Comic Transcripts

[[BRINDLA, a woman with a book in her hand last seen being overwhelmed by books in the previous comic, is now speaking with a new friend, KYLEEN, who is sprawled casually over a park bench.]]

BRINDLA: So now I’ve read HEADSTABBERS: FATHOMS, but I’m unsure if I want to read any more of the series.

KYLEEN: I’ve read them ALL. Here’s the lowdown:

[[Kyleen then starts an exhaustive recap of the series as men in the background lug huge piles of tottering books around. What’s their deal? We will never know]]

KYLEEN: After FATHOMS, read LOWDOWN DEEP and CONTINENTAL SHELF OF DECEPTION.

Only the first half of WHALEFAULT is relevant. The second half is part of the Dreamvoid, which sucks.

Then: Skip the first nine in the CYANIDE ARMADA subsaga, but come back to the tenth after you’ve read DROWN BABY DROWN. It fills in the backstory of the Trench Butler, who goes on to play a big role in DEPTHS OF DESPAIR.

All the ones with sharks in the title are Kazunaga’s childhood fables. You can read them if you want, but they don’t relate to the main saga except alegorically.

HAMMERHEAD SPRING is the best of them, but it all takes place on a planet we never hear about again. It’s set a thousand years in the past.

QUEEN OF LONELY ISLES is the first one by the original author’s SON. THAT guy has some VERY odd ideas about what headstabbing is all about.

BRINDLA: Which ones have the most cute stuff with Vertebrakz?

KYLEEN: Oh, HONEY. Vertebrakz… Well, I’ll just say DO NOT read CORRUPTION OF SIRENS.

BRINDLA: I’m not sure if I should read ANY of them.

KYLEEN: AH. Yes. I remember back when that was still a choice before me

#1563; A Cold Stare From a Tall Bookshelf (Part 2 of 4) transcribed by in

[[BRINDLA, a woman with a book in her hand last seen being overwhelmed by books in the previous comic, is now speaking with a new friend, KYLEEN, who is sprawled casually over a park bench.]]

BRINDLA: So now I've read HEADSTABBERS: FATHOMS, but I'm unsure if I want to read any more of the series.

KYLEEN: I've read them ALL. Here's the lowdown:

[[Kyleen then starts an exhaustive recap of the series as men in the background lug huge piles of tottering books around. What's their deal? We will never know]]

KYLEEN: After FATHOMS, read LOWDOWN DEEP and CONTINENTAL SHELF OF DECEPTION.

Only the first half of WHALEFAULT is relevant. The second half is part of the Dreamvoid, which sucks.

Then: Skip the first nine in the CYANIDE ARMADA subsaga, but come back to the tenth after you've read DROWN BABY DROWN. It fills in the backstory of the Trench Butler, who goes on to play a big role in DEPTHS OF DESPAIR.

All the ones with sharks in the title are Kazunaga's childhood fables. You can read them if you want, but they don't relate to the main saga except alegorically.

HAMMERHEAD SPRING is the best of them, but it all takes place on a planet we never hear about again. It's set a thousand years in the past.

QUEEN OF LONELY ISLES is the first one by the original author's SON. THAT guy has some VERY odd ideas about what headstabbing is all about.

BRINDLA: Which ones have the most cute stuff with Vertebrakz?

KYLEEN: Oh, HONEY. Vertebrakz... Well, I'll just say DO NOT read CORRUPTION OF SIRENS.

BRINDLA: I'm not sure if I should read ANY of them.

KYLEEN: AH. Yes. I remember back when that was still a choice before me

If you're ever in a situation in which you're unsure what headstabbing is all about, or maybe you've just forgotten or gotten lost in the details, there's an easy mnemonic to remind you: HEAD...STABBING

#1563; A Cold Stare From a Tall Bookshelf (Part 2 of 4)

  — April 5th, 2025

[ Tags: , , ]       Permalink: https://wondermark.com/c/1563/

Continued from Part 1.

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