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[PassiveTheory]

Seriously. There is no fucking plot development with this guy. It's the same circle over and over again. There are WAY more interesting characters that have emerged in his wake. That, or find a better use of him than just "oh hey, Steve's drunk with a beard and seeing the Tequila monster again, oh joy".

[CarrionMan]

Playa hater.

[Surgoshan]

Hate the game, man.  Hate the game.

[Tybalt]

Then that only leaves Marten and Sven as major male characters.  You see the problem here?

[est]

Do you perhaps think that this might be the start of something where Steve gets some plot development or perhaps from what Jeph said in his update maybe this is just a strip to tell people who constantly email him about Steve to shut the hell up?

[nobo]

I agree, Steve is the only legit realistic character. Why ruin this fantasy world with an accurate portrayal of a guy in his mid 20s?

[Surgoshan]

Steve can't die.

His girlfriend will die, and he'll become Batman.

[-Karamazov-]

I don't like the fact that Steve has now become the depressing figure.  Originally he was Marten's character foil, the person who always seemed happy and could get a date as easily as he could tie his shoes.  But ever since the episode with Ellen, he become a wuss.  He even more depressing than Marten was.  It made him an uninteresting character, which I guess is why we don't see him anymore. 

Steve needs a revamp.  Especially so Marten can at least hang out with other guys again.

[sleepless3]

Y'know, it isn't unrealistic to have an uneven number of male vs. female characters in one's life. Lots of groups of friends tend to contain more of one or the other, so perhaps it doesn't matter if there are very few male characters.

That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the talking alcohol bottles!

(...now, off I trot to the, "Hi, I'm new," threads..)

[PassiveTheory]

I don't even think a revamp is in order. This is either going to be a one-shot panel or a rehashed story of "Oh, hi there Steve, looks like you lost your way YET AGAIN. It's not like you could ever have ANY concrete character development on your own, so now Super Marten is here to save the day!" I mean that was funny once, but if it's going to be nearly the same goddamn story, you can count me out.

Granted, if this is just a one-shot so that no one asks about Steve ever again (couldn't he have just been eaten by an Allosaurus), this was a shitty way to write him off; as the drunk drunk drunk drunk loser guy.

It's not about Marten's harem or the fact he has no dude friends anymore, it's just mere regression. I don't even care about Steve that much and I still think this was stupid.

[Smiles]

Calm the balls down, its just a comic.

[Jeff7]

Him dying would help keep Meena employed.

[est]

MAN FUCK YOU GUYS IF THIS TURNS INTO ONE OF THOSE STORY ARCS WHERE THERE'S WORDS AND PICTURES I'M GOING HOME

[Chymes]

steve was my favourite part of the strip... but seems jeph just don't care about him anymore. recycling the same story is a bit naff.. and probably meant to be so. it's better to burn out than to fade away, my my, hey hey.

[raoullefere]

I think Steve has turned a corner, from silly self-inflicted depression to serious shit. I suspect there is something really, really wrong with Meena and whosname, the smiley guy (oh, yeah, Dave). I wonder how big a fan Jeph is of Dexter? Or of St. Elsewhere (remember Peter)?

[benji]

I don't like the fact that Steve has now become the depressing figure.  Originally he was Marten's character foil, the person who always seemed happy and could get a date as easily as he could tie his shoes.  But ever since the episode with Ellen, he become a wuss.  He even more depressing than Marten was.  It made him an uninteresting character, which I guess is why we don't see him anymore. 

Steve needs a revamp.  Especially so Marten can at least hang out with other guys again.

Remember the Wheel of Fortune from high-school English Classes? Steve is still Marten's foil. Early in the series, Steve was happy, dating regularly, and seemed to have his life together, while Marten was mopey and depressed and couldn't figure his love life out. Now Marten is happy with a relatively straightforward love life, and Steve is embroiled in some sort of complex situation and its making him depressed. The wheel turns.

Anyway, I always thought Steve was kind of boring as a character. His girlfriends always seemed more interesting then he ever was. In the early days, he filled the role of Marten's best friend and confidant, but that torch has passed to others. Also, the story isn't really about Marten nearly so much any more. He's still around, but it's much more of an ensemble cast and since Steve's primary purpose was to foil Marten, that purpose becomes dramatically less important as the story becomes less about Marten specifically. The whole Meena and Dave thing could have developed in to a strong enough plot to merit Steve being a part of of the ensemble, but it didn't really take off, and at this point I'm kind of disinterested.

