I still think at some point Tai and Dora are going to end up in Cubetown because Claire and the bots are gonna be over their head and since Tai trained Claire and it has been pointed out several times there are no coffee shops in Cubetown hence Dora and Martin could keep busy
Dale quit. That’s how Claire got her job there.
The reports of Sara’s death are greatly exaggerated.
She appeared in a Patreon bonus strip after her encounter with the allosaur, which revealed she was only injured not killed. So she’s alive in whatever sense a fictional character who no longer appears in their work of fiction is.
My guess is that Marten will come back to Northampton for a few months to hang around Dora and learn how to run a coffeehouse. This will also allow Faye and him to figure out what their friendship will look like, now they’re no longer roomies.
This could also be a chance for some more character development for Pintsize; does he move to Cubetown with Marten and Clare? Or does he stay in Northampton with Faye and Bubbles, and continue to build an identity separate from Marten? (From the number of Cubetown strips, it feels like Claire and Marten have been away for weeks, but it’s probably no more than a day or so, in-universe).
I’m curious to see what Jeph does with Marten at Cubetown. Does the stress of running his own business, working long hours, dealing with paperwork and employees and supply chains and payrolls knock him out of his “chill-float-along” lifestyle? Could be interesting.
(Thos whole coffeehouse idea does raise the question: how big is his potential market? There are some humans living in Cubetown, but it’s mostly AIs; how many of them can consume liquids? Presumably enough to support that bar, but enough to also support a coffeeshop?)
AIs like to smell tea. Gives them hallucinations.
I knew it did for Bubbles. Didn’t remember it also worked for Roko.
Yup
Oh, yeah – I’m now remembering Roko’s bread kink.
Still, that’s just two out of the – what, dozen or so AI characters we’ve met? We can’t assume that AIs all have similar capabilities, just because they look the same. I mean, maybe they do; but Jeph hasn’t established that, as far as I can recall. Still, that’s the sort of thing I think Marten would want to know, before he opened up his coffeshop.
Well, it was Hanners suggestion to Bubbles to try some tea because other AI customers like it. So that’s at least four AIs we know of.
Pintsize going to Cubetown would almost be a let-down, his eccentricities would barely register against the Cubetown AIs we’ve met.
It would definitely be an odd experience for him, to be among the least weird AIs present.
OTOH, he and Claire have developed a good relationship, and he seems to be evolving from chaotic shitmonster. Maybe he’d grow more in cubetown (and be a shitmonster in some new way we can’t foresee).
That’s what I meant; Pintsize has been getting some deepening and development. Separating him from Marten and Claire is an opportunity to flesh him out a bit more. (Unless of course Jeph is too distracted by his shiny new toys Zlata, Moray, and Liz).
More like I could see him arriving in cubetown and becoming Claire or Marten’s right hand shitgoblin, much like May is to Marigold.
Though I think Liz is destined to work in Marten’s coffeeshop, since she’s also a shitgoblin.
In a way, I miss chaos-goblin Pintsize.
But hey, I am loving Claire as The (aggravated) Grownup In The Room.
The current sequence about Dora and Hannelore seeking new staff is a refreshing revisit to the “home” turf… but what does it say about me that I laughed at the punchframe of today’s installment.
This strip suggests that Pintsize has always had a motive behind his chaos. He’s Marten’s companion and he appears to feel his behavior pushed Marten in a positive way in his social relationships.
Holy cow Jeph remembers Penelope after all.
Okay, I didn’t expect that.
As near as I can tell, this is the last time we saw Penelope. So, yes, almost 2000 strips ago.
She looks better as a blond. 
Not quite. It was about a year later, in 2016.
