A witch accidentally marries a monster, and now she and her familiar has to navigate life around her monstrous husband and her even more terrifying in-laws.
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
No End
Erli, Kromi
A queer romance about people attempting to build lives in a cold, post-apocalyptic world ravaged by hordes of undead.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
All Known Alternatives
Karolina 'Kajotko' Jankiewicz
Akane has only one way to get back home: collect the 42 keys to parallel worlds. Eri and Ben are just trying to get through the summer before university. When a magical key turns up in an old spare set, all three are forced to change their plans and fast.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
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There’s a simple explanation. Ana Chronistic is Willis, under a pseudonym. When he draws the strip he also adds the first comment, so when the buffer releases the strip every night the first comment is already there and posts simultaneously.
i’m sure you mean this as a joke but no, Ana Chronistic is not Willis. Not only would it be in poor taste (Ana is asian i think) they have a tumblr (click on their username) where they post art that looks nothing like Willis’s. they’re a real person and i feel weird saying that
i’m sure you mean this comment as a joke but i use that sentence as a hedge of sorts, the actual truth is i am not sure either Bicycle Bill or you meant your comments as jokes. Neither comment sounds very funny to me, for one thing
Funniness is a poor way to judge if something was meant as a joke, since some people are not funny and yet still try to tell jokes. Speaking from experience here
For the record, I did mean it as a tongue-in-cheek comment… or a joke, if you will. So sorry you didn’t pick up on it. I also find it interesting that clicking on your user name takes me to a site to register for some form of ultra-secure email hosted in Switzerland instead of a personal website, Tumblr, or Facebook page.
At work we migrated to a corporate NTP server because they blocked direct Internet access (web proxy). This was fine, except some machines aren’t managed by corporate and they didn’t get the new server address. Once they lost access to time.nist.gov they started freewheeling, and eventually drifted apart by a couple minutes before we caught them. That wreaks absolute havoc when you’ve got a whole room full of systems that need to agree exactly what time it is to all work together properly…
That sounds like it’s less about NTP than the architecture failing to be properly self sufficient if it depends so heavily on being synchronous. (which also sounds like bad mojo for a network infrastructure to not be able to withstand drift).
If it was just straight IT infrastructure, you’d be right, but it’s the workstations and servers that put a TV newscast together. (Primary and redundant automation servers, primary and redundant operator-facing clients, the virtual switcher control panel server, and the switcher frame itself. Graphics and video playback systems can have more slop because they just run off of arbitrarily-timed triggers.)
If we went with a different vendor we could’ve gotten servers with SMPTE timecode cards in them, which would have avoided that issue…
The automation systems have to stay in lockstep with each other, or else they could get out of sync with each other and cause noticeable lag to the operators. When it gets REALLY bad the whole system grinds to a crawl and there’s a noticeable hit if you have to fail over to the redundant systems.
This is what happens when video greybeards are tasked with making computer software.
Amber is 10% more dense than water, so she defintely will weigh more than expected. Still, to _sound_ heavy walking along a concrete floor with (i’m guessing) tile/linoleum requires either hardsole shoes, heels, or a /horrible/ stride. If it’s carpetted… *shudders*.
Yeah, some people are just “heavy walkers”. I don’t really know how else to describe it. Like, within my family my Dad and my brother are heavy walkers; when they’re walking around upstairs you can hear exactly which room they’re in. But when I or my Mom are walking around upstairs, you’d never know we were there unless we happen to drop something. It’s not just at home too; there’s been a fair number of occasions where I startled my coworkers by walking up next to them and then asking a question and they didn’t even hear me coming. XD It’s not like I do it intentionally either! I just… I dunno, somehow walk in a certain manner and style so that my feet give off very little sound. I weigh about 74kg too so I’m not exactly a lightweight.
I’ve gotten into the habit of moving quietly over many years. If I sneak up on someone it’s usually not intentional, I just forget how little noise I make. At one apartment where I used to live, the manager told me people were always asking why no one lived in my apartment.
Pretty high I think considering they haven’t had a strip together since they were outside the hospital the day Blaine died. And chances are Mike probably died before they ever communicated again after that.
Eh, I think there might have been some intermediate interactions. The funeral, at least, seems like it would’ve been more awkward for them to avoid each other than be Mike’s Sad Friends Who Want To Be Alone Right Now together.
