Aw, Hanners… This could actually be good for both of them. Sven probably hasn’t been on a real date in a very long time as well, both due to his Faye-induced brokenness as well as the fact that his dates usually involve meeting a girl at a bar and taking her home.
I agree, Munch! I hope they do actually go through with it, Dora aside. Then we can really see how much Sven has learned, as he’d have to be extra-careful with Hanners even on a fake-date.
I swear anytime two unattached characters appear in the same panel, somebody starts shipping them. Angus and Marigold, Hanners and Marigold, Dale and Marigold, Marigold and Sven, Hanners and Sven.
That seems to be the nature of web fandom. The Whovians ship, the Trekkies ship, the Starwarsians ship. Webcomic fans ship constantly…I don’t think I’ve been involved in the fandom of a webcomic that portrays naturalistic human relationships that DIDN’T have shippers in that fandom. All of the Sandra K. webcomics have had shipping fans (Boy Meets Boy had a LOT of Cyanide/Skids shippers, Friendly Hostility had a bunch of Demon/Boots shippers, and even her current strip, Other People’s Business, has a certain amount of shippery going on in the commentariat (mostly between Mr. Hathaway and Fox)). And that’s only in the product of one artist!
I think this is one of the reasons Jeph did away with the forums.
He’s run guest strips that ship the characters, though, so he’s certainly willing to tweak his fans with the concept.
Jeph still has the forums- the link is at the bottom of the links section on the right of the comic.
jayjay, you don’t need web fandom for shippers- classic Star Trek fandom back in the day had plenty of Kirk/Spock shippers, and that was all in print and in person fan interactions.
New one is up. I have no plot commentary, but: Jeph, did you somehow lose control of your fonts? The comic is cute, but the text looks like hell. And the balloons, jaggies everywhere! Are you authoring on your iPhone or something? Yech!
OTOH, Dora trying not to lose her shit in panel two is awesome. I also like that Sven’s speech balloon in panel 4 has escaped the confines of the panel, which I think is a first in the strip. But, jeez, the font! Bad Jeph!
I’d love to see the kind of hell that would be unleashed if Sven steals a kiss. 
squeegee- may I direct you to the most recent Jeph Jacques tumblr entry? Fontsperiments
Personally, I dislike the new font and the “I’m going to draw the bubbles myself” approach. But that could just be a “they changed it now it sucks” reaction.
The mock date sounds like a great time, too bad it’s going to take a week or two of our time to get through it. 
Leiko, thanks for clueing me! I do know about his tumblr blog, but he posts there very sporadically, and I didn’t think to check. I also love that Jeph is constantly improving the comic by trying new stuff, not all of which works out. And that’s okay.
It seems he went with option #2 in the current strip. I thought #4 looked quite a lot better, and #3 was really awful. But that’s me, obviously. And he really needs to think more about those hand-drawn balloons and how they look – the first pass is pretty painful to look at. First the jaggies, and second that the text needs a little ‘gutter’ in all directions to look right, and that space was inconsistent and cluttered in this first try. But, again, that’s okay, and I’m sure he’s aware of the problem (and is getting an earful from idiots like me 
).
Having said that, I like the idea of having the balloons be less cookie-cutter and able to escape the confines of a panel, there’s a great deal of cool stuff that can happen once the confines of a panel are broken. But I could live with the old font basically forever.
Gah! That’s certainly well-hidden. The link used to be up top and as big as everything else up there. I used to follow and contribute on the forum, and noticed that Jeph got really tetchy when people made suggestions about “what should happen” or even when they just tried to predict what was going to happen. He even mentioned at one point that, since his plot is planned out well in advance, he’d “had to” go and change things when forum-dwellers actually predicted something correctly or suggested something he already had planned, because he didn’t want to appear to be copying other people’s ideas or basing his story on reader suggestions (same basic reason why ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic won’t even look at song ideas and lyrics fans send him).
One day I wanted to make a comment on something in the strip and went to click on the forum link, and it was gone. I didn’t see he’d simply moved it (and made it very tiny), so I just assumed he’d finally gotten fed up and closed the forum down.
In his defense, that’s not unreasonable. I’ve seen people here earnestly claim the writers of some show or other must read the Dope because they correctly predicted a plot twist. It can be infuriating to have someone claim credit for your work.
Not unreasonable at all. He was simply more vocal (and sometimes downright pissy), about it, to the point where he just stopped participating in his own forums (and claimed he wasn’t even going to read them any more, though I don’t know if he stuck by that). I’ve seen plenty of other webcomic artists mention that they don’t want to be influenced by fan suggestions/predictions, but if they’ve had to make changes because of it they’ve kept it to themselves.
So when the forum link went from being prominently placed alongside the rest of the site navigation links to a tiny text link camouflaged at the bottom of a list of external links, I failed to notice the new location and assumed he’d gotten fed up and done away with the forum altogether.
Which, of course, isn’t to say I enjoy the comic any less. It’s still one of my “must read” comics.
Random comment: Yesterday I went to a park group and another mom I know slightly was wearing glasses–I presume she usually wears contacts. Suddenly she looked exactly like Marigold. It was uncanny.
Hanners is so quirky and awesome.
I’m seeing this more and more lately. I’m not familiar with it. What does it mean “somebody starts shipping them?”
Also, I came in here to post that not so long ago, through this thread, I learned of QC. So I started from the very beginning and read every strip. Of course now I read it every day. Just great! Now I’m on phase III… Because not only do I read the strip every day, but I also find myself checking this thread every day to see if there’s any new discussions on the current strip. ~sigh~ I guess I’m hooked.
So Hanners and Cosette are having a tough first day. 
I feel bad for them, I really do… but I’m anxious for Hanners to go on her date. Geez, I’m growing a vagina.