Back of the Envelope

You may be wondering what happened to the webcomic update. I'm afraid that I decided to discontinue it. I was no longer doing it once a week, and it was taking too long to go over a month's worth of comics each time I got it ready. I hope you're not too disappointed. Maybe I'll start it back up at some point, but not right now.

Sluggy Freelance — When the apartment over Torg's vacates, there's a game of musical apartments as everyone rushes to vacate Torg's. Unfortunately, Zoe and Gwynn beat Torg to it, and then trade it to Monica, who is, as always, after Riff. What no one realizes at the time is that Monica isn't in love with Riff--she's working for the K'z'k team, and she's there to keep an eye on Torg and company. Yikes! Since then, Torg Potter and the Goblet of Gibblets has begun. Once again, Torg's at Hogglerynth, trying to survive being illegally entered in the tri-gizzard tournament. What's worse, Millard Stoop, Mr. You-Probably-Don't-Know-Who, is back. Torg wants to know why he ended up in this mess, how come nobody remembered who Millard Stoop was until recently, and why he has to be the decoy for the real Torg Potter. Fortunately, he has Homogenize and Weaslo to help him out.

Day by Day — Damon's voting Obama, mainly because he thinks that his very left-wing agenda will make it possible for the Republicans to win next time. Next, Obama's middle name becomes an issue, especially when it's out-of-bounds to use it. Democrats are dealing with their delegate selection process, which involves a bit of the chickens coming home to roost. Then there's a lot of Damon's and Jan's podcast, including the "Screeching Inversion," the theory that yelling without facts doesn't help the cause. Hmm, I'd say that's a pretty accurate way to look at it. Obama's church issues is also fair game. And there's even a mention of Fitna.

Scary Go Round — Despite Ryan's protests, the smear campaign against Amy goes well enough to get her store burned down. Lovelace goes in to save Melanie, but when he fails to return, Ryan has to do the saving. Everyone assumes he dies, but we later find out that his pal was the one who set the fire, and he used it as cover to steal Amy's novelty dishware. Yikes, he's not such a good guy after all.The Boy is visiting France, where he meets up with his old penpal, the French girl who originally gave him the "boy" moniker. He still hasn't quite gotten over that. In the meanwhile, France is in the midst of an Easter crisis, as they've replaced their culturally unique bell with the Americanized Easter Bunny. Except that this particular Easter Bunny is awfully big and has really sharp teeth.

Dominic Deegan — Dominic's mom, master of illusion, captures the Oracle Hunter, who turns out to be Luna's sister, Barnet. Dominic questions her, trying to find out who hired her, but he doesn't learn much. Then Celesto shows up to repay Dominic by destroying Barnet's psyche, and now it's up to Dominic to dive into her mind to save her. Yikes, he never gets a break, does he?

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Blue's concerned over Dave's disappearance, so she's taking measures to find him, including interrogating her brother, Louis. Dave himself is dreaming about his high school days as a peeping tom. Shame on him! Margaret caught onto him and was about to lay the smack down when her house exploded. Hmm, it looks like Dave was there for the whole thing. I'm not sure what those guys in the helmet are all about, but perhaps that's just the now-reality intruding on the dream-reality, as it looks like Damascus has him.

Schlock Mercenary — Petey's been double-crossed, as the memory alteration given to Tagon's crew makes them think he abandoned them. They're doing all right, at least until Tagon overpays them, and the majority of his non-human mercenaries decide to retire. Of course, mercenaries living long enough to retire, and making enough money to retire early, serves as great advertising, and there's no shortage of new recruits, including a young roboticist who has quite a reputation with the robots.

Since I've been sort of moving to a monthly format anyway...

Sluggy Freelance — Zoe tries to put the gang to work, but she should know by now how that works out. Torg buys a Global Peanut butter Positioning System, and attempts to make Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches using Gwynn as a guinea pig. One clutter golem later, Zoe kicks Gwynn, Riff, and Torg (along with the clutter monster) out of the apartment, even though it technically belongs to Torg. They can come back once they clean it up. Torg, Gwynn, and Riff make up, at least, and Torg manages to recruit one of those home improvement shows to help him clean up. And then, since Zoe said he has to get a hobby, he draws a comic book, which has shown in all it's, um, glory, this past week.

Day by Day — Sam convinces Damon and Jan to do a political podcast, mainly to keep them out of the new parents' hair. So that's what they do. We get numerous comics of the two of them discussing politics for the podcast, and talking to callers, a few of whom want to discuss politics too. Damon's has a hard time dealing with the fact that McCain's the de facto Republican nominee. Of course, Obama's throwing the Democratic side of the election for a loop. Even Damon's thinking of voting for him, mainly because he thinks Obama will unite Republicans against him later on. Oh, and I just noticed: Zed's wearing a Schlock Mercenary t-shirt in this one.

Scary Go Round — Amy decides to help Ryan get a girlfriend, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Hugo tires of their antics and gives Amy money to go get a hobby while taking Ryan under his wing. So Amy starts an antique store, and all's going well, until she meets her rival at a garage sale. Mr. Lovelace challenges her to a contest, and it turns out that Amy's met someone she can't outdrink. It looks like the two of them are rapidly bonding though, much to the distaste of the two old ladies who own the competing shop across the way. They've decided to start a smear campaign on Amy's character. One would think that they wouldn't have to make up dirt.

Dominic Deegan — The Oracle Huntress has tracked down Dominic, stabbing him and infecting him with a nasty virus, which he manages to fight off. But it's not pretty. Unfortunately, she's coming back, after the revelation that she's Dominic's half-sister. The defenses they put up against her aren't enough, and she soon finds Dominic. He may be more than she can handle, though.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — The catfight between Marsha and April is interrupted when the Dragon shows up and one of her goons shoots Marsha. I'd say it was a good thing to keep Marsha from murdering April, except, first, I'm not sure Marsha survived, and second, being captured by the Dragon is even worse. When she discovers that April is pregnant, the Dragon has ideas. Meanwhile, Blue brings Dave to meet up with Marsha and go a-murdering, but Dave wants nothing to do with it. Blue kicks Dave out of the car, and immediately goes back once she calms down, but Dave's gone (sounds like Jay got him). So she goes to the circus where April should be and finds that that's gone too. All in all, not a good night for Blue. Or Dave. Or April, or Marsha.

Schlock Mercenary — Having been captured, Tagon's crew is facing execution for knowing too much about Project Laz'r'us. Fortunately, Petey is on the case and able to threaten revealing it to the world, and Dr. Bunningus is able to offer up an alternative: modify the crew's memories to erase the knowledge. It's agreed, but Schlock manages to keep a small bit of himself unaffected, so he can take revenge for his mistreatment.

