Ruh-roh. Something furry this way comes, maybe.
And what’ll happen if and or when it meets our intrepid explorers?
Either way, welcome to the last comic of 2021. Sorry it took so long. I was in L.A. training for a new job for the past three weeks. It’s good to be home in the snowy Pacific Northwest.
Once again, a BIG THANK YOU to the wonderful and amazing melaredblu for finishing the lettering! THANK YOU melaredblu!
Yay for Charlie for comics!
Yay for melaredblu for letters!
Yay for new job for Charlie! Prolly gonna be a secret agent, but he’ll claim it’s just driving a bookmobile again or sumthin, and the training course just happened to be next door to the Skunk Works by complete coincidence.
My mother was a nurse. The last two pages remind me of my childhood, where I was regaled daily about all the things that could make me sick….
Another beautifully crafted page, Charlie. Good luck with your new job of NOT being a Secret Agent. I hear that they prefer people who are good at acting. >>
That’s some especially wonderful architectural art, even for you, Charlie. The interiors remind me of some of the Arts and Crafts houses I’ve seen in England, and the exterior is pretty much every minor 19th century robber baron’s home sweet home.
How do you do the night sky? Paint it black and apply stars later? Or fill in the sky while carefully leaving blank spots? It looks like the second, but that must be reallllllly tedious.
Hey Pops! Happy New Year!
Yes, that exterior is copied (literally-traced on tracing paper and smudged onto paper) from the cover of a book on American Victorian Architecture. The interior is loosely based on one in the same book. I really don’t like doing Vampire Victoria’s home because Victorian interiors are sooooo time consuming. Not that Larry’s Craftsman interiors don’t take forever too…
The stars? Funny you should ask. I scanned a page from Utopia, Unlimited III (the unpublished Christmas story) and made a pattern out of the staars. In U.U I & II< I painstakingly dotted in most of the stars. For III I made a black background with markers, masked it off, and then flicked stars all over the place with a toothbrush full of paint. It was fun, but not something I want to do for every page.
There’s an unpublished UU-III ?
Oh, Charlie, we need to get you a publisher. Or a printer, anyway. The world needs your unique point of view!
Yes. Took me a whole year to draw.
And if my scanner would work (like it did with my last computer), and if my graphics program would work (like it did with my last computer), then I’d post all three somewhere.
Don’t hold your breath.
Boy oh boy, remember my lament over having to cover some of the art with the lettering on the last page?
Make that double on this one. Seriously, your backgrounds are amazing, man.
This page is full of nice architecture! Sorry for being late to the discussion. I second Mela, this page rocks.
Allow me to join Pops in drooling over the artwork here. (I especially love the “snarling beast” plaque above the fireplace.) Then there’s the Escher-like effect of the discombobulationatron’s doorway just hanging there. AND it’s just an edge in space – but it’s at least a foot deep. AND there’s already one of the crew standing behind it looking out a window. Sigh.
Oddly, I do remember you talking about those starry skies some years back when someone asked about them. And you posted a gorgeous bit of artwork I have no word for to show it’s first use. Again, sigh.
‘S’truth! The art is gorgeous, as always, but the representation of the discombuladoorwaythingy is especially clever. It makes sense, or not, depending on where in the picture you focus. But there are clues to help, like in the fourth panel where the floorboards of the lab seen through the portal run perpendicular to the floorboards in the house seen all around the portal.
Amusingly enough, I found the page where you posted the starry sky image:
http://groovykinda.org/comic/e-ticket-ride/
It’s a beautiful image.
Agreed. I love that picture. If I had a scanner, I’d post more from the unfinished Utopia. Someday.
Thank you for finding that!
Any word on when we should expect the next installment? I miss my Groovy friends!
Charlie, you there? No word for a month plus have some of us fretting a bit.
Worrisome, indeed! You usually chat with us a bit, even when you don’t have time to draw.
I’m so sorry, my friends!
Here’s what’s been going on: my Crappy Laptop is toast, and my monitor screen is broken.* So I ccan only access Groovy, Kinda from my phone or a library computer.
