Week 242! (Patreon)

THIS MARKS PAYMENT FOR THE WEEK OF 3/24-3/30!

Ah, surprise! As this was a five-week month, there needs to be a fifth update for it, but I didn't want to put up a third script update like usual (there's only two pages left in the Campy arc for scripts so it'll work out better to save them for April anyway :B ), so instead I'm putting this up for you!

It's the entirety of the front page of the newspaper Campy's stepdad is holding in the latest page, in full resolution! So you lot exclusively get to see and read the dumb little things I wrote for this little prop for one single page, even a whole half of it that was never going to be shown anyway (cause Peter has it all folded up in the comic).

It's not all that fancy as a whole, but there's some interesting tidbits about it overall and with each individual part of it. For one, quite a lot of it is references to various tabletop roleplaying games I've made over the years: almost all the article authors are the names of characters I've made (Armin, Talbot, Cyrus, Fei, and Max), as well as two of the names in two of the articles (Haidar and Johnny). There's also some deliberate correlations with a couple of them and the characters' interests (Talbot writing about a library, Haidar involved wth a musket). Doesn't really mean anything in the grand scheme of the comic, but when you need a bunch of names and article ideas, why not self-reference. :P

In terms of actual relation to Furthia High, two of the articles are actually referencing things that were written in the previous newspaper that Max was reading in page 212 (Innuendo): the lunar helium-3 mine and the senator. The helium-3 mine was written in way back then in an effort to future-ize the setting of the comic in a similar vein to the tour guide robot from the Field Trip arc. Mining helium-3 for energy off the moon is still a topic of discussion today, maybe moreso than a decade ago! So it's nice to bring that up still. And the Senator... well, I guess just keep it in mind for later, it's important.

And of course, I decided to reference Joey the Wolf. Remember him from Campy's dream/mindscape? Seemed appropriate to give him a new revival series, especially in this current age of nostalgia-appeasing cartoon reboots and revivals. Hopefully it'll be a good one and Campy and Kale will enjoy it a lot~. Really the intent is just a convenient way to make even myself remember that he and that whole whatever-the-hell-happened is still relevant and mysterious and needs to be addressed at some point.

Finally the Weather and Obituaries sections aren't as interesting. The weather is meant to line up somewhat with the way the day went for Bruce (started overcast but got partly cloudy by dusk), and the Obituraries are... well, the first names and ages are random, but the last names are all town names from some weird giant map I drew as a teenager that I think I intended to use for a DnD campaign that never happened.

Anyway yeah, it's not super fancy but it is super exclusive to you Patrons, so I hope you enjoy it a little.