I can finally keep up on Prince Valiant!

Creating my Metropolis comic has reignited my interest in comic strips.  (Metropolis is modeled after the Sunday adventure comic strip format). Unfortunately newspapers are becoming rare and newspapers with comics rarer still.

And if you are a fan of Prince Valiant, The Phantom, Spider-Man (the comic strip version) and Flash Gordon, then you've probably been on the search for where you can read them on-line.  A very frustrating search. 

If you own an Apple product you can shell out $20 for a subscription for an app called DailyINK.  That will give you access to all of King Feature's strips for 1 year.  I'm only interested in about 3 or 4 of their 60 strips, so I didn't do that.

Fortunately, you can get access to about 1 month's worth of all the strips at a website called http://www.oregonlive.com/comics/.

Now I can keep up on all my adventure strips on-line.  I hope you enjoy them too.

Joao

Things to Come - Part 14 - A Hymn For Liebowoh

Liebowoh was a Papa.  A Papa was a lemming that had, despite the odds, lived to a very old age.  If you became a Papa, you weren't one for very long.  Old lemmings were easy prey for a predator.  The Papas had two duties.  The first was conducting the moonly tail counts.  The moonly tails counts were far from accurate.  They really didn't involve counting either. 

Liebowoh made his way to the centre of the herdlet and asked: "Anyone missing?"

"I don't think so." someone replied.

The old lemming moved on.

So the moonly tail counts were far from accurate.  Nor were they exhaustive.  Some herdlets would see many moons before they were counted. 

Being a Papa was position of respect. They could wander the herd as they wished; they were not required to stay with a herdlets.  They would share stories with the young lemmings or gather with the other Papas to share the very same stories.

Liebowoh was a Papa of notoriety as he was also a Knoght.  It was not unheard of, but very few Knoghts lived long enough to become Papas.

"The Knoghts sure are small and thin these days." Liebowoh often thought.  Which was true, but not more so than any other member of the herd.  Food was scarce.  Every lemming was smaller and thinner these days.

Liebowoh missed being a Knoght.  It offered him a release for his secret shame.  Liebowoh liked to be alone.  He had long ago stopped thinking himself a deviant.  His weird desire only put himself at risk and didn't seem to affect the herd in any negative way. 

He was able to keep his secret his whole life.  He had a perfect pretence.  As a Knoght, he offered to perform outward patrols by himself.

"Could be dangerous!  No sense in all of us going.  If I'm not back in a little while, count on a predator being close by." he would say.

This added to his reputation of being a brave and selfless Knoght.  No one ever guessed that he did so solely to have time alone.

Liebowoh had not had the chance to go off since they made him a Papa.  He volunteered to remain a Knoght, but the other Papas insisted.

"You've served your time, Liebowoh." they said.  "It's time for you to take your place with us and let younger lemmings serve."

Liebowoh was at the herd rim the first time he saw Loganoh.  He did not know his name but he knew about the young lemming that had been banished.  Loganoh was walking outward.  Liebowoh felt a pang of envy.

"Lucky son of a rat!" he thought.

Liebowoh sighed deeply and tried not to think about it.  Someday soon, it won't matter anymore.  The Great Run will begin and all of our troubles will be over.

As mentioned before, the Papas had two duties.  The second was that the Papas were the secret keepers of the herd.  They alone knew the truth of the Great Run...  Or so they thought.

Metropolis! Now formatted for more printers!

Hiya

Someone has very kindly let me know that my FYOC versions of Metropolis are not very printer friendly. 

The problem is that some home printers are not very good with printing close to the edge.

I have just now finished reformatting them all.  Hopefully, they will be better suited to a wider variety of printers.

All the newly reformatted versions are up at www.archive.org

PS: For those who don't already know, FYOC stands for "Fold Your Own Comic".

Have a very good day.

Joao

Max Power. Superhero for the Whole World

I have a very old 18 volt cordless drill.  In the past, it would charge in 3 hours and hold that charge to 24 hours.  Recently the numbers reversed. 

I thought it was very funny that my drill is labelled "Max Power".  This become a brief nickname for my son.  This was the spark that inspired the following song.

I'm Max Power, superhero for the whole world.
I'm Max Power, superhero for the whole world.
And I punch the bad guys in the face.
And I don't know one plus one.
But I know right from wrong.
I'm Max Power, superhero for the whole world.
I love small animals and old people.
Please don't tell mommy and daddy my secret identity.

PS: This is sung while I hold Max's hands and make him punch the air and strike superhero poses.

He loves it.

Metropolis - Chapter 16

In this chapter we answer the question: what was that little thing in the trees at Arboropolis?

Download the FYOC version here.








Have a good day.

Joao.

PS: To date, most of my page views come from Russia.  I have no idea why...