Posted In: comic
– There’s been a lot of comments the last few weeks about Ms. Booth, and a lot of complaints in the last 48 hours. Despite what some of you might think, I do read and seriously consider every comment (and I don’t moderate at all by the way) so I’m aware that many of you don’t like her. This has all been pretty frustrating to me, so I decided to stay up for 35 hours straight and write and draw the next 3 weeks of Modest Medusa comics so I could post them all here today in one go and get them out of the way. Whether you love or hate Ms. Booth, this arc is now over and we’ll be moving on to something else.
I’m going home now to sleep. Thanks for reading.
I’m sorry that you felt you had to handle it this way, but the arc finished out really well. I think you should take at least Friday off for all the work you put in to this. I can’t speak for everyone but I am immensely impressed by how much you respect your fans and value our opinions, I will have more patience moving forward and I hope you won’t feel like you have to sacrifice your own creativity to cater to us!
Friday nothing, take a week minimum. You deserve a rest.
Thanks. I actually feel a lot better now that this is over, and I don’t want to miss another Friday strip. That’s a bad habit to get into.
Yeah. I sometimes think that some people aren’t used to having their opinions heard and are way too loud as a result. I liked how this turned out, though. The jokes peppered between the serious stuff was paced really well. Actually, this whole comic has some of the best pacing I’ve seen.
Thanks.
This was fantastic – a great end to the arc! Really curious now as to what it was Ms. Booth dealt with.
Thanks for the comic (both this strip and in general)!
I’m sorry you got pushed to finish this up so fast, it is a good arch(still not fond of her-but those are for personal reasons that having nothing to do with your writing), and the reasoning behind her behavior makes sense. Personally, i like the explanation of her behavior. You should get some rest(personally i’d recommend taking a break in general.) cant help but be curious what happened between them, and what the teacher encountered that was weirder….
I don’t want to give the impression that I was pushed, or that anyone did anything wrong. It was frustrating for me, but that wasn’t anyone’s fault. This was just the baest way for me to resolve it so that I could move on,a nd I hope it also worked well for you guys.
I don’t know why you were frustrated. She wasn’t very likable but that wasn’t a bad thing. She had a Severus Snape thing going on. Modest disliked Booth, so of course Modest’s fans connected with Modest and shared her dislike of Booth; I’m not sure what the problem was.
While I did like reading the rest of the arc in one go, I don’t think Ms. Booth was being mean. When I was in elementary school you’d get sent to the principal and get a spanking for talking in the bathroom. It didn’t help that our principal didn’t like little boys and thought they all needed periodic punishment just to keep them in line. And my teachers always told my parents that I was a good kid. So Ms. Booth seems real nice to me.
Good grief. I am sorry you did that. But also not sorry. I love Ms Booth. She is hilarious.
But now I wonder what the heck she was/is/has seen. Hopefully she isn’t a bag of bugs. 🙂
There is one running around the neighborhood.
Me too, I’m so sorry you had to read all that stuff about Ms. Booth. I really like her, she’s quirky and funny at times. You have to be firm when you teach children. I guess some readers had teachers they didn’t like and they still are not over it. 🙁
I love this web comic. Please don’t change a thing about your style or the way you create it to make other people happy. It wouldn’t be Modest Medusa without your heart and soul.
Thanks.
is the teacher jakes’s ex? were they a thing?
We will not say. They have a complicated relationship.
Good job.
I can’t say that I’ve really liked or disliked Ms. Booth up to now, but it is good to finally make some sense of why Modest kept getting detention. I had thought that it was just done for punch lines, and that seemed a bit unfair.
It would be nice to have her playing with the other children at some point, but I’m content to wait for that whatever the next arc is.
Thankfully, reptiles tend to need to eat about an eighth of what an equivalent mammal needs to eats, due to being cold-blooded vs. warm-blooded.
I’ve never hated Ms Booth. If Modest misbehaves, she needs to be set straight. Booth’s actions have always fallen between “right” and “exaggerated a bit so its funny.”
