Back of the Envelope

It's on time for once!

Sluggy Freelance — Torg was acting his usual goofy self until he ran into Zoe. Now Gwynn has a plan to test whether Zoe really is the reason for his depression (she is, in a way, what with the death of Alt-Zoe and Torg's ambivalence over what their relationship really meant). However, Torg disappears with Kiki before we get any definitive results, and a mysterious package arrives for Torg. And just as we expect to shift to Oceans Unmoving, we get a Torg Potter storyline! Now I'm not a big fan of the Torg Potter, but I like Torg better than Bun-bun, so I see this as a mostly positive development. And this time Kiki's along for the ride as Torg's familiar. Well, better her than Bun-bun, but I would have liked to have seen Aylee as a familiar.

Day by Day — For the most part, it's the MSM that gets the full extent of this week's mockery, but there's enough left over for the middle-aged and some really goofy ideas: like reintroducing predators to the Great Plains.

Scary Go Round — Fallon gets killed. Again! And Shelley is not at all happy that Tim, Ryan, and Hugo killed her zombie clone thinking it was her. She's moving to Oldburne with Amy.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Dave's spirit is willing but his flesh is weak. It's hard to look away from a naked Margaret, but why is she crying? When he finally manages to get inside without being caught for peeping, she attempts to evade his questions about her tears by dropping the towel anyway. There's actually a chance that it won't work, considering Dave didn't brainwarp quite as badly as usual when he saw her through the window. Ah, who are we kidding? It's Dave! Meanwhile, Mike agrees to spend Spring Break with his Dad if his "boyfriend," meaning Dave, and his pervert friends, meaning the rest of the Roomies, can come too. Dave's not going to be happy about having to pretend to be Mike's gay lover, but Mike'll probably give him the choice of that or repaying him for the phone Dave threw out the window. And finally, it looks like Steve and Waldo survived the jump to escape Lily, whom they thought was Roger cross-dressing. When they decide she actually was a woman, Steve jumps to the conclusion that Roger turned himself into a girl using the purple sheep. It's quite a leap, even for them, but they're idiots. Unfortunately, they're idiots with infernal luck on their side, so there's a non-trivial chance that they're right about the sheep's abilities. But what do they want with a gender-bending sheep?

General Protection Fault — Star Trek and Star Wars have come to an end, and Dexter is in withdrawal. So he decides to write his own science fiction, and goes to Ki for advice on writing. If he comes up with something good, he should submit it to the Storyblogging Carnival.

Schlock Mercenary — Kevyn convinces Tagon that the Integrity is in pretty good shape, and it's time to get to work repairing it. Meanwhile, Schlock and future-Schlock meet for the first time, and prepare for an information exchange--by eating parts of one another. Ew! But you already knew amorphs were like that.

Another week, another late update.

Sluggy Freelance — The demons are back! K'Z'K's crew is looking to pick up the pieces and prepare the way for another sentient piece of K'Z'K. Meanwhile, they've taken over Meander from the 28 Geeks Later storyline, which is too bad, even if she is a minor character.

Day by Day — Cindy Sheehan, the MSM, Air America, and Christopher Walken get the attention they deserve. And sometimes, I too wonder what it'd be like if Karl Rove were the evil genius he's considered to be.

Scary Go Round — Shelley and Moon shake Fallon and make a bid for freedom, returning to England. I wonder how Shelley will react to her zombie duplicate's capture?

College Roomies from Hell!!! — And we're back! Dave naturally does something stupid. After arguing with Jay, who claims to be sleeping with Blue, he throws Mike's cell phone out the window, then climbs out on the ledge so he can retrieve it without Mike finding out. Not the smartest move, Dave. And now's a very bad time to brainwarp just because you see a half-naked Margaret through the window. You don't want to wind up in Mexico again, do you? Mike, meanwhile, has to deal with his dad, who's shown up for a visit, likely to talk about spring break. Finally, Roger has to tell Lily that their mother is dead. I hope she doesn't go ballistic and try to kill Margaret. If she does, I hope Dave's around. Laservision beats werecoyote every time.

General Protection Fault — Fred's trial wraps up. He's acquitted, while Trent is facing trial for attempting to kill him, which leads to him being fired from his job. And now that Fred's a celebrity, it's going to his head. And who is this strange slime mold named Socrates? Isn't he from the Surreptitious Machinations storyline?