Wow, it's been a whole month since I've done one of these. Okay, I took some time off for the holidays. I need to be more focused.

Sluggy Freelance — A new flashback tells how Gwynn found Jane's graveyard with a little help from Riff, then it's back to the present, and Gwynn uses her magic to escape, wreaking havoc and hitting Jane with a bit of karmic vengeance. Then it's a Bun-bun Christmas story, where Kiki teaches Bun-bun the true meaning of Christmas, or at least teaches him how to bribe the others with their own stuff for a place to stay.

Day by Day — Politics as usual, or it would be, if Zed and Sam weren't parents. That makes things interesting. They've named the twins Caroline and Catherine. So far, the girls don't seem to be taking too well to politics, but overall that's a good thing. Of course, just when things seem like they'll go on this way forever, the company the whole cast works for goes under, and everybody's out of work. Zed finds work at home depot, although he still calls Sam for all the technical stuff.

Scary Go Round — Shelby and Shelley visit Christmas mountain and meet the current Santa, who took over in 1953. He's green and jolly, though not quite a giant. While Shelley's been good, Shelby hasn't, so she tries to earn her way into the good books by a game of darts. This Santa cheats, though, so she has to pay the price, which is humiliating but not fatal. After Shelley returns in time for the comic's Christmas break, Amy helps Ryan find a girl, or at least be decent enough to appear in public.

Dominic Deegan — Dominic's not too forgiving to Reinholdt, but Cassie's listening--and a little more. After that, Dominic gets a well-deserved break, but not for long, as someone's started killing seers.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — CRFH!!! has been on hiatus, so it's only recently that it's started back up. April brags about her one time with Mike, but Marsha reveals that it wasn't Mike in control at the time. April doesn't take that too well.

Schlock Mercenary — Oops, too slow. The evil forces catch Tagon, and when Ambassador Breya rams the Touch and Go in order to help. I'm not sure how that works, as she's captured along with everyone else.

Sluggy Freelance — Jane tells the rest of her story, about how she and the other zombies defended themselves against the scientists who wanted to study their braaainnss, who succeeded in capturing them until Jane was able to use her above average zombie intelligence wiles to escape, only to find that her own brother had become one of them. So she locked him in a cold storage unit. Ugh--that story was wrong for all sorts of reasons.

Day by Day — The burdens of being parents are continuing to sink in for Sam and Zed. The twin girls have them thinking about protecting them from boys, recycling, and Clinton's attacks on kindergarten essays. We've also got some good old politics in the form of the media's usual tricks.

Scary Go Round — Abandoned by her friends, Shelley meets up with Shelby Winner and an unlikely friendship forms, with the usual friendship rituals: the karaoke, the limbo contest, and the foiling of the mistaken-identity attacker with a fire extinguisher.

Dominic Deegan — Milov's letter to Jayden offers forgiveness, but he needs some time apart to deal with his own issues. It's not enough to completely stop Siegfried, as he's just going after easier targets now. His boss, Karnak, is more concerned about the infernomancer who's stealing his power. Meanwhile, the Knights of Callan have been disbanded and replaced by battlecasters, which everyone thinks is a pretty bad idea. This causes Reinholdt to show up looking for redemption.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Just two comics, Mike giving his last advice to Marsha, and asking for forgiveness. When she shows up to strangle April, it seems that Mike's request for forgiveness is more on her mind ("Forgive him for WHAT, April??") than the whole April stabbing Mike thing. Marsha never took unfaithfulness well.

Schlock Mercenary — We get a glimpse of the forces after the Touch-and-Go and find out that Ennesby has fallen into their trap. And he's the smart one when compared to Tagon and Schlock, who seem likely to fall into more obvious traps. All in all, it encourages Tagon to dump his cargo on Petey and get his payment, so he doesn't have to worry about it anymore.

Wow, it's been three weeks since the last update. That's pretty bad--I'll have to try to do better in the future.

Sluggy Freelance — Torg's having a tough time dealing with Zoe being bald, but a little hoverbike racing helps to overcome that. In fact, hoverbikes and pizza heals all wounds, and the gang's all, or at least mostly, friends again. Which is good, because Gwynn has a plan to recover her monkeys. It just didn't involve her being infected by a zombie. Or being held in their underground lair, where Jane explains her whole smart zombie deal. It apparently has something to do with some very naive circus performers and a madame Bu-bu.

Day by Day — The Hillarinator runs into some software bugs while the whole lot of them drive Sam to the hospital so she can have her twins. Baby girls. Now Zed and Sam have to deal with the joys of parenthood... too bad they can't stay on the really good drugs. The babies start to give Jan ideas, which is making Damon just a wee bit nervous.

Scary Go Round — Shelley Winters is off to Christmas Island with some good friends and an expense account that just won't quit. Things are looking good. But what'll she do when the expense account gets canceled?

Dominic Deegan — The attempts to counter Siegfried keep coming up short. He has all sorts of power now, and he's using it to torment his old friends. He nearly turns Jayden to his side, before Nimmel shows her what happened to send Siggy to Hell in the first place. Fortunately, Dominic's mother comes along to help her son and his friends out.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — April's remembering how the situation got this way. It's bad. It's really, really bad. She's a murderer now, and various and sundry scary people are coming to get her. Marsha among them. So's Blue and the Dragon. The problem is that when they do come to kill her, they'll be condemning their own soul. Especially if someone accidentally kills June instead of April. Of course, the fun part is that it looks like April's pregnant. With possessed Mike's baby. Okay, this looks bad.

Schlock Mercenary — Tagon's gotten together the smartest folk on the ship to try to figure out what to do with Xinchub. They think it's about immortality. Meanwhile, TAG and Ennesby are having their own powwow, and they think they have a better line on it than the rest of the crew. Actually talking to Xinchub reveals a lot, especially about the undead warmongering supersoldiers. And then we get a peek at the folks who are looking for the information to make them.

Sluggy Freelance — Zombie storytime! Gwynn's in trouble with zombies. It turns out that her co-worker Jane at the zombie themed restaurant "Zomblebee's" is a real zombie. Gwynn's been sent to tell her she's fired, which Jane doesn't take too well. One of her minions bites Gwynn, which might be a problem, as zombie-dom appears to be an infection. Then we see that while Gwynn's lost most of her hair due to camel Zoe, Gwynn then magicked off all of Zoe's hair. Neither of them are happy, but after talking it out, they make up, just in time for the guys to return and witness the severe hair troubles.

