.

It was the Knuckle Tree. Garen remembered climbing the branches and being yelled at for climbing too high. He would hide among the giant roots at the surface and chase Corea around, who would shriek when he found her.  He’d heard his father say once that the tree was a stranger to the forest – older than most things in the area, but not of the land. 

The trunk had been broad, wide, and flat, ringed by strange branches that rose up, angular and joint-like, to a broad canopy of reddish-brown leaves. Thinking about it now, the tree resembled a hand with far too many fingers rising, the tips exploding into large blotches of red, flat leaves. The exposed roots had resembled a hand digging into the earth itself, as though the tree was to be plucked from the ground.

Garen studied one of the thickest roots in the darkened tunnel as it tore from the soil at the makeshift wall and plunged back into the floor. He touched one of the angles and felt the folds, taking a moment to compare the root to the back of his hands. He folded and flexed his fingers, watching the skin on his knuckles wrinkle and stretch with his movements. This was the Knuckle Tree.

The smaller threads of roots that tendriled out from the larger ones began to shift, as though a breeze had suddenly caught them. But there was no airflow, let alone enough to make that so. Garen peered into the gaps and spaces between the roots to see there was a pocket of nothing – a seeming gap that dug into the wall of soil ringed by more roots. He began to spread away a curtain of finer threads with the tip of his spear, marveling at the delicate forms seemingly wrapping themselves along the point, beckoning him forward. From within the darkened space there was a glow. Not the unholy green he’d become accustomed to, but something purple and blue and red, shifting and fading and pulsing. Inviting.

Before he knew it, the larger roots enveloped him with soft creaks, pulling him into a hug, pulling him into the space between. The thinner threads clung to his body, doing their part.

He found himself released into the space, unharmed, staring at glowing threads that weaved along soil and the tree itself, the very edges of this space taking on pale green light, as though the tree were fighting the influence of the Necromancer’s magic. The air felt cool and smelled of good, fertile soil.

Garen did not understand why, but he turned his back to the glow and fell into it, and was nestled by roots, dirt, and rocks. He took a deep breath and felt safe for the first time in a long time. Maybe years, even. He leaned back, peering through the curtain into the larger tunnel. If these were his final moments, so be it. He thought of that family outing.

A severe crackle and whine stirred him from his moment of peace, and he shifted to look toward the source, which was just on the other side of the space where the remains of who knows who were sitting, rotting. More remains tumbled in from the earthen chute, and Garen kept very quiet, his eyes drawn to the vibrant green glow on a wall near the pile. It was popping and flashing little bursts of green, as loud cracks punctuated each one.

One of the tendrils of green began to widen, like a cut being ripped open, like pulling the hide from a pig. The jagged tearing of unholy magic did not seem to disturb the soil around it. Garen watched and listened to the cacophony of energy dance around the widening vein for a few seconds. He nearly yelped as the first limbs began to emerge from the tear – too many limbs.

This was not any undead form Garen had seen before. This abomination seemed to be an unsteady collage of several bodies. He kept quiet as he peered through the rooted curtain. What he saw was a torso that was too long, one chest stacked upon another, and two sets of elongated arms. The arms had too many joints, bending and flexing in spider-like motions  The two uppermost arms ended with small hands that gave way to fingers, more fingers than should be on a hand, that were all very long and filed into extremely delicate points. The lower arms had broader hands that were more like claws, with fingers arranged like pincers, splayed outward.

The neck had also been stretched, the vertebrae exposed and reinforced by what seemed like leather and wires. It had to be two feet long. The head was still mostly flesh aside from what appeared to be a leather skullcap sewn directly into the skin and a myriad of lenses suspended over the eyes, each supported by a spindly array of thin metal tubes. As the creature emerged from the portal, Garen had watched the most delicate fingers on the left hand adjust the lenses.

The last of the feet were free from the portal – all six of them. The creature’s waist had been ball-like in his roundness, but with three pairs of legs radiating outward, insect-like. The construct rocked and wobbled unsteadily, too tall for the tunnel, needing to lean forward. It planted its two bottom arms against the tunnel walls to steady itself as the top chest folded downward over the lower chest. It was leaning in to inspect the remains below the chute.

The vein that had been torn open had begun to suture itself shut, returning to the size it had been as Garen passed it earlier. Had Garen not witnessed this creature emerge, it would be hard to believe that vein had been stretched into some sort of doorway.