Though the lunch thing bothered me. I figured what was going on, but it bothered me that it wasn’t stated explicitly. And now it has.
However, this page does raise some issues with me. Not issues with the comic, as if to say something is wrong with how it is written, but just “if I was there I’d do this” issues.
Modest needs time to socialize with the other kids. In all honesty, that’s the most-important aspect of school. Actually learning English, math, history and so forth does NOT take six years to reach a sixth-grade level. But what school really teaches us is how to interact with others, how to work together, how to socialize, how to buckle under authority, how to follow tasks, how to fit in, and so forth.
If she’s stuck inside for lunch, she won’t learn how to play nice with others. She will grow up as a social outcast and never really learn how to fit in. And she’s going to have a hard enough time with that already because of her appearance; she doesn’t need a social disability too.
That’s what I would tell Booth and Kholi.
I think the have to ease her into it, both for her sake and the safety of the rest of the class. That’s what I was trying to get across. In teh meantime she still gets to interact with other kids in class and (as we’ll see soon) after school.
About the sandwich thing (and I already posted this somewhere else, so this is just a copy/paste)…
So weeks ago I wrote a strip where Jake explains to Modest that he’s sending a sandwich for her teacher every day, and the joke was going to be that the teacher eats the hair’s sandwich instead, and that makes Modest mad. But… I don’t know what happened to it. I remember drawing it, but I guess I never posted it. I didn’t even realize I hadn’t until peopel started complaining about Ms. Booth being so awful for eating Modest’s lunch. I don’t seem to have a finished version of it on my computer either. Which I guess means I must have never scanned it. I assume the art is around here somewhere. Anyway, obviously that scene never happened in the comic, so I think Jake just forgot to tell Modest about the lunch deal or Modest forgot (or wasn’t listening).
@ Marscaleb: I disagree with your argument. It is good for Modest to interact with her classmates in a play setting, since she’ll be around them so much in a work setting, but you assume that kids who don’t go to school don’t get socialized, which is frankly wrong, as I and other people who grew up home schooled, or in tiny schools can well attest. After school, all the world’s a playground. 🙂
I think you should take off until August and recuperate. I like the comic and was one of the few who felt there was an underlying reason why Ms. Booth was treating Modest that way that was more than just being a “B”. Granted that was part of the reason but everything else fits in and i doubt anyone can say they can honestly keep everything separate when you’re angry at one person and you may take it out on someone else they are close too. Is it right? No, but it is also human nature and at least she owned up to it and apologized to Modest for it.
Like I said I was one of the few waiting to see how things ended between the two before i started to rail against the teacher because honestly I have seen Modest be a difficult child. The methods to “teach” her did always seem to fit the crime but it was also understandable since Modest has proven before she doesn’t follow directions very well especially when they are something she doesn’t like.
Good Job Jake and take the rest of the month or more off :).
P.S., I have dealt with a teacher who i felt was being totally unfair to me and still sometimes think of it. I think right before I graduated or during my final year she asked me why I didn’t like her I think or why did i have an issue with her and told her the reason. I knew i could be a difficult person in class (i talked constantly to my friends during class) but the incident I got called out for was one that was petty and stuck with me. So I know what it’s liek to deal with a teacher who seems to have it out for you, but I also won’t jsut assume they don’t have a reason for it too.
Yeah… there’s no reason any of you should know this, but I’m a teacher. Not a real teacher, but I’ve been teaching art classes for Parks and Recreation since I was in highschool. I used to do it more, and for awhile it was my full time job. No I just do one class a week. So I’ve been working with kids since I was 17, and I’ve been working with other teachers and educators just as long. I also live with two teachers. Plus both of my parents were teachers and my sister worked in education. I even dated a teacher for awhile.
I’ve been on both sides of the teacher/student relationship. I’ve the kind of thing you’re describing happen a lot. I’ve seen misunderstandings that sour entire relationships. I’ve seen good teachers do awful things and teachers I thought were awful do great and unexpected things. And I’ve seen the same things with students. And I wouldn’t claim that I was a good student. I wouldn’t claim to be a good teacher either. I struggle with it. teaching is hard and being a student is hard.
