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"Jimbo!" "Dad!" "CLAIRE?" "...Jimbo?"

28 (35.4%)

Steve (Commence arms race!)

8 (10.1%)

Pintsize & Winslow ("It's been militarized!  RUN!")

20 (25.3%)

"...Tai?  Are you FOLLOWING us?" "Just wanted to see which slashfic played out!"

23 (29.1%)

Total Members Voted: 73

[BenRG]

Just want to point out that Jeph is not plotting this out in any kind of detail in advance - he writes by the seat of his pants, and he's having a very bad week.

Actually, it was my understanding that the plotting and basic sketches are done well in advance; it's only the final strips that are done near to the release date.

[Rghfrgl]

There may well be something to Jeph not wanting to go into gender stuff with Claire, although it is just the first date. Except for sex logistics, which is fine to keep off panel it doesn't need to come up much yet. But I think in a few months it may end up a valid complaint.

The "textured hair phase" lasted a thousand (1659-2659) strips, so we may have to hang on for some time.

Speaking of textures I said once I wish Claire kept her textured hair even if nobody else did. While I still want to see Claire's old hair back, I also have to take that back. If only ONE thing gets to be textured it is those trees. Or just don't draw trees. I skimmed 200 comics(Much faster than it sounds with arrow key navigation, I thought maybe it was 50 or something) looking for a textured tree and, while there were a few trees you just saw the base and not any leaves.

But these NES trees just aren't working.

[AprilArcus]

Reddit AMA:

I have rough plot points (Marten and Padma hooking up, etc) planned out, and I just sort of aim for those. But frequently the comic will go in a different direction than I was expecting, and those plot points will change. I guess you could say I have a longterm plan, but am improvising my way through it.

[tweet]532219027914252289[/tweet]
[tweet]532330111907807233[/tweet]
[tweet]532335151427383298[/tweet]

So there were about eight hours between him finishing the script for 2832 and posting it.

There may well be something to Jeph not wanting to go into gender stuff with Claire, although it is just the first date. Except for sex logistics, which is fine to keep off panel it doesn't need to come up much yet. But I think in a few months it may end up a valid complaint.

If there were just more to Claire right now it would be fine. But since we're not getting to see her being obstreperous, funny, fastidious, fashionable or any of her other character traits, the mind naturally wanders to the Big Deal That We Don't Talk About.

these NES trees just aren't working.

Comparing 2018 to 2731 makes me want to cry.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

What she said.

To expand the point: most writers have something of a plan and are working towards it, especially in Webcomics. Some just work further ahead than others.

Jeph built a buffer once. It didn't work for him.

[BenRG]

@April,

You are, of course, assuming that Jeph was talking about the script of that day's comic. There is no automatic reason to assume that. The other two Tweets are very obviously about the art.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

Based on what actually happens (delay at customs = no comic) and the tweets about scripts proceeding tweets about art, it's a safe assumption that Jeph is working on today's (tomorrow's) comic right now--ish. Script and all.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Like I said, he had a buffer once. It didn't work for him. What he does now does.

I'm pretty sure Jeph writes ahead now and then. I can't imagine he doesn't find himself on a roll. (2682 and 2683 come to mind. There's no way I'll believe he didn't have the gist of 2683 locked in the day 2682 went up.) But based his own comments about guest comic because I couldn't write, and such, Jeph is very likely pantsing most scripts the day of.

It's one of the things that makes his work so impressive.

[Gladstone]

Hannelore, Faye, Tai, Veronica...Who's our next stop on the Marten & Claire Get-Together World Tour?

"Jimbo!" "Dad!" "CLAIRE?" "...Jimbo?"   26 (35.6%)
Steve (Commence arms race!)   8 (11.1%)
Pintsize & Winslow ("It's been militarized!  RUN!")   20 (27.8%)
"...Tai?  Are you FOLLOWING us?" "Just wanted to see which slashfic played out!"   19 (26.4%)

Total Members Voted: 73

[Gladstone]

Starting to agree with April now.  I was originally in the No Time Skips camp, because I wanted to see every moment of this date play out, but if we're going to just keep getting other character reactions and no substantial getting-to-know-you kind of moments, it wouldn't hurt to fast-forward a few days to, perhaps, Faye and Dora at the Coffee of Doom with Faye grumbling about how Marten and Claire have been together all week holding hands and snuggling and just being nauseatingly cute with each other, ugh, and then Angus shows up to say his goodbyes.  Bring a close to that story, kill two birds with one stone, move on.