The creature had been composed of many body parts, but also the sheer amount of non-bodily components made Garen sick. Thread, leather, wood, copper… it seemed that the effort to graft these forms together was so great any number of other materials had been attached to the structure to reinforce it. It was a form so twisted that it had to be braced like a wagon, just to remain upright. Even the torsos were braced by a heavy cord and rod, along the spine, like a tension line. Garen could see this as the creature had been hunched over, still sorting through the parts.

Fuck, Garen mouthed to himself.

He was terrified, but somehow still thinking rationally. He was confident. He felt this small space, a space apart from the tunnel, seemingly breathe with him. Steady. He felt himself feeling one with the space as he watched this creature arrange parts in the dim light under the earthen chute.

Something had to be done. He couldn’t suffer this threat to live, not when he knew this tunnel would be leading south, to his home. To his sister. Was this atrocity the Necromancer? Garen did not know, but he figured he would within moments. He tightened his grip on his spear and began to work his way to the curtain of roots. The space did not resist him or try to pull him back. His spear tip was the first thing to return into the tunnel proper, and then him, steady and silent.

This creature did not seem to notice him, and that gave him the courage to push forward. He would really only have one shot at this. There was no running. Not anymore.

The spider-like corpse shifted, a pair of delicate hands pulling at thread on its apparent hip, tightening the slack that supported the overlong torso. It returned to sorting.

Garen, too, felt a tension. He glanced back toward the roots and saw the thinnest roots were still attached to him in spots, even though he had moved away. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt comforted by that.

And with that, he stepped further and struck. He slid his spear between the creature’s back and the supporting tension rod, hooking the cord and pulling back as much as he could. The snagged line pulled and did not cut, extending the torso and pulling it back so far that it snapped at the joint where one chest met the other. All the while the strange construct flailed with the sharpest claws, lashing out fiolently and blindy as the two massive lower claws dug further into the tunnel walls to remain rooted in place. The uppermost part of the torso flopped over, the long neck whipping as the head chattered in anger.

Garen continued to pull. The upper chest began to tear from the lower one, and the construct now had enough of a presence of mind to begin lashing its arms toward Garen. The claws released from the wall and tried to steady the corso, fumbling at holding it upright and pulling against the boy. Garen felt himself pulled toward the mass of limbs, getting raked several times by the sharpened fingers that had been flailing at him. He felt a huge gash across his chest, even through the boiled leather armor, and felt blood pooling. He saw deep cuts on his arms.

He felt himself being pulled away from the ghoul, now. His grip remained firm on his spear and he put his full strength into it, plus more, as the roots began to entwine his body and pull with him.

And then it was done. A final jerk and the torso had snapped completely, along with the support rod. Garen fell back onto the damp tunnel floor, his arms burning with exhaustion and sticky from seeping blood. Without hesitation he climbed to his feet and ran toward the flailing, broken monstrosity. He could not dodge anything as he threw himself toward the skull. Garen’s body took every jagged slash and thrashing strike as he fell in range with the creature’s head. The creature’s neck whipped wildly as Garen approached, but he slammed his boot into it, holding it down and shoving the spear into the leather cap atop the crown of the skull. The leather split easily and there was no resistance as the skull cap had been removed. All motion instantly stopped as Garen stood over the horror, panting and bloodied. He collapsed onto his ass, breathing huge, gasping breaths, as he saw the spear remain firmly planted in the skull of the construct. 

After a few moments he looked to see that there had been no roots clinging to him. He rose, his knees weak, and made his way back to the space where he had been out of sight, only to see the largest of the roots were dried out and the space was scarcely big enough to hide him.

All that remained of what he had experienced in the tree were flowing tendrils of purple and blue that were rapidly dimming as the unnatural green overtook them. And within a few seconds, the strange green veins were all that was left beyond rotting roots.

Garen felt a loss he could not quite explain.

He looked at his spear, lodged into the creature. The space was bathed in dim light from the corpse chute above. His spear called to him. There would be no going back. He thought of his sister and his parents. He thought of Donnel, Mr. Gorten, and the other folks of New Gordhurst. He wiped away what blood and mud from his body that he could.  He collected his spear and marched back into darkness, back the way he came.

He made his peace as he followed the green veins to their source.

Click here to visit the project hub for Fang of Triseria; click here to read the next installment of Fang & Bone.

Please consider leaving feedback or your thoughts in the comments. Feedback and comments help unlock new chapter images.

