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Brun and Clinton?

Faye and Bubbles?

Renee and Brun?

Claire and Clinton?

Brun, Renee AND Clinton?

Marten and Claire?

Dora and Tai?

Emily and Cosette?

Hanners, Emily and Cosette?

Marigold, Dale and Momo

Any combination of the above

None of the above - Jeph will surprise us with a week of Guest Comics

A week at The Secret Bakery

Purple Gorilla Dishwasher (RIP HARAMBE)

[brasca]

This has been mentioned in a few other places, but I wonder what you guys think; is Jeph refocusing the comic on Clinton and Brun and Faye? Do you think it's a good idea? No 'this is how it would work', or long debates. But I wonder what other's think.

Any change is bound to please some and displease others.

In this case, I think a different focus was necessary to avoid a rut of "good thing happens to Marten" followed by "bad thing happens to Marten" ad infinitum.

It's also good, I think, for Jeph to have a few ongoing stories up his sleeve to choose from when inspiration strikes.

It's also a good way of using story ideas on a similar, but less defined character to avoid conflicts with previously established history.

[comicalArchitect]

Panel 1 makes me wonder that Brun is going to feel obliged to at least look into taking up curling because she owns a curling jacket. Either that or she'll throw away the jacket because she doesn't want to take up curling!

I think it's the echoing thing some autists do.

I know you didn't mean anything by it, but as an autistic person, I find "autist" kind of an insensitive term.

[heyjames4]

Given Brun's traits, it's not out of the question for her to have memorized Clinton's # back at the motel before the note melted. But it's just as likely # sharing happened between panels 2 and 3.

The typography of the text message exchange is really good. Sans serif font, strict kerning and lines, orthagonal boxes, and overlaid color coded arrows. Very contrast with regular speech balloons. Does a real good job of showing SMS in comic form. It's harder to see in mobile web, didn't appreciate it until I saw it on the big screen.

[ankhtahr]

I think it's the echoing thing some autists do.

I know you didn't mean anything by it, but as an autistic person, I find "autist" kind of an insensitive term.

Yeah, it's weird to be reduced to a diagnosis. It's an aspect of a person, but not the entire person, so I think the adjective "autistic" is preferrable over the substantive "autist". "An autistic person" instead of "an autist".

[pwhodges]

British English dictionaries do not even recognise the word "Autist".

[BenRG]

The word I've most often heard (usually in an artistic context) is 'auteur'.

[Method of Madness]

I like texting for making plans, but for actual conversations I seem to be the rare one in my generation that prefers phone calls.

[Veloso]

How does Clinton text with boxing gloves on a robot hand?

[sitnspin]

His prosthetic works exactly the same as a natural hand. It has tactile sensors and full dexterity.

[cesium133]

Plus, capacitive touch screens are actually better at sensing metal than sensing fingertips (metal has a higher conductivity).

[Nepiophage]

The word I've most often heard (usually in an artistic context) is 'auteur'.

Except that also means a film director/producer/screenwriter

[sitnspin]

I may be psychotic, but I am not A psychotic.

[freeman]

Panel 1 makes me wonder that Brun is going to feel obliged to at least look into taking up curling because she owns a curling jacket. Either that or she'll throw away the jacket because she doesn't want to take up curling!

I think it's the echoing thing some autists do.

I know you didn't mean anything by it, but as an autistic person, I find "autist" kind of an insensitive term.

Well what term would you want to be used for the clinical condition, if not autism? Should I have used "a person of the spectrum", or something?

I know it has not explicitly spelled out yet, but won't you all agree that Brun does a bunch of things that stereotypically go with that disorder. Not all the things, mind you; she's not an over-flanderized caricature. She does have almost a normal range of expressions for example, no blank stare, no over-pronoinced "cartoon expressions" either and no eye-contact problems.

Her basic expression seems to be :O , she has her mouth open a lot.

[Welu]

It isn't mentioning autism that concerned anyone. It's been discussed multiple times in past threads in relation to Brun and by members discussing themselves and their experiences. The term used makes makes someone's entire being about this one part of them and in doing so can erase their personhood.

Ankhtahr already answered your question.

Yeah, it's weird to be reduced to a diagnosis. It's an aspect of a person, but not the entire person, so I think the adjective "autistic" is preferrable over the substantive "autist". "An autistic person" instead of "an autist".

[sitnspin]

The main reason I don't often tell people in real life about my various mental illnesses, is that people have a tendency, when they find out about your mental illness, to only see that and not the rest of you, of which the illness is but a small, if significant, part.