Schlock Mercenary — En route to find their new ship, we learn a little bit about Der Trihs's past. He's always seemed a pretty pathetic figure. It's interesting to learn that he was once a brilliant tactician before he had most of his brain eaten.

And here I thought I'd be starting a new trend and be on time for the future. Ah well, it's back to the usual lateness.

Sluggy Freelance — And we're back to regular comics. Zoe makes a break for it with Meander, but apparently the police won't believe her, even after the infected cloners have blasted off into space. Meanwhile Torg and Riff are attempting to figure out with Zoe is, only to find out that she's returned home. Well, I guess the whole 28 Geeks Later storyline only took a couple of hours in Sluggy time. Zoe's angry at Riff, whose recent plans most certainly have sucked, but not with Torg, whose depression returns the moment he sees her again. Gwynn's right, Zoe broke Torg again. Meander is left wandering around on her own, and when she's accosted by a stranger, she turns all weird and insecty. What the heck is going on? (I technically know, but only because the update is late, so I'm not allowed to tell you.)

Day by Day — Chris makes an appeal for the Cancer Ablation Center, which is treating his sister. All he really wants is for people to visit and raised their profile. Do it now.

Scary Go Round — Mayor Tim and his friends manage to capture the zombie Shelley, but the real Shelley is stuck in Portugal with Moon and Fallon. Their inability to speak the language is hindering their attempts to return home.

General Protection Fault — And the fact that Trent was convicted of attempted murder comes out. His attempts to harm Fred come into a much more sinister light once that happens, as it's clear that he's capable of murder and he admits he expected his attempts to kill the sentient slime mold.

Schlock Mercenary — Tagon gathers a team to retrieve the spaceship Schlock's future-self has collected as salvage. If they can pull this off, they have a ship and can start taking on contracts. Meanwhile, Tagon successfully misses all the clues Elf is dropping until Kevyn out-and-out tells him that she's interested in him.

Woohoo! It's on time for once!

Sluggy Freelance — While Pete again alternated the story comics with sketches and Z-com comics, we got some good story progress this week. The zombgeeks manage to outwit the crazy-stupid security guys, but zombgeek head cloner guy apparently didn't get quite the dose of bugs of the others, and kindly slips his employee badge to Zoe so she and his sister, Meander, can make a quick exit. It's the only time I've ever had warm feelings for him.

Day by Day — Blogger injuries are gently mocked, although Jan's and Damon's living arrangements are definitely more interesting.

Scary Go Round — Fallon recruits a reluctant Shelley to help destroy the League of Enemies, convincing her that the archvillains really are up to no good. They blow the island up and escape with marine biologist Moon.

General Protection Fault — And now it's Nicole's turn to question witnesses. She begins by interviewing Fred's friends to testify about his character, then calling Fred to assert that Trent really was trying to kill him. Finally, she calls Trent to the stand, who admits that he doesn't truly believe that Fred's really sentient.

Schlock Mercenary — Tagon's concerned for his mercenary company. They're cleaned out and have no ship, and he's so worried over that that he misses Elf's advances. Fortunately, it turns out that future-Schlock has just acquired a ship, although it's badly damaged.

This is a bit late--sorry, I had a busy weekend and the storyblogging carnival to work on.

Sluggy Freelance — Pete's out-of-town this week, so he mixes Sluggy with Z-Com. In Sluggy, Zoe meets up with the armed security guards holding off the zombies. The problem is that they are all idiots, and quickly shoot Frank and make the moves on Zoe. In a surprise twist, we discover why they're idiots--they've been drugged by none other than Frank, who was running the show before his own son drugged him with the crazy-stupid gas he used on his security guards. That's gotta hurt.

Day by Day — Muir gets his facts mixed up, and his characters give him endless grief about it. Captain Ed gets a mention for passing the 10,000,000 mark on his blog. Don't worry, though, there's the usual mocking of the MSM--can't go a full week without it.

Scary Go Round — Fallon's dead, but she's not going quietly. She's escaped death and is going after the ones responsible. Meanwhile, there's a skull-eating zombie going around, and Shelley's on the top of the list of suspects. It looks like it's her clone, however.

General Protection Fault — Mercedes questions Fred, determining that he was working as a professor with forged documents and that he has anger issues. Dang, this looks bad for him. I hope that his lawyer has something up her sleeve.

Schlock Mercenary — Well, Petey has a bit of a god complex going, and Tagon has lost his ship. It looks like his mercenary company's going to be having financial difficulties for a while.