*DING DING DING* Congrats to Reynard for being the one to specifically predict how this was gonna go!  Your imaginary cookie is in the mail!  It’s been a little while since I got to bust out the ol’ *bites tongue* in the comments, huh?

But yeah, just in case the sarcasm in the title isn’t properly evident, I absolutely did NOT think I was setting up a later plot element when this happened FIVE FRICKIN’ YEARS AGO when the page originally dropped.  This is one of those instances where I randomly thought “Meh, just showing Stilez tearing all the machines open and eating the contents AGAIN is kind of anticlimactic… OH!  It’d be funny to draw her fighting a food monster!” and only after the fact realized that could be turned into a call-back.  As always, the line between long-term planning and dumb bling luck is basically just a matter of attitude.

ANYWAY, housekeeping: The schedule is an extra Thanksgiving page on Thursday, then page 1299 next Tuesday, then CHRISTMAS PAGES START NEXT FRIDAY!  …and I’m still ASTONISHINGLY behind on it all!  So we’re definitely not going to have a new TWC Voting Incentive this week, I really gotta focus on finishing other stuff.  I’m still HOPING to do some Incentives during December, but that’ll all depend on how much more of a head start I can carve out for myself over the next week.  Also, just as some fair warning, this year’s Christmas thing is gonna be a bit different from what I’ve done in recent years.  Instead of going for broke on flashy, full-color, gimmicky visuals as has been the tradition for a while, this one is going to be much more visually stripped down and minimalist.  Is it a desperate attempt to make the pages less time-consuming to finish? …I mean, that’ll be a real benefit, yeah.  But it’s ALSO because this is going to be one of the more story-driven Holiday projects I’ve done in a while.  Remember those storybook looking things I did in the early years?  Think that, only less pencily… and children’s storybook like… so maybe that’s a bad example…