[retrosteve]

Is it just me or is Brun's hair getting... just a little floofier in each panel?

Welp, that's how their world is gonna end. An exponential increase of hair floof.

FLOOFIES MAY RULE

[retrosteve]

I know you didn't mean anything by it, but as an autistic person, I find "autist" kind of an insensitive term.

Yeah, it's weird to be reduced to a diagnosis. It's an aspect of a person, but not the entire person, so I think the adjective "autistic" is preferrable over the substantive "autist". "An autistic person" instead of "an autist".

I don't think "autist" is a word. Makes me think of "starving autist", which I'm pretty certain isn't what's meant.

I think the problem is, as you say, being reduced to a label which covers only a part of who you are.  But then even that isn't always a problem.
I'm happy to be known, for example, at various times as a Canadian, or a computer nerd, or a student. I'm less happy to be known as a jew, or a bad musician, even though I'm those things too.  I think part of the problem is the synecdoche as you say, but part of it is that there's an implied pejorative due to a social stigma on the word. If the stigma goes away, people are less unhappy about being reduced to that trait.

Just a theory.

[jheartney]

Am I the only person that likes gestural typing on a phone? I find it less stressful than trying to hit tiny onscreen keys with my big fumble fingers. Sometimes it generates the wrong words, but then again so does regular smartphone typing.

[freeman]

It isn't mentioning autism that concerned anyone. It's been discussed multiple times in past threads in relation to Brun and by members discussing themselves and their experiences. The term used makes makes someone's entire being about this one part of them and in doing so can erase their personhood.

Ankhtahr already answered your question.

Yeah, it's weird to be reduced to a diagnosis. It's an aspect of a person, but not the entire person, so I think the adjective "autistic" is preferrable over the substantive "autist". "An autistic person" instead of "an autist".

I have to attempt say as my defence that my first language is not English, plus with my language, we hardly have this euphemism-PC-roulette going like you guys do. Our word for "retard" for example is literally "retard", with all the connotations. It's not used to describe a person with autism, though. At least not the mild, can function in society, variety.

Also: Brun, all giddy from the soothing phone noises.

[Gyrre]

Looks like Brun successfully memorized Clinton's phone number after all.

Is it just me or is Brun's hair getting... just a little floofier in each panel?

She's such a Miyazaki fan she learned how to emote with her hair.

[Method of Madness]

@freeman: That might work as a reason for your initial use, but once someone asks you not to continue using that word since it makes them uncomfortable, any justification goes away.

[jwhouk]

And here I thought it was a spell check typo.

Sent from my Nextbook

[freeman]

I'm not sure if I should mull with this subject anymore, but when I was writing the second post, I was thinking: surely, "diabetic" is an acceptable term, so in a similar vein, there should be no problem with "autist".

Apparently, it is not: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2014/12/10/why-diabetic-is-a-dirty-word

Fascinating.

[Storel]

The word I've most often heard (usually in an artistic context) is 'auteur'.

Except that also means a film director/producer/screenwriter

I believe that was the joke.

[oddtail]

Am I the only person that likes gestural typing on a phone? I find it less stressful than trying to hit tiny onscreen keys with my big fumble fingers. Sometimes it generates the wrong words, but then again so does regular smartphone typing.

I hate tiny buttons on a phone, but I have a thing about having full control of what I type. I use a keyboard called MessagEase (it's available for free for the Android and I think other OS as well) with nine buttons where the letter input depends on which direction you swipe a particular button. It's very unwieldy at first (as everyone who has ever picked up my phone can attest), but after a little practice, it's the fastest input method on a phone I've ever used (other than speaking into a phone with voice recognition). It's even fully customizable, so I actually added the missing Polish diacritics to it.

All in all, I enthusiastically recommend it. I have autofill and autocorrect disabled, and yet I type quite fast (given the limitations of the device) and hardly ever make typos.

[Neko_Ali]

I had a phone with a slide out keyboard years back. I could easily thumb-type with that. With my current smart phone though, I really can't do it. I don't even have particularly fat fingers, but the touch screen is so imprecise that I have to type slowly with my index finger and even then it can be hard to press where the thing things the A key is, instead of where it's displayed...

[Kugai]

Let the Texting begin.

And watch Renee freak out

[ZoeB]

Ladies, just out of interest - How many of you think that awkward guys are cute? Not a scientific analysis, of course, but we might as well see how common is Dora and Claire's preference in men!

Awkwardness per se, no. But it's often symptomatic of other qualities that set my heart racing.

[BenRG]

New comic up!