The post Fang & Bone: “27. Digging Deeper” appeared first on hpkomics.com.

Project Updates

Some motion on a few fronts. Some bullet points:

• The first chapter of Cosmic Dash: The Swarm is out. Hopefully you’ve had a chance to check it out as there is a lot of cool stuff in it.
• RGBots continues to move along. I have also started posting the comics on r/comics which have done pretty well so far. I’m no Swords, but the work has not been downvoted into oblivion.
• I am handling an edit of The Errant Apprentice for my friend Kevin. I’m very excited about it.
• Last Sunday we recorded the last episode of Spooky Dice Bag of this campaign. As a group we’re looking at what is next.
• I am down to the wire writing this week’s Fang & Bone chapter. It’s almost done, but I’ll still need to make sure I do a second pass of it. It should be up on time tomorrow, but I still may delay it for some breathing room. A lot went on this week.

I also had at article go up at Video Game Town titled “From The Water Cooler To Subreddits: The Gamification Of Genre TV.” It was fun to write and I would like some more opportunities like this, so be sure to check it out. If the article does well it increases my chances at pitching more.

Livestreaming

The biggest development this week was most certainly HPKOMICS LIVE, yesterday. The plan is to do a weekly stream where I draw and chat with folks. It’s a good way to make sure I carve out time for work. If you missed the first stream, you can watch the replay on YouTube.

It turns out that I can simultaneously stream and record, meaning as long as I keep my YouTube account in good standing I can make an archive of these streams. This also may be my entry into creating forms of content for YouTube as well.

I am just moving into this area, so any comments or feedback would be very helpful.

Commissions

Commissions are still open. I am whittling down my queue. At this point I have seven pieces I am working on, but should be finished with six of them in the course of next week. So, if you want to commission me for anything, please do so.

Reading Log: The Inevitable Ruin by Matt Dinniman

I am about 3/4s of the way through Matt Dinniman’s The Inevitable Ruin, and I think this one feels stronger than The Eye of the Bedlam Bride. It’s been a lot more dire than Bedlam, largely due to the battlefield setting and an intense bleakness, where everything has escalated to the point that characters are now beginning to really drop off. Entire organizations, in fact, which seems to be pivoting the series to a Carl vs. AI conflict by the time we’re in the final book of the series.

Not to that The Inevitable Ruin doesn’t have issues with bloat. There is so much going on on so many fronts that it can be exhausting, so much so that even Carl feels exhausted. I do appreciate the limiting of the perspective to Carl to acknowledge he can’t be everywhere. Limiting some fronts to chat notices do a lot to create some sustained tension.

But the book is so full of subplots and characters I found myself not recognizing things because they hadn’t been addressed since previous books and we’re thrust into stories that have been forgotten due to the sheer density of the plotting and lack of regular updates.

Dungeon Crawler Carl has become the Iron Tangle itself. Still fun, though.

Work and Life

At the college, the summer session is going well, as we’re wrapping up our second week. Students mostly seem to be onboard and there have been the usual drops of students unprepared for the workload or just not able to make the class work in this condensed form. A lot of the work I’ve repurposed for the first two weeks of this class seems to have worked well, too. Again, the class is dense due to the need to mash 18 weeks of material into 6, but at least next week the pacing will slow a bit as we’ll only be dealing with a weekly reading.

Of course, I’ll still be breaking that reading down into exhaustive detail.

Speaking of next week, it will be the real test run of my new grading and feedback scheme. Wish me luck. This July is going to be very, very busy. The real challenge is going to be providing the feedback for the partner-based writing. I feel like it’s going to involve a lot of copy/pasting feedback.

Here is Shiny Toy Guns.

As always, please consider donating or subscribing if you enjoy what I do.

The post Blog: There’s Gonna Be Fireworks appeared first on hpkomics.com.

Guess I am a YouTuber now. Fancy that. Please note that this is age-restricted due to language.

Enjoy the first stream full of me rambling to myself while also featuring dead silence as I zone out while drawing. Also, this becomes an educational opportunity for viewers as I ink an entire illustration without checking my DPI first! Yikes!

This was a first go, and I did not have any viewers. I’m not stressed about that, though. I do really encourage you to drop in on the streams so you can talk with me or ask questions. I promise I am plenty entertaining.

