So, the Spacetrawler Kickstarter is in the long home stretch. We have this week and next week left (through next Wednesday), so let’s go!
I have now added three “stretch goals“
- 20k – for everyone who supports at least at a $20 level, you will get a Dustin “chick tract” zine. Dustin “pens it post-spacetraveling” about what’s really out there (from his perspective) to the skeptics of earth.
- 25k – for everyone who supports at least at a $20 level, you will get a full-color “how to survive being shanghaied into space booklet” penned (and with pictures) from various members of the cast.
- 30k – I will extend creating Spacetrawler, by postponing the next project and doing an additional standalone Spacetrawler storyline, lasting 3 months/24 strips.
But if I don’t reach ANY of these goals, know that I’m already more than happy with the enthusiasm and generosity you all have shown. You’ve all have been incredibly supportive, and this Kickstarter has already been a great success.
Thank you!
-Christopher
Damnit Chris, you can’t hit us with something like that and then end the strip with a joke.
STOP MESSING WITH MY FEELS
And a solemn silence is immediately punctured by a snort of laughter.
I’m too sad to laugh at the last panel 🙁
This page comes at about the same time as I lose a close friend in real life. Also from messed up insides, but that’s because of an infection rather than eeb telekinesis. Kind of ironic, or coincidental, or whatever the right word is for that.
Anyhow, I’m not sure why I’m commenting about this, but I guess I’ll just say that Christopher, you make one hell of a webcomic, and I want to thank you for brightening my days even at the darkest times.
And there she goes.
A great mind. A tactical thinker. A truly, genuinely compassionate person. And she dies, believing the galaxy is disappointed in her. What could she have done on earth? What could she have done in the galaxy. Well. She did this. Freed a species. And righted a hideous wrong, in the most direct manner possible.
It’s a beautiful story. I know that, because I’m this reflective, and nearly in tears over it.
Well. Whatever the heck there is waiting for her, even if its just a peaceful end to everything, someone she loves is there waiting for her. And her dad wont be left wondering sadly where she went.
Perfectly paced – I’m giggling through tears.
For some reason, her dying thinking that she somehow let the galaxy down hits harder than everything else.
I was glad for the comic relief of the last panel.
“What? I’m not dead yet?”
“We say you can’t die. We mean it.”
Cheers.
I can’t decide which is a better pop culture reference – Monty Python’s “bring out your dead,” or a Princess Bride’s Miracle Max quote…
“Tell my story to those who ask. Tell it truly, the good with the bad, and let me be judged accordingly. The rest is silence.”
I keep wondering how many brain-clamped Eebs (unable to defend themselves) are being attacked throughout the galaxy as “retribution” for all of the people the unclamped Eebs have killed.
Because that’s the exact kind of totally irrational thing that people do. Ask any Muslim post-9/11.
Seriously, if that Eeb (who admittedly IS one of the unclamped Eebs) doesn’t have to fight his/her way out of that bar, something will be very out of whack.
My heart hurts…
I trust that my non-Kickstarter contribution both counts for those goals as well as qualifies me for the goodies 😛
And damn you, I’m feeling like such a dick for skipping to the last panel when Martina mentioned the twelfth Eeb, and chuckling about it without noticing the last two panels…
Anyway, didn’t Nogg say she didn’t die then? Or was he just referring to the collapsed building?
ronald: with some luck, people are too afraid an actual unclamped Eeb would kill them before they could harm him, so they don’t attack Eebs for fear they are free ones in disguise, and still consider clamped Eebs as little more than drudges.
Waaaaaahhhhh!!!
That is all.
@Nathanyel, of course!
And today’s strip?…. yeah. There it is. <3
Awww.
Needed a panel of her robot eye powering down.
“Hasta la vista, eebs.”
nathanyel: I think people (and part of the strip’s whole point is that aliens are just as screwed up as humans OSLT) are more likely to be paranoid in the “let’s kill somebody” way than in the “let’s fear for our lives” way.
Most “regular” Eebs have probably been “working” (i.e. enslaved) at the same location for years and are, even by the “logic” of the average paranoid, unlikely to be killer Eebs in disguise, and the history of “ethnic cleansing” is full of examples of people turning against (and turning IN) neighbors that they’ve known for years.
Since many aliens don’t even consider Eebs to be “people” (sentient beings) in the first place, well…
It just doesn’t look good for the average Eeb on the street, that’s alls I’m sayin’.
I’ll leave it to Ernie: “If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
@zb, good call! Oddly, I actually had done that very thing, and for some reason that edit wasn’t in the final version. Anyhow, I just updated the strip with her eye powering down in her last panel.
Why was I convinced that she died by being flown into a sun?
@erick – I think you’re thinking of her body being flown into a sun as a sign of respect. I don’t remember the actual strip though.
