Far Out There

Over a decade of doing this comic, and somehow it’s only just NOW occurred to me that I could use these special holiday pages to do more world-building than just “literally the exact same holiday that exists in the present, just in space.” There’s a vast universe of possibilities for vaguely equivalent future holidays to be made up, and I’m gonna try to take advantage of the opportunity more often from now on. I mean, Halloween and Christmas will always still be Halloween and Christmas in the Far Out There universe, but I think a lot of the more regionally/temporally specific holidays would be better used as a vehicle for exploring wacky future culture than present day stuff that would be WILDLY anachronistic in this setting.

Also, that weird suit of Ichabod’s has actually been in the works for years. I went to a big museum exhibit once about The Ballets Russes, which was full of displays of wacky vintage modernist costumes. This one particular one that was made for “The Ball” really struck me as the sort of thing Ichabod would wear for a special occasion without realizing how silly he looked, and I’ve been waiting for excuses to use it ever since.

Also also, to anticipate anyone’s complaints: yes, I know that Layla’s hair did NOT turn out the way it should have. I’m also experimenting with new effects, and this particular one was NOT a success.

(Historical Notes: …and, of course, I never actually DID that again with any other holiday pages all year.  Really, this is around the point where I truly started to drop off on holiday pages in general, largely because I began to realize how much time it was taking away from the whole site re-building project.  I do wanna make a point of doing this kind of in-universe holiday page more often, though.  I haven’t drawn a Valentine’s Day comic for 2021 yet…)