Also, I want to note that the background music was provided by lofi geek, specifically this 24/7 stream. It’s all royalty-free music, and I want to keep plugging it because I could not imagine doing any of this without music.

Anyway, the next HPKOMICS LIVE stream will be Friday, July 10th, at 6 PM PST. See you there, cheesebags.

The post HPKOMICS LIVE – 7/3/26 (YouTube Upload) appeared first on hpkomics.com.

This is a weekly stream where I’ll be online, drawing and writing material live via Picarto.tv. Join to watch me work on comics, commissions, and stories while chatting with me. There may even be collaborative streams down the line.

This is also an opportunity for Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW) commissions with a minimum contribution of $5. These are only offered during these streams.

I will be appearing through my PNGtuber, who is an insane little goblin, as pictured below.

HPKOMICS LIVE Schedule

The current schedule for HPKOMICS LIVE is on Fridays at 6 PM PST on Picarto.tv. It should run approximately two hours.

Sometimes schedules may change due to social obligations. Scheduling updates can be found on my socials.

HPKOMICS LIVE Archive

I have been recording and posting these streams to my YouTube channel. Here is the current archive.

• 7/3/26
• 7/10/26
• 7/17/26

Plans for the Future

There are some things I would like to accomplish with HPKOOMICS LIVE in the future. First is collaborative streams where a guest and I can chat and work on our respective art projects. I’d love to turn it into a kind of chat show down the line.

And with that, please check out HPKOMICS LIVE every Friday at 6 PM PST.

The post HPKOMICS LIVE appeared first on hpkomics.com.

If you want to learn more about the novel and see the full listing of chapters, check out the project hub for The Swarm. If you want to learn more about Cosmic Dash in general, please check out the series hub.

Previously on Cosmic Dash, Dash Kameku strove to liberate his crew from a pirate raid on the planet Vumba, but took a thrashing in the process. He’s since recovered, and the crew is about ready to leave the planet.

Chapter 1. “Playing With Power”

The Fields of Battle, Romance of the Three Factions

Ragna, the Storm Queen, the Pillar of the Empire, resplendent in rare hides and shining armor plates, surveyed the battlefield. Her massive, bejeweled cudgel, Krakoom, rested over her tremendous Blassnaught shoulder. At seven feet tall and 700 pounds of muscle wrapped over a rhino-lizardesque frame, tremendous was an entirely fitting word. Ragna was a tremendous presence, down to the dual horns on her snout that became an icon of the later Blassnaught Empire.

Motion caught her attention, and over a small crest of badland, a Terran figure emerged. Known as “humans” back on their homeworld of Terra, they eventually joined the naming conventions of the rest of the galaxy to which they had emigrated, memorializing their origin. The figure was tall, wearing a strange blue uniform that had a series of buttons, complemented by white trousers. He carried a severe, weathered face rimmed by a short beard, upon which sat what appeared to be some kind of white wig, on which also sat an oversized, pipe-like hat with a brim. The two large axes the man carried meant only one thing: this was the legendary Terran chieftain Abraham van Washington, the Truth Speaker, and the Commander-of-Chiefs.

This would be a battle for the ages: the Storm Queen versus the Truth Speaker.

What a fun way to learn a little bit about galactic history.

Lucky Strike II; Farrow’s Hope, Planet Vumba

Dash knew that he was a smart guy, but he wasn’t arrogant about it. He fully recognized the different view he would have informed by his intelligence and his creativity, and he knew this carried a privilege that he was uncomfortable with, too, which is why Dash Kameku poured all of his money into ways to aid people. But right now, on his turn, he felt like he knew nothing, and he kind of liked it. Challenge, that is.

Just a couple of months ago, after accepting the position of a field researcher agent, of sorts, for Walter Kimney, Dash had made contact with another Romance of the Three Factions player, and they had been playing several simultaneous games, most of which ended up with Dash thoroughly mollywhopped. The “Terran Legends” expansion had introduced new characters from Terran culture as part of an outreach and education program, though from what Dash had heard, the developer of the game had decided to go in a different direction and take some liberties with the figures.

Dash had even heard that Abraham van Washington was a composite of two different Terran chieftains. That was hard to believe. Two chieftains who used axes and were known for extreme honesty? That was hard to believe. But then again, Terran history still was a bit of a niche subject that he hadn’t chosen for an elective.

