#1078; In which a Meal is bartered

Comic Transcripts

[[A man in a top hat and another with mutton chops are at a restaurant. The waiter approaches.]]
Waiter: Ready for the bill?
Tophat: Actually, in the interest of hyperlocal community interplay, we would like to propose a barter system.
Tophat: Rather than BUYING these burgers, we would like to simply BORROW them and bring you back two burgers later this week.

Tophat: Alternately, we could bake you a birthday cake.
Waiter: That is not going to work.
Tophat: You’re right! MY cake is worth at least FOUR burgers. You would end up owing us EXTRA BURGERS.

Waiter: Five minutes ago you both ate time-release burger bombs. If I don’t deactivate them, you are not going to survive the drive home.
Chops: Actually we’re WALKING home, so no worries
Tophat: We’ll be back later with the cake.

[[The waiter pursues the fleeing pair in a car. Tophat’s top hat has fallen off; he is sweating.]]
Tophat: THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO BUILD A SUSTAINABLE MICROECONOMY

{{header: dine out at WONDERMARK.COM}}
{{alt-text: Pshaw, like the birthday cake WOULDN’T have been full of time-release burger bombs}}

#1078; In which a Meal is bartered transcribed by in

Tophat: Alternately, we could bake you a birthday cake.
Waiter: That is not going to work.
Tophat: You’re right! MY cake is worth at least FOUR burgers. You would end up owing us EXTRA BURGERS.

[[The waiter pursues the fleeing pair in a car. Tophat’s top hat has fallen off; he is sweating.]]
Tophat: THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO BUILD A SUSTAINABLE MICROECONOMY

{{header: dine out at WONDERMARK.COM}}
{{alt-text: Pshaw, like the birthday cake WOULDN’T have been full of time-release burger bombs}}

#1078; In which a Meal is bartered transcribed by in

Bolted! games have been shipping to backers over the last couple of weeks! The non-US orders are (mostly) done and some folks have been reporting receiving them already!

@davidmalki.com My game arrived today!! It looks gorgeous 🙂 Hope you are well 🙂

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— Lar deSouza (@lartist.bsky.social) April 2, 2026 at 2:52 PM

My US inventory of games is now in-country, but still being staged at the fulfillment centers. It’s being distributed to regional warehouses, so the actual shipping to backers happens more efficiently. I hope the bulk of US shipping will start next week.

These are what the cartons (and games) look like!

bolted! games BOLTED! GAMES (pounding the table) B O L T E D ! G A M E S

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— david malki ! (@davidmalki.com) April 3, 2026 at 10:37 AM

I am also waiting on the bonus cards to be finished printing! I ended up needing many more of those than I had anticipated, so I decided to have the game factory print those too, for perfect matching with the base game cards.

Most people will be receiving two separate mailings: the game itself, and “anything else” (bonus cards and/or add-ons) which will be sent by me personally.

As of today, 86% of backers have completed their surveys so far! That’s pretty good, but it’s not everyone. I know YOU PERSONALLY have already completed YOURS though, so no worries!!

We have now moved OFF of Kickstarter and ONTO BackerKit for any new orders. You can bundle a game with basically anything else I sell on that there website, it’s pretty nuts!