@Erick, @Susan is right. This is the strip.
well, wherever Martina goes, I hope certain tentacle faced, giant clawed alien is waiting there with a hug…
Harsh. Well, that’s where an exaggerated sense of duty will get you.
The eye powering down is a nice touch. Of course, that only happens if a robot like the Terminator gets “killed” and his electrical power dying means all his peripherals (like his eyes) die, too. Martina’s eye has its own power source, and would probably stay working for years on its own. Very spooky at the wake.
But that scenario wouldn’t have been as cool as this.
Maybe try inserting a gif into that panel where the eye actually powers down? You’d have to make it be dark for a long while before the gif rewinds.
If one wanted to retcon the eye, it could be that the energy source is the body’s native energy source (which would be woefully inefficient), or something comparable to the processor uses the bloodstream as a cooling source (again, not so practical), or the brain as a processor (ibid, and it could lead to the eye clicking to a Blue Screen of Death)?
Personally, I’m fine with it, comparable to the technically inaccurate tropes of the Enterprise going whooosh as it flies by, or laser guns shooting discrete bars of energy…stuff.
The real lesson of this amazing journey is that heroes without the big picture are an invasive species entering a new ecology. The balance eventually returns, but with loss.
You… you… you killed her! Chris, how could you!
@TB and @William_Young, how about this? The eye has a “life” sensor, when it is no longer needed it powers off. 🙂
@Frank. FRANK! I gave you three-and-a-half years warning! What more do you want?! 😉
@Christopher:
Actually, a working prosthetic eye would require a sensor of some sort, if only to get a signal to adjust focus. And processing light requires so little energy, it would make sense to draw power from something like the blood flow of a nearby vein.
TB: Let’s just assume the eye was powered via Martina’s own body energy. Or that it is “smart” and shuts down to preserve energy when the user doesn’t need it, temporarily or permanently.
bah, I’m getting old, it’s only 3am and I’m overlooking comments…
And regarding the three-and-a-half years warning, I guess many of us hoped Martina survived, but instructed Nogg to tell her dad she died.
Well….
…technically, we’re still listening to Nogg telling Mr Zorilla the story…
Yes, we had 3 1/2 years warning, but it’s along the lines of “The Cold Equations” – you know how it’s going to end, you know it’s not going to end well, and you keep hoping for the happy ending that never happens, for the appearance of some deus ex machina…
And the Eeb GOT that medal.
It was shiny.
Chris, Next to last panel, Martina’s eye is blue, not red. Unless there ‘is’ a mirror there, or both sides of the room have the same background junk. Great comic. been lurking forever, seems like the story is coming to a close….what is next…carbonite?
I wonder now if Mr. Zorilla is getting a cleaned-up telling of Martina’s torture. Otherwise how could Krep have nightmares about acts he didn’t witness?
On a completely separate note, man, how drunk do you have to be to start slurring your *Ds*?
Of course, technically, the Eeb isn’t speaking English, we’re just “hearing” him/her speak English, so, well, whatever. 😉
A full recovery followed by a hilarious explosion would be nice
BTW. I already contributed to that kickstarter, but please, please, make that 30k happen.
This is it, this is where she expires, gives up the ghost. But she did a good thing. So sad.
Oh man that $20 perk at 20k has really got my attention. I’ve already donated at the ebook level, and don’t really want any physical merchandise (too much clutter already). Can I up my donation to $20 and keep the ebook three-pack perk, and still get the chick tract?
I love that the furryites were basically just standing there creeped out beyond belief (presumably) the whole time.
@Stewart, of course! Just make sure to add it to your current level rather than switch levels. And I’ll put it in my notes!
Hey, I never said I didn’t LIKE dramatic license! I’m a writer, too.
Sweet. Thanks!
@TB Now there’s a story in waiting. A scriptwriter’s dramatic license has been revoked so the writer must do his or her next script based on real life events *exactly* as the events happened, or be dragged off to the hellish pit of a prison where really bad writers are interred for life. Or the assignment could be a book to film/TV project.
Some aliens who really love literature of all kinds are very irked about how a TV show based on their favorite Earth novel series was done. The aliens have decided that Something Must Be Done before their second favorite Earth novel series gets a similar hack job of a TV show.
You know the really, really bad ones, like “The Dresden Files” where pretty much the only similarity between the books and the show is they’re both about a wizard named Harry Dresden who lives in Chicago. That’s an abuse worthy of revoking a dramatic license…
Sorta like “Misery” but with aliens and without the torture and the aliens want the TV show done the way the books’ author wrote the story.
“Bbbb-uttt I’m just the scriptwriter! Most of what I write gets changed by the director and…”
*STOP TALKING* *You will write what is in the book!* *You will ensure this ‘director’ does not alter your script!* *We shall be watching!* *Upon success we will ensure your recognition and fame among the fans of the book, on Earth and throughout the civilized galaxy, except on torklehin. Those nuts actually liked the Dresden Files TV show…* *Fail us and you’ll never work again… anywhere.*