He stood up and stretched; his wrist was still hurting from the sword strike a week ago. Oh, yes, a sword strike. He thought about how a sword, of all things, had easily smashed his tech, but it also cushioned the blow, breaking his wrist rather than losing it entirely. He wiped a couple of bits of crud from his eyes, as it was pretty late now, and scratched at an itchy part of his snout. The only light within his darkened room came from his gaming tablet.

Before settling in, he took a swig of his Pom Supercharged and glanced over at his shell that rested on his bunk. He could detach the thing easily for comfort, but he always felt vulnerable without it. Of course, over fifteen years of threats and violence aimed squarely at him explained a lot of that. His people, the Terrekin, were born with their symbiotic shells, quite a genetic feat that was lost to ancient history, and grew up with them their entire lives. Quite literally attached to them, but removable as needed.

That actually was one of the ways Dash spent his “genius money,” as his friend Kracker has put it. Dash’s new role came with a sizable credit bonus, and Dash was never much for wealth and decided to see how he might spend off what he didn’t need. He bought a communication array, Federation surplus, for his home village. Then there was a chance opportunity in the form of a start-up on Teslovia that was developing artificial shells for Terrekin, who had been separated from their birth shells – a kind of trauma that few in the galaxy could really understand. Dash took a portion of his pay and poured it into that small start-up that handled just that sort of trauma. He’d even weighed in on some of the designs.

But, speaking of trauma, Dash crushed his can of Pom, slid into his chair, and started planning his tactics for the current game against “Calibanx4237” on Romance of the Three Factions. No Terran tricks stood a chance against his new Ragna build.

He hoped.

…

Dash had maintained his current advantage over Calibanx4237, his game partner over the last few weeks. As much as Calibanx4237 threw Abraham van Washington’s impressive artillery skills toward Dash’s Ragna, Dash was chipping away at him while maintaining plenty of defense. Yet as soon as Dash grew confident in his success, the tide turned, and Calibanx4237 hit him with an entirely new move Dash had not seen before, called “Secret Service,” launching six black-suited men out of the tall hat of Abraham van Washington and overwhelming Ragna’s defense through continual chip damage.

And with that, the match was over. Dash had lost again.

“Damn. That was a good one,” Dash said, his audio output pitch-shifted and anonymized through the playertag Tydespearx0210 over the gaming chat – just as the incoming reply from Calibanx4237 was.

“That was a good game. Your Ragna build was quite impressive.”

“I appreciate that, you have a good one, Cal. I might be hard to reach in real-time for a bit, so we’ll just take it turn-by-turn, sorry. Gotta go.”

“Of course, you take it easy, Tydespear.“

DraCo Offices, Galactic Hub Serreven; Kordash System

Drakar Vadis, the Dragon, one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy, had just again thoroughly defeated the object of his curiosity, Dash Kameku, yet again. But it was closer this time, and that piqued his interest.

Drakar managed a multibillion-credit company and also bankrolled one of the greatest criminal networks in the Silver Spiral Galaxy. He managed massive public works projects that could radically alter lives across whole solar systems, while also having access to the most important leaders in the galaxy. But he also served as the head of a criminal operation so organizationally complex that there was no untangling it in his long, long lifetime.

And yet, he spent increasing hours locked into turn-based combat with the young engineer who had rebuffed his job offer for business rival GalactiCorp, specifically as the apparent understudy to Walter Kimney, in all but title. The recent gaming diversion did not necessarily interfere with the management of his two empires – he’d built a hierarchy to minimize the work he would have to do. But he was aware enough to realize he was spending more time than he probably should be gaming with the Terrekin, and that his personal assistant and bodyguard, Ms. Mayden, was growing irritated.

As she entered his office, he was relieved that he had already closed out the game to spare himself an earful from her. Though she was smaller than he was, about the average height of a Terran female, with millions of credits of cybernetic augmentations and defensive grafts that had turned her into an effective killing machine, one would be hard-pressed to notice. She was devoted to him, but her demeanor was icy, generally, and downright frightening when annoyed with him. She was one of the only beings in the galaxy who was able to boss him around, and that was by design. Her priority was his safety, and he made sure she had the means and authority to ensure it. The more complicated, intimate nature of their relationship had been more challenging to navigate, and he deferred to her often to keep the peace.

“Am I to assume you’re done with your ‘research’ today, Sir?” There was a sarcastic tone that would only be apparent to him in her voice. “May I update you on current operations?”