Cool. Now it makes sense why you were so frustrated on your audience’s opinion on Jake’s friend.
Now that is a long strip. Must have been an ordeal to draw that. Kudos for bringing up the endurance that must have taken.
Did you just take out some fluff and cut to the point where this happens, in other words, present actually planned future comics in one go?
Was this how Ms. Booth was intended to be all along, but you changed the order and timing of the revelations that shape the character?
Or did you end up changing her personality, making her nicer and more likeable to cater to the audience?
While I appreciate it when an author questions and reconsiders his method of presentation if it does not serve to make the story reach the audience in the way it is intended, I would find it very sad if the (justified) dislike for the character had pressured you to make changes to the core concept of the story and characters. No matter how the shitstorm rages, I hope you won’t ever feel that you need to do that.
P. S. I don’t think you did, by the way. The sandwich deal with Jake for example was something I suspected, despite Ms. booth’s failure to convey that deal to modest and the fact that I find it hard to believe that anyone, even in that goofy comic universe, would not notice a second sandwich in a paper bag.
But I digress. What I wanted to point out is that since you hinted that she knows Comic-Jake before the comment shitstorm, I assume that you didn’t change Ms. Booth’s character.
What you’re seeing here is exactly what I planned for the next three weeks of strips,a nd had been the plan since before the season started. The only difference is that if this had been presented as separate strips there would have been more jokes. Which actually would have been difficult. It’s hard to do an ongoing argument in teh 4 panel format. SO possibly this was for the best.
I try really hard not to change what I’m doing to cater to the audience. This was the first time I really considered it, but in the ends I decided to stick with my plan.
dude you’re awesome. don’t change for anyone 🙂
I knew she wasn’t a horrible person. And it saddens me to know that many fans have jumped you, and not let you finish your arc, the way that it was intended.
I am sorry that you felt that you had to finish this, in this manner.
Perhaps fans will let you flush things out, in the future. Knowing the teacher had her hands tied behind her back, is something that I feel for..
And, believe it or not, I like Miss Booth.
For all the crap she put you through, in reactions, she has shown to be a strong character.
I do hope to see her in the future.
Just to be clear, the arc did finish the way I intended. The only difference is that it finished today instead of lasting the rest of the month. An unfortunate side effect of thsi format is that readers end up forming opinions about characters before I have a chance to show what I’m trying to do. That’s not anyone’s fault, but it is frustrating. I should have anticipated that and made Ms. Booth a little less antagonistic to begin with.
In my opinion, you did well.
I attempted to say something about things going on, outside of the panels before. But I do like the way Ms Booth was portrayed.
And I hope we, as a collection of fans, will give you the time you need to flush an arc out in the future. As opposed to screaming about something that we cannot fully understand, yet.
Second David K.’s comment.
Oooooooooooookay. Seems like everyone, the fans and the author, handled this very poorly. I’ve been bullied by teachers so I can understand where the other commentators are coming from, but the absolute fallout over a mere comic is just ridiculous.
Lesson learned, I guess.
I’d not been bullied by teachers… as such; but I got bullied a lot by other kids, and sometimes the teachers figured it was easier to keep order by siding with the kids. That bunk about school being a wonderful place to learn how to socialise with One’s Peers is just that, bunk.
I recommend the works of John Taylor Gatto on this topic, especially “Underground History of American Education”. How do you say in the #ows movement – “another world is possible”?
As someone that was hard on you (Okay, VERY hard on you), I will also be the first (or second, whatever) to say you did a VERY good job with this extra long strip.