Day by Day — Jan, Damon, and Zed arrive home to be greeted by the very pregnant Sam. Then it's back to politics, with Hillary's debate troubles getting center stage. But that's not enough to distract from Zed meeting Sam's mother, and finding out that his wife is younger than he thought.

Scary Go Round — Ryan, Esther, and the boy pull off a light show to scare the ghost off. Ghostbusting's not for the feint of heart. Then the offices of Conde Nast Traveller is busy producing a travel guide for the really snooty. They wish to hire the meanest of freelance writers to cover Christmas Island, Shelby Winner. A slight miscommunication and some loud banging results in Shelley Winters being hired instead.

Dominic Deegan — With one victory under his belt, Milov needs to go to the Moon Dance and restore his family's honor. You can see he wants to make up with Jayden, but he can't. Dominic, meanwhile, is exhausted, and is trying to recover his strength so he can help. So at the Moon Dance, Milov announces that he will drive the Callanian influence from his lands, starting with the Luanian church. Yikes. He defends Nimmel, however, arguing that he's shown true loyalty.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Blue starts to offer Dave a chance to break up with her, but he offers her a kitten instead to talk her out of it. Dave's happy, but he comes home to find a big problem with Marsha about to jump off the roof. He tries to talk her down while Margaret tackles her, but he's too late, and Marsha leaps--to ride Sticky out of sight. That is just too weird, and it's enough for Margaret to decide that NOES isn't working out. Roger's gone, Marsha's gone, and Dave's hardly the most reliable member. What's the point anymore?

Schlock Mercenary — Xinchub's body is up and moving again, but fortunately TAG has it under control. It turns out that Xinchub had the same nanite treatment as Kevyn, and he's looking to escape. He hasn't gotten very far, however. Tagon renegotiates his deal with Ambassador Breya--charging a bit extra to bring in a living specimen. Then when Kevyn suggests that they may be able to figure out what Petey wants Xinchub for and sell the information to a third party, Tagon takes a detour while they figure out how to milk a fifth payment out of the job.

Sluggy Freelance — Monica and Aylee start to get along, the same way Sasha and Zoe did--ragging on Riff. And Sasha and Gwynn... it seems a popular way for girls to build friendships. Then Torg and Riff show up, but they can't seem to get the upperhand: Monica's clever and unshakable. At least until Monica sees flying Aylee wearing her underwear. That freaks her out. Then it's Stick Figures in Spaace for a week of low quality fun.

Day by Day — After some time away, Day by Day is back. Sam and Skye are picking up their mother at the airport. Sam's gotten too big to drive, and Skye's driving leads much to be desired. Meanwhile, Jan and Damon are arriving home by private jet. It looks like they arrive at the same time.

Scary Go Round — Esther and the Boy break into the haunted grounds. In doing so, they attract the attention of the gypsy ghosts Esther's family is responsible for disturbing. Uh-oh. Now they need to get a little help from Ryan to deal with their ghost problem while also sorting out their relationship issues.

Dominic Deegan — Nimmel and Luna try to knock some sense into Milov and Jayden, respectively. Dominic and Milov have a run-in with demon Siegfried. It looks like they're done for, but Milov manages to drive him off with his good memories of friendship and love.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Hey, we're updating five times a week now. Roger's moving out, and Dave delivers Mike's stuff to his family, giving him an opportunity to talk with Blue and apologize. Just as he arrives, Blue's in a compromising position with Jay. Dave misses that, although he does run into the other toughs, and nearly zaps them before Blue calms him down. Blue then takes care of the toughs her own way.

Schlock Mercenary — And the Doc's still having bad dreams. After a quick consultation with TAG, she tries to sleep and has another bad dream. That's it. After donning her armor and loading for bear, she brings Schlock along. This time she's ready to deal anything: except the nanites burning their way out of the force field and TAG taking her weapons away.

Sluggy Freelance — Aylee and Torg join Riff at his ex-girlfriend's house, and go about disguising Aylee as a human, which requires a lot of make-up. And it turns out that Aylee has wings, and appears, from the outside, to be a fully functional human female. So much so that Riff asks her out, even if he still thinks she's a planet-destroying alien he'll have to destroy eventually. Of course, things get really fun when Monica arrives home and Riff has to distract her while Torg prepares a nose for Aylee. When both Torg and Riff try a quick escape, they find that Monica's one step ahead of them. That girl is good.

Day by Day — Cox and Forkum get some love, and Jan get hits by an IED. It's nothing too serious, but she's seriously bummed out about it. After that, Chris is gone until November while he deals with some family issues.

Scary Go Round — Mike survives by virtue of being a freak of nature, and Lorcan avoids the death penalty by virtue of his father still being alive. While Amy and Shelley are dealing with joblessness, Esther and the Boy are facing relationship problems. So Esther decides a visit to the old city hall is in order, on account of it having been built on an old gypsy burial ground and thus goth-worthy.

Dominic Deegan — Milov decides to face Siegfried and has to be rescued by Dominic. Now Dominic's exhausted, Jayden's guilt-ridden, Milov's depressed, and the Spellwolves are angry, and it's up to Nimmel and Luna to save the day.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Dave, while cleaning house, finds a portrait of Blue and some letters, figures Roger's in love with Blue, and goes to punch him--only to discover that werecoyotes punch back really hard. Later consideration shows that Roger didn't draw the pictures, and they may not be love letters at all. Looks like Dave messed this one up bad.

Schlock Mercenary — The Doc Ed is having bad dreams concerning Xinchub's body. When her fiance's chaste cuddling doesn't help, she goes to Kevyn for some technical assurance. He guarantees that the nanites can't escape, just before they do.

Sluggy Freelance — Torg and Aylee return, and Aylee retakes a humanish-shape. Riff's confused, so he blows up another park ('cause, hey, he's Riff--he has to blow up something). Rammer sees it all, but is killed by Kusari before he can take advantage of his information, or care it. Turns out Schlock sent Kusari, with instructions to stop Hong--and she did, with knives. Schlock's now on a path to take over the world. That's right. Schlock. Uh-oh, I'm scared. Schlock may be a coward, but he's brilliant, and he knows way too much about the gang.

Day by Day — So Sam's been hiding the fact that she's younger than Zed by quite a bit. I wonder what she'll tell him when he gets home--he's on his way now. In the meanwhile, Damon's arrived to keep Jan company.

Scary Go Round — Shelley subdues Lorcan, but his bee attacks her. Mike dives in the way, taking the attack himself and somehow surviving. Unfortunately, Shelley's boss isn't taken with the story, and fires her. Amy and Ryan are out of a job too, as the bureaucrats take over Tackleford's city hall.

