Page Thirtyfour
Man, this scene sure is brown. Drive faster, lady! I’m actually not sure what effect a duststorm would have on a vehicle. Not a good one, I’m sure, but I don’t know if it would have an immediate effect.
I saw one in real life, once! It was pretty forboding looking!
man, I like marcus: “if he was a girl” lolwut!
Pushed down the stairs. As long as it is for laughs.
hahahahahaha awesome!!!
there should be a marcus fan club!
Drive fasta, you move too slow! *Asian Face -~-*
Oh gosh Marcus :D
Please have a talking plush doll made of Marcus.
You squeeze him and a little recording goes “What’s herpes?”
Do want.
A million times yes. Thirty bucks or less and I’ll buy one for everyone I know.
I would buy a Marcus plushie, too.
BUILD-A-BEAR MARCUS. YOU COULD SELL THEM!
Aww poor Marcus! Everyone loves Marcus. ^_^
I like the browns! And I actually like Delia more than Marcus, her dangerously “I’ll do whatever it takes” face is awesome.
I can’t wait for more details about her slightly sordid past.
You managed to make a brown page not boring. Nice.
I don’t think there would be an immediate effect, but the later effects like delicate mechanics and the engine not working, etc would set in pretty quickly.
Marcus has been looking rather different lately, compared to the image of him in the header.
Thanks. And yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Dust in various delicate machine parts, probably would get into all sorts of systems. It would wear a car down much faster than normal.
Marcus looks different because I’m still settling into a good structure for his face. He looked too young in the first chapter, and now I’m making him look too scruffy. I’ll find a good inbetween eventually.
Drawing animals isn’t really my strength, but I’m working on it.
The last panel Marcus kind of reminds me of Cheshire Cat D:
I love how you draw Marcus, even with the inconsistencies.
When the talking cats were first mentioned, I was expecting them to be much more humanoid and freaky-looking, but you gave us Marcus~
The last panel is a nice blend between earlier Marcus (in b/w, whom I think was sooooo cute!) and header Marcus (who I think looks more wicked/devious than adorable; I think it’s the almond eyes)…
The interior of the car and Marcus’ body language is tops.
Aww. I love character interaction pages :) Even if that is a sad thing to learn about Schtein. I like how Marcus looks in this chapter already. Great colors too!
I did want to let you know, though, that you accidentally used the word “more” twice in the last speech bubble. At least, I don’t think it was on purpose!
Oh, damn it. Time to fire my proofreader again.
Oh, wait, I remember telling him he didn’t need to proof read it since I was pretty sure I hadn’t mispelled anything for once. Hahah. :P
woohoo! ABSOLVED
hush, you!
Why would you let him proofread anyway? All he does is think the pictures look cool :P
HEY now I also point out mistakes and suggest corrections and get ignored :)
hey now, don’t spoil my secret creative process!
D’aw. Insight on maybe one of the reasons why the Doc is such a nutter. Eff yeah!
I can’t wait to see Delia’s reaction to that little tid bit of information.
Forgive me if you’ve already been asked this, but would you consider adding a favicon to your site so that it’s easier to track the updates I’ve read? In Firefox, when I’ve read a page, the icon “sticks.” If you are willing, and don’t know how to do it, I would be happy to direct you to a tutorial. Or, if any of the readers has a better alternative…
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7849
just in case it doesnt work out :)
A sandstorm will strip the paint off of a car, I have had some hit nearby before and you can always tell who remembered to move their car into a garage.
That makes sense. Good lord, wouldn’t want to be outside in one, then.
also it tends to kill the air filter and anything else which it can get to. really it’s bad news for a car. but if you don’t stay in it for too long you’ll be okay
Oh, you should definitely try being in one some day, it’s pretty thrilling. Although, you’ll be washing sand out of places you never knew you had for a good solid week.
The most important rule if you run away with a genetically modified cat: fasten your seatbelts:)
I don’t think regular seatbelts would hold a cat. She’d need special cat seatbelts.
Looks like a buddy road trip!
I love to see those two interacting. Also, science!
Dust storms cause massive static electricity, enough to kill at times. A vehicle, if caught in one for long enough, can catch a deadly charge. Also the sand would get into every opening of the car, even not the not visible. Probably the gas tank would be safe, as long as the gas cap is good. *stops jabbering now*
Panel 3 Delila *really* looks like Dr. Schtein. Compare with panel 3 on page 32 and you’ll see what I mean. Panel 1 has different, more feminine facial features.
I’ve just discovered this comic (directed here from Darken, kudos to Kate Ashley) and read through the archives.
