Chapter 17 | Page 3b: Hot Stuff

Posted on December 19, 2025 by Brad Guigar

Today’s page takes us back to Ralph’s Diner, where Captain Heroic proves—once again—that nothing rattles him… not even a surprise soup bath.

Hailey is mortified, Captain Heroic is dripping, and somewhere across the diner, Yazmine Velour is livestreaming the whole thing as heart emojis rain from the internet. It’s a small moment, but one that says a lot about who Cap really is—and why people can’t help falling for him.

Transcript

Panel 1
Hailey (distraught that she has dumped hot soup on Captain Heroic): Omigod Omigod Omigod…

Captain Heroic (turning to another person eating at the diner): Excuse me. Would you hand me a napkin, please? (The person hands him a napkin)

Panel 2

Hailey: I’m so sorry Captain Heroic, sir. I didn’t mean to — {sob}

Panel 3

Captain Heroic (handing her the napkin): Here. Please don’t cry.

Panel 4

Captain Heroic (continues): Most of my first impressions involve disintegration rays. And actual impressions. In concrete.

Panel 5

Captain Heroic: This was far more pleasant — not counting the bay leaf in my shirt.Yazmine Velour (as she livestreams the interaction from the other side of the diner, a torrent of heart emojis flow from her phone as the audience reacts): Omigod Omigod Omigod

After Dark

This week's commissioned MicroFic delivers exactly what you’d want from a pairing between Dynasty and Father Christmas.

  • Yes, he lives up to his name.

  • Yes, Dynasty knew exactly what she was doing.

  • No, the North Pole will never be the same.

I also posted the Goblin Girl MicroFic from the Monster Girl poll — and the response was so good, I might need to make these poll-powered MicroFics a recurring thing!

Phables April 23, 2007

Posted on April 23, 2007 by Brad Guigar

Phables

Today’s Phable is a funny story about a woman delivering her first child. She has a unique reaction when a nun offers a solution to her intense labor pains.

So, let me pull back the curtain for you and talk a little bit about how this one got into the paper.

This will make more sense if you read Phables first. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

I brought that comic to my editor, as is my standard procedure, the week pefore it was scheduled to run.

Seeing the religious content, she showed it to a broad spectrum of people around the newsroom. She told me the reaction ran the gamut from “Fantastic!” to “Complete waste of a page.”

The negative response seemed to hover around two things. In the original version, the book was clearly labeled “The Holy Bible” and the act of throwing the Bible at the nun was visually depicted — with a resounding thump.

It was a real dilema for me