I'm not entirely sure what to say here. On the one hand, this is vintage QC in many ways with a funny dialogue over a deceptively simple scene.

However, I also find myself wanting to talk about what this says about Claire. We've known since the time she insisted that Jim and Veronica would make a cute couple that she's an incurable romantic at heart. However, we've also known for a while that she really, really wants to help people be happy (and is often obnoxiously assertive and/or manipulative about doing so). Yet there is no malice about her; she's motivated entirely by the view that she needs to push people in the right direction because they can't see it themselves for various reasons. It's a conceit, yes, but it's a nice conceit. All she needs (as we've seen in this arc so far) is someone to be there to tell her when to back off.

There really is quite a lot of depth to the character and I think Jeph deserves a thumbs-up for the amount of work he's made to still make her funny and likeable (at least she is to me)!

In the end, though, right now, I can't help but wonder if Clinton is imagining little Chibi Claire inside his sister's head, bouncing off of the walls and ceiling whilst going "SQUUUEEEEEE!!!" Indeed, I could see Jeph develop a whole new strip by having the 'inner' versions of his characters monologue about what they want/like!

[heyjames4]

Not Much today. Plot continues. Characters are characterized. Real good face art.

[Akima]

However, we've also known for a while that she really, really wants to help people be happy (and is often obnoxiously assertive and/or manipulative about doing so). Yet there is no malice about her; she's motivated entirely by the view that she needs to push people in the right direction because they can't see it themselves for various reasons.

Hmm... Perhaps Jeph should have named her Emma, but that shout-out might have been too austentatious. 

[sitnspin]

Yet there is no malice about her; she's motivated entirely by the view that she needs to push people in the right direction because they can't see it themselves for various reasons. It's a conceit, yes, but it's a nice conceit
 

The problem is, this is exactly how religious bigots think. They think they know better than you and try to force youto follow their idea of how you should live your life, for your own food. Actually the same could be said for far left liberals, too, the kind who want to outlaw smoking and junk food. There are always people who want to make you do what they feel is best for you, no matter what you want for yourself. A lack of malice does not make the behaviour any less shitty

[explicit]

If people with good intentions are not willing to listen to constructive criticism  from the people they're "helping", then are their intentions really good? Claire at least seems to be understanding that trying to get people to do certain things "cause they'll be happier that way" isn't as good of an action as she thought. Which is showing that her character is still growing (which is nice because most of the other characters are at a standstill on that point atm).

[brasca]

Yet there is no malice about her; she's motivated entirely by the view that she needs to push people in the right direction because they can't see it themselves for various reasons. It's a conceit, yes, but it's a nice conceit
 

The problem is, this is exactly how religious bigots think. They think they know better than you and try to force youto follow their idea of how you should live your life, for your own food. Actually the same could be said for far left liberals, too, the kind who want to outlaw smoking and junk food. There are always people who want to make you do what they feel is best for you, no matter what you want for yourself. A lack of malice does not make the behaviour any less shitty

I don't think I'd call it shitty, but aggravating.  Even if their heart is in the right place it's extremely bothersome for someone who thinks they know you better to meddle in your affairs.  I completely understand Clinton's original outburst after Claire's botched matchmaking attempt because on a personal level when you reconcile yourself to solitude and a glimmer of hope emerges you get really angry when it all falls through. 

[Zastie]

"A Rich Inner World" I really like this strip's title..

[Kugai]

I like that Clare is keepin' it cool for Clintons sake.

[aliensporebomb]

Chibi Claire!  That made me laugh picturing it.

[Welu]

Immature but the way Clinton's hands in his pockets make a front butt is really funny to me.

[Eastrim]

Wow, this comic is deserves a flood of Not Cool Jeph emails and messages headed his way. An entire comic in the main line referencing something that only the 3.5 thousand Patreon supporters got to see? Not Cool Jeph.

[freeman]

Wow, this comic is deserves a flood of Not Cool Jeph emails and messages headed his way. An entire comic in the main line referencing something that only the 3.5 thousand Patreon supporters got to see? Not Cool Jeph.

If I pay now, can I still see the strip?

Also, this is totally cool. Premium paid content is to what we are generally going as a society, so why not web comics too?

[mikmaxs]

Wow, this comic is deserves a flood of Not Cool Jeph emails and messages headed his way. An entire comic in the main line referencing something that only the 3.5 thousand Patreon supporters got to see? Not Cool Jeph.

If I pay now, can I still see the strip?

Also, this is totally cool. Premium paid content is to what we are generally going as a society, so why not web comics too?