Yes, I’m sure you are pissed you had to take 3 weeks worth of strips and do them all right now to get us to stop complaining. But what you did here fixed things quite well. Would it have been better if you had laid some of this out earlier on? Yeah, it would have. Had Jake be a bit more understanding/protective, have Ms Booth be more open earlier on about what was going on? Would have solved MANY problems and also allowed the humor you were going for shine through more. While I am not a fan of Ms. Booth even right now… this went a long way for me to go “Okay, she had some good reasons but she handled it poorly” and now I actually would like to see how she handles things. I think it would be interesting to see how she and Modest get on now while also allowing Jake to see he needs to grow up a bit and see that his daughter needs his help and he has to listen to her more.
So while this strip was born out of anger, frustration, and disappointment, know that, for me at least, it has given fruit of understanding and enjoyment.
Just to be clear, I wasn’t pissed or angry. It’s frustrating to see readers reacting ina very different waythan what you expect. But you can’t blame peopel for their reactions. It’s frustrating to see readers forming opinions abot a character and story before you have a chance to reach your point, but you can’t blame them for that either. It’s a format that’s meant to be read in minutes but stretches out for months, which gives readers pkenty of time between strips to dwell on what’s happening. I shoudl have anticipate dthat,s o that was all frustrating to me.
Anyway, I didn’t feel like I was forced to do three weeks worth of strips all at once, but I did feel like it was the best option.
Whoa, seriousbomb
I feel sorry for complaining now. It’s so hard to tell sometimes because this comic is such a mix of heavy and light. Should’ve known you had a reason all along
I think the problem, if there is one, is that her second day of school was such a rerun as it were. Didn’t seem to be any progress, so that frustrated people a bit. I’m sure when this is all read in a row in a collected book, it’ll seem perfectly paced.
I’m hoping it will all read better as a season. I guess we’ll see.
Anyway, you shouldn’t feel bad about complaining.
Floored that you cared enough about our complaints to do this. I think that we can see two things happening going forward. 1) Your fans will respect you even more since we know that if there’s a problem, you’ll spend thirty.five. hours. on this and 2) everybody will think twice about complaining about the comics as much as before under the threat of you killing yourself working to correct it.
I don’t think anyone should ever feel like they can’t complain, but I hope that readers might be willing to go back and re-read this season once it’s complete. I hope that, as a whole, it will make more sense.
Hey, I was so incredibly happy to have so much MM today! I got to the end of the strip and was just like “WOW, that was so cool!” I was very sad, then, to hear that it mostly happened just because of stupid comments being left. I’m sorry if people’s response to the last couple weeks was so negative it hurt you. I guess I just wanted to let you know that I love the way this arc went, and I greatly appreciate how much thought you put into these scenes. Thank you for this comic!
Thanks.
this was adorable
Jake, I’ve been reading MM a whole lotta time now and I really hate the outcome of this comment-fury… I am sorry, pal.
For me, I was waiting for the whole thing to develop – I mean, people still read/watch GoT and that, while all kinds of things happen, that some fans dislike.
Never wrote a comment before, but I have to say: Shame on You folks for Your lack of patience and for Your rash behaviour! Jake here just wants to entertain You and You become so obsessed, that the poor guy had to exhaust himself, just to make it right for You… shame…
Buddy, dun’ let it get to You. I hope that You won’t lose Your drive and love.
And apologies for my weird style of writing ^^ It comes directly from feelings to text without my brain correcting anything –
– Alex –
Thanks for commenting.
I don’t think we should blame anyone for this. I’d be lying if I said that some of the comments didn’t leave me agitated or frustrated, but I seriously doubt that was anyone’s intent and anyway that’s what happens when people talk about your art. You take it personally, no matter what. But no one should be blamed for expressing their opinions in comments. The real source of frustration for me was seeing people form opinions about the character and story before I had a chance to get where I was going with them. I should have realized that would be inevitable. In a format where a story that’s meant to be read in a few minutes is posted slowly over 3 months it should have occurred to me that the long gaps between strips would give readers plenty of time to decide they disliked Ms. Booth before I could explain that there were reasons for her actions.
Seconding the words of David K. I’ve followed Modest for a long while now and have at least some experience with Webcomics. Read in a compilation, the “dislike” felt by the readers would last minutes at most as the reasons behind it would follow quite quickly. In a Webcomic format, the readers have plenty of time between installments to stew or to cultivate Epileptic Trees. I’m sorry it got bad enough you felt you had to address it directly. Love your work, as always.
