page 950 – Oh, look who it is
OH SNAP! It’s those two kids! The ones who’re always having cameos in holiday comics! They’ve finally made it into an official, in-continuity, 100% canonical comic! …they still haven’t had their names said out loud yet, BUT STILL!
To tell the truth, this page is sort of a last-minute addition. The PLAN was to skip straight from Mariska’s little plot-tease back to the main cast doing main cast stuff. Giving the kids an “official” debut was too fun an idea, though, and I’m trying to be better about running with fun ideas regardless of what The Plan says (after all, most of my comic plans only exist to keep plot points straight, so sticking too close is an easy way to get exposition-heavy, joke-free comics). ALSO, if anybody stumbles across the comic this weekend after finding a flyer at Otakon, this’ll be the first page they see. So COOL EYE CANDY SPACESHIP as your first impression!
Speaking of Otakon: if you missed it in the earlier notes, I’m in DC for the con all weekend, so no new Voting Incentive today. I’m hoping there’ll be a new one with Tuesday’s page, though… which I’m gonna get to work editing as soon as I finish posting this. WHEEE!!!
(Historical Notes: This is still one of my all-time favorite pages of Far Out There to look at. Everything about the art just came together so nicely, especially for a page I’d scrambled to get done before a con. Also, WOW there was a lot of chatter in the comments on this page, including, once again, an EERILY ACCURATE prediction of why Mariska has two kids with her instead of just one. BOY was I glad there was other stuff for me to latch onto and change the subject… even if it was the genuinely terrifying idea of Nitpickers having groupies.)
@ Historical Notes: Ed8 was correct in his prediction about why Mariska had two kids with her, and I gave you the idea of Nitpicker Groupies, which, while you seem to find terrifying, is something you should follow up on in the comic at some point.
@ Comic: This comic actually showcases the real difference between Mariska and Ichabod, via Mariska’s Comments. Mariska does stupid things because she thinks that it’ll get the results she wants, Ichabod just stumbles into them either without knowledge or thinking about the consequences.
I’m absolutely certain there are Nitpicker groupies. Nitpickers are wealthy, they’re rare, they’re constantly associating with various powerful planetary figures and other celebrities, and their lives are waaaay more interesting than average. Definitely would attract groupies, even if they were a weird sort of groupie. Given the extensive ability of the spaceinternet to monitor everything everywhere and mind everybody else’s business, there surely are entire websites or their equivalent by dedicated fans monitoring and tracking each nitpicker’s adventures, especially the more interesting ones (read: the ones who get into the most trouble all the time), hoping to get a glimpse of them in action! Heck, the Guild probably spends a lot of their money and effort just trying to keep the more “enthusiastic” stalkerazzi from interfering in the Nitpickers’ work. Although, most of the true Nitpicking fans believe Nitpickers are to be observed nut never interfered with, lest one disrupt the beauty of the Nitpicking art, but you know there’s always the more hands-on types (read: nutcases) too.
In any case, as everyone knows, Nitpicking is an exciting and sexy profession! It says so right on the guild’s recruiting posters! I’d be far more shocked if there weren’t groupies!
Let’s be honest, *redacted spoiler about a character on this page’s personality, that those who have the read the actual latest comic about can hopefully guess from context* Ichabod.
Hope that’s round about enough that Blitz is happy with the obscuration.
You could always just bite your tongue like I do 😀
But then I wouldn’t get my message across. Particularly not to those who actually manage to read the hidden message behind the spoiler tag.
I dunno if I’d say Nitpickers are “wealthy,” per se. They definitely charge a lot of money, but I think their constant knack for causing tremendous problems of themselves and others (combined with pervasive weird personality quirks) means they don’t actually get to KEEP much of it. I think one of the main reasons the Nitpickers’ Guild exists is to help Nitpickers deal with the financial burden of their lifestyle.
But on a more serious note, I suddenly find myself thinking ENTIRE too hard about what would happen if Ichabod had to interact with a Nitpicker Fandom… or even attend a Nitpicker Fan Convention. THIS IS A DANGEROUS PLACE FOR MY BRAIN TO GO.
Personally I use “wealthy” to refer to people who are well-off, but still within the range of regular people you might normally meet or know, and “rich” to refer to the multi 10-millionaire and up group. So I would say they’re “wealthy”, but not rich. Sure, certainly not *ridiculously* like the top 0.00000000001%-ers like Augusta, etc. More like Neurosurgeons – they make a lot of money relative to normals, even though their malpractice insurance is probably a lot more than a normal person’s entire paycheck. After all, Ichabod can afford to rent use of an entire ship semi-permanently (or whatever his contract with the Cap’n is) plus room and board for 2 other people and their pets and the damages they cause. And despite what Layla might say, it’s a big ship. Rich or poor is all relative, after all.
re: NitPicCon – this definitely should be something that exists! Held once a year, and the Guild feels obligated as public relations to send a few of its celebrity Nitpickers to attend. Of course, it’s considered a punishment. Or, rather, there’s always that one annoyingly chirpy, overenthusiastic nitpicker like May who volunteers to go every year, but they’re told “No! We can’t send the same Nitpickers over and over every year!” and so instead they select from the remaining victims based on whoever is in the most trouble at the time. Which certainly means Ichabod has already been selected at least once.
