Far Out There

Science came to my rescue on this one. When I first started thinking of drawing a comic involving a black hole, I automatically started thinking of the big, swirly whirlpools you see in the movies, and kinda dreaded having to actually draw one. But then it dawned on me: that’s not how space actually works! If we assume this particular black hole doesn’t have, like, a star getting gobbled up at the moment, I don’t really have to draw ANYTHING, do I? (Admittedly, it’s hard to imagine how this black hole could be considered “nearby” under those circumstances, but that’s the wonder of Casual Interstellar Travel for you)

Better yet, I got to draw random signs again! Pointlessly hostile signs will ALWAYS be funny to me, I don’t know why.

Well, I asked you guys last time for ideas regarding this year’s Christmas comic, and you’ve already helped me make some significant progress. Still, any additional feedback would be greatly appreciated, so please drop by The Forum and give your two cents!

And, as always, more Killer Station of Deadly Doom is just a vote away!

(Historical Notes: The was some blowback regarding my comment about black holes, so let me clarify here.  Yes, I know they CAN have massively visible signs of their existence, the whole internet was going crazy over that picture of one a while back after all.  But that’s only if there’s enough stuff whirling around it to form an accretion disk, a black hole out in the deepest dead of empty space wouldn’t have anything getting torn apart as it falls in, so no swirly maelstrom.  HOWEVER, it was also suggested that, if this specific black hole is constantly having junk fired into it, then it WOULD have a visible accretion disk formed by the junk itself… and yeah, that’s probably true.  I mean, in the common sense of the comic narrative, they shouldn’t be able to throw enough trash at a quantum singularity to do it all on their own, but that’s no nothing to do with the actual scientific reality of how black holes work… because actual scientific reality has very little to do with any comic involving flying space buffalo in the first place.  Oh, and it’s deliberately not very visible, but I squeezed in a subtle little “BLEAK LANDSCAPES” sign while re-editing this page.  I WILL retroactively make this a running gag!)