I’m running a little late tonight, but the page is technically done on time. Rather than type out the long thing I had In my mind I guess I’ll save it till Monday. That will be the beginning of a new month and we’ll officially be in sight of the 20th anniversary of the comic. It’s kind of a shame that I was never able to get to a point where I could plan anything for it. No one can say if there will be another milestone anniversary to celebrate. I kind of didn’t expect to make it to this one. For now however you are still stuck with me and some of you have been with me a very long time. I’ll probably speak more about that as the actual date gets closer.

For now, I hope you have a nice weekend to finish off February. I’ll be back on Monday with more of whatever it is I do here. Until then, begin the rites!

30 Comments

It’s so wild seeing Reggie like this and then looking back at how he was when I first started reading (right around the time Jessie and Jolene got together). His character growth is really incredible.

You could do a Beary bear pizza friendship rite page with the muppets for a belated aniversary. That said just another day of you posting is cause enough for celebration for me. Congrats on twenty years man. Here’s to twenty more.

Hooray for the 20 years’ anniversary!
:D

*Throws confetti + plays party horns*

Reminded Of This little gem:

Ceremony: 1st-level Abjuration (ritual)
Source: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

Casting Time: 1 hour
Range: Touch
Components: V, S, M (25 gp worth of powdered silver, which the spell consumes)
Duration: Instantaneous (-one of a few options-)
-Wedding. You touch adult humanoids willing to be bonded together in marriage. For the next 7 days, each target gains a +2 bonus to AC while they are within 30 feet of each other. A creature can benefit from this rite again only if widowed.

That’s the thing about magic items: None of them come with instructions.

“Against all odds” was an apt addition by Reggie.

Delightful page. Reggie’s really coming into his own.

Having people in his life that he genuinely likes has made Reggie himself a lot more likeable. Instead of constantly trying to prove that he’s better than everyone, he’s come to realize that a lot of people thought he was good enough already.

Reggie’s smile in that last panel, compared to his usual sneer, is blissful.

I’d rather have Alex and Maddison be a lesbian couple than Reggie and Alex.

Alex doesn’t give off that vibe at all. Like zero percent.

Alex and Maddison are definitely more likely to be a lesbian couple, than Reggie and Alex, yes. ;)

CONSULT YE THE BOOK OF ARMAMENTS.

And Saint Attila raised the Breadstick of True Friendship up on high, saying, “O Lord, bless this thy breadstick, that with it thou mayst deliver friendship unto the masses, and blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.”

And the Lord did grin.

And the people did feast upon the breadsticks, and dipping sauces, and sundry other items, including pizzas and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats, and large chu…

I’ll just skip a bit here…

And the Lord spake, saying, “First shalt thou point the breadstick in the direction of the dipping sauces. Then shalt thou lower the bread into the sauce, and dip once. One shalt be the number of times thou shalt dip, and the number of the dipping shalt be one. Two is right out, for double dipping is unsanitary in My sight. Once the number one, being the first number, be reached, then bitest thou thy Holy Breadstick of True Friendship and savor, for thy friendless foes who, suffering in their friendless lot, shall snuff it.

Where’s the Like button, when you need it? ;)

I just wanted to point this out- in panel 2, is Maddie’s breadstick in a pocket…or is part of her breadstick missing?

I just don’t know if it is supposed to be drawn like that.

I’m only trying to be positive, but that’s an unusual effect, there. Cheers.

I think it’s just that the black outline is blending into the shirt. In front of any other colour your mind would see a continuation of the outline and disregard that gap between the bread and her hand.

That’s cool.

…If you’re slightly annoyed at your friend, can the Pizza Pope give you + your friend, a friend-annulment ceremony? That could be fun, too! :)

I really like how easily Reggie rolled with the idea of- “I don’t know how to do this breadsticks +friends ceremony, but I’ll do it anyway.” That takes guts.

Reggie’s a good sport. :D

There is nothing fun about the thought of any kind of annulment ceremony.

Oh pooh, oh pooh, and oh deary me. :D :D

Some people like to see: Sonic the Hedgehog, felix the cat, Kiff, the men + women WWE-wrestlers- [pretend] to do boxing matches with each other.
These aren’t serious things.

It’s all pretend.

Fiction isn’t real.

You, + I, and others can have fun, sometimes, with- silly ideas and odd ideas, like: you + I [squirting each other with squirt guns], while pretending to be [Jackie Chan and Tom Selleck]…brawling about a girlfriend.

Fiction + squirt gun fights are harmless things.

Even in the story, the pizza pope ceremonies are being done by these people, just for the fun of it. All of the characters know that’s what this all about.

Please lighten up a little about these ideas, okay then?
Hoping you’re having a good day.

Yeah, I’m old and jaded. I’ll freely admit that.