Love to Modest. -SD
Thanks. I just wrote a similar comment in response to BCKouma.
Jake – I have to agree with David K, you re doing an excellent job story wise and you take care of your fan better than most. I do not dislike Ms. Booth. She’s just been given another weird kid to deal with and is trying to follow orders while working with her. Ms. Booth’s responses could have been much, much worse.
I love your comic, Jake. I will be coming back to read it for as long as you write it.
Whoah, super intiguing. And a huge bumper treat of content! Still, please don’t burn yourself out if you can avoid it. Loved reading this, but I’m in it for the long run!
Thanks. I’m tried, but I’m not feeling burned out.
Glad to hear it 🙂
On ho, clarity is provided!
So, how much was retcon to placate the fans, and how much was planned all along? 🙂
It’s legitimate to keep the audience in the dark to put them in the same position as Modest was.
No retcon or placation. This is exactly what I had planned, just condensed into one strip.
[nod]
Yeah, thought that might be the case.
I am sorry you had to bust your ass like that to calm the fans though, I bet this has very frustrating for you.
Thanks. It has been frustrating.
I never thought the teacher was mean–I figured she either had a grudge against Jake or was simply punishing Modest because she didn’t really know what was going on. Once you explained that the first time was because Modest was calling out of turn in class, I understood–however to me, giving detention to a first grader sounds a bit harsh(Even worse when at first I thought Modest was in Kindergarten)–I didn’t get detentions until perhaps third grade–and not that often as I was a fairly good kid.
These comics do make everything a bit more understandable though so thanks for cranking them all out. Also Modest asking Jake if he punched or kicked her is hysterical and totally understandable.
Honestly? I was in detention almost every day from first grade through middle school. I went to a Catholic school though. Nuns.
I mostly got time outs in Kindergarten–I hated them. As I mentioned before–I hardly ever got detentions to begin with because I was mostly well behaved–the third grade one was a one time thing, and I mostly just had to do a few errands for the teacher after school–not a big deal because I went to the after school program afterwards.
In fifth grade I got a detention–and not understanding the concept–I actually brought things with me during the lunch period in the gym teacher’s office to keep busy! XD!
Jake, I never did a 35 hour stretch in college, even! In the Army, maybe, but that is part bad coffee and lots of adrenalin… In spite of all, you told a coherent, consistent story! Thank you!! Take off as long as you need! You have done a major deed here!
Thanks. TI did all the writing in the first 5-10 hours. I had already worked out the basic plot back at the beginning of the season. I took a few naps along the way on the studio couch, and even went home for a shower at one point. I started feeling fatigue around teh end, so the inking took a sharp dive in the last half and teh word balloons are really messy. I might redo the balloons later.
Bring stuff to the Artist Alley Comic Fest so I can throw money at you!! You are worthy of Patreon support and in person support!
I’ll be there. Thanks!
This helps explain so much! Thanks for posting this in one long swoop, get you rest in!
If you don’t take Friday off I’m going to assume you’re secretly not human. So take it off for the love of god.
by the way- your patience is inhuman as well. You handled the complaints well, a lot of other people would’ve lost their cool. I really wish you didn’t have to stay up that long to appease people though.
I’ll echo David here, but I’ll extend that ‘should really take time off’ thing for, at minimum, a whole week.
Seriously, I know better than many people what staying up for a while does to your brain, but I’m also not a writer or an artist — so I’d imagine that your mental burnout is far worse than mine is.
For the sake of your sanity, please, take some time off.
And thank you for explaining why Ms. Booth was coming off as the teacher from hell.
I appreciate the thought. I’m actually feeling pretty good.
This strip hit me hard. Even though I wasn’t green as a child, I was kept inside during recess a lot because I was different. This is how people treat kids with disabilities. And as an adult this treatment hasn’t changed.