[Abigmoron]

MAN FUCK YOU GUYS IF THIS TURNS INTO ONE OF THOSE STORY ARCS WHERE THERE'S WORDS AND PICTURES I'M GOING HOME

I figured you should know that this made me laugh and spit cheerios out of my mouth in the middle of the dining hall.

Excellent work!

[Liz]

Aww, Est, they love you! It's so cute.

[Liz]

Est you can be my queen any day, baby.

[-Karamazov-]

Remember the Wheel of Fortune from high-school English Classes? Steve is still Marten's foil. Early in the series, Steve was happy, dating regularly, and seemed to have his life together, while Marten was mopey and depressed and couldn't figure his love life out. Now Marten is happy with a relatively straightforward love life, and Steve is embroiled in some sort of complex situation and its making him depressed. The wheel turns.

Sorry, I meant to say that since Steve is no longer a commonly appearing character, we don't get to see him in contrast with Marten anymore.  I meant to say that marten seems to have no character foil anymore.

[raoullefere]

I'm not sure about that. In a way, Steve can still be comsidered a foil. Marten has become involved in a somewhat complicated relationship with his girlfriend and his ex-fixation, and is doing a fairly good job of maintaining an even keel.

Last time we saw Steve's relationship, it, too, had become complicated. And now we get this.

So maybe Steve is still foilin' away. And with that beard, he's looking sharp while doing it!

[Surgoshan]

Hey, let's suppose Jeph's willing to let QC go somewhere dark.

Maybe Steve's not drunk because his relationship is on the rocks.

Maybe Steve's relationship is on the rocks because he's a drunk.

[Dazed]

Steve can't die, someone still has to make an honest woman out of Hanners.

Hey, if anyone can clean up Steve, it would be Hanners.   

[MC]

I don't think Steve should be killed off.... but I think he should be forgotten about.

Here's a list of characters we haven't seen for awhile:

Steve

Ellen

Amir

Natasha

Sarah

Jimbo

[I was gonna put Raven, but she is much more recent than the others listed above are]

here's a list of new characters:

Will

Penelope

Hanners

Sven's intern lady [is she still unnamed btw?]

[and a few others that escape me]


you guys need to realize that Jeph is up in the fucking 1000s with his comic... it is going to get real boring real fast if he doesn't switch up the cast every 500 strips or so [at least!]. Jeph slights some characters and than creates some new ones..... i say that's a pretty damn smart move if you ask me considering how massive his comic is.

[Rocketman]

Ellen and Natasha left the comic, though.

[KamikaziCal]

Hanners is new now..?

[MC]

keep in mind "new" is a relative word, what I really meant was "characters that have been added sense strip 500 and have yet to be removed"

[raoullefere]

Since we're wending our way away from the topic anyway, I've always disliked that phrase 'make an honest woman out of her.' Like all women are criminals until someone slaps their brand on 'em. Or like they become honest after said brand is applied.

As for killing characters, it hit me that so far only one person has died on QC (possibly being Allosaur-nommed aside), and that was 'offstage.' I'm speaking, of course, of Faye's father. So if Steve does buy the farm, kick the bucket, etc. etc. through alcohol poisoning, it will be something new for QC, won't it?

I'm trying to think the last time I saw a comic character killed off in a humourous comic in the vein of QC. Bill that Cat doesn't count, since he keeps/kept coming back. I guess it would have to be in Jip, a very good student-drawn 'funny animal comic' that ran in the Daily Mississippian (the university newspaper at U.M., aka Ole Miss) about fifteen years* ago. A guy named Jay (A lion, as I recall: Raven would be pleased) died, for reasons I cannot recall.

*or twenty. Time keeps on slippin'.

[Surgoshan]

No no, unmarried women* aren't criminals.  They're unbranded cattle that have wandered from the herd.  See, you're forgetting that as recently as the 1960s, women were still the hemidemisemiquaver-property of their nearest living male relative.  They were unable to purchase significant property, get a job, move significant funds etc without the consent of that relative.  Hence asking her father for permission to marry her.  Thus an unmarried woman in flagrante delicto with a man was not so much a criminal as a bad slave.  She was lowering her property value without permission.