Dominic Deegan — So Jayden slept with Siegfried. How's that for a surprise revelation? Milov goes mad with rage and nearly kills Jayden, then settles for tossing everyone out of his house and announcing his betrayal to the world, which results in Nimmel being attacked. Hoo-boy, I guess nobody's happy about this. Jayden tells her story to Luna. It appears that Siegfried was indeed changing for the better, but he ended up off course.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Roger promises to take care of the skeleton under Mike's bed, while Margaret puts the guys through more training. It's driving them crazy, but it must be improving their health. Or it would be, if it weren't killing them. Roger's continuing to train with Joe, which must be very close to the worst idea ever, while Margaret convinces Dave to talk to Marsha. He promises to do it, but lets slip that he knows her parents were murdered, requiring a hasty exit. I do wonder how he knows that, if Margaret never told him.

Schlock Mercenary — Kevyn gets really drunk to avoid remembering the Xinchub clone's naked body. Meanwhile, everyone's looking forward to helping to recreate his death. The Doc has a monopoly on it, however, and now that they have a body, the mercenaries can make a clean switch, with the government's permission. So they're getting paid four times for this job so far. But they still have to get through the funeral with a straight face.

Sluggy Freelance — Everyone's getting ready for Torg's return home. Riff's planted explosives in the baseball field where he'll be arriving, Bun-bun's giving an anonymous tip to the authorities, and Hoang and Rammer are converging on the spot. Schlock, on the other hand, has just taken over Hereti-corp. How's that for an upset? Hereti-corp with Schlock's technology, plus all the goodies he's picked up from Riff, not to mention all their current technological inventory. Things are looking exciting. Of course, there's the question of what Schlock wants to do with it.

Day by Day — It looks like Chris is trying to earn himself a fatwa. Meanwhile, Zed's on his way back to his pregnant wife. And Jan is beginning to get what the war's all about, even if she maintains her leftist slant throughout. Hillary and Moveon--not so much.

Scary Go Round — Lorcan finds his giant bee, and soon has pulled Amy on board his ride. Never fear, Shelley and her drunk colleague and mayor are on their way to rescue her... somehow.

Dominic Deegan — Dominic arrives to reveal the truth about Siegfried's misdeeds. Milov doesn't seem to be handling it well, especially not when Siegfried's trying to get him all riled up. And not even Dominic's prepared for Jayden's indiscretion.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Roger's badgering has finally convinced Dave to clean out under Mike's bed. Of course, it turns out that that's where Mike keeps his skeletons. The question is, what are they going to do about the one they found. And the liver in a jar. Dang, and just as I was willing to let Mike rest in peace.

Schlock Mercenary — Kevyn's teraport cage isn't all that good at containment, but it really is clever. It turns out it's not needed, however. The head of the government wants the nanite infected body removed quietly, so he'll pay Tagon's Toughs to take the body, and let them perform a teraport to do it. I've lost track, but I think they're being paid four times now for the same job. Speaking of which, Kevyn goes to check on the Xinchub clone, but seeing the big guy naked is something he intends to forget.

Sluggy Freelance — After Torg finishes his story (and he and Gwynn are put back together), Defense Secretary Rammer sends Torg and Aylee home. We briefly hear Riff on the other side warning them to not let the portal shut, but we don't see what that's all about, as we've gone back to No Content Saturdays and Sketch Sundays.

Day by Day — While Hillary's talking about Iraq and dealing with fund-raising scandals, Sam's dealing with pregnancy induced cravings and her mother coming for a visit. In Iraq, Zed's still trying to get a handle on absentee fatherhood, especially as his wife approaches her due date.

Scary Go Round — Lorcan kills his own father when he tries to destroy Bessy, and hides his body in Bessy's cage. While he's off figuring out what to do, he runs into Amy, and after some harmless flirting, things seem to be going pretty well... until he learns that the police have found the body. In the meantime, Shelley's been tapped to be a Jam Judge. It's what she was born to do.

Dominic Deegan — And just when things were clearing up, Siegfried's back. Jayden and Milov have both been having visions of their demonized friend, and they've asked Dominic for help.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Dave manages to convince Roger that it was God, not him, who blinded Joe. Roger's on the fence at first, until he realizes that Dave doesn't have the gumption to actually blind someone. Dave tries to convince him otherwise, but we know him too well.

Schlock Mercenary — Schlock's natural defenses are apparently immune to nanites, so there's nothing to worry about. Aside from the fact that they let Schlock carry weapons. Afterwards, the Doc corners Vog to ask him about his species, who were the originators of the amorphs. Vog's species live essentially forever, but since their minds don't cope that well, they have to live in a state of senility. While the Doc's having that conversation, Schlock is helping to fill a hole, although he's not a big fan of the old-fashioned way, and Kevyn's turned a nanite containment system into a teraport cage.

Surprise, surpise, it's another two weeks in the update. At least this time I sort of have an excuse, as I was out of town last week.

Sluggy Freelance — So, Riff's developed a way to cut people in half, placing one half in another dimension while keeping the first half here. His experiment leaves both Gwynn and Kiki divided, but when Torg tries to convince Gwynn to stand still, he gets stuck, and the amazing Gworg is born.

Day by Day — The New York Times and Cernig get some mocking, but there's more interesting stuff happening when Zed finds out that Sam's pregnant with twins. Jan and Damon seem to be switching places on Iraq, and Jan learns a bit more about US soldiers and Iraqi insurgent strategy.

Scary Go Round — Shelley and Mike are tasked with reporting on The Great Tackleford Show, a sort of county fair. They're not exactly thrilled with the assignment, and while Shelley tries to make the best of it, Mike appears ready to get drunk. Amy is busy trying to help the mayor through the fair with a minimum of embarrassment. Meanwhile, something weird is going on with "Bessy."

Dominic Deegan — Gregory's in the doghouse with Pam, and Dominic's in the jailhouse. But he's not held for too long, and Snowsong's about to receive some counseling from the Luanian church.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — After a week with no comics, we're back in action, with Roger completing taking Joe home, and deciding that he wants to take werecoyote lessons from Joe, who is well on his way to becoming a full time were. Dave does his best to convince Roger that Joe's evil.

Schlock Mercenary — Schlock's been infected by nanites from Xinchub's body. After isolating and vaporizing some of his body, Schlock's taken to the ship and isolated for further testing.

Once again, I'll be covering two weeks in this "Weekly" update.

Sluggy Freelance — Aylee, returns to her people and leads them to Eden, only to double-cross them so that the humans can kill the hive-king Leono. She's not too happy over this, and is mighty angry at Torg, but Leono really did deserve to go. Rammer then pretends to arrest Torg and Aylee, only to let them go, against President Kesandru's orders. Turns out he's not such a bad guy after all--in fact, he's quite insistent on remaining the good guy. He does insist that Torg and Aylee share their information on Aylee's species and Riff's DFA. Aylee shares quite a few details, while Torg launches into some story concerning Kiki.

