600

599

I probably should have had a panel showing Stacie. Moving on, though.

598

597

I like characters who are menacing and wear hats because whenever I don't feel like drawing their eyes I can just shade them away.

I've lost track of how many times I used the "Wait a Minute" line.

596

Suddenly had the urge to draw this one in Flash. Actually got it done in one night for once, that's a plus. Really just the act of switching programs sort of gave me a little extra motivation.

595

Ada does not easily spill her guys like that. Seriously took me forever to write out this speech of hers.
I'm super super glad Stacie insisted they play cards instead of fighting though. I would hate to have choreographed a fight on top of writing this whole thing out. It would have been the Quat' fight all over again.

594

CONVERGING PLOT ELEMENTS!

593

The night sky has been one of the hardest things about the end of this comic. You do white backgrounds for such a long time, it gets really difficult to get a night atmosphere going.

592

SUDDEN UPSET!
The long awaited fight between Ada and Stacie... is a card game!
That's right. Bringing us all the way back to chapter 2 here!

591

If you remember, Jack Daniels was the sniper who was monitoring the ceremony and got beheaded by magic 8 Ball Girl.
Unfortunately for Alice, this location is in fact very far away from the actually fight location, but at least we know she can get a good view of it from up there.

590

Are we updating weekly now? :(
My homework say yes.

589

588

The English translation team of this game named Dart after a British city instead of the character from the three musketeers.
Irrelevant either way, since his name is Darnell.

587

I couldn't think of anything Captain CueBall could say for his final speech to Ada that wouldn't sound like a double entedre (especially the way he sort of looms over her in the 4th panel, I had to add panel two with the scorpion head just to put som distance between them on that row). Anyway, I realized it wouldn't make sense for him to talk with that impalement anyway, So I let Ada tell us a little more directly what it meant.

586

And that was Chapter 18!
I should probably get the remain missing pages up before I start the next one. Give a little time to let this sink in.

585

I know what your worried about, and don't be. He has another gun.

584

Since the creation of the Ether network many dark elves has been so seduced by the consequence-free fun of ether clones that they isolate themselves into distant human civilizations and just spend all their time indoors at their crystal balls.

583

582

So guess which side's gong to win.

581

Sheesh, Shin. Have a little faith in your own clone, will you?

580

Sorta got carried away with the textures on Roberts, there.

579

Ada's still going to swing at her.

578

577

Now in the process of restoring the back-up site.

576

Reposting the archive from most recent to lastest. I don't remember some of the older comments I left, but I'll add some new ones along the way.
Fun fact, the last few times these guys were shown I didn't include the illuminaty eyed agent in the group, mostly because cirno was already in the way.

575

I like the way this reveal played out. Usually I'm not satisfied with my dramatic reveal moments (all of the Livelake VS. Ada chapters) in this comic, but this is one that finally met my expectation.

574

Peter asked about the pen the last time I posted this comic. I'd been using that Tablet pen since 2010, and was never very careful with it, I used it in games that invloved frequent tapping of things, I picked at the rubber, I would idly pull it apart, and one time I even through it at the wall and lost the fastening tip for 5 months.
Anyway that pen was replaced and I'm not going to make the same mistakes with this one.

573

This was originally meant to be a chapter break, but I realized the next set of pages will still be more of Light and Dart V Mr. Fuck // Shinji V Dread Preston Roberts // and Ada V Stacie. So I'm not going to do another chapter break till the epilogue chapter.

I'm not sure This conflict was explained coherently, so here's a play by play. Stacie's a bit self delusional/distraught about her motives, and Ada is already so confident that she knows what's going on she seems almost callously apathetic to Stacies plight, making Stacie feel vulnerable and instigated. Ada will eventually make a big Spiel about everything Stacie's been doing wrong, and then Stacie will finally regain the sense of self she lost way back when this whole mess started. , but first they have to punch each other all dramatic like.

572

Ada can't help but enjoy this, but deep down she's very angry with the way Stacie's acting.

571

Recap pages always take forever, because I hate repeating information, even when I have to (or to restate information so it better fits the next events).

That's Holly in the title panel, I hope she's not upset about Malk.ralk.net closing.

570

The comic took a 4 week reprieval just after this page while I relocated for the summer. I didn't think it would take me that long, But the page after it was a recap page, and you know how those are for me.