Then again, I'm also willing to accept that Jeph has had a rough week and wasn't in the mood to do anything but Mom Shenanigans, so I'm willing to wait and see.

[A Duck]

Considering Jeph's had a clearly rough week Assuming from his twitter), I assume the slowdown in plot speed is just him being a little burned out and doing a few silly comics.

I'm sure things will start to pick up soon.

[Natswash]

I'm willing to wait it out for a week or so before worrying about plot pacing. I've had weeks where nothing goes my way and thus my professors wondered what was happening with my papers. I do vote that the trees get texture (I'd like the hair too), but since I doubt Marten is going on many more forest walks soon, we should be okay.
Watch as their next date is going hiking

[Gladstone]

Watch as their next date is going hiking

Well, Marten's about to have a little sister (Eeee!), and Sam is about to get a big sister, if Veronica has her way, so there'll probably be a lot of hiking in future.

Hmm, Claire and Sam haven't met yet, have they?  Looking forward to that happening soon...

[valkygrrl]

Hmm, Claire and Sam haven't met yet, have they?  Looking forward to that happening soon...

Now I'm imagining Claire bringing Sam a book about snakes and commiserating about brothers who can't catch.

[Natswash]

I wouldn't say they're going to be siblings soon... actually if April could give us a Jim/Veronica to now time estimate it would make this easier. (If you're not too busy).

I'm about to go into a shipping overload, but Sam and Claire as sister in laws would be about as worrisome as Marten and Clinton. Unless preteens bring out Claire's maternal instincts. Still should be fun

[valkygrrl]

She's talked about wanting to bring the gift of knowledge to the younger generation through the power of libraries. Mentorial is probably a better word than maternal.

[Natswash]

She could have both, but I think in this context you're probably closer to the truth than I

[Rghfrgl]

 I can't recall if Sam's scared anyone with reptiles. I mean, she's made people jump pulling them out of nowhere, but I mean like pulling out a snake in front of someone scared of snakes.

 Because  would be the perfect victim.

[valkygrrl]

Why would she be scared of snakes? She's tough.

[AprilArcus]

I wouldn't say they're going to be siblings soon... actually if April could give us a Jim/Veronica to now time estimate it would make this easier. (If you're not too busy).

I believe that the "Passage of time in QC..." thread's collective best guess is that "today" is the Tuesday after Labor Day, and that Veronica's date with Jim was the previous Wednesday.

[Natswash]

I wouldn't say they're going to be siblings soon... actually if April could give us a Jim/Veronica to now time estimate it would make this easier. (If you're not too busy).

I believe that the "Passage of time in QC..." thread's collective best guess is that "today" is the Tuesday after Labor Day, and that Veronica's date with Jim was the previous Wednesday.

Thank you AprilArcus for a speedy and succinct answer. So yes, I believe Veronica and Jim have a little ways to go before marriage.
(Wow has it really been that short a time in comic time?!)

[MooskiNet]

So yes, I believe Veronica and Jim have a little ways to go before marriage.

Mind you, she decided to move from California on their first date.  And she can just feel herself getting older.  Might be sooner than you think.

(Wow has it really been that short a time in comic time?!)

It's been a little over two months since Claire met Marten.  Comic time must exist in a Spin-style time envelope.

[AprilArcus]

It's been a little over two months since Claire met Marten.  Comic time must exist in a Spin-style time envelope.

It feels like they've known each other about that long to me; do you disagree?

[MooskiNet]

It's been a little over two months since Claire met Marten.  Comic time must exist in a Spin-style time envelope.

It feels like they've known each other about that long to me; do you disagree?

Not a bit - I was just noting that the passage of two months has taken nearly as many years in Outside time.

Edited to add:  That's an estimate, of course - I'm not sure if there's a way to tie comic numbers to the dates they were posted except by approximation.

[Stoutfellow]

If my calculations (via a trawl of the forum archives) are correct, the comic in which Marten met Claire appeared on June 6, 2012 - so a little over two years, yes.

(Edited. The first version of this post said "June 8, 2010". Not sure how I got that figure....)

[MooskiNet]

Odd, that - the copyright on the bottom of the comic indicates 2012, so I'd thought at most two.  Huh.