Re: NitPicCon – Different from Ed8, while I do think this should be a thing that exists, I DON’T think that it’s something that the working Nitpickers actually interact with. Nor the Nitpicker’s Guild at large. Instead, it’s seen as a media nightmare that actively seeks out the information they’d prefer kept quiet, like their greatest mistakes, while ignoring most of their greatest successes, the ones that fix everything quietly without issue. All in all, with the exception of a rare few recruits from it, the Nitpicker’s Guild as a whole is under the opinion that if the Nitpicker’s Fandom disappeared one day, they’d be better off.
And that’s ignoring the occasional well-off Nitpicker Fan who hires a Nitpicker unnecessarily and wastes everyone’s time simply so that they can have a “meet their idol” moment, which also earns them less money than a typical job.
I think I’m in the middle on this one. I definitely think the relationship between Nitpickers Guild and Nitpicking Fandom would be adversarial for the most part, like so many modern day internet fanbases. However, ALSO like modern day fanbases, you’d still have that rare subset of Nitpicker who does like to interact with the fans, especially if said Nitpickers are already a bit at odds with the rest of “the establishment” and don’t mind talking about stuff they’re not supposed to.
I immediately imagine Aunt Domino hosting a panel where she just rambles on for an hour and the audience trues to work out insane conspiracy theories based on whatever nonsense she said (and since this is Far Out There, they’d have a decent chance of actually being right.)
There are Nitpicker’s who AREN’T at odds with “the rest of the establishment” in some way? I mean, excusing, of course, Sophia, Claire and that kid who was put under Aunt Domino for training that Claire cares for and may actually be her son (be it biological, adopted, or emotional) and we don’t know for certain. Described that was as I can’t remember his name, and can’t find it, particularly since we haven’t gotten to the point where he shows up in the comic proper.
Also, given how you can literally stop your body aging in this comic, it’s entirely possible that he’s her husband in the accounting department that missed that Nitpicker Christmas Party due to Ichabod’s Damage Claims & Mariska’s Legal Fees. THIS year’s Christmas Special (2020) does show that he works in the Nitpicker’s Accounting Department, after all, and 2016’s Christmas Special outright states that Clair’s Husband couldn’t come to the party due to the Accounting Team being too busy to come.
To be honest, the Bowl Cut Guy (who indeed hasn’t been named yet) is actually supposed to be Claire’s husband. The flashback with Aunt Domino was meant to be a number of years before the “current” comic. The problem, as it so often is with this comic, is that I of course drew him in a way that makes him look younger than he’s intended to be in the “present.” My INTENT was to make him short and doughy as a funny contrast to Claire being tall and tough looking, but that just made him look 12 like everybody else.
If he at least reached her shoulder, it would be better. The fact that he often seems child-sized just makes him look younger than you intended. This is particularly prevalent in this year’s Xmas Party, where you had him sit on her lap and still had his head low enough that she could rest her head on his.
Actually, instead of having him stop his aging via technology, just give him Proportionate Dwarfism, because he has enough pages where he’s shown to have the size of a child to make it awkward if he suddenly isn’t the size of a child. Unless it’s revealed that he underwent that dangerous genetic modification to adjust his height, but he seems the type to reject on the grounds that he’s happy enough with his life not to risk his life in order to gain some height.
Personally I use “wealthy” to refer to people who are well-off, but still within the range of regular people you might normally meet or know, and “rich” to refer to the multi 10-millionaire and up group. So I would say they’re “wealthy”, but not rich. Sure, certainly not *ridiculously* like the top 0.00000000001%-ers like Augusta, etc. More like Neurosurgeons – they make a lot of money relative to normals, even though their malpractice insurance is probably a lot more than a normal person’s entire paycheck. After all, Ichabod can afford to rent use of an entire ship semi-permanently (or whatever his contract with the Cap’n is) plus room and board for 2 other people and their pets and the damages they cause. And despite what Layla might say, it’s a big ship. Rich or poor is all relative, after all.
re: NitPicCon – this definitely should be something that exists! Held once a year, and the Guild feels obligated as public relations to send a few of its celebrity Nitpickers to attend. Of course, it’s considered a punishment. Or, rather, there’s always that one annoyingly chirpy, overenthusiastic nitpicker like May who volunteers to go every year, but they’re told “No! We can’t send the same Nitpickers over and over every year!” and so instead they select from the remaining victims based on whoever is in the most trouble at the time. Which certainly means Ichabod has already been selected at least once. Heck, this year he may even get invited to both NitPicCon and StiTaxCon. Because you know Stilez&Tax have surely got to have a huge fanbase, even if they are unaware of it. Tabitha’s probably the president.
apparently, if you’re in the middle of editing when the 30min timer runs out, it posts the new edited version as a new comment instead.
Huh. We learn new things about this crap every day!