569

Those first two panels were drawn about 2 weeks apart from the last two. It took a while for me to get the right feel for it, and I was still kind of in a rut during this period.
I like the situation the dread king sets up though, I was worried this chapter might seem a bit too one sided as soon Ada came back into the picture.

568

Round one goes to Mr. Fuck.
I don't think this moment could have gone any better.
I need to be ready for when round two starts because I'm gonna want to be at my fasted momentum to get that fight finished.

But that last panel is probably going to be my favorite action shot of this whole series.

567

I actually didn't catch the joke I could make with this pages number until just before uploading it. Usualy, I'm Better at catching little tricks like that one. It made this page all the more special.

I darts hair isn't blown backwards like Leon's is because I didn't like the way it looked on him.
and hey, he just got out of the shower.

566

This is actually the first time Leon has seen Dart in his Ninja costume since the incident in book when when he got stuffed in a cat carrier as Tiny Fortune. Neither of them recognized each other until now because they were out of costume, but now that dart is back in his uniform the memories have come flooding back.

I love every single pose Leon makes on this page.

565

That first panel with dart and leon is great. this whole concept of them heckling what turns out to be the most dangerous person in the comic works out so well.

564

Mr. Fuck Tries to explain that, even though Shin's plan is going exactly as he'd hoped, the Dread King and all his minions still have everything under control.

Dart and Leon aren't the best audience for this, though, so I had the Dread King explain it himself a little later.

563

I rewrote this so many times It's not even funny. This whole speech and the back and forth they have just before it. So much so that when I finally published the page the first time it was riddled with mistakes that were caught right ways.

The whole joke about who the Dread King Preston Roberts is based on is obvious by his name alone, but I decided to hammer it in a little more with the last line on this page.
Another more subtle layer of this joke is that David Sword (the assumed king of spades) looked like Prince Humperdink.

562

15 pages down. 140 more pages to go... not including some fillers

This whole history about Shinji's was written way back in Quat's Flashback chapter. IVan was supposed to tell it to Quat to explain how Shinji was forced into the league at a young age and how IVan met him. However since we were already in a flashback, and the story was getting way too complicated at the time, I decided to save it for later.

And also, as you can see, Shinji's history has about 4 or 5 layers of puns based off old cartoons. This page would have been WAY too complicated for the expositional quagmire that was Quat's Flashback.

561

This guy almost didn't make it into the comic. I wanted to keep David Swords as the main Villain for Shin until the very end, but as time went on I realized the importance of having a last minute final boss come out of nowhere. A dramatic villain becomes comedic after a very short time, and a comedic hero becomes Dramatic eventually as well. You either embrace the transformation, or replace them with someone new.

560

For those of you just reading this, Shin will go into more detail about this in a few pages.

Collin's presence here is important for the more confused reader to have someone to identify with. This is admittedly a very confusing part of the story.

559

WOW! I forgot how good my drawing used to be.

This is just before a big wave of depression started to sink into me in the first half of this year. and it affected the comic pretty badly. I didn't realize how badly though, until now. No wonder I'm still having trouble getting back into gear.

558

I wasn't too happy with the page right before this one, but this page itself takes so much advantage of that it was worth it. and it sets the mood for the rest of this fight as Mr. Fuck tries in vain to not be the Butt of every joke these two make.

557

I have to be very careful not to make Collin Dark and Leon light look too similar, especially now that collin's hair is so short and he doesn't have glasses. Thankfully there are plenty of other differences betweeen them, but I need to emphasize that more often.

Dart Finally returns to his old combat uniform! Yeah! =D

556

Clone Shinji throws David sword's words back in his face. These words were over 6 months ago, however, so I doubt he remembers them.

I struggled with that last pane trying to get the shot to look right, but eventually went with the first design of it. Path of least resistance, and all that.

555

Any time one of Hart's hair-clones dies the damage they take goes back with her, but considering almost all of her hair was blown up by the billiard bomb the night before, her hair is very fast to recover.

Oh, and the mysterious clocked stranger is a Hart Clone, Modeled after Shinji, dressed like IVan.

554

I think I sort of gave up with the panels for this. I found a lot of other spelling errors when reuploading it just now, but at least I could fix those.

553

Hart is more or less dangerous than a Xenomorph.
not my best christmas special.