Day by Day — Jan's beginning to appreciate Damon's point of view, now that she's spending time with the military in Iraq, and riding along with them to find out what the rules of engagement are really like. Back home, the Beauchamp story receives some attention.

Scary Go Round — Ryan tells the Captain Beefheart story. The story of the rise and fall of a rock legend whom nobody's ever heard of. After that, there's a bit of a non-canonical story, where Amy and Shelley visit a San Francisco comic-con to meet an artist's whose comic strip bares a remarkable resemblance to Garfield. I think it was a guest comic, but as it isn't in the normal archives, we won't worry too much about it.

Dominic Deegan — Gregory manages to turn Snowsong back from ice, destroy her golem, and rescue the town. Yay, everyone's happy. Everyone except Pam, that is, who wasn't let in on the secret. Dominic explains to her how he arranged everything--and he really was behind just about all of it--but he doesn't have an explanation for why Gregory didn't tell Pam.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — A quick interrogation of Joe reveals firstly, that he's blind, and secondly, that he has no memory of being possessed. That's not very helpful, is it? But we do learn something, as Margaret shows Dave Mike's handkerchief, on which he wrote, in his own blood, "No deals with Satan." Dave has to explain Mike's deal to Margaret, and then face his punishment for messing up at Joe's place.

Schlock Mercenary — Tagon arrives and parks his ship on the lawn of the palace. After deciding just how much he and the Prandial representative distrust each other, he manages to get Elf a look at the body. The Prandials are a little bit reluctant to let her look at the casket, but eventually open it up and let her collect a tissue sample. But not until Schlock's had a taste. His chemical analysis ability is pretty good, but it's still disgusting.

Sluggy Freelance — Torg and Aylee run into each other, and Torg tries to convince Aylee to come home with him when the portal opens tomorrow. Aylee, despite feeling neglected, believes that she is home with her people. Torg's argument is primarily that her people are trying to eat his people, so maybe her loyalty is misplaced

Day by Day — So, Sam's pregnant with twins. Zed's not the only one unwilling to share need to know information. Skye helps with a Zed voodoo doll. While over in Iraq, Jan meets military hijinks continue.

Scary Go Round — Shelley's world saving dream team is breaking up and going their separate ways. Not all of them are leaving however. Captain Ernest has convinced Moon and Desmond to join him in his next adventure, and Esther and the Boy are getting back together. On the other hand, Shelley and Amy seem to have forgotten about Erin--not just her situation, but that she ever existed--who is now trapped in Hell with Bob.

Dominic Deegan — Gregory convinces Snowsong that in trying to destroy the town of Barthis, she's become the thing she hates the most. Of course, when she realizes this, instead of turning over a new leaf, she despairs, and tries to force him to kill her, thus becoming what he hates: a murderer. Super Greg has other ideas.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Dave finally gets around to zapping werewolf Joe, and they take him in for questioning. For some reason, werecoyote Roger wasn't a whole lot of help against him.

Schlock Mercenary — The Doc comes up with a way to get paid three times, by replacing Xinchub's body with a clone. Tagon is so happy that he accidentally kisses her, and has to apologize to the Reverend. Kevyn comes up with the idea independently a bit later, but learns that he should get out of the lab more.

Sluggy Freelance — Torg goes running off to find whether Aylee climbed out of her old body. Aylee, meanwhile, is feeling neglected by her alien host, who's barely interested in her any longer, but sends her out to kill a lone human approaching on an airbike--Torg.

Day by Day — Jan's guard decides to play translator to the military. Jan's meeting lots of tough women in the military, and finding them to be proud and motivated. Back home, though, all anyone can talk about is defeat.

Scary Go Round — Amy and Ryan are fighting over Erin's fate. Going to hell can't be good for a girl. Nevertheless, Shelley decides to host a party for her friends who helped her save the world. The Boy and Esther need to decide where their relationship stands after brainwashing.

Dominic Deegan — Gregory goes Super to go fight with Snowsong. It would be a lot more dramatic if he didn't look so stupid.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Dave's tasked to be backup, but an aborted phone call from Blue to Marsha's phone has him trying to get in touch with her, unaware that Margaret's fighting for her life against a werewolf Joe.

Schlock Mercenary — The only thing better than getting paid twice to steal Xinchub's body is getting paid three times. The only problem is that the third payer wants Xinchub's body protected, and it's going to be difficult to keep all three customers happy.

Sluggy Freelance — So Schlock's made a deal with Hereti-corp. And Riff thinks Aylee's the one to worry about. Speaking of whom, Aylee's made contant with the hive-king in charge of the alien ghouls invading Earth. She's not completely won over by his charms, but he helps her anyway, sacrificing drones to give her rebirth... as a much smaller alien.

Day by Day — Jan's continually surprised by the military, while they're continually surprised by the media. Maybe someday they'll get over their surprise with each other, but that'd be a lot less fun. A very pregnant Sam and Zed cover the local politics angle.

Scary Go Round — Surprisingly, the good guys find a way to reverse the flow of the portal by annulling Erin's marriage to Bob, who's sucked into Hell. Unfortunately, Erin's sucked in too. After this depressing turn of events, it's good to see Amy returned without any fuss, although her attempts to cheer Shelley up don't do much good.

Dominic Deegan — Just when it looks like Snowsong's about to recover, along comes the police, to get her upset again. When they claim that Snowsong's fellow cultists killed themselves, she takes offense, and goes to destroy the town. Gregory shows up, but he's not doing such a good job at calming her down. Fortunately, his abilities seem to be on the mend.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Dave and Roger are conspiring to ditch Margaret, but it's not working. Margaret's still planning the raid on Joe, but she's a bit concerned that he's better armed than they are. Dave offers to interrogate him himself, but no one takes him very seriously. He's still taking a back-up role.

Schlock Mercenary — The crew celebrates Xinchub's death. Boy, are they happy! The Reverend has to explain the glee to the oldest member of their company, who's 12 million or so. While he's doing that, Tagon and Kevyn independently accept the job of desecrating Xinchub's corpse. Some people might think it a conflict to accept the job from two different people, but from Tagon's view point, the only thing better than getting paid to desecrate Xinchub's corpse, is getting paid twice to do it.

Sluggy Freelance — So we're back in Sluggy Prime, and Riff's made Bun-bun an offer on the explosives, but at a lot less than Bun-bun wants. He accepts anyway, although not without bludgeoning Riff. Meanwhile, Schlock narrowly escapes both the government and Kusari.

