Ve Haff Vays Of Mekking You Buff

Sponsored by Shannon Magnan, a.k.a. luny

To my kitty Willow, the next person who asks me why you’re named that will get beaten about the head and shoulders with the season of their choice.
That means you, Robin, Dan.


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The Script For Today's Comic!

KARLA LOVES BUFFY

Ve Haff Vays Of Mekking You Buff

Panel 1:
(Tom, Tanner, and Karla [and whoever else you have room for] sitting around a roleplaying table. Seth is the DM.)

SETH: "You see an oak-banded door before you."

KARLA (throwing her hands in the air): "I Buffy the door!"

Panel 2:
TANNER (confused): " 'I Buffy the door'? What's that mean?"

KARLA: "The Buffy musical, Season Six. Just after 'Though the Fire,' Buffy kicks in the door."

TOM: "Best. Door kick. Ever."

Panel 3:
TANNER (embarrassed, rubbing the back of his neck): "Actually, I've never seen Buffy."

KARLA (brightly): "Oh, we've got the DVDs! I'll show them to you!"

Panel 4:
TANNER: "Actually, I don't have the time — "

KARLA (deadly serious, gritting her teeth, grabbing Tanner's shirt collar and dragging him down to her level): "I said I'll show them to you."

TANNER (very small): "…yes, ma'am."

NEW!

Check out The Ferrett's new comic, My Name Is Might Have Been, co-written with World Fantasy Award-nominated author Catherynne M. Valente! Updated Mondays and Thursdays!

Ferrett Says

Today’s strip is an interesting one, since it was drawn approximately seven zillion years ago. In fact, like Billy Pilgrim, this whole week has become unstuck in time.

See, a long time ago, this was the strip that was supposed to premiere on February 13th. Then, as it turns out, people expected us to do something romantic for Valentine’s Day, so we switched to the Married, With Children storyline… But by then, Roni had already drawn the strip.

“No biggie,” she said. “The first Tanner storyline’s two weeks. We’ll get back to then.”

And indeed we did. She finished that up… And then, at the end of February, she drew the second strip in this story, which you’ll see on Wednesday.

But today’s strip – which kicks off a week’s story called ‘Karla Loves Buffy’ – shows Karla and Tom and Tanner roleplaying, with Seth as the GM. “Wait,” I said. “Won’t it be a little confusing to show them roleplaying without having established that they do roleplay?”

“I guess it is,” Roni said.

“Well, we have this ‘Polygamerous’ storyline in the works. So why don’t we move that up to take place before this ‘Karla Loves Buffy’ storyline?”

Okay, fine. So we had two strips drawn, and we’d just drop them in immediately after the week where Tom got jealous of Karla’s roleplaying. No problem.

But then it turned out that some people were turned off by Karla’s aggression. Not a problem; as the writers, Roni and I know that Karla is a sweet person. But that really doesn’t come off in this particular strip, and we worried that if we showed too many “Karla lays down the law” strips in a row that people would get the wrong impression.

So once again, we pushed this series back, and bumped up a week of single-strip gags, some of which showed off Karla’s sweet side.

Today’s strip was drawn a month ago, Wednesday’s strip was drawn two weeks ago, and Friday’s strip was finished today. That’s time travel for you right there. But it works.

Also, I’d like to point out that in today’s strip, Roni went friggin’ nuts with the detail. One of the things we’re trying to establish is that Seth – who will get some major screen time in the next month or two – is a man of wealth and taste, so she gave a lot of thought to the background. What sorts of furniture would Seth have?

Note in particular that the table has a reflection. “Roni,” I said. “Don’t do that. Don’t spend time on little details like that. No one will notice.”

“They will,” she said.

But just in case you don’t, I thought I’d point it out to you. And I feel I should remind you that if you like what you see, Roni sells prints for $15 apiece. And if you don’t like what you see, Roni’s a chameleon; check out her site to see how wildly her style can vary. Maybe you have a project you can hire her for, you know?

- The Ferrett

P.S. – Wednesday’s strip is a pure Buffy joke. Reserve it now. Only $5! Whee!

Roni Says:

Actually, I can tell you exactly when I did this strip. It is the strip I was working on when the comic launched. Apparently "table shine" is my form of stage fright, anxiety over a sudden audience got channeled into obsessive detail.

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