Comic Transcripts

[[A group of at least five men, including GRERELD, GARNOLD, and ZEUGENE, are out in a boat for a leisurely day of crocodile-clubbing.]]

GRERELD: People talk about “death of the author” and whether you can — or SHOULD — divorce the MERITS of a work of art from whatever you know about its CREATOR.

ZEUGENE: I think ignoring the perspective an author brings to their work flattens and hollows the art.

ZEUGENE: But that means that LATELY, I’ve been feeling like art is LOANED to us.  An artist gives us their work, but not to keep.  We hang onto it until the ALLEGATIONS surface, and then we no longer want it.  We RETURN it.  It’s like milk curling in your stomach after it’s been drunk.

[[Incidentally, the crocodile to be clubbed looks like it was drawn by someone who has only ever had crocodilians DESCRIBED to them.]]

ZEUGENE: This leads to accepting art gingerly with tongs, WAITING for the day when it turns RANCID because its source is revealed to be monstrous.

ZEUGENE: It’s terrible.  I WISH I could divorce work from its author but I wish MORE that so many authors weren’t HORRIBLE PEOPLE

GRERELD: All right, so that’s YOUR top suggestion for improving the arts.  Garnold, yours?

GARNOLD: If an actor ever had to wear old-age makeup to portray to portray their character in the future, they contractually have to return once they’re REALLY that age to RESHOOT all those scenes and have them RECUT into the movie

{{header: cut loose at WONDERMARK.COM}}

#1357; Revisit, Revise, Revile, Return transcribed by in

[[A group of at least five men, including GRERELD, GARNOLD, and ZEUGENE, are out in a boat for a leisurely day of crocodile-clubbing.]]

GRERELD: People talk about "death of the author" and whether you can -- or SHOULD -- divorce the MERITS of a work of art from whatever you know about its CREATOR.

ZEUGENE: I think ignoring the perspective an author brings to their work flattens and hollows the art.

ZEUGENE: But that means that LATELY, I've been feeling like art is LOANED to us.  An artist gives us their work, but not to keep.  We hang onto it until the ALLEGATIONS surface, and then we no longer want it.  We RETURN it.  It's like milk curling in your stomach after it's been drunk.

[[Incidentally, the crocodile to be clubbed looks like it was drawn by someone who has only ever had crocodilians DESCRIBED to them.]]

ZEUGENE: This leads to accepting art gingerly with tongs, WAITING for the day when it turns RANCID because its source is revealed to be monstrous.

ZEUGENE: It's terrible.  I WISH I could divorce work from its author but I wish MORE that so many authors weren't HORRIBLE PEOPLE

GRERELD: All right, so that's YOUR top suggestion for improving the arts.  Garnold, yours?

GARNOLD: If an actor ever had to wear old-age makeup to portray to portray their character in the future, they contractually have to return once they're REALLY that age to RESHOOT all those scenes and have them RECUT into the movie

{{header: cut loose at WONDERMARK.COM}}

Benjamin Button presents a particular challenge.

#1357; Revisit, Revise, Revile, Return

  — November 10th, 2017

[ Tags: , , ]       Permalink: https://wondermark.com/c/1357/

Buy a Print

My newest game: Noodle Battle! At PAX!

September 2, 2026 by David Malki !

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!


Recent blog posts