However, for quite some time, that was a criminal act akin to sodomy.  In many places, it probably still is a criminal act.

* ie 'whores'

[Siibillam-Law]

You can't really just forget about Steve. It would be like getting rid of a heap of Marten's life before QC. MC listed a bunch of cast members who weren't there any more, let's ignore Sarah (she's the one who got eaten, right?) Ellen (gone) and Natasha (quit the band). We only see Amir during band practise (although it would be a nice change to see him do something else) and Jimbo is more of a special guest star than anything else.
For all we know this is building up to something. Remember Steve's crush on Penelope? Now she's got herself dates, it would be the awesome time for him to swoop in there, and make a little arc concerning him and Wil. Steve doesn't make regular appearances but he's got his own life. In another post, someone's discussed the timeline of QC and it appears not an awful lot of QC time has passed since we las actually saw him. Let him live his life; he'll appear when Jeph needs him in a story.
By the way what is up with Sven's intern? She just appeared like that. Reckon it's going anywhere?

[nobo]

I disagree.

Take two guys that are good buddies. When one gets a girlfriend, usually his best buddy takes a back seat. Maybe not at first, but as the relationship progresses the buddy becomes a smaller and smaller part of his friend's life.

[Siibillam-Law]

To be honest, when I'm in a relationship I find my friendship with my mates (espcially my best friend) grows more than anything else. You don't hang out with them as much, but you don't just leave them out of your life. Now you got something even more fun to talk about with him when you do hang out: your girlfriend. It seems Marten just wants to spend every living second with Dora or Faye which i never quite understood. He doens't seem to have any guy friends to talk to anymore. It doesn't really seem natural

[nobo]

i guess thats where you and I are different. The guy that I consider my best buddy and I barely ever talk. We can go months at a time without talking or seeing each other. but when we do hang out its like nothing has changed, and we've actually gotten closer in this time off.

[look out! Ninjas!]

nobo are you really me in disguise?

[nobo]

Absolutely.

[Surgoshan]

Allow me to present you with a graph:



The opening phase of a relationship is sometimes known as the "honeymoon" or "hands-on" phase.  In short, the other can do no wrong and there's a heck of a lot of sexing.  The sexing dies down a little bit, but there is a relatively steady amount (averaging the anniversary highs with the monthly lows).

When a man can have sex... he does not choose to go bowling instead*.  Friends are not forgotten, nor do they disappear, but they do tend to fall by the wayside, at least a little.

Things are made easier when the GF was part of the dude's social group before sexing began.  This wasn't exactly the case for Marten.  He was friends with Steve.  Then he met Faye.  Then she moved in.  Then he met Faye's boss.  Then he moved.  Then he got fired.  Then he started going out with Dora.  In the meantime, Steve met a girl.  Then he broke up with that girl.  Then he met another girl.  These guys... their lives are tumultuous.  Like whoa.  I'm surprised Marten still has Steve's number!

*  Tell me you spend as much time with your friends during the honeymoon as you did before you met the girl.  Just try and say it.

[-Karamazov-]

I have spent just as much time, if not more, with my good male friends during the "Honeymooning" phase.  Though, in your defense I currently live with 2 of those best friends and the other is my neighbor.

[JReynolds]

Two minor points, of little value:

1) A wise man said: 'if you put five cents into a jar every time you have sex in the first two years of a long-term relationship, and take 25 cents out of the jar every time you have sex after that, the jar will never run out of money'.
    a) Not sure about the truth of this one-- haven't been in a relationship that has lasted more than 2 years
2) One of the things that I recall from the excellent book What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England is that when a man married, it gave him the excuse to end any male friendships that he didn't want any more. If he continued being friends with someone, that was OK; if he didn't call on them or otherwise treated them as strangers, that was socially acceptable behaviour.

[Rocketman]

    a) Not sure about the truth of this one-- haven't been in a relationship that has lasted more than 2 years

I read that the chemicals in the brain that create the lovey-dovey sensation stop being produced after two years.

Basically, it's the primitive part of your brain going "What?! It's been two years and you still haven't reproduced? Something must be wrong with her! Back off, we'll find another." 