I’m sure you didn’t think of it this way when writing it, but thank you for being so frank about it. As for people not liking Ms Booth… honestly, I wasn’t even phased. This seemed like a normal way for a teacher to act. Perhaps that’s because of my experience. I don’t think she’s mean at all. Just mis-informed, and that makes for good character development later in the story anyway.
Thank you again, and the long strip was a pleasure to read.
I was also kept in a lot during recess as a kid. Sometimes for detention, and sometimes for other things.
I never had a problem with the teacher. She was a bit mean, but I could kinda guess the whole “Don’t let her mingle because she has snakes for hair which might bite kids” kinda thing, but this ending really reveals the whole reasons, very well done. Reminds me of a phallacy… something to do with you write off anything jerky YOU (or the protagonist) does, because you know WHY. You’ve seen every event up till then. But the coffee barista who made the wrong latte, or the antagonist, you don’t understand. All you’ve seen is him doing that ONE thing. So you get super pissed about it. I think that’s partially what happened here.
My mom told me recently that she was glad Medusa was becoming less of an awful child. I wasn’t sure what she meant, so she described every awful thing that Medusa has done during the series. I think you’re right that it easy to forget that the protagonists do stuff to.
I’m sorry that you felt the need to crank out these comics in order to allay the wrath of the fans, and I hope my comments didn’t fuel the fire. It was an enjoyable arc and this is a very satisfying conclusion. I look forward to what comes next!
Thanks!
Wow!
I don’t hate Ms. Booth, but she could have handled some things a lot better.
It does seem unfair to you that certain readers decided to voice their dislike of a character they hardly knew (I actually liked her even before this… page? strip? sequence?). That said, I think you handled it really well, using your frustration to a creative end instead of just walking away for a while as I would.
-An avid fan
It wasn’t unfair, I think. People respond to what they see. But it was frustrating. I kept wanting to say “Please wait and see what I;m doing here”.
Its ok Jake, hang in there. Not everyone likes every character in a given story. I thought it was fine. You cant just a character until you know the story, and we simply did not know the story. its amazing that people get butt-hurt over things like this. They must not be Game of Thrones fans 🙂
Thanks!
I was partially right!
Also, thanks for all your hard work, Jake. Try not to let everything get you down!
Sorry that people did that, I had no idea. I really enjoy the comic and I was very surprised to see a strip this large. Try to rest and don’t over do it.
Friday, hex, you should take a few weeks off. Actually I guess coloring the strips would be a thing but regardless of that.
I kind of suspected there was something more than just a mean teacher. I actually think this arc would have gone fine in a book–as something released all at once (like what you did right here); the way it’s presented works as a story. At the start the reader feels for Modest and sees things from her view, while seeing Ms. Booth as the bad guy, until it comes to a point where they realize she’s not and it was mostly a misunderstanding. The serial format kind of drew out the hate for her over time, it seems. Plus if all comments were done at the end of the arc it would be with a different perspective. Of course, serial formats can be a tremendous advantage; it just kind of ran into some trouble here, I suspose.
I was trying to reserve judgment until we discovered where it was going, really. The food thing was obviously a misunderstanding (So were there three sandwiches each day, since Jake said one was for Modest’s hair?); she probably could have handled the detention thing better (remedial class? Modest might be provoked at that term though), but hey, real people don’t always make the wisest choice, either!
I think that’s about everything I thought of to say when I read this comic on my tablet on my break today but didn’t want to type it all out via touch screen. One more thing: is Jake saying Modest is green? I thought she was blue. Well, cyan, maybe. I kinda think of that more of a blue.
I think of her as blueish green. She used to be more green than she is now.
I think you’re absolutely right. The natural gap between strips mean that a story that should have been read in minutes was instead absorbed over weeks. that caused problems I didn’t anticipate.
I agree with David K.
I have to agree with Ms. Booth here. There are few things as frustrating to a teacher then to have to go back and cover things that kids should already know. To go back to the very basics (sitting, waiting to be called on, not interrupting) has got to be excruciating.
