It does sound like a Chekhov’s fountain.
Been a month since the last new strip; he’s made 18 new strips this year, and up to the last one he was on pace to better the count for the last two years (22 and 21), but at this point if he’s now down to one per month or even less he may not equal 2024’s total. Too bad.
Will we ever see this strip completed?
Will we at least get the kickstarter rewards we paid for?
Damned if i know the answer to either of your questions, but we did get a new strip today, and i enjoyed it.
OK, what IRL thing is Serini referring to in the last panel?
no message
I know what Tik-Tok is obviously. Serini is clearly referring to something specific in the last panel, (both in and out of universe)
And the fact the thread has been bumped IS your spoiler warning, don’t like it, go to the GitP forum FIRST.
Tik-Tok is a character from the Wizard of Oz books. He has wind up keys for thought, action, and speech.
OK the way I saw it was Serini gets something from Tik-Tok. Haley calls Tik-Tok a mine of misinformation. Serini refers to something about keys, Minrah says “that’s a deep cut”. This really works great if the thing Serini says also refers to something on the streaming platform Tiktok so it’s a double reference from Serini, and the “deep cut” line from Minrah is a triple: That’s obscure (Oz)/that’s viscious snark(Tiktok)/that literal wound is deep (OotS).
If Serini isn’t actually referring to something on Tiktok with a double meaning the last panel is a lot flatter than I thought.
Yes, the tick-tock man in the strip is literally an reference to Oz, (and i recognized him, but i don’t think it’s important to do so.) I think the joke is mostly about the app. So this is really a throw-away joke, and may not advance the plot. Still, i thought it was funny.
It’s not a reference to something on the site Tik-Tok, it’s a reference to the site Tik-Tok itself as a medium.
Oh, yes, it’s definitely a swipe at Tik Tok itself, and not to some particular content on Tik Tok.
Here’s a clip from the movie “Return to Oz” showing what Tik-Tok is like when his thinking key isn’t wound up:
Possibly, but probably not and Rich doesn’t owe us that. It’s clear he wants to finish the work. Quality remains high, even if throughput is limited. I remain reasonably hopeful of another book release.
I suspect the remainder of the story could easily be characterized in one or two pages. It’s the humor, drama, and cleverness that I keep coming back for (as well as the commentary in this thread) and that aspect is episodic. I’ve said it before but 12 decent strips a year is far above the level that most comic strip artists can deliver. Burlew easily clears Sturgeon threshold.
I got mine years ago. Some of those who ordered crayon drawings may be disappointed. The last update was on Dec 31, 2020. The latest Monster for Every Season release was 4 years ago this month. Yikes.
If Burlew lived in Japan, a publishing house would have hired him long ago and given him the administrative, editorial, and artistic support that he needs. But such companies don’t really exist in the US; to the extent that the do, they are wholly unreliable.
I got my Kickstarter rewards, too.
I’m just hoping that he has recorded the end of the story somewhere, so that is he dies before he can complete the story, we will get that satisfaction. But i don’t need it now.
I don’t know if he’s recorded it but he’s said he already knows what the final strip will look like.
I wasn’t a backer, but I picked up the MFES PDFs on Gumshoe or whatever that site is called. I use them for NPCs in my RPG campaigns. They’re fantastic. I wish he would release some more!
He owes us for the Kickstarter rewards that we paid for.
I didn’t get all of mine. There’s a few missing. We were promised a “mystety prize” and PDFs called Dim Sun, Julio Scoundrel, Sir Francois, and CliffPort Police Department. The last one is particularly bad. Three particular backers paid a large sum of money to choose the subject of a PDF. Two of them got their Therkla and Belkar stories. The third is still waiting for his CPPD story.
We don’t have a right to complain if the free stuff is slow. We do have a right to complain when we don’t get the stuff we paid for.
How many years has it been now?
I joined the Kickstarter because I wanted three books. I paid the price for three books. I got three books. Plus a bunch of other stuff. Way I see it, Burlew and I are square.