[Siibillam-Law]

In one of the quite recent story arcs, Marten has an argument with Dora and then he meets up with Steve and they all have a good time, and both the story and newspost talk about how long it's been since they've last seen Steve. Just cos we ain't seeing im don't mean he isn't going to stick around. Right now, with the current Sven/Faye Dora's money issues, Wil/Penny stories there isn't that much room for Steve. Wait till the right opportunity comes around. I'm not sure I like what Jeph did with that strip, to be honest, cos now it's brought Steve back to his drinking and shit, when he could've played a large role in another arc, had people not emailed the shit out Jeph

[Surgoshan]

Frankly, I think Steve should become a vampire.  The strip needs a little more weird.

[raoullefere]

Steve strikes me as many things, but a creature of the night isn't exactly one of them. Although I admit he seems to be sucking the bottle-people dry.

Still, most of the weirdness of QC seems to stem from technology we could have, but don't. So we need to think of something along those lines to channel Steve down. What could be done? Hmm. Laser installed, done, on Pintsize; romance with machine, done (more or less), with Hanners; trouble with government, internet romance, gluing pubes to one's head, creepy alternate sex fetish, cosplay, furniture modification, all done, by Pintsize. The little freak guy has covered a lot of territory, hasn't he? Stalked by techno-crazy, done, by Sven and Steve; become super-hero, possibly done by Penelope and/or Sara.

Now we're moving to lifestyles. Hmm, family members come out of closet, done, by Faye; adventures in sex trade, done, by Veronica; mental illness, done, and done, and done; hobo, done, by Benji; alcoholism, perhaps done by Faye, and Steve's workin' on it now. Sex change? As bad as Steve's track record is with women, I'm not sure being one would improve him any.

So maybe we are left with the supernatural. Got it: what if Steve dies of alcohol poisoning and then takes up haunting Marten because Marten never told him, 'Hey, alky, get some help"?

[Surgoshan]

They could always do the sci-fi mind switch, then have the chick-in-steve's-body get killed...

[tragic_pizza]

Since we're wending our way away from the topic anyway, I've always disliked that phrase 'make an honest woman out of her.' Like all women are criminals until someone slaps their brand on 'em. Or like they become honest after said brand is applied.

As for killing characters, it hit me that so far only one person has died on QC (possibly being Allosaur-nommed aside), and that was 'offstage.' I'm speaking, of course, of Faye's father. So if Steve does buy the farm, kick the bucket, etc. etc. through alcohol poisoning, it will be something new for QC, won't it?

I'm trying to think the last time I saw a comic character killed off in a humourous comic in the vein of QC. Bill that Cat doesn't count, since he keeps/kept coming back. I guess it would have to be in Jip, a very good student-drawn 'funny animal comic' that ran in the Daily Mississippian (the university newspaper at U.M., aka Ole Miss) about fifteen years* ago. A guy named Jay (A lion, as I recall: Raven would be pleased) died, for reasons I cannot recall.

*or twenty. Time keeps on slippin'.

It happened to Davan's mother in "Something Positive."

[Surgoshan]

It happened in Sluggy Freelance.  People do claim that it had gone Cerebus by then.

[eddie]

Steve should go to rehab or wake up naked next Jimbo after a severe bender.

[kamorth]

I seem to remember something about Steve falling out of a closet once

Does anyone know which comic that was or am I mixing it up with something else?

[GenericName]

It was a guest comic.

[raoullefere]

Way back in http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=155. Which happens to be just about my favorite appearance of Steve in QC. THe tequila monster may top it. Maybe. "Why didn't anyone come looking for me?" 

I had no idea Dave Sim had gone, well, whatever it was he went. When I was reading it, Cerebus was just sword and sorcery—with an aardvark.

[hmhieshetter]

aww c'mon. he just got re-introduced! give him another chance. i think, at the very least, he needs to have a comeback which will redeem him from his whimp-ass ways. plus, don't you want to know what happened to him and the morgue girl? did she end up with her creepy housemate again? or did she...die? that would be ironic. then who would prepare HER body?? lol
i like steve. give him a chance. i think marten needs more guy friends anyway...besides that one guy who works in the library with him. er, wait. that's a girl. she has a clit piercing. lol.