Day by Day — Jan is in for some surprises when she meets the real military. Sam's complaining about the Republicans' stand on immigration, while the Democrats are their own worst enemy. So, pretty much business as usual.

Scary Go Round — Shelley interrupts Bob's and Erin's wedding, but ends up killing the wrong devil. The devil succeeds in completing the marriage, and the demons begin to pour into the world while he kills Braun. Fortunately, the leprechaun's ready to take him on.

Dominic Deegan — Snowsong's ticked at Gregory's article, and she goes on a rampage, attacking "Beardman." Dominic's sends Quilt in to negotiate, but he doesn't gets an icy reception.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — After the morning workout, it's time for class. Dover's apparently fonder of Dave more than he likes him.

Schlock Mercenary — It's time to train a new demolitions chief. It's too bad that the only candidate is completely crazy. On the other hand, Tagon gets some good news when he learns Xinchub is dead.

Yay, I'm getting it up almost on time this week!

Sluggy Freelance — So, despite being a ruthless murderer who sold hundreds of souls to Rithuly in order to escape from the Never, Kesandru isn't such a bad guy. Interesting... I suppose anyone can reform their ways. Rammer discovers some bad news in the meantime: it turns out that Aylee's a ghoul. The bottom line is that the ghouls don't serve Rithuly, because they're not former humans at all: they're aliens!

Day by Day — Zed jokes with pilots about Al Gore, and Jan deals with the new media generation of soldiers. Meanwhile, Skye and Sam debate the fairness doctrine.

Scary Go Round — Mother Shipton's plan doesn't involve saving the world so much as collecting the ingredients for a spell. That's the reason she has Amy all tied up. Meanwhile, the destruction of the world is beginning with the marriage of Erin, but her rapidly shrinking body no longer interests Bob.

Dominic Deegan — No comics this week. The artist's dealing with a tough time.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Margaret's whipping the guys into shape, which in her case involves nun-chucks and the threat of bodily harm. Good luck with that.

Schlock Mercenary — Tagon's in a bad mood, and he takes it out by going shooting, carving Xinchub's head in Schlock's comic book and filling it full of holes. Meanwhile, Xinchub's been cut in half. It remains to be seen whether he, like Kevyn, can survive certain death.

This is the third time I've done this. We're getting pretty close to being the fortnightly webcomic update.

Sluggy Freelance — Torg meets Defense Secretary Rammer, who believes Torg's story of being a dimensional traveler. He also covers the origin story of the zombies, and tells him that most of humanity has moved to outer space. He then takes him to meet the president, who turns out to be... Kesandru! Bad guy alert! Torg knows too much.

Day by Day — Skye and Sam talk about the joys of pregnancy, Zed checks in from Iraq from time to time and in between looks over the journalists' shoulders. And in Washington, it's politics as usual.

Scary Go Round — Shelley's attempts to steal a space shuttle aren't exactly successful. She'll have to rely on other methods to get the moon's attention. It seems that the rest of the team's are having pretty good luck, though. And Erin's all set to marry Bob: no one seems to have realized what's going on there. However, it almost seems as if Erin is shrinking.

Dominic Deegan — The Chosen who came to Barthis for revenge has kind of lost interest in the whole deal, what with great food, nice clothes, and a friendly Dominic Deegan. I get the impression that Dominic knows exactly what's going on.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Marsha delivers something to Margaret from Mike. We still don't know what it is. While she's planning a break-in, Blue is looking for ways to keep tabs on Dave, and has a run-in with Jay. Fortunately, she's smarter than he thinks... she's already figured that some Dave's bullet wounds came from him.

Schlock Mercenary — Tagon tries to sell his crew on extracting Xinchub. He fails, so he has to turn Petey down, even when he offers 20x the original pay. There's some concern that Tagon is coming down with a case of morality, but apparently hatred as motivation to turn down a job doesn't count as morality. Meanwhile, Schlock's involved in a firearms safety comic book scam.

If I keep letting this slip, it'll soon become a fortnightly webcomic update. I'll try to do better next week, I promise.

Sluggy Freelance — It's been two weeks of guest comics. The first one was Bikini Suicide Sasha Days, with a lot less Sasha than you'd expect considering her name was in the title. The second had Zoe pining for Torg, and her consciences cooperating to goad her on, which of course results in camel-related injuries. It was great fun, but I'm glad we're back to seeing how Torg and Aylee are getting on in another dimension.

Day by Day — Jan and Zed are getting along okay in Iraq, despite a bout of airsickness for Jan. Damon's doing his best to help the pregnant Sam, and meanwhile has a run-in with her sister Skye, who isn't exactly friendly towards him.

Scary Go Round — John Allison's been running some guest comics for the past two weeks, covering a wide range of ideas, generally revolving around Amy and Shelley, or sometimes the Boy and Esther So we get robotic Prime Ministers, advertisements for cupcakes in Esther's dark music, and a giant Shelley in a short skirt.


Dominic Deegan — Dominic's brother, Gregory, has a bit of a magical mishap. His magic, which keeps him in top physical condition, has gone overboard, making him a wee bit hulk-like. Dominic helps him turn it off, reducing him to a skinny weakling in the process. One of the Chosen has come hunting him for revenge, but in his current condition he's unrecognizable.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — With Mike's death, Margaret is taking over NOES. It's good to see that she's so proactive, planning to go have a talk with Joe, who's slightly psychotic and has a tendency towards possession. She also plans on whipping the guys into shape with intense physical training. Not a bad idea overall, but her plans for physical training probably fall under what some people call torture.

Schlock Mercenary — With the mission to rescue Xinchub, Tagon's got to convince his crew to do the job. They aren't exactly eager, as most of them would rather just kill him, slowly and painfully. Xinchub's busy trying to survive being king, what with rebels after him, Jeevee quite willing to see him dead, and the UNS unhappy with a former military officer becoming the leader of a foreign planet. What do you do when everyone wants you dead?

Not only is this overdue, but I forgot to put one up entirely last week. So this week I'm covering two weeks.

Sluggy Freelance — Back to Aylee and Torg, who've run into some actual, honest-to-God humans. Who then try to shoot Aylee down. Hey, just because she's big doesn't mean she's hostile. Just clumsy. Then it's a couple of filler weeks with Clay Yount, and Gwynn's creating a potion. Not good, definitely not good.

Day by Day — Jan's dad has hired a mercenary to look after her. She's not happy. Neither is Sam, when the merc, Naomi, turns out to be a former colleague of Zed's. And while all this is happening, it's the immigration bill that has everyone's attention in the states.

