Comic Transcripts

[[KIM stares off into space and muses; a friend stands nearby.]]

KIM: Sometimes I wish I were, like, stuck on a desert island with a piano.  I bet with nothing else to do, I’d eventually teach myself to play.

KIM: I’d plink around at first, and over time start to pick up a sense for it.  Without any formal training, I’d have to just FIGURE STUFF OUT. I’d probably end up inventing new chords and working in nontraditional keys.

KIM:  By the time I’d finally be rescued, I’d have created a body of compositions ENTIRELY INDEPENDENT of current musical theory.  It would be revolutionary, a NOVEL SOUND out of NOWHERE. People could like it or not.  But it would, at LEAST, be NEW.

CAPTION: Coincidentally, Kim soon finds herself in this exact scenario:

[[On the desert island, Kim stares at the piano.]]

KIM:  Actually I kinda wish you were FOOD.

{{header: some time alone with WONDERMARK.COM}}

#951; In which Kim gets her Wish transcribed by in

[[KIM stares off into space and muses; a friend stands nearby.]]

KIM: Sometimes I wish I were, like, stuck on a desert island with a piano.  I bet with nothing else to do, I’d eventually teach myself to play.

KIM: I’d plink around at first, and over time start to pick up a sense for it.  Without any formal training, I’d have to just FIGURE STUFF OUT. I’d probably end up inventing new chords and working in nontraditional keys.

KIM:  By the time I’d finally be rescued, I’d have created a body of compositions ENTIRELY INDEPENDENT of current musical theory.  It would be revolutionary, a NOVEL SOUND out of NOWHERE. People could like it or not.  But it would, at LEAST, be NEW.

CAPTION: Coincidentally, Kim soon finds herself in this exact scenario:

[[On the desert island, Kim stares at the piano.]]

KIM:  Actually I kinda wish you were FOOD.

{{header: some time alone with WONDERMARK.COM}}

#951; In which Kim gets her Wish transcribed by in

[[KIM stares off into space and muses; a friend stands nearby.]]

KIM: Sometimes I wish I were, like, stuck on a desert island with a piano.  I bet with nothing else to do, I'd eventually teach myself to play.

KIM: I'd plink around at first, and over time start to pick up a sense for it.  Without any formal training, I'd have to just FIGURE STUFF OUT. I'd probably end up inventing new chords and working in nontraditional keys.

KIM:  By the time I'd finally be rescued, I'd have created a body of compositions ENTIRELY INDEPENDENT of current musical theory.  It would be revolutionary, a NOVEL SOUND out of NOWHERE. People could like it or not.  But it would, at LEAST, be NEW.

CAPTION: Coincidentally, Kim soon finds herself in this exact scenario:

[[On the desert island, Kim stares at the piano.]]

KIM:  Actually I kinda wish you were FOOD.

{{header: some time alone with WONDERMARK.COM}}

CONCERT TONITE: Marooned For A Decade, Kimberly Collins Ate A Piano. Come Hear Her Arresting, Dissonant Belching In 7/4 Time

#951; In which Kim gets her Wish

  — July 19th, 2013

[ Tags: , , ]       Permalink: https://wondermark.com/c/951/

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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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