#1024; In which a Pen is lost

Comic Transcripts

[[A hip, young individual talks with a much older woman, who seems to be working on some sort of knitting.]]
Youth: Have you seen my pen?
Senior: Here, I have a pen.
Youth: No. My SPECIAL pen. The pen I got in Amsterdam.

Senior: What’s special about this Amsterdam pen?
Youth: I got it in AMSTERDAM! From the HOTEL ROOM! When I went with JANINE!
Senior: No. I haven’t seen your HOTEL ROOM PEN.

Senior: This is why I don’t assign sentimental value to normal things. You spend all your time worrying about these OBJECTS that don’t matter.

Senior: Did I lose my PEN? Where’s my LUCKY SILVER DOLLAR? Oh NO, Grandpa’s rusty old RAZOR got cracked, now I feel AWFUL!
Senior: Just use things for their purpose. SIMPLER that way. You never have to rent a STORAGE UNIT because you can’t bear to part with a lifetime’s worth of PSYCHIC ANCHORS.

Youth: Whenever you wear that shawl, with that top, with that bonnet, I’M going to remember it as your ARGUMENT OUTFIT.
Youth: It’s going to remind me of this day, and this conversation, and the lovely time we’re sharing as friends.
Senior: YOU KEEP YOUR WITCHCRAFT AWAY FROM MY ACCESSORIES

{{header: save that WONDERMARK.COM}}
{{alt-text: It was a nice pen, though. White barrel. Ballpoint. Blue ink. Said ‘Marriot Amsterdam’ on the side in red printing. Probably a PaperMate.}}

#1024; In which a Pen is lost transcribed by in

Senior: What's special about this Amsterdam pen?
Youth: I got it in AMSTERDAM! From the HOTEL ROOM! When I went with JANINE!
Senior: No. I haven't seen your HOTEL ROOM PEN.

Senior: This is why I don't assign sentimental value to normal things. You spend all your time worrying about these OBJECTS that don't matter.

Senior: Did I lose my PEN? Where's my LUCKY SILVER DOLLAR? Oh NO, Grandpa's rusty old RAZOR got cracked, now I feel AWFUL!
Senior: Just use things for their purpose. SIMPLER that way. You never have to rent a STORAGE UNIT because you can't bear to part with a lifetime's worth of PSYCHIC ANCHORS.

Youth: Whenever you wear that shawl, with that top, with that bonnet, I'M going to remember it as your ARGUMENT OUTFIT.
Youth: It's going to remind me of this day, and this conversation, and the lovely time we're sharing as friends.
Senior: YOU KEEP YOUR WITCHCRAFT AWAY FROM MY ACCESSORIES

{{header: save that WONDERMARK.COM}}
{{alt-text: It was a nice pen, though. White barrel. Ballpoint. Blue ink. Said 'Marriot Amsterdam' on the side in red printing. Probably a PaperMate.}}

It was a nice pen, though. White barrel. Ballpoint. Blue ink. Said 'Marriott Amsterdam' on the side in red printing. Probably a PaperMate.

#1024; In which a Pen is lost

— April 29th, 2014

[ Tags: fashion, nostalgia, our surroundings ] Permalink: https://wondermark.com/c/1024/

Buy a Print

The past few weeks have been a frenzy of assembling the very laborious, very bespoke first print run of NOODLE BATTLE, the puzzle game I am releasing this weekend at PAX West in Seattle!

PAX has an event called the PNW Tabletop Game Market (Saturday night ONLY), which is a curated selection of short-run games from local designers. As I’ve mentioned in this space before, I applied for a space in this fall’s event mainly as a way to force myself to finish a new game. And here it is!

The drawings are all by Jason Poland, good pal and cartoonist of My Dad Is Dracula. Jason played an early version of this game at Alaska Robotics Comics Camp this spring, and really liked it!

So I said, “Do you want to help me make it?” And so he has! It was his idea to make all the characters fun little animals, and I think it adds a ton of charm.

Because this edition is limited-run, it has been incredibly labor-intensive to make! The boxes and cards were made by a game factory in the usual fashion, but separately. The blank tiles were made by a woodworker dude out of Connecticut. For each game, we have had to:

Cut a piece of plastic and install the box window
Paint all the tiles, hundreds at a time
Apply a sticker to both sides of every tile
Apply stickers to the box (we couldn’t get the box back printed in time, so the whole back side of the box is a sticker too)
Apply the “Nutrition Facts” sticker, which was a late suggestion by my kid that I just had to run with
Fold up the rule sheet (they come from the printer as big strips of paper)
Put all the components into the box and seal it all up

I knew it would be a lot of work and would require some inefficient, expensive compromises AND I WAS RIGHT. But the final product is turning out great, which is the important thing!!

I will have 50 copies with me (if all goes well) at PAX, and then between now and the holidays we will be putting together additional copies to round out this first edition.

I will announce additional copies on Patreon first, once they are available online!! And here too, naturally, before long.

You can also sign up here if you’d like me to email you once the game is available online!

Comic Transcripts

#1024; In which a Pen is lost

— April 29th, 2014

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