Drakar rose from his lounger and began to walk to his desk, his long tail dragging behind him, shifting his long neck, which had grown cramped, as he craned over his tablet.

“You scoff, but I’ve read the Terrekin’s research. I also know that GalactiCorp has him on special assignment. He may not work for me willingly, but he’s working for my company, whether he knows it or not.”

“Forgive me, Sir, but it feels more like you are enjoying his company than anything useful. You seem to like him.”

Drakar sat at his desk, folding his clawed hands on the pure wood surface. He refused any synthetic materials, no matter the expense. He watched as Mayden slid another tablet in front of him, as he continued to speak.

“I’ve told you about my past, and you know how important my read on people has been to my survival and my success. I read something important about him, and I do believe it will continue to pay off.”

A beeping came from within the desk, and a terminal screen rose from a surface hatch. It was an incoming call from Drakar’s personal cybersecurity operative, Grinlin.

“Ah, speaking of which.” Drakar hit the button on the screen, greeted by the face of Grinlin, a teal, acne-scarred Slauve, his piglike jowls hanging next to a broad, flattened nose, resting over a mouth with two sizeable buck-teeth.

“Mr. Vadis, I finished running the data pulled from the Terrekin’s ship during the game connection. I have their itinerary, and I can confirm their next stop is the planet Cosaya. It’s a little murky due to some code I haven’t quite cracked yet, but GalactiCorp seems to be sending them there to update some mining hardware.”

“And what are they mining?”

“Well, based on what I have found so far, it looks like the Federation netted itself a nice little source of formacyte. They’ve contracted this crew and the engineer to provide some sort of upgrades.”

“I see.” Drakar leaned toward the camera to emphasize his commands. “Continue to comb through their data and report any additional findings to my personal contact line, understood?”

Grinlin was no longer even looking at his boss, having turned to one of many terminals he used for his hacking. He nodded and closed out the communication. Drakar looked over to Ms. Mayden, who had stood there, unimpressed. Drakar frowned, diminished by her lack of enthusiasm. It was so easy for her to undercut him with a look. Though it was kind of exciting for someone as long-lived as he was, when he thought about it.

“See? It’s not just a game; it is research,” he said.

“Forgive me, Sir, but DraCo is not exactly in the energy industry beyond some token investments, and we are not invested heavily in Formacyte mining either.”

“No, we’re not, but this isn’t about the mining. It’s about messaging.” Drakar leaned back in his chair, a custom piece built to accommodate his tail and his bulk – few things had been mass-produced in this galaxy for someone as large as him, and he ensured that whenever something was custom-ordered, it was of the best quality money could buy. “What current assets do we have on planet Vumba?”

“If by ‘assets’ you mean the ‘space pirates,’ I should note that most of them were taken into custody.”

“Yes, but there happened to be one in particular-”

“Captain Crayd, Sir. Betrothed to their ‘Queen,’ ‘Black Coat’ Mab Sang.”

“Yes, exactly. I think I want to try something…”

Ms. Mayden sighed.

“I have my reasons, Andrea.”

“At work, it is Ms. Mayden,” she said in a hushed tone.

Darkar smiled with dagger-like teeth.

Toranji Base, Pirate’s Guild Headquarters

Calls with the “money” were not Mab’s favorite thing about her role as the Pirate Queen. The role was not one established in true royalty and was just an ironic term for an elected leader within the quasi-confederated union that was the Space Pirate Guild. She had been elected to this position of authority fifteen years ago, and it had been nothing but annoying since she had accepted.

Captains and crews constantly sought to undermine one another and curry influence among the guild for the role of King or Queen, likely unaware of the nightmare that was administration. She had held off half a dozen challenges to her authority in her time, and one of those was through a marriage of convenience to Captain Thedric Crayd. He was popular among the membership because he spent freely – irresponsibly so – and curried favor through bribery, which endeared him to many leaders. He paid them off so those captains could pay their crew, fulfilling their respective charters, and remain in power for little work.

The thing is, and this is something Mab had been aware of even when she was a shitkicker under a lesser captain, is that pirates are ultimately eager for the easiest solution to get what they want. Part of the Guild’s concept, established by the founders, was that the Guild would leverage the fear of all piracy so as to reduce the risk of costly raids. If merchants and cargo ships were likely to surrender because they believed in the danger, then that was better for business overall. Hence, marrying Thedric Crayd was the right move to pull in his supporters under his token “King” role as he continued doing what he did, under Mab’s watchful eye. All the power with little of the responsibility.

