Man, this week was a lot. I’ll go through stuff in the order that works best for me.

For those of you who don’t have superhuman memories, or exceptional powers of deduction, the character in the first two panels is Thomas’s mother. The third panel is not in chronological order compared to the other memories. I feel like most people will get that, since memories don’t always present themselves that way, but I’m making a note to answer the question I am 100% certain will be asked. Also, I went into the archive and couldn’t find any point where Patricia’s father is mentioned by his actual name, so I just made one up. If anyone can cite a page where this was already established I’ll update this one to match. All of the files with those little notes and lore have been lost, so I can’t just search it up at the moment. That’s all I can think of for the comic related stuff.

At the start of the week Dolly Parton died. She was an American icon, and probably an icon around the world, but I can’t verify that. Most people reading this will know this already, but on the off chance that the website continues to exist into the far future those who come along after will have some idea of where to start searching for more information I don’t present here. As a child of the 80s she was a massive influence on our pop culture in so many ways it would be difficult to explain it in a meaningful way. I hesitate to tell this story, but I think it’s worth revealing as a personal anecdote. My Uncle Bob always had all the new gadgets and one time, when I was young, we visited his family. He had The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas playing on laserdisc. Which is a very old sentence. At one point he turned to me, while I was watching Dolly strut around in lingerie, and asked “Do you like big boobs?” In the grinning, affable, tone he always spoke in. I answered no, because I didn’t know what the right answer was at the time. Socially or personally. I think everyone reading this knows what the actual answer I didn’t have in that moment was. In any case getting asked was embarrassing to me, so I remember it vividly. It’s one of my clearest memories of him in fact. She always cared about looking good and always did. In some ways it seems extremely unfair that one human could be so beautiful and talented, but in her defense she was many times more philanthropic, caring, loving, and forgiving. Which is a pretty high bar to get over, and yet she managed it with seemingly no trouble at all. You don’t need me to recount all of it though. A record will exist for as long as wee keep records. Regardless the world is a poorer, less glittering, place without her in it.

On the heels of Dolly Tim Curry took his final bow. If anyone could follow her in heels it was Tim Curry. Again, you don’t need me to recount his life’s work, but I will say this much: If you are a fan and haven’t seen his turn as Captain Hook in Fox’s Peter Pan & The Pirates do look it up. He’s my favorite Hook by far and on his own raised the profile of that show much higher than it needed to be for what it was.

Finally today we also found out that Peter Cullen died. If you don’t know the name it’s almost certain you know the voice. He was a legendary prolific voice actor. Arguably his most famous role was that of the original Optimus Prime in The Transformers. As many of you will know I’m a lifelong fan of that franchise and the strong but gentle presence of Optimus Prime is deeply ingrained in my heart, along with millions of other fans. It is very sad to say goodbye to all of these performers, but they left us with a lot to enjoy until we follow them to the Well Of All Sparks.

Anyway, this was all a bit much on top of everything going on in my actual life, so I’m a bit worn out.

I hope you have a nice weekend. I will return, after these messages, on Monday with more comic. Until then, “Hang on to your dreams. The future is built on dreams.”