Any way, I’m doing well, travelling across the top of this great country of ours. I really haven’t drawn anything since November, even when I had 10 days off to get over COVID. So, sorry to say I have no idea when we’ll have another strip. I apologize for that as well. One is 70% done, but not worth finishing (see all the computer issues), and one is written but not started.
If I can figure out how to upload them from my phone, I’ll share some cool photos from my travels.
Please check back from time to time, and drop a line to let us all know how you’re doing. If and when I start drawing again, you’ll be the first to know.
*Also my dog ate my homework.
Ahah! Just as I suspected: Life gets in the way!
Welp, nothing for us to do but wait. Cross country travel often means a lot of evening downtime that *should* be great for drawing but never really is because you’re always tired or tensed up or apathetic or planning tomorrow’s drive or having second thoughts about that place you picked for dinner. Do let us know where we can find photos posted.
Never EVER feel like you’re “obligated” to produce the comic. (Yes, yes, I know you love it more than we do.) (Hah!) If you need to step back for a while (or… gasp… forever) then you do what you need to do. And yes, it sucks that you’re out of a functioning computer. I’d buy you one, but, y’know, retired. Fixed income, and all that.
When you posted back in December, you were training for a new job. Is that what’s causing all this travel? Have you become a Traveling Salesman? (insert really awful joke here)
Anyway – while I can’t demand it, I’d be grateful if you would pop in once or twice in a while just to let us know you’re still … (thinks for a while…) above ground. Missing your humor. Incidentally, I don’t even have a Smart Phone, and my laptop has a bright green line running vertically about a third of the way in from the left. Also the rubberized coating where my wrists rest is peeling up a small chunk at a time. Ugh. And the fan is NOISY.
Just know your fans are all still here and waiting for your safe return.
Thank you, Greven, and welcome to Groovy, Kinda!
While circumstances prevent me from creating new comics, know that you are never far from my thoughts.
Huh. I hit “random” and wound up back in 2013. As I moved along, I came to page 240 *named SISTERRIFIC*, where I discovered Anya saying “I have a stepsister Kaylynn” and, while I am often enough forgetful as hell, I find I have ZERO memory of ever seeing anything at all of said stepsister.
Granted, that was nine years ago in real time. And I have problems remembering last week. Still….
GK has a lot of plot branches that remain dormant, or at least unexplored. I’m still waiting to find out what Toivo was going to do with a hundred pounds of crickets at summer camp.
Ah yes, the infamous Summer Camp storyline.
You may have noticed that I have a problem finishing long-form stories (Phyl Sampson’s funeral, anyone?).
Know that it involved Pirate Allen beating up some bullies with cinderblocks.
I suppose all those incomplete branches could be considered starter-packs for fan-fic. I should retire and take up drawing.
Or do ’em in prose. I’d love to read some Groovy, Kinda fan-fic. I’m terrible at prose, myself.
Anyway, I wanted to tell you: Magic 8-Ball sez: “Prospects Are Looking Up.”
WOO-HOO!!!
For a brief while (about a year plus), I was a member of an online Writers group. I think I write well, but I discovered a total lack of ability to come up with plots. So I will be forever a mere observer (I started with the word “voyeur,” but when I checked the spelling I read the definition and find it to be a bit inappropriate and TOTALLY not what I meant, so …. substitute! substitute! substitute!) I might make a decent ghost writer, but not even a little bit original.
Long-winded reason why I won’t be likely to contribute any fan fiction prose. And you can FORGET drawing. In addition to a lack of skill, I’ve done something to my left thumb (I diagnosed it as De quervain’s tenosynovitus and the doctor actually agreed with me). So anything that needs an opposable thumb on my dominant hand is out. And I’ve discovered that we really NEED opposable thumbs.
Argh.
We’ve never seen Kaylynn Langerak. I haven’t explored Anya’s formative years. It would make for an interesting strip, though, what with all the international intrigues.
Well, she’s a step-sister, so I assume she’s part of the American family that Anya was adopted by, rather than the royal one. And now I’m wondering how/why Anya wound up with that family – was it random or were they selected by the Chuckleslovakian side?
Well now THERE’S a plot for you!