I love the story and the characters, but I have to say that Schtein isn’t really working out as an evil-something (as mentioned in the 1st chapter’s rants and comments a few times): I’m not saying he’s loveable or anything, but at least from me he’s getting a lot of sympathy for being treaded upon by all kinds of people. If this is not intentional, then ha! foiled by your own good story telling ;-)
On another note altogether, I don’t normally donate to content creators on the web (although I do believe that micro-payments will be a good idea for web content creators) but here I will – although not right now, its so way past my bed-time that its already tomorrow – because: a) *great* story and art; and b) you don’t have ads, which I really appreciate. But (!) if you’d setup something like a recurring donation, like David Simon at Crimson Dark does, I’ll be all over that.
Thanks for a great webcomic!
Schtein hasn’t really reached that evil stage yet in the comic. We’re kinda in the process of figuring out how he gets so screwed up. Though I, as well as most people, find the good doctor very lovable.:)
I agree with the sumation of the doc’s personality and perception by the public. The info link up top says that “The disastrous rise of a supervillain superstar” is the premise. My guess is that stuff will happen in prison, he will become a better scientist and start killing people with science. Then he will take over the world, or blow it up, which is really the same thing as ruling it right.
At least that is the general plot line that I am hoping for.
I had a donation incentive/thankyou last month, I just haven’t drawn one for this month. I’m not sure I’m going to, because I’m setting up kind of a much cooler thing for next month involving postcards.
“if he was a girl”. that cracked me up so badly.
Little Schtein getting pushed down the stairs? Nooooooo!
Love Marcus’ expression change through the panels – awww!
I think it’s kinda possible it could stall up a car. Based on my very outstanding research of dust storms (Okay, well, History Channel specials about the Dust Bowl and it’s interesting okay) cars were kinda wrecked in the giant dust storm on Black Sunday. But I can’t remember if that was entirely the storm’s fault, how long it took, or if they just happened to get buried and were therefore unable to move. Dust storms will totally fuck your shit up though.
Gosh, I’m a helpful fan, aren’t I? I love this comic, I promise.
I had a dust storm roll through my town years ago. I don’t recall any real problems done to my car. Granted, in a dust bowl the storms would probably be much worse and more frequent.
Also, you have to consider how much crappier vehicles were in the 30s. It probably wasn’t hard to break them with inclement weather.
There are some comics out there that really catch you. You find yourself burning through it the first time, hungrily going from one page to the next as quickly as possible to get caught up in the story. Then you read it again to take more pleasure in the art, fine details and writing. A third time if you just enjoy it so much, and are so eager for the next page, you supplement the desire to know what’s next with yet again reliving the story. I’ve read this comic four times now…all within about a week. Seriously, you have an amazing piece of work here! The characters all have such depth and personality, and the story has taken a number of sudden twists and turns that I totally did not expect in the best possible way. I have theories about what will eventually happen, but prefer to just sit back and see where you take us next. Truly, thank you for your continued hard work and effort on this, it is just amazing!
Oh, and I totally agree with the masses, Marcus is awesome. I wish my cats could talk. :P
And…I don’t know that a single sandstorm would be powerful enough to strip car paint, but more than anything I wonder what a sandstorm made out of irradiated soil would do to ones lungs and eyes. o_o
Terrible, terrible things! I think the main danger is beta and alpha particles getting into your body and settling into your bones and organs. Though, it’s been long enough since the the war she’s talking about that you’d have to walk around for a while outside before the beta particles burned you.
Definitely wouldn’t want to be caught in a dust storm, though. But the cars in this timeline all have air filters built for this purpose.
Wow, thank you very much, I’m glad you like it.
I don’t know why, but here in Saudi, sandstorms (which I gather are a bit similar to duststorms)rarely affect the vehicles negatively. But then again, I suppose it’s because the cars’ owners are quick to fix the problem. As for duststorms, I suppose it /would/ affect the vehicle, but it depends on how long the vehicle was exposed.
Well, enough of me trying to come off as intelligent and expert-like on sand/duststorms. Really love “String Theory”, is what I would like to say. My friend who’s more into manga than (web)comics immediately fell in love with this after I linked her (and that’s saying something).
Keep up the good work!
(And “…pushed you down the stairs on purpose.” Physically abusive mother? Was the abuse emotional/mental too? Is that why Schtein is the way he is now? Ooh, it’s like a really well-written, sci-fi telenovella…*cue music*)
I come from a pretty duststorm filled area. The color is almost right– I would add a bit of pink into the palate. Here in the inland northwest, at least, the sky turns a salmon or rust color before a storm. The vehicles aren’t affected unless it’s a long-standing dust storm, or you try to drive too much in it. After Mt. St. Helens, the vent systems were shot, and exhaust pipes leaked ashen crap. There are special filters you should probably put on your car if you are driving long distances in duststorms (or a wet towel over the radiator, I think?), but I’ve never had the opportunity to find out. The dust stings your eyes and scrapes out your airway pretty thoroughly, so you would try to stay indoors as much as possible.
Great comic.
I think the color might depend upon the type of soil you have around you typically.
The dust storm I saw was this heavy brown color. Turned the sky tan.
I have the intense desire to draw femme!Stein now.
I don’t think you should fight this desire. :3