But do you even understand what an annulment is? The whole purpose of an annulment is that when it’s done, the relationship that is being annuled isn’t just over, it never existed. So not only are you not friends any more, you never were friends at all. Ever.

They’re doing these ceremonies to celebrate their friendship. Doing one to negate their friendship would be sort of the opposite of doing something together AS FRIENDS. It’s not even remotely like the make-believe playing you used as examples. If you think that sounds fun, then I pity you.

Sigh. “I pity you.” That’s a needless thing to say, + kind of abusive.

My above comments are about having fun with made up + fictional ideas. Is that too bothersome?

Can Monty Python joking about grannies throwing punches be fun + funny? Can the film, Dr. Strangelove be fun? Serious subjects can be made fun of.

I didn’t mean to bother you, sir, or madam, or whatever sobriquet you choose to be called by.

I wasn’t trying to insult you, or the things you did.

Sigh.

I don’t know what’s bugging you today, but I don’t think my statements deserved your terse retort…or whatever category you put it in.

Do you feel better now?

I don’t think the jokes are bugging you that much. Are you doing ok? Are you feeling better?

I hope that your weekend goes smoothly.

Until then, Cheers.

You genuinely want to know why it bothers me so much?

Because the world is going to hell in a handbasket. No one cares about marriage or the family any more. I listen to people – friends – who go into a marriage and literally say “I don’t think it’s forever”, and laugh about it. And I have to work with the kids who suffer because one or both of their parents simply doesn’t care enough to make an effort. And no amount of telling the kid “it’s not your fault” makes the kid feel any less like it really IS their fault.

So it’s not your comments on their own that have me torqued off. Yours just happened to be proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

My nature is to fix things. But I can’t fix everything that’s wrong with the world, because life doesn’t work that way. Nevertheless, it frustrates me to no end when there’s something I can’t fix, because accepting that reality goes against my nature.

So yeah, thanks… my weekend will be fine. I just have to find something that I CAN fix to remind myself that I still do some good in the world.

Darn, I see.
[Not important, but-I use mild words, like…”darn”, sometimes, because I used to work at certain toy stores. Their policy was- “If you’re caught using our list of [dirty words + swear words, for 3 times…in front of customers, then you’re fired”. But that’s neither here nor there.]

I’m sorry to hear that you know people that have taken such a shoddy view on marriage. That must not feel good.

I’m sorry to hear that you [know kids, and work with kids], that are in families where the marriages get broken up like in those ways.

That also must not feel good, I think.

I apologize for making comments that were kind of irksome. Really, I really wasn’t trying to bother you like that. I’m sorry.

I grew up with a Dad who worked on a military base, in the cold war. It was a strategic hub for bombers + fighter planes.

Military people + their families there, kind of- [bragged] that our living area was [so important a target to the Soviet Union, that area was “in the top 40″ of places that The USSR would hit, if world war 3 happened”. Yikes, who does that? That’s strange. Also- I have an ongoing, medical problem that has required me to get a couple of emergency room visits to keep me from harm. Another thing that’s happening is- I have some ailing relatives, + their health paths are kind of uncertain at the moment. [I’m being a total jerk by oversharing right now,…I know, + I’m sorry.]

But, with those things in my present + past- my sense of humor can drift into: the dark subjects, the spooky subjects, + the edgy subjects, on occasion. It’s one way I have to let off some steam.

I sometimes forget that not everyone likes to 1] drift into those subjects, or 2] even joke about those subjects, as much as I do.

It’s just one of those things I do to let off some steam. I apologize for not being as thoughtful as I could have been, about those subjects that I was talking about. Please pardon me for trying to find humor, + being kind of thoughtless, about those subjects. I wasn’t trying to be offensive about things.

Sincerely, I don’t feel badly about our exchanges on today’s page, + I apologize for creating a discussion that touched on some unhappy subjects.
That discussion did not the way that I had intended. I apologize.

Until then, I hope things will go well.
I hope that you’ll have some sunny and enjoyable days ahead. Until then, Cheers.

Once again Reggie winging it on the assignment; happy for his character growth/breaking out of his shell.

You know, I’ve been reading this comic for years. After all this time, I keep coming back, and do you know why?

Whimsy.

Not overblown comedy, not slapstick. Just down-to-earth daily life, learning to find the silver lining in this shit world, and enjoy a little time with your friends. The ability to have an exhausting day in a service industry job, then go out for burgers with friends and get a good laugh in despite all that. It just feels real, grounded, in a way no other comic does. There doesn’t need to be some grand plotline to life, some masterclass in romance, or some action-packed adventure. All told, I think this comic has stayed truer to its premise after 20 years than most others do in half that timespan.

The first couple pages said it well: “Life is just what happens between failures.” It sounds depressed and grim, but the comic quickly went to show us that despite how much everything sucks, you can still find color in the world. We may be stuck between failures… but this is still life, and there’s plenty of it to live.