Paid premium content is fine. Making it so that the free content is worse unless you also have the paid content is not so fine.

YMMV, but I for one didn't really think this comic was funny. I didn't get the joke, because unlike the "We're talking about something zany the audience doesn't get to see" comics, it's approached here as though the audience knows exactly what they're talking about.
Since I don't know what they're talking about, though, the intro is confusing and the punchline isn't very funny.
It feels as though Jeph is saying "Go sign up on my Patreon! It's funny, I swear!"

I won't begrudge him too much, because his comic is a free publication and he can do whatever he wants with it, but it's a sub-par writing choice and comes off as self promotion in the place of humor.

[Tova]

If you didn't find it funny, then knowing something about what caused it won't make it funnier.

Edit: to go a bit further into it, Patreons know what Marigold was yelling about, but are no wiser than you are about how Dale ended up with concussion. The humour, either way, lies in wondering how the heck that happened.

Edit number two: The whole conversation is basically a noodle incident.

[wlewisiii]

Frankly I got a bigger kick out of seeing Brun walking by in the background texting away,  presumably to Clinton.  The rest was meh to me even with seeing the other strip. 

[brasca]

Wow, this comic is deserves a flood of Not Cool Jeph emails and messages headed his way. An entire comic in the main line referencing something that only the 3.5 thousand Patreon supporters got to see? Not Cool Jeph.

If I pay now, can I still see the strip?

Also, this is totally cool. Premium paid content is to what we are generally going as a society, so why not web comics too?

Yep, you can! Just checked & I can see Patreon posts from way before I actually joined. $1/month isn't much, the main barrier for me was having yet another login to remember 

I suppose I could pay a $1 per month for extra content.  I don't have a cable or satellite subscription so I save a lot of money anyway.   

Even without the joke I should hope that May's contribution to the rent compensates for everything else.  Then again she isn't all that worse than having Faye for a roommate. 

[Penquin47]

If you didn't find it funny, then knowing something about what caused it won't make it funnier.

Edit: to go a bit further into it, Patreons know what Marigold was yelling about, but are no wiser than you are about how Dale ended up with concussion. The humour, either way, lies in wondering how the heck that happened.

Edit number two: The whole conversation is basically a noodle incident.

But we don't know that.  Those of us who aren't getting the paid premium content are left wondering "Wait, what?  Did I miss a strip?  What's going on?  This is a reference to a Patreon strip?  What did we miss?  This would probably be funnier if we knew," instead of "Haha, noodle incident, wonder what happened to Dale?"  Kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth, as it feels like Jeph is using the free comic as, basically, a glorified ad for his premium content.  Which, as said above, is his right, but it's offputting.

[mikmaxs]

If you didn't find it funny, then knowing something about what caused it won't make it funnier.

Edit: to go a bit further into it, Patreons know what Marigold was yelling about, but are no wiser than you are about how Dale ended up with concussion. The humour, either way, lies in wondering how the heck that happened.

Edit number two: The whole conversation is basically a noodle incident.

I mentioned (in so many words) 'Noodle incedent' style humor in my first post, and my statement remains that it doesn't work here, because they're not mentioning some mystery event, they're mentioning an actual thing that happened in continuity.

And, in general, knowing more about the situation *does* make a joke funnier. For one, I wouldn't have to do mental gymanstics to figure out what they're talking about. For two, I'm assuming based on your phrasing that Marigold wasn't just yelling "Oh god oh god", but the comic today implies just that, which rather changes the context of the situation.

[Tova]

I could tell you right now everything that happened in the comic you didn't see.

I guarantee you wouldn't suddenly find today's comic funny.

[Tova]

And, in general, knowing more about the situation *does* make a joke funnier.

We will just have to agree to disagree on that one.

[mikmaxs]

I'm going to add real quick that it's entirely possible, if not likely, that Jeph did this entirely by accident. Chances are, he just thought, "Hey, this would be a funny follow-up strip to my Patreon comic," wrote it, and published it the same as he does every other comic, without considering how it might read to a casual audience. It seems unlikely that this is a pure "Lookit-my-patreon!" Ad comic.

I could tell you right now everything that happened in the comic you didn't see.

I guarantee you wouldn't suddenly find today's comic funny.

Well, after the fact? Yeah, probably. If I had known it in advance, though? I doubt it.

[Tova]

But how do you know when you haven't seen it?

There is nothing of anything significance in the comic you didn't see that can't be very simply inferred from reading today's comic.

Edit: there's a link to the patreon-only comic on the site btw. So now you can judge for yourselves.