 While it had ultimately been a calculated political move, she did eventually grow to love the son of a bitch, which made his current incarceration all the worse. He was fun, and by fun, it meant he would do stupid things. This time, he and several other crews got pinched on Vumba in some sort of botched raid. He’d held one of the colonies there for weeks, but somehow a raid on a cargo ship, of all things, ruined everything.

What she had now was a crisis to respond to. She could not simply let her idiot husband be carted off to Marmal Fey for a stint in Hypermax. Nor could she lead a large operation to jailbreak him, as the Federation and IFGP were probably prepared for that, well aware of who Crayd was. So that left Mab in the middle of two shit paths, which meant that the Money would come knocking.

And knocking they did.

Mab stared at the obscured figure on her communications screen in her chamber. The individual was enshadowed, but from what Mab had gathered, they were a Terran of some sort. They were not the Money, rather the go-between to the actual Money, whom Mab knew to be The Dragon. As for who The Dragon was, that was still unknown, as he did not communicate with her directly. He was cautious, and she respected that.

Mab’s assistant, Jilm, hovered off to the side, out of view of the caller, taking note of everything. The liaison for The Dragon spoke.

“My client has offered to provide funding and resources to aid your rescue plans for Captain Crayd.”

“And what does The Dragon want from me in exchange for this offer?” Mab asked. There was no sense beating around the bush.

“There is a time-sensitive issue that will require a single crew from your fleet. It is a raid on a formacyte mine. Your crew would, of course, be able to take all the formacye their holds can carry, as a bonus.”

“Disrupting a mining operation doesn’t seem like it is a lot of work.”

“Then this should be a quick ‘yes,’ pirate.”

The disdain in ‘pirate’ was clear, and Mab knew where she stood with the representative of her benefactor – and likely the benefactor as well. Mab, and by extension, the whole hardscrabble nation of freebooters she led, were simply tools. It was a mortifying position, but it was all working toward a purpose. Her purpose. A dream of a century. A planet that belonged to her pirate nation. Until then, she would eat dirt, swallow pride, and bend the knee to the Money, as the Money would ultimately deliver the means toward that dream. Things came close before she was born. History called it “the Orusal Orbital Crisis,” but Mab called it the roadmap.

“We do this, and your boss transmits the funds immediately?”

“That is correct. To be spent on your rescue operation, or to be hoarded. I do understand that the marriage was political, was it not? One could lose some dead weight and turn a profit, it seems.”

Mab said nothing and just thought of the roadmap. She exhaled and glanced slightly to the right to read Jilm’s expression. The tiny Zoomer hovered silently and finished scribbling his notes to look at Mab. He nodded. Jilm’s approval was always essential to her decisions.

“I’ll select the crew personally and lead the operation.”

“Then I will send you the operation details. See to it as quickly as you can.”

Thank you for reading Cosmic Dash: The Swarm. Click here to read the next chapter when it is available.

Your comments and feedback are welcome. Please feel free to share your thoughts on the story in the comments below! They really help motivate the writer.

If you want to support this project, consider a donation or subscription on Ko-fi. Even $1 a month helps cover hosting fees for hpkomics.com

The post Cosmic Dash: The Swarm – Chapter 1. “Playing With Power” appeared first on hpkomics.com.

Project Updates

On the project front, here is where we are at.

• Cosmic Dash: The Swarm will begin tomorrow, as in the first chapter. I have a landing page up for the project in general that I will also be building on. The project page will have an automatically updating chapter list, so there is little maintenance on my end (unlike the landing page for The Dead Life).
• I should have another RGBots to post today. I’ve kind of been casually uploading them when I find time. I need to actually stick to set update days, though.
• Fang & Bone is going strong, and the next chapter will be up next week.
• Mostly still drawing the characters for Thorn By My Side and not the actual comics. I want to make sure Cosmic Dash is fully up and running before I dive too deeply into production on the comic.

Fatigue

I have had a couple of thoughts lately that have been weighing on me. A lot of it concerns the fact that I am doing all these things out of a desire to create, and a compulsive desire to share. The first thing is that I have been dealing with some heavy fatigue this week. I don’t quite know the cause, but it’s been a struggle to do much outside of my teaching work. Even then, I have been dragging my feet on that, too. I’ve been feeling very self-conscious about it, and it’s been a sour spot for me this week. I hope that I am feeling less tired next week, so this week I am just going to do what my body is pleading for me to do.

