Delay again... still...

Well, I'm almost done with moving. That is, I'm within a day or so of having my stuff out of the old apartment and into the new one. Not sure when the chaos of boxes and furniture will turn into something livable.

My initial plan for Mary Quite Contrary was to have Mary and her family age in more-or-less real time, like Gasoline Alley and For Better Or For Worse. The way things are going right now I'll either have to change that plan or skip a lot of stuff I had planned to draw. I think I'll go with the former. Not that I don't also plan on adding a lot of stuff to the earlier chapters. That will probably wait until I get these into 'dead tree' format. If I ever manage to.

Just wanted to let everyone who's still reading this know. I will be back eventually.

Chapter 15, Page 5 Sandwich line

Sorry for the long delay. Again. Life has struck with unusual severity the last couple months. First allergies then moving (which I'm still in the process of) and then my dear little bunny died. More details on that in one of my dad's blogs. So Drawing has been kind of a low priority for a while. The weather isn't helping, either. Drawing in the summer isn't pleasant when your drawing surface is a heat source or when you start sweating all over your work.

As for the comic itself... I really should have realized sooner that fast food and I don't mix. Actually, I pretty much stink at any kind of assembly line work.

Chapter 15, Page 4 Special Order

There's a reason I don't like eating out. Okay, several reasons, but one of them is that I don't like doing this to whoever has to take my order. Some people do special orders out of preference. As a kid, I ordered my hamburgers plain out of preference. Now, I make special orders because of allergies. There's some preference, too, since I probably could eat the cheese, but I really don't want to.

Chapter 15, Page 3 Legal age

What actually happened was somewhat different. After getting hired I was walking to work in my uniform and an old lady stopped me and asked where I was going. I said, "To work," and she gave me an odd look and asked for my age. "Seventeen." Her eyes widened and she said she would have guessed fourteen at the most.

I felt that would take too long to set up in the comic and so I did this.

Chapter 15, Page 2 'Sis'perception

As an adult I can see that I was kinda stupid as a teenager. My excuse is that my brain chemicals were out of whack (even more so than normal for a teen) and there was a general failure to communicate between myself and my little sisters. The age gap probably didn't help. So most of the strips involving Mary's little sisters come from what my little sisters have told me years after the fact. If I had known at the time that they pretended to snipe passing cars on their way to school I may have had a different opinion of them.

Ch 15, Page 01 Title Page

Finally updated again! Been kinda busy being sick. Yuck. So, anyway, I'm working on the next strip, so I'm hoping I'll be able to update again soon.

Chapter 14, Page 20 Distracted

Plasma globes are made of pure, concentrated awesome. Appropriately enough, they were also invented by real life mad scientist Nikola Tesla. He seemed to specialize in making things with limited practical applications, but, man, do they look cool!

Also a little shout out to the Headwaters Science Center in Bemidji. I'd go back to Bemidji just to visit that place again. (Well, that and the the mini-golf course with the 3-foot metal sculpture of a mosquito.)

Chapter 14, Page 19 Relativity rodent

I maybe shouldn't be quite so amused by this, but honestly, the little thing was maybe the size of your average hamster. Might have even made a good pet. Why is it I always seem to be the only one who finds these surprise guests to be cute?