Don't owe anybody anything!

Transcription:

Maurice is pushing an empty dolly at work, where he's an assistant manager at a beer and liquor wholesaler. The manager, Vinny, is saying to an employee there, "Damion, you're riding with Moe today. Go load the truck. Hurry; yer late."

Damion and Maurice stand in the warehouse in front of stacks of cases labeled "Bud" and "Coors." Damion says, "Can you handle the dolly if I stack it?"

"Course!" replies Maurice. "I do it all the time."

When the dolly is full, Maurice tips it back to begin pushing it. But it keeps tipping back, and he lets go of it. He stares at it as the cases begin to slide off.

The alien appears in the background and we can no longer see Damion surrounded by cases of beer. Maurice is pulling his right arm away from the falling dolly, and implores her, "Stop. Make it stop."

"what happened?" she asks. Maurice looks at his right arm. He's turning so that his left side will meet the dolly as it continues to fall toward him.

"My arm gave way. The broken one. It went crack. That can't be good."

"Oh," the alien exclaims. "Oh no."

Maurice's shoulder is near the left handle of the dolly now, and his left hand has almost grabbed it. He continues. "I told Vinny when he hired me that..."

He pauses.

"...I wouldn't do heavy lifting. I wouldn't injure myself. Aaaaaand there goes my back. Take it back."

The alien continues to hover in the background, keeping her distance. The dolly is nearly at the floor now, and Maurice has gotten his shoulder under it and it's weighing on him hard. "This is my own fault. I need a second chance," he reasons with her, then pleads, "Rewind! Rewind!"

"What?!" says the alien. "I can't rewind TIME!"

"But I need it," Maurice pleads.

***

There's a whole other level of fictional characters, or imaginary friends in some cases, that wasn't originally part of the story. I added them after I finished Draft 1 because I kind of wanted there to be an alien in Alien Romance who was an alien, and not just an immigrant. The title of my book actually refers to immigrants, and it's a callback to the old cheesy shows and movies popular in the 1980's about an attractive alien coming to earth and having a romantic subplot with a cute human while the FBI tries to chase them down. Those shows were, to a degree, allegories for immigration and intercultural relationships. So I bypassed the allegory part.

The bones of this story popped into my head in 1987, so you can't really be surprised, right?

It's been snowing for three days straight. Fortunately, most of that time was the weekend! We took it easy, cooked a little, drew a lot, did our respective things and watched the snow fall.







Time to pull on our boots and go back to life as usual! We have places to be and things to do. I need more coffee, and I have an hour between errands, so I'll bring my sketchbook too.

Martin Luther King, Jr. turned his activism toward opposing the American War in Vietnam, and on top of the trouble that the US government and White American establishment figures were already giving him, that stance only made them give him more. He didn't waver. It wasn't necessary for him to stand against the war. He already had a huge amount of civil rights work on his shoulders. He spoke out for the poor in general, regardless of race, and paid for it. Speaking out against the war was a big step further than that. And I'm grateful. the man didn't hedge. He wasn't a moderate. Once he was in the fight, he went all in. And you all know I have a spot in my heart for Vietnam. It stole me. I want to go back. The worst thing we could've done was go over there and try to claim it for ourselves, and it somehow recovered from that, even if we haven't.

This is an easy one to transcribe.

Ren is pouring milk into his cereal. To the left, just out of sight, the lyrics, "Relax, don't do it," come wafting in. Ren scowls in that direction and says, "Dude."

Maurice comes into the panel. "When you want to go to it," he sings.
"Cut it out," says Ren.
"Relax, don't do it," Maurice continues. He makes gestures with his hands. "When you want to come..."
"We're just friends!" exclaims Ren, looking increasingly annoyed.

Maurice pours himself a cup of coffee and Ren sits at the kitchen table with his cereal.

Maurice sits at the kitchen table and Ren eyes him while eating his cereal.

Maurice leans closer and whispers, "Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon."
Ren throws his head back. "STOP IT!" he laughs.

I dunno, I really like this one. I'm not sure it's as endearing to anyone else as it is to me. But if I didn't love my characters, I wouldn't be doing this webcomic.

Patreon link here.