I don’t know. This is all speculation of course unless we ever get a flashback, but I feel like it would be all too easy for them to break the line of communication and just let things fester until now. Especially considering how naturally anti-social Amber is. She was starting to let go of him back when Mike was alive. Talking about how he was always naturally more socially adept and accepted than herself. The natural awkward depression of a funeral is just another excuse not to talk even if they were standing right next to each other at the time. But of course I’m just talking out my ass on this until we have something confirmed. We may never know the details of how their relationship fractured.
I don’t think there was much or particularly substantive communication, to be sure, but I could see a brief Sadness Truce that included at least a bit more than basic ‘mind if I sit here’ stuff.
They could let it Fester. But I bet it was resolved by Wednesday. Else it’d be quite Pugsley to deal with now. Surely the Morticia’n would have warned them against letting this Thing Go-mez’ing up their lives any more. It’d be such a handful to deal with now.
oh wow how did i miss your comment earlier i was addamant i’d read through all of them. woulda been addamsquander if i’d missed it. Only quibble is no one’ll believe that you just came up with all of that in one breath, next time you should… add um’s
Usually when I post lyrics in italics it means that particular point in the song coincides with the scene in the strip. (“Love Lies Bleeding”, the coda of “Funeral For a Friend”)
You know with how everyone was saying how Ethan was looking great with his depressed look I was reminded of this one vid that got viral on tiktok that gave me the sound clip, “This man got 50 times hotter when his life fell apart”
Why is every clip I see from TikTok somebody with icy blue eyes staring directly into their camera and saying something super-duoer enthusiastically? It’s uncomfortable, the unblinking stare.
Well, first of all, there’s the acoustics of the hallway. The sounds of footsteps in those halls do NOT get dampened. Instead, the vibrations and echoes just settle into the general melange of background noise.
Then there’s the nature of the path she’s taking. She’s pacing in a loop around the edges of the hall. That also magnifies the accoustics.
Then there’s the fact that Amber’s not really confident about being here. She’s uncertain. Awkward. Hesitant. You’d think that might make a person stealthier, but awkward people are PAINFULLY obvious.
That said, she IS here. She’s here to reconnect after a painful separation. For someone like Amber, that takes a lot of courage, and courage means bold footsteps.
And let’s not forget the nature of her sharing a body with Amazi-girl. They’re very different personalities. One of them’s an introvert, and the other’s an extrovert. That’s not something you’d INITIALLY think would make a difference, but it affects everything about how a person expresses themselves, including their movements.
Also, she’s walking with BOTH feet. That’s not something that people would normally notice, but think about it. Double the feet means double the noise.
Also, she WANTED you to hear her, so you’d poke your head out of the door. It was a trap. And you had the bad luck to fall into it.
So, in summary: of course it was noisy. What else would you expect of Amber’s ambivalent, ambitious, ambiverted ambipedal ambulatory ambit ambage ambience ambuscade ambsace?
I think the most interesting thing about Ethan’s new look is that he became un-beefy, which means his previous physique took effort. Ethan used to *exercise*. I cannot imagine this.
Having had such a physique at his age, I can say that (a) some teenaged boys put on muscle easily with only casual exercise, and (b) you lose weight fast when you are depressed in a student residence and don’t eat.
I always get mixed up seeing you with a bike but not “Bicycle Bill” as the handle. Y’all need to have a shiv brawl or something to settle who gets to be the “bike” person.
(Obviously, I /could/ pay more attention and learn, but where’s the bloody fun in that)
No matter what happens, I’m glad we’re getting some Ethan screen time after it was revealed he wouldn’t be in the main cast of this part. Maybe Willis changed his mind or was purposefully keeping this info from us? I’d love to keep seeing Ethan.
I don’t think that was a changed mind or anything, Ethan was gonna come back eventually.
The timeskip helped with that in-universe, and then taking over a year for him to return was kinda like the audience feeling his absence the way the cast did and to sell his new status quo with a drastic change to his personality and appearance.
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look some people have heavy feet, Gothan
it’s 11:54, clock, wtf
Wazzup with that I wonder
Maybe the site crash did something funky to the clock?
And yet you pulled it off. I am, as always, impressed by your dedication.
There’s a simple explanation. Ana Chronistic is Willis, under a pseudonym. When he draws the strip he also adds the first comment, so when the buffer releases the strip every night the first comment is already there and posts simultaneously.