Scary Go Round — So, Ryan captures the Leprechaun's mate, a little bird, and proceeds to be beaten up by leprechauns, ogres, and unicorns. Fortunately, Margo's mad crochet skills save the day, and the leprechaun comes willingly for her work.

Dominic Deegan — Dominic goes to talk to the Shintula orcs in a vision, and gets his head handed to him. Afterwards, he gives as good as he gets, but it seems that the Shintula are just as xenophobic as he warned Cassafin. Meanwhile, Dominic's mother is not happy with either of her two headmaster candidates. On the bright side, Dominic and Melna finally get a chance to, well, be intimate.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Mike's mom is blaming Dave for not saving her son. Not that Dave was there, but if he had been more responsible, maybe they could have gotten Mike help in time.

Schlock Mercenary — The rest of the mercenaries delay Kevyn's departure, and meanwhile he's restored to his more human form. He's happy to be back to normal. And Elf is happy that he's back, and planning to move in. Petey may or may not be happy... it's hard to tell. But in the meantime, he has a job for Tagon's crew.

Sluggy Freelance — Riff discovers Bun-bun's little flea market, and tries to buy some explosives off of him. It seems that Riff has no plans to hide Aylee... he simply wants to kill her. Nerdboy's not going to be happy, and even Bun-bun likes Aylee. But Bun-bun and Riff do work together to keep the government from digging up the house.

Day by Day — The hypocrisy of the global warming prophets is pure gold for Chris Muir. Meanwhile, Jan is learning to deal with all sorts of military junk, from paperwork to tough female soldiers to body armor to military planes. Sounds fun.

Scary Go Round — Right on the verge of capturing the leprechaun, Hugo shows up, bringing with him the woman Ryan was chatting up at the airport. She quickly concludes that Ryan must be nuts, since he's trying to capture a leprechaun. If only!

Dominic Deegan — Jacob shows up, and he and Dominic, despite their differences, quickly discover that something much different from what they expected is going on. The destruction of Maltak is actually its purification. Of course, Jacob slips out when Dominic isn't looking, and continues his own experiments on a certain Elemental. Yeah, Jacob's evil, but he usually only torments the nasty ones, so it's hard to get too worked up.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — So Mike really is dead, and April's in hiding. Well, that's a bummer. I've never been a big fan of Mike, but I did like April at one point. She's gone downhill quite a bit if she's now a murderer.

Schlock Mercenary — Kevyn's called the calvary, and Tagon comes for the pick-up, taking care of any of Shufgar's remaining soldiers. What he hears about Kevyn's performance is pretty impressive, but it seems that Kevyn's not interested in continuing the mercenary job.

Sluggy Freelance — Schlock narrowly escape, but draws the attention of Hereti-corp in the process. Schlock discovers that Aylee's horn contains no DNA, that's it's just ordinary rock, which is what Torg's discovered as well. It'll be interesting to see how this Kesandru Aylee plays out. We do find out what happened to Kiki... it appears that Bun-bun retrieved her.

Day by Day — After dealing with the military's paperwork, Jan has some trouble with the sexism of the female soldiers she's meeting. Jan's worldview has trouble with all sorts of things. But don't worry, there's still time to make fun of some prominent Democrats.

Scary Go Round — So one god captured, on to the next, and Ryan's trying to capture a leprechaun. It's not going well, but at least he hasn't been lavaed to death by a volcano god. Speaking of which, how do these guys qualify as gods? I'd hardly rank them as tough monsters.

Dominic Deegan — Cassafin ignores Dominic's advice and decides to go to the orc homelands anyway. That wasn't such a smart idea. Although she recruits a royal knight for protection, the Shintula quickly turn her away, destroying her supplies in the process.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Wait, wait, wait! Did April just kill Mike? It sure looks like it. There's a funeral and his family's there and everything. Of course, no one's actually saying who's funeral it is, and Harry was in a pretty bad way the last we saw of him... It could be a bait and switch, or it could be a bait and switch of a bait and switch. Either way, it's not looking good.

Schlock Mercenary — With the help of Schlock, and a gun implanted in his frontal lobe, Kevyn quickly defeats Shufgar. Now the team's back together and everyone's happy. Except Shufgar and his goons, who're badly injured. And Pronto, who's dead. And the rest of the mercenaries, who are bummed that Pronto's dead. Okay, so no one's happy, but things are still looking up.

Sluggy Freelance — We finally leave Torg and Aylee as they leave the mall. They've finally gotten tired of the cruelty they were inflicting on the ghouls. They may be soulless monsters, but there's fighting evil and there's just being mean. Now we're back to Sluggy Prime and get to see what the government's up to. It looks like they have a lead on Schlock.

Day by Day — Jan meets the military in Kuwait. It promises to be enlightening for both of them. Meanwhile, the Democrats are looking for enemies, and spending a lot of time fighting each other and their base.

Scary Go Round — The team's boat converts to a sub, and their soon underwater, where they find the real kraken. Moon goes hunting, and soon she's reeling in one really big fish.

Dominic Deegan — Dominic does his best to talk Jacob out of murdering Nielen. The thing is, I'm not sure why he'd even want to. Is it some twisted sense of family loyalty that drives him? Dominic does his best to talk him down, then runs to try to explain to Cassafin why going to Maltak is very dangerous, what with the xenophobic Shintula clan on the way.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Margaret does her best to convince Diane that Roger's been selling his body. What a twisted way to win back a girl! It seems to work, though. I just hope Mike can stop April from doing anything rash with that knife.

Schlock Mercenary — After realizing that Pronto doesn't have Kevyn's self-repairing nanotech, Shufgar decides to shoot Elf. Just as he's about to get on with it, his sweep team finds Kevyn. He orders them to execute him, but it looks like Kevyn has the advantage.

Sluggy Freelance — So Torg and Aylee go to the mall and have some more ghoul fun. I'm hoping they'll be reaching the end of this soon... I'm getting tired of it.

Day by Day — Damon helps Sam with her crossword puzzle, although his sarcasm makes it hard to take his answer seriously. Meanwhile, Zed and Jan arrive in Kuwait.

Scary Go Round — So what's up with the freaky kraken cultists and their fake kraken? Something weird's going on here, but I really want to see the real kraken soon.

Dominic Deegan — It's gone... all gone. The orc homeland has been wiped out. The academy students do their best to help out, while Dominic does the same with a pebble from the destroyed orc homeland. Unfortunately, in the meanwhile, Jacob is up to no good.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — The dragon's goons kick Dave out of the helicopter, while Marsha takes a knife to April. Fortunately, her crazy jealousy fit is a lot less murderous than it used to be.

