#1362; Ax Me Another, Part 2

Comic Transcripts

[[GIRLINE and PILLIPA sit in a chair garden, idly chatting.]]

GIRLINE: Grandma, I always wanted to ask you! Where did you get these chairs? They’re so… unique.
PILLIPA: Your grandpapa made them for me, many years ago! It was quite an ordeal.

PILLIPA: You see, in those days the forest was ruled by a WOOD KING who forbade the cutting down of any of his trees. Your grandfather, bless his dullard heart, chopped down forty-one trees to find just the right wood for these chairs.
GIRLINE: And the king allowed it?
PILLIPA: No! Your grandfather had to kidnap the king to try and hide his crime.

PILLIPA: Then when the DRYAD ARMY came after him, he tried to TRICK them with a series of elaborate LOGIC PUZZLES. Then he had ME act as a distraction while he chopped the king up into lumber and quickly made him into a picnic table that he claimed had been there the whole time!
GIRLINE: Sounds like he was a very clever man!
PILLIPA: From the broad strokes and in retrospect, I can see how it would seem that way.

[[Pillipa’s face intensifies.]]

PILLIPA: With the king’s body unrecognized, they had to come after him in civil court. When he was served with a LEAF SUMMONS, he claimed to be his own TWIN BROTHER. So they sued BOTH brothers and got a default judgment when only ONE appeared in court. But then, as luck would have it, the power vacuum left by the king’s absence enabled a TREE COUP that, after much sap-shed, led to the forest becoming the peaceful PARLIAMENTARY ARBOROCRACY it is today.

GIRLINE: So he GOT AWAY with it!
PILLIPA: Oh, NO, ha ha ha! No, rogue elements of the dryad military loyal to the deposed monarchy came after him in the night in a covert act of revenge. I woke up one day to find him COMPLETELY MUMMIFIED IN SAP! Gave me QUITE the startle, let me tell you!

[[We have a fleeting glimpse of Grandpapa]]

PILLIPA: He was too beautiful for this world. REALLY he was. All I have left to remember him now are these CHAIRS… And some of the sap with his hair in it that I keep in an urn.
GIRLINE: WHAT A TALE! I never knew there was so much to the history of these funny old chairs!

GIRLINE: Really makes you wish they were at ALL comfortable, doesn’t it?
PILLIPA: I KNOW! That’s the tragedy of the whole bloody thing!

#1362; Ax Me Another, Part 2 transcribed by in

[[GIRLINE and PILLIPA sit in a chair garden, idly chatting.]]

GIRLINE: Grandma, I always wanted to ask you! Where did you get these chairs? They're so... unique.
PILLIPA: Your grandpapa made them for me, many years ago! It was quite an ordeal.

[[Pillipa's face intensifies.]]

PILLIPA: With the king's body unrecognized, they had to come after him in civil court. When he was served with a LEAF SUMMONS, he claimed to be his own TWIN BROTHER. So they sued BOTH brothers and got a default judgment when only ONE appeared in court. But then, as luck would have it, the power vacuum left by the king's absence enabled a TREE COUP that, after much sap-shed, led to the forest becoming the peaceful PARLIAMENTARY ARBOROCRACY it is today.

[[We have a fleeting glimpse of Grandpapa]]

PILLIPA: He was too beautiful for this world. REALLY he was. All I have left to remember him now are these CHAIRS... And some of the sap with his hair in it that I keep in an urn.
GIRLINE: WHAT A TALE! I never knew there was so much to the history of these funny old chairs!

GIRLINE: Really makes you wish they were at ALL comfortable, doesn't it?
PILLIPA: I KNOW! That's the tragedy of the whole bloody thing!

But that was a different time! Chairs HAD to be hard so they’d keep your hernias pressed in!

#1362; Ax Me Another, Part 2

— December 9th, 2017

[ Tags: botanicals, nostalgia, violence ] Permalink: https://wondermark.com/c/1362/

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

#1362; Ax Me Another, Part 2

— December 9th, 2017

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