Upvoted
i’m sure you mean this as a joke but no, Ana Chronistic is not Willis. Not only would it be in poor taste (Ana is asian i think) they have a tumblr (click on their username) where they post art that looks nothing like Willis’s. they’re a real person and i feel weird saying that
Any comment that starts with “i’m sure you mean this as a joke but” is probably a comment that shouldn’t be made.
i’m sure you mean this comment as a joke but i use that sentence as a hedge of sorts, the actual truth is i am not sure either Bicycle Bill or you meant your comments as jokes. Neither comment sounds very funny to me, for one thing
Funniness is a poor way to judge if something was meant as a joke, since some people are not funny and yet still try to tell jokes. Speaking from experience here
Conversely some people regularly fail to pick up on deadpan humour, as I may or may not have just demonstrated ^^
milu, tell me about it…
eh well, you know what they say about humour being in the eye of the beholder…? no wait
Sure Ana Chronistic isn’t Willis, but is still Jen Aside, Sue Aside, and Tairan Aside.
they contain puntitudes
For the record, I did mean it as a tongue-in-cheek comment… or a joke, if you will. So sorry you didn’t pick up on it. I also find it interesting that clicking on your user name takes me to a site to register for some form of ultra-secure email hosted in Switzerland instead of a personal website, Tumblr, or Facebook page.
Looking at my time compared to my time on these comments, I’m 14 minutes behind the server.
NTP is the most necessary evil, alas.
Yup.
At work we migrated to a corporate NTP server because they blocked direct Internet access (web proxy). This was fine, except some machines aren’t managed by corporate and they didn’t get the new server address. Once they lost access to time.nist.gov they started freewheeling, and eventually drifted apart by a couple minutes before we caught them. That wreaks absolute havoc when you’ve got a whole room full of systems that need to agree exactly what time it is to all work together properly…
That sounds like it’s less about NTP than the architecture failing to be properly self sufficient if it depends so heavily on being synchronous. (which also sounds like bad mojo for a network infrastructure to not be able to withstand drift).
If it was just straight IT infrastructure, you’d be right, but it’s the workstations and servers that put a TV newscast together. (Primary and redundant automation servers, primary and redundant operator-facing clients, the virtual switcher control panel server, and the switcher frame itself. Graphics and video playback systems can have more slop because they just run off of arbitrarily-timed triggers.)
If we went with a different vendor we could’ve gotten servers with SMPTE timecode cards in them, which would have avoided that issue…
(Edited this part out, oops.)
The automation systems have to stay in lockstep with each other, or else they could get out of sync with each other and cause noticeable lag to the operators. When it gets REALLY bad the whole system grinds to a crawl and there’s a noticeable hit if you have to fail over to the redundant systems.
This is what happens when video greybeards are tasked with making computer software.
Hardly an evil, NTP is a natural outcome and required component of a global communications network. The existence of NTP is a boon to many systems.
I was going to say that Amber can’t weigh all that much, but actually she’s strong enough she can probably put some decent power into her steps.
Amber is 10% more dense than water, so she defintely will weigh more than expected. Still, to _sound_ heavy walking along a concrete floor with (i’m guessing) tile/linoleum requires either hardsole shoes, heels, or a /horrible/ stride. If it’s carpetted… *shudders*.
I’d expect a concrete floor with vinyl tile on top of it, if only for cost of maintenance.
Not sure about Amber, but Amazi-Girl’s bones were rendered super dense in a lab accident.
Yeah, some people are just “heavy walkers”. I don’t really know how else to describe it. Like, within my family my Dad and my brother are heavy walkers; when they’re walking around upstairs you can hear exactly which room they’re in. But when I or my Mom are walking around upstairs, you’d never know we were there unless we happen to drop something. It’s not just at home too; there’s been a fair number of occasions where I startled my coworkers by walking up next to them and then asking a question and they didn’t even hear me coming. XD It’s not like I do it intentionally either! I just… I dunno, somehow walk in a certain manner and style so that my feet give off very little sound. I weigh about 74kg too so I’m not exactly a lightweight.
Yeah, I also walk pretty quietly and have to actually be stomping to make much noise. People think I’m sneaking around a lot.
I’ve gotten into the habit of moving quietly over many years. If I sneak up on someone it’s usually not intentional, I just forget how little noise I make. At one apartment where I used to live, the manager told me people were always asking why no one lived in my apartment.
Once your pacing wears the carpet down to floorboards, it becomes louder.
Emothan complains of heavy steps, but he’s the one rocking heavier bangs!
Pretty sure stompy boots are part of the Amazi-Girl package. Maybe Amber likes them, too.
Nice
“You’re interrupting valuable Mike Grieving time, please book an appointment.”
Oh lord, he’s goth now
I think Emo.
Yeah, but Emothan doesn’t sound as good as Gothan.
Incorrect!
Ethanatos.
Emothan is obviously a superior nickname to Gothan, what are you talking about
Gothan City.
