Comic Transcripts

EVAN: Mom and Dad slipped up and revealed foreknowledge of certain presents that were ostensibly from “Santa.”
HILDEGARD: So what kinds of?conclusions have you drawn from that?

EVAN: Oh, I know the whole Santa Charade is a determined yet pointless falsehood, like Johnny Appleseed or Larry the Cable Guy. But the looks on their faces when they thought they’d ruined it for me! The poor babies were crushed! I had to save their feelings!

[[Visual: EVAN’s horrified parents.]]
EVAN [[narrating]]: I said “Does Santa give you hints in advance of what he’s going to bring? Are his notes written in magic ink on North Pole stationery that dissolves after a single read, leaving no evidence behind?” And then I added “Oh, the MAGIC of it all!” and batted my eyelashes until they smiled. They get to play the game another year.

EVAN: It’s so sweet, you know? Watching them sink back into confidence. Letting them believe a little lie, just to feel a tiny bit more secure for a tiny bit longer.
HILDEGARD: How long do you think you can keep it up?
EVAN: I’m hoping until I go to college

{{header: believe in WONDERMAR.COM}}
{{alt-text: I’m incredibly curious to see how convoluted this Santa mythos will get as they try to keep it plausible for ten more years. Will he eventually be cloned? Have sleeper cells across the world? Be revealed to be an alien? WHO WILL TIRE OF THE RUSE FIRST??}}

#783; In which Belief is maintained transcribed by in

EVAN: Mom and Dad slipped up and revealed foreknowledge of certain presents that were ostensibly from “Santa.”
HILDEGARD: So what kinds of?conclusions have you drawn from that?

EVAN: Oh, I know the whole Santa Charade is a determined yet pointless falsehood, like Johnny Appleseed or Larry the Cable Guy. But the looks on their faces when they thought they’d ruined it for me! The poor babies were crushed! I had to save their feelings!

[[Visual: EVAN’s horrified parents.]]
EVAN [[narrating]]: I said “Does Santa give you hints in advance of what he’s going to bring? Are his notes written in magic ink on North Pole stationery that dissolves after a single read, leaving no evidence behind?” And then I added “Oh, the MAGIC of it all!” and batted my eyelashes until they smiled. They get to play the game another year.

EVAN: It’s so sweet, you know? Watching them sink back into confidence. Letting them believe a little lie, just to feel a tiny bit more secure for a tiny bit longer.
HILDEGARD: How long do you think you can keep it up?
EVAN: I’m hoping until I go to college

{{header: believe in WONDERMAR.COM}}
{{alt-text: I’m incredibly curious to see how convoluted this Santa mythos will get as they try to keep it plausible for ten more years. Will he eventually be cloned? Have sleeper cells across the world? Be revealed to be an alien? WHO WILL TIRE OF THE RUSE FIRST??}}

#783; In which Belief is maintained transcribed by in

EVAN: Mom and Dad slipped up and revealed foreknowledge of certain presents that were ostensibly from "Santa."
HILDEGARD: So what kinds of?conclusions have you drawn from that?

EVAN: Oh, I know the whole Santa Charade is a determined yet pointless falsehood, like Johnny Appleseed or Larry the Cable Guy. But the looks on their faces when they thought they'd ruined it for me! The poor babies were crushed! I had to save their feelings!

[[Visual: EVAN's horrified parents.]]
EVAN [[narrating]]: I said "Does Santa give you hints in advance of what he's going to bring? Are his notes written in magic ink on North Pole stationery that dissolves after a single read, leaving no evidence behind?" And then I added "Oh, the MAGIC of it all!" and batted my eyelashes until they smiled. They get to play the game another year.

EVAN: It's so sweet, you know? Watching them sink back into confidence. Letting them believe a little lie, just to feel a tiny bit more secure for a tiny bit longer.
HILDEGARD: How long do you think you can keep it up?
EVAN: I'm hoping until I go to college

{{header: believe in WONDERMAR.COM}}
{{alt-text: I'm incredibly curious to see how convoluted this Santa mythos will get as they try to keep it plausible for ten more years. Will he eventually be cloned? Have sleeper cells across the world? Be revealed to be an alien? WHO WILL TIRE OF THE RUSE FIRST??}}

I'm incredibly curious to see how convoluted this Santa mythos will get as they try to keep it plausible for ten more years. Will he eventually be cloned? Have sleeper cells across the world? Be revealed to be an alien? WHO WILL TIRE OF THE RUSE FIRST??

#783; In which Belief is maintained

  — December 23rd, 2011

[ Tags: , , ]       Permalink: https://wondermark.com/c/783/

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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!


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