Schlock Mercenary — Shufgar captures the mercenaries and brings them back to the hideout, where he asks them about Kevyn. Of course, they don't know Kevyn's still alive... er, alive again, so the questioning confuses and insults them. And then Shufgar shoots Pronto. Aw, I liked Pronto.

Sluggy Freelance — Torg's flashback explaining how they got to the ghoul universe ends up being really short, which is good, as avoiding weeks' worth of flashback allows us to find out that Aylee has Kesandru runes on the inside of her body. Ooh, interesting! Torg's dreams say that she's really dead, but the runes are using her ghost to power her massive body... a sort of soul-powered zombie, I guess. Seems needlessly complicated to me, so I'm not assuming Aylee's undead yet. As if things weren't bad enough, both of them are having dreams about a strange guy in a robe who's after Aylee. Hmm, I wonder... do you think that it could be that in this universe, Kesandru managed to return? I'm not sure where the ghouls come from, but it would explain why they aren't showing the robed guy's face, if it's really Torg's, and Torg did say that the events in this universe happened about five years ago, while the Kesandru incident happened four years ago, in 2003.

Day by Day — Damon and Sam are missing their significant others, but otherwise getting along fine. They fight less with each other than with Jan and Zed. Not that this keeps them completely out of trouble. The other person getting in trouble is Pelosi on her trip to Syria

Scary Go Round — Amy tries to convince the witch to teach her magic, without much success. In the meantime, Moon gets an invitation from the Lord of the island, who apologizes for the sons Moon beat up.

Dominic Deegan — Nielen flees Runcible Spoon's job offer, but it turns out that it was just a ruse. Miranda hasn't made her selection yet. While she's still trying to decide, she hears from Donovan, who has news from the Orc homeland. It doesn't sound good... everything and everyone has been destroyed.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Marsha corners April, and judging by the knife she's holding at her throat, she's not happy. I'm wondering how this one's going to end. It's not like Marsha's incapable of violence. Meanwhile, Dave and Blue are trying to get her Dad treatment, but Dave's attempts to explain himself aren't helping.

Schlock Mercenary — While Kevyn hides, the others reach the edge of the continent, and Elf tries to convince them to turn back and take on Shufgar. Pronto unwisely hits on Elf, and receives a warning from Nick that Elf is cursed, so he doesn't want to go there. This prompts Elf to kiss them all, since, if they're doomed anyway, they might as well help her.

Sluggy Freelance — Concerned that Zoe might bring the wrath of the Feds if she blabs about Aylee on the radio, they use her camel tattoo curse to keep her home. Are they prepared to deal with the wrath of Zoe, though? And while Zoe and Gwynn spend some quality time together, Torg's off in another dimension fighting ghouls. So why can't he end up in a pleasant dimension. Even the Dimension of Lame, while pleasant enough to visit, got invaded by demons.

Day by Day — Zed and Jan leave for Iraq, and now Sam and Damon are on their own. They aren't getting along too well. Jan's having some trouble dealing with her carefully non-profiled fellow passengers on the trip there.

Scary Go Round — While trying to learn more about the Kraken, some rowdy guys give Moon trouble. She quickly puts them in their place, and attracts the attention of the local lord in the meantime.

Dominic Deegan — Nimmel tries to deal with Nielen and gets his butt kicked. Luna helps, but doesn't want to deal with Nielen and is nearly attacked for ignoring him when the sheriff arrives and puts an end to it. Turns out that was Nimmel's plan in the first place, although he still gets community service. Miranda then disciplines Nielen, by calling in the new headmaster...

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Margaret finds Mike and wakes him up, and he quickly realizes that they've got to do something about Satan's plans. He's going to help Roger with Diane... I hope he's quick enough.

Schlock Mercenary — With his life about to be snuffed out, Kevyn convinces the nanobots to dump some rocket fuel into his cells. He's got thirty seconds to escape incineration and find someplace where he can heal. Somehow, he manages the escape, but now what?

Welcome to the sixty-seventh Storyblogging Carnival. We have five entries this time. I won't bother writing a long introduction, and instead we can jump straight to the stories.

---

Small Packages
by Jeremiah Lewis at Fringeblog
A 50 word brief story rated PG.

A man contemplating suicide sees something that changes his mind.

---

Loneliness
by Jeremiah Lewis at Fringeblog
A 50 word brief story rated PG.

A girl sees her singleness as a measure of time.

---

Taxing Times
by Mad Kane at Mad Kane's Humor Blog
A 570 word brief story rated PG.

Humorous adventures in tax return preparation.

---

Faithful are the Wounds of a Friend
by Donald S. Crankshaw of Back of the Envelope
A 970 word brief story rated PG.

While technically more of a homily, this story recounts some painful, yet helpful, real life events.

---

The Shaft
by Andrew Ian Dodge of Dodgeblogium
A 1391 word short story rated PG-13.

It takes place just after the Norman invasion. A man gets an odd knife from a Saxon raider.

---

This concludes the sixty-fifth Storyblogging Carnival.

If you'd like to take part in a future carnival, please contact me. I am also looking for hosts. Other carnivals can be found here.

The Storyblogging Carnival can be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival.

Sluggy Freelance — Gwynn and Riff go to live with Zoe, which is a measure of their desperation, as they haven't been on speaking terms with her recently. They suspect that Zoe intends to use their predicament in her radio show, which could be very bad, if the Feds find out about Aylee.

Day by Day — Al Gore, Helen Thomas, Mayor Bloomberg, and television families are all properly mocked. The best part, though, is the wedding discussions between Sam, Zed, Jan, and Damon.

Scary Go Round — Len's in charge of overseeing the missions, while Shelley prepares for a trip to the moon. I'm not quite sure how she plans to get there without some help from a rocket scientist, or at least Tim. Moon (the woman, not the satellite), Desmond, and Ernest, meanwhile, begin their hunt for the kraken.

Dominic Deegan — Melna and Luna get very, very drunk, which is probably not a good idea. Dominic's taking care of his hungover girlfriend when Neilen drops by for an assault. I'd say it's time for him to go.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Harry's confused by everyone's fear of Dave. When he tries to shoot him, he gets some laservision for his trouble and learns right quick. Hopefully, Dave's demo hasn't put him into cardiac arrest. April gets some comfort from Paul in the meantime.

Schlock Mercenary — Kevyn makes good use of Schlock to keep the mercenaries undetected. Then they make some fur loincloths so the artist doesn't need to bother with strategic plant placement anymore. And with that, Kevyn's memories come to an end just in time for him to discover that his body's about to be incinerated by Shufgar's men.