DARKNESS
NO BOYFRIEND
Emothan rises!
I predict nothing but good things from this interaction
What possible reason have we to think otherwise?
Pacing and sunshine — two of my most soothing creature comforts!
Also, hi Ethan!
Actually, I’d be lying if I understated my love of the night!
Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation
Darkness stirs and wakes imagination
Silently the senses abandon their defenses
Lovely lyrics, but standard opera music can hardly do them justice.
I don’t know exactly where its from, but this is the music I imagine when I read this, to celebrate the night.
Figure out how to pace in the sunshine at night and you’ll have it made.
Oh but it’s already there.
It’s called the moon.
Lack of moon-induced sunburns says otherwise.
The secret of you beauty is your moontan and your fear
I believe it is done, ” ‘neath the halo of a street lamp.” Specifically so one can, “turn my collar to the cold and damp.”
You want quiet? Get religion!
ha ha ha
Oh, that’s a fantastic deep cut.
What is the reference?
goddammit spambot
ok i’ll make it two separate comments i guess
first read this,
then watch this
You’ll get your quiet when you FIX THIS DAMN DOOR
That’s me in the corner, that’s me in the spot – Light,…
play in-tel-i-vi-sion!
Only good can come of this. I mean, what are the odds that ethan might not want to talk to Amber about it?
Pretty high I think considering they haven’t had a strip together since they were outside the hospital the day Blaine died. And chances are Mike probably died before they ever communicated again after that.
Eh, I think there might have been some intermediate interactions. The funeral, at least, seems like it would’ve been more awkward for them to avoid each other than be Mike’s Sad Friends Who Want To Be Alone Right Now together.
I don’t know. This is all speculation of course unless we ever get a flashback, but I feel like it would be all too easy for them to break the line of communication and just let things fester until now. Especially considering how naturally anti-social Amber is. She was starting to let go of him back when Mike was alive. Talking about how he was always naturally more socially adept and accepted than herself. The natural awkward depression of a funeral is just another excuse not to talk even if they were standing right next to each other at the time. But of course I’m just talking out my ass on this until we have something confirmed. We may never know the details of how their relationship fractured.
I don’t think there was much or particularly substantive communication, to be sure, but I could see a brief Sadness Truce that included at least a bit more than basic ‘mind if I sit here’ stuff.
They could let it Fester. But I bet it was resolved by Wednesday. Else it’d be quite Pugsley to deal with now. Surely the Morticia’n would have warned them against letting this Thing Go-mez’ing up their lives any more. It’d be such a handful to deal with now.
*snap snap*
Well-played.
oh wow how did i miss your comment earlier i was addamant i’d read through all of them. woulda been addamsquander if i’d missed it. Only quibble is no one’ll believe that you just came up with all of that in one breath, next time you should… add um’s
…listen i tried
…I was not prepared.
This conversation is not going to be pleasant. Especially with Mike’s commentary.
I knew this wasn’t going to go well but I had totally forgotten about Halluci-Mike and his attitude.
This is going to go as well as driving a 12 foot truck towards a 10 foot bridge.
It could be worse: Mike actually taking the wheel.
Annoyingly enviable are people who look cute with bed hair.
Blast you, Ethan!
Oh it doesn’t seem a year ago
To this very day
You said “I’m sorry honey
If I don’t change the pace
I can’t face another day”…
Is this a thing? Does Emothan get poetry instead of Hacked Muzak?
It IS hacked Muzak. Elton John.
A cappella then? I missed the hacked muzak announce and (as obvious) don’t know songs well.
Usually when I post lyrics in italics it means that particular point in the song coincides with the scene in the strip. (“Love Lies Bleeding”, the coda of “Funeral For a Friend”)
I like Ethan’s hair a lot better like this than how he used to have it, honestly.
Oh nooo
it’s to get your attention, obviously
Yes, doing a quiet thing excessively loudly to “subtley” get your attention. Oh this? I was just *walking* Ethan. Sorry to *bother* you.
Pace-ive aggressive?
You know with how everyone was saying how Ethan was looking great with his depressed look I was reminded of this one vid that got viral on tiktok that gave me the sound clip, “This man got 50 times hotter when his life fell apart”
Fortunately I found it on YouTube as well: https://youtube.com/shorts/IgQFSSXjZPs?feature=share
I do not watch enough videos to have seen that one but uh. Thank you. I was not prepared.
I was going to get some normal sleep for a change, but now this video is in my life. I’m going to be up all night replaying the weirdness in my head.