…that said, she could be spending these lunches going over them with Modest. Just giving her “detention” is a real dick move.
That was actually what I was trying to have her say in the last strip, but I don’t think the point came across.
You just broke my heart! Thank you for caring, and I’m sorry that any of my comments might have driven you to do this. For future reference, even when a fan doesn’t like a character, that fan has trust in the creator to resolve any conflict in a NORMAL way, ie, not by staying up for 35 hours straight. If we ever complain again, you don’t need to change your schedule to satisfy us. We trust you.
I don’t blame anyone for commenting and I don’t think anyone said anything inappropriate, but I’d be lying if I said the comments weren’t becoming frustrating to me. And I suspected they’d continue until I finally wrapped up teh arc. So this seemed like the most viable way to solve the problem.
Hi Jake. I admit I wasn’t liking this teacher, but I think you brought out a good thing here and made her more likable. We can all take our pasts into what we are doing now, and that is how she came across here. The thing is she is now showing she is learning from her mistakes and that makes her better, at least in my opinion.
I am really glad you took the time to bring out a good side in her, but I hope you will take care of yourself too. I for one was willing to wait and see where you were going.
Thank you for caring about your fans. Now rest up for a few days.
Thanks. I’m tired, but I’m actually feeling pretty good. I’m mostly taking today off.
Wow. Impressive maintenance of quality throughout your marathon. I hope the complainers feel properly appreciated – exceptional responsiveness there. Get some sleep! Three weeks worth!!
I was okay with Ms. Booth all along. I could tell that there was some kind of miscommunication going on and that Ms. Booth wasn’t intentionally being mean. I did wonder about the sandwiches and maybe there should have been a little foreshadowing like showing that Jake made two sandwiches even if we only see him put one in the bag. However, we don’t have to like every character in the story in order to like the story. I still loved reading how Modest responded to Ms. Booth.
I’ve posted this already, but…
Weeks ago I wrote a strip where Jake explains to Modest that he’s sending a sandwich for her teacher every day, and the joke was going to be that the teacher eats the hair’s sandwich instead, and that makes Modest mad. But… I don’t know what happened to it. I remember drawing it, but I guess I never posted it. I don’t seem to have a finished version of it on my computer either. Which I guess means I must have never scanned it. I assume the art is around here somewhere. Anyway, obviously that scene never happened in the comic, so I think Jake just forgot to tell Modest about the lunch deal or Modest forgot (or wasn’t listening).
This strip answers a lot of questions.
Thanks, Jake. 🙂 You’ve cleared up a LOT for us! Poor Modest, but poor Jake and teacher, as well. :/
Jake, very nicely done. To me it’s been completely obvious to me that there is complicated history between Ms. Booth and Jake and of course poor Medusa sort of caught in the middle. I was in no hurry for the reveal. I’ve really liked this arc, myself. I just don’t have any understanding of why so many people feel like they have any business sending you the kinds of comments you’ve been getting lately.
My warm and encouraging recommendation is that you decide now and for the future to completely ignore people with comments who do any of the folowing (1) jump to conclusions about any character being likeable and/or realistic prematurely, (2) decide incorrectly that they must understand the motivations of any specific character prematurely, (3) conflate the apparent reprehensibility of any character with the reprehensibility of the artist — that’s just crazy, (4) decide that they have any business telling you how to do your art and/or demanding that you respond to their complaints about how a character is portrayed, and/or deciding that it’s their business to warn you that by not responding to their complaints that you risk “reducing your readership”, (5) complain that a teacher is being portrayed in an “unrealistic” and/or disturbing way in the context of a fantasy comic that has featured (among other things) smoking mermaids, murderous chainsaw unicorns, pirate badgers, and a sympathetic yet hideous creature made of an burlap bag filled with teeth and bugs, and (6) don’t seem to have any patience for letting mysteries develop and unfold at whatever pace you want to set for yourself.
People, listen up: Let the man do his thing. You either appreciate Jake’s quirky genius or your don’t. But please, stop harassing the artist.
Thanks!