Production Schedule

The other thing I have been thinking about is that the production of the Cosmic Dash chapters is taking longer due to the illustrated component. Inevitably, I expect a schedule change, so I am kind of pre-thinking that. My idea is that maybe we’re moving into a Fang, Dash, and miscellaneous rotation. So maybe one week is a Fang update, the following week is a free space for a short story, poem, or some kind of side project, then back to Dash, and then back to a miscellaneous project.

That feels like a comfortable rate and gives me room to explore as a creator, but I also worry about the pacing of the other projects. It’s a tough balance as an independent creator to find and one I have always struggled with. I do not get paid to work on these stories and can only fit them into my schedule when I can. Things would be different if I were being paid to update stuff, but that just doesn’t happen.

So what happens if these chapters start taking longer to come out? More than likely, people stop reading. So it’s a real push-and-pull between my availability to work and the demands of potential readers. I doubt I’ll ever find a comfortable solution there as a writer.

What I am Reading: Dungeon Crawler Carl

Something that has been helping me with the fatigue issue has been getting back into reading. I can stay in a restful spot but keep my mind active, and that cuts the tension I am dealing with regarding the fatigue.

As for what I am reading, I have just finished Matt Dinniman’s The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, the sixth Dungeon Crawler Carl book. Of the series so far, I felt this one dragged the most for me. I was mostly over the card gimmick after the first third of the book, and the middle third really began to feel like a slog for me. I think there were cool things and a couple of very good moments, but it took me a long time to get through this one.

I have also started to get really annoyed with Matt Dinniman’s “gore” problem. Not the violence and gore in the book (i live for the sicko shit), but rather his overreliance on the word. If I made a drinking game out of the use of the word, I’d be dead a few chapters in. Quite literally, he overuses the word gore and never describes what it is. Phrases like “a shower of gore,” “trudged through gore,” and such are so recurring that I began to laugh every time I saw them. I wonder if it is a way to pre-censor the book, but it has no impact, and the word has been functionally useless since the first Dungeon Crawler Carl book.

I had finished reading one night after a particularly affecting “farewell” scene and was getting ready to read the next day. I told my wife about the “gore” thing, but emphasized that farewell was well written and that, as much shit as I had been giving Dinniman, he did a great job. After that, I sat down to pick up from where I had left off, and two sentences in… the useless “gore” word showed up.

Has anyone else noticed the gore issue, or am I just nitpicking? In any case, I am excited to get into The Inevitable Ruin.

Commission Queue

I am back to commission work again to supplement my teaching income. Right now, I have two clients in my queue. I am wrapping up a logo for someone. The other project includes five characters, which is quite a way to start this queue. So, right now we’re going to say the commission queue is at six items.

So, if you want to commission me, please keep in mind there is going to be a little wait. I will get to you, but it may take a bit.

Life and Other Things

I am back to teaching for the Summer session. It is a six week class, meaning that is is an 18 week semester condensed down. Week one is done and I am pretty optimistic.

The theme of the enshittification of the internet seems to be going well, and it seems like the students are latching onto it. We’ll see if that enthusiasm continues into week six when their podcast projects are due. I am waiting on their first paper, due tomorrow. It’ll be interesting to see where they are in writing skills, as my first paper is always a diagnostic tool. I do feel bad I haven’t been able to do as much work preparing for future weeks due to this sudden fatigue, but thankfully, with the first two weeks of material down, the hardest stuff is done. Successive lectures revolve around assigned readings and explaining the techniques those readings use to make their arguments. I just dislike missing an opportune time. Next week I’ll be grading, which eats into the lecture prep. Ah well.

The only other thing worth mentioning is that I had a fun time doing the vote entry for some primaries last week. My friend David Gallaher introduced me to the Associated Press’s vote entry operator work, which has been very enjoyable every time I’ve done it. Formerly, I was a webscraper, but this time around, I was a phone operator, and it was a great experience. I can’t wait to do it again in the actual election in November.

And with that, I’m closing out this blog entry. How do you feel about the addition of the current book I am reading? Should I keep that going? Do you enjoy the blog component? Let me know. Otherwise, you can support my writing and projects by donating or subscribing to my Ko-fi account for as little as $1 a month. It really helps.

Here’s more Paul Simon.

The post Blog: Figuring It Out appeared first on hpkomics.com.