She is absolutely right and should say it.
Ethan does have big “Stay at home husband” energy going on right now.
I think you can just call them ‘house-husbands’. Little less of a mouthful.
Why is every clip I see from TikTok somebody with icy blue eyes staring directly into their camera and saying something super-duoer enthusiastically? It’s uncomfortable, the unblinking stare.
The Overly Attached Girlfriend may have retired, but her legacy lives on.
The worst part is, they always manage to catch me off guard.
suddenly I wonder if people wearing colour contact lenses have to blink as often as people who do not
I’ve worn various tinted and novelty lenses over the years, and I can’t really remember any difference.
I don’t get it either.
Maybe we’re just not Gen Z enough to understand
Vine but with more intrusive spywareTikTok.This comic is like the eyes emoji personified, huh?
Oh, huh. Another Roz. Sweet!
Wow, Amber is really short. Nothing good can come of this right now.
To answer Ethan’s question:
Well, first of all, there’s the acoustics of the hallway. The sounds of footsteps in those halls do NOT get dampened. Instead, the vibrations and echoes just settle into the general melange of background noise.
Then there’s the nature of the path she’s taking. She’s pacing in a loop around the edges of the hall. That also magnifies the accoustics.
Then there’s the fact that Amber’s not really confident about being here. She’s uncertain. Awkward. Hesitant. You’d think that might make a person stealthier, but awkward people are PAINFULLY obvious.
That said, she IS here. She’s here to reconnect after a painful separation. For someone like Amber, that takes a lot of courage, and courage means bold footsteps.
And let’s not forget the nature of her sharing a body with Amazi-girl. They’re very different personalities. One of them’s an introvert, and the other’s an extrovert. That’s not something you’d INITIALLY think would make a difference, but it affects everything about how a person expresses themselves, including their movements.
Also, she’s walking with BOTH feet. That’s not something that people would normally notice, but think about it. Double the feet means double the noise.
Also, she WANTED you to hear her, so you’d poke your head out of the door. It was a trap. And you had the bad luck to fall into it.
So, in summary: of course it was noisy. What else would you expect of Amber’s ambivalent, ambitious, ambiverted ambipedal ambulatory ambit ambage ambience ambuscade ambsace?
Don’t forget ghost Mike’s feet. Will you count those, too? If you do, that’s 6 feet.
I think Amber may need an Ambien.
also, wow i had never noticed that the latin root for “two” (well, “both”) was inside Amber’s name all along
MIND BLOWN
Upvoted!
I’m busy killing spiders.
I wonder if she’s here to tell him that Sal and Danny are dating.
I think the most interesting thing about Ethan’s new look is that he became un-beefy, which means his previous physique took effort. Ethan used to *exercise*. I cannot imagine this.
That, or he’s been eating a worryingly small amount.
Yeah that’s my take too. Ethan was effortlessly hot, and once he stopped taking care of himself it just went in a puff of smoke.
Having had such a physique at his age, I can say that (a) some teenaged boys put on muscle easily with only casual exercise, and (b) you lose weight fast when you are depressed in a student residence and don’t eat.
Oh </3
Plot twist: Amber’s pacing was at a stealthy volume level, but Ethan had his ears cleaned at the student health center earlier in the day.
From seasoned contact wearer: I think you blink at the same rate or slightly more. Although my are normal, correcting ones, not colored.
Amber… FINALLY!!!
If you don’t relax when you walk you sound tons heavier. I don’t think I have relaxed any this century.
I always get mixed up seeing you with a bike but not “Bicycle Bill” as the handle. Y’all need to have a shiv brawl or something to settle who gets to be the “bike” person.
(Obviously, I /could/ pay more attention and learn, but where’s the bloody fun in that)
Seriously can’t stop seeing Ken when I see Gothan.
Same.
*mournfully presses the G5 key over the hacked muzak*
He’s also mad at Amber, right? I can’t recall who he is all mad at.
The entire world.
including himself.
So he’s a goth I take it?
“And why is there a hole on the carpet?”
No matter what happens, I’m glad we’re getting some Ethan screen time after it was revealed he wouldn’t be in the main cast of this part. Maybe Willis changed his mind or was purposefully keeping this info from us? I’d love to keep seeing Ethan.
I don’t think that was a changed mind or anything, Ethan was gonna come back eventually.
The timeskip helped with that in-universe, and then taking over a year for him to return was kinda like the audience feeling his absence the way the cast did and to sell his new status quo with a drastic change to his personality and appearance.
frickin thought this was asher and about crapped
Is his new name Emothan?