[Stoutfellow]

Sorry, I goofed - it was 2012.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

I think Jeph confirmed that the story takes place in comic time. It's both "now" and 2006 in the QC universe. AI are (recently) legal people, and the technological singularity just happened. Also, some bands you never heard of put out albums (making it impossible for them to be the best band alive).

While Jeph's comment was somewhat tongue in cheek, the comic supports what he said. Marten appears to have been born close to the beginning of his parents marriage. They got together in the "70s" with certain elements indicating it was the late 70s.  Jeph said, in his AM A, that Marten was based on himself, and followed his experience from the beginning of the strip until the end of strip 2. Marten's age is about right for that.

Hanners's Mac looks like a fairly modern Mac OS (it gets hard to tell), and "press enter to search" rolled out in 2009 suggesting that it isn't 2006 in the comic, even though it is. I believe Angus's and Claire's cars represent bodystyles that weren't available in 2006. I'm going to bet the new music releases were current at the time the references were made.

It's September 2006 and September 2014 at the same time in the QC verse. In a few months it will probably be September 2015, but not. Unless October happens before December ends.

The preceding sentence was the entire point of this post.

[AprilArcus]

It's easy once you get the hang of it. Thank your lucky stars you aren't trying to pick apart the timeline of the Marvel Universe, because that takes some real mastery of space, time, cognitive dissonance and fannish attention to detail. Check at this masterpiece of cultural hermeneutics by Rachel Edidin on today's episode of Elle Collins podcast "Into It":

Elle: And I feel like that has to resolve the whole All New X-Men thing, which we haven't talked about — which we need to talk about.

Rachel: Oh god. Okay. Let's talk about All New X-Men.

Elle: So All New X-Men is a book where the original five X-men from the Silver Age, which is Jean Grey / Marvel Girl, Cyclops, Angel, Beast and Iceman are pulled out of the past by the Beast of the present day — so they're like 16 years old — and they're pulled into their future, which is like the Marvel Universe that we're used to, where the current Jean Grey is dead and the current Cyclops is a fugitive and maybe a terrorist, and I'm not even going to go into the current Angel. So it's basically like the old story where a superhero team gets pulled into a bleak, apocalyptic future, except their bleak apocalyptic future—

Rachel: Is our present!

Elle: —which I think is a great way to do that story.

Rachel: Yeah! One of the things I find fascinating about it is that I cannot place the original X-men chronologically anymore. The versions that exist in this future are obviously visually informed by the versions from the '60s, and narratively, but they're more directly informed by the versions from X-Men: Season One, which is a standalone graphic novel by Dennis Hopeless that sets those stories in a modern context. But at the same time they're unfamiliar with— there's a great scene fairly early on when teenage Cyclops is wondering whether something happened to the water, because now there's all this bottled water in stores. Which, y'know, anytime from the early '90s— so they got him from before the early '90s at least?



Elle: Yeah.

Rachel: I'm trying to think of what my cornerstones for that are. When did "Heathers" come out?

Elle: Heathers came out I think in '88.

Rachel: 'cause at least at that point bottled water was a thing, but it's used in the movie to specifically code a character as gay, which means that it hadn't entered the full mainstream at that point.



Elle: My God, that was some pop culture detective work.

[celticgeek]

Edited to add:  That's an estimate, of course - I'm not sure if there's a way to tie comic numbers to the dates they were posted except by approximation.

I have the posted dates associated with comic numbers starting from comic Number 1258.

[NemoX]

On the subject of timelines, I love how we as fans care about it and try to make sense of it, yet from the writer's point of view the rule is usually "it serves the purpose of the plot" and unless a time piece, its mostly irrelevant and our suspension of disbelief ends up having to be "just go with it". So long as its self consistent of course. Which so far, it has been

On other news, still no comic

[AprilArcus]

I believe Angus's and Claire's cars represent bodystyles that weren't available in 2006.

Claire appears to drive a Mazda 3 hatchback, which came out in the '04 model year. Dale drives an unidentifiable gray four-door sedan. Tai drives a white SUV with a roof rack. When did we see Angus's car?

[Gladstone]

When did we see Angus's car?

The lake house.

[AprilArcus]

Almost but not quite a Prius?

[Estron]

Well, that tears it.  Jacques has been eaten by an allosaurus.

[stephber]

Almost but not quite a Prius?

Ford Focus, maybe?

