I agree that the hands are off. Before, if one asked “Why do they look that way?”, the answer was “Because they’re stick figures”. Now, though, if you’re going to go to the trouble of outlining the sticks, one is lead to ask why they’re still sticks at all.
The rest of the art upgrades, though, are very nice. At least, the ones I’ve noticed, but not noticing an upgrade is also a testament to it working well.
Damn.
Apologies to all (especially LHOD) for the false alarm.
Heavier-than-air hybrid airships are the cutting-edge thing now.
Dun Dun Dunnnn New one is up. Well, that realization didn’t take long.
Heh…RealDurkon’s smirk is priceless.
I don’t know if that was intended to be a “You Have To Burn The Rope” joke but it sure sounded like one.
Thor’s actually paying attention to downstairs? Huh. That’s never happened before.
So, are we looking at a “one strip/fortnight” schedule from here on out?
The only reliable thing about Rich’s posting schedule is its unpredictability.
Ehh, the “demon” (to borrow the Buffy vernacular for this situation) will most likely smooth talk his way out.
What will be interesting will be whether this causes any seeds of doubt to be planted in anyone.
Nah. Thor’s off drinking a literal ocean of mead and punching sea serpents in the face.
He has people to handle the dire portents of impending doom for him.
He’ll talk his way out of it, for the moment. It wouldn’t make narrative sense to fail so quickly. Belkar already suspects, and he’ll be the one who finds positive proof of the deception.
Maybe that’s how eventually Belkar dies: Durkpire kills him (or better: vamps him) when Belkar has proof of Durk’s deception.
Doesn’t fit with “not long for this world”, though.
Although, would Belkar, being evil to begin with, have a split personality?
IIRC, the prophecy was that he would “breathe his last.” I don’t think vampires actually breathe, do they?
ETA: Not really sure how he would explain to the rest of the Order his reasons for having done that. Can a vampire vamp and enthrall a fresh corpse that he didn’t create/corpse-ify?
The Oracle phrased his prophecy about Belkar in many different ways: He’s not long for this world, he’ll breathe his last-- ever, he should savor his next birthday cake, he shouldn’t bother funding his IRA. I think Rich is trying to make it clear that he’s going to really, truly die, and really, truly stay really, truly dead, but that doesn’t stop people from coming up with convoluted literalist explanations like “He’ll become a vampire exiled to another plane where cake doesn’t exist”, or the like.
Really, we haven’t seen the Oracle invoke any of that gotcha trickery in his prophecies themselves: His answers, so far, have all been simple. Even his attempted weaseling with Belkar’s question ended up with a simple, direct answer.
Heck, the Oracle tried to go out of his way to hint to Roy that Roy’s Gate question was stupid and that the literal answer Roy was demanding wasn’t going to help him.
That said, I don’t think vampires eat cake so theoretical Vamp-Belkar could stay on his home plane 
But that doesn’t affect the other theory: the Oracle was lying about Belkar’s death. It was not an official answer anyone had paid for, which raises the point of why the Oracle gave it away for free.
The theory goes like this:
Which would be nice, because the evil little bastard is the main reason I read the strip in the first place.