[NemoX]

Well, that tears it.  Jacques has been eaten by an allosaurus.

has he mentioned anything on his twitter?

It sucks but I'm sure he has a reason for the delay. He's not the kind to leave us hanging without a good and/or reasonable reason.
That said, hope he is ok,

[SubaruStephen]

Almost but not quite a Prius?

Ford Focus, maybe?

Close

Ford Fiesta

Introduced in 2010

[valkygrrl]

Well, that tears it.  Jacques has been eaten by an allosaurus.

He probably just had some bad cheese dip during D&D night that gave him explosive diarrhea. Which he then tried to plug with a D20 but it got lost in there, resulting in a call to yelling bird to come pull it out. Same old same old.

[stephber]

Well, that tears it.  Jacques has been eaten by an allosaurus.

has he mentioned anything on his twitter?

It sucks but I'm sure he has a reason for the delay. He's not the kind to leave us hanging without a good and/or reasonable reason.
That said, hope he is ok,

I'd like to think he was waiting for my birthday to roll around to post the comic....
....but I do hope Jeph's alright. Although, Yelling Bird atop the CN Tower would be amusing.

[NemoX]

I'd like to think he was waiting for my birthday to roll around to post the comic....
....but I do hope Jeph's alright. Although, Yelling Bird atop the CN Tower would be amusing.

Alternatively, he lost track of time, or fell asleep, or his D&D session went longer than usual. Or maybe he IS waiting for your birthday, which btw, I'm assuming is tomorrow so happy birthday in advance

[explicit]

Well, that tears it.  Jacques has been eaten by an allosaurus.

He probably just got seriously injured. I like to think he got eaten, fashioned a shank out of his glasses, and stabbed his way out. Also, probably got into wacky adventures with all sorts of mystical creatures. Though, those are kinda separate things.

[Gladstone]

Or maybe he met someone sexy?  Think good thoughts, people, good thoughts.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

Dale drives a 2011 or newer Ford Fiesta.

It could be a weird Prius or a Civic. But the large hump in the center of the dash best matches the Fiesta.  The hump first appears in the 2009 model, but becomes more pronounced in 2011.
EDIT EDIT: The center hump in Dale's car is consistent with the same feature in Angus's. It's a Fiesta.

Claire's Mazda is a good match for any 3 from 2004 on, because the 3 doesn't look like that from the rear. The hatch bisects the tail light groups and that's pretty consistent for every model. Newer models seem to have a sport package that might look like Claire's, but only because the entire backup light assembly is on the hatch, with the indicators and break lights on the frame.

There no obvious clues as to the model of Tai's SUV. It appears to be a crossover.

EDIT: Tai appears to drive a Suzuki Forenza Wagon. That could be anything from 05 to 08, iirc

On the subject of timelines, I love how we as fans care about it and try to make sense of it...

I don't know what you mean.

<.<
>.>

Or maybe he met someone sexy?  Think good thoughts, people, good thoughts.

No! Dooooooooooom

[Natswash]

Whatever it is I'm certain he is learning from it. Of course his first training was in how to learn, every experience carries it's lesson etc.

[explicit]

Or maybe he met someone sexy?  Think good thoughts, people, good thoughts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtcSYPjJbgg

[BenRG]

As far as I can tell from Twitter, he may be in Toronto for a concert. If so, it is unlikely that there will be a comic today.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

That would tie up all the speculation for me. The pacing dropped because Jeph's hurting.

Take care bro.


...


*sigh* Okay.

[BenRG]

As far as I can tell from Twitter, he may be in Toronto for a concert. If so, it is unlikely that there will be a comic today.

Orrr... The Twitter photos from his convention photo album.

[jwhouk]

And he may have fallen asleep because of the change of wake-cycle, and the whole issue that may have been triggered at customs. Perhaps he also misplaced some of his meds, and upon taking them at home, they knocked him out?

[Lubricus]

I'm still hoping that Jeph has simply overslept or something. It's not like him to not even post an explanation.

Warning - while you were typing you were ninja'd. You may wish to become a pirate.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

As far as I can tell from Twitter, he may be in Toronto for a concert. If so, it is unlikely that there will be a comic today.

Orrr... The Twitter photos from his convention photo album.

Agreed. It's just not like him to make no comment on the update situation. Since the schedule is Monday to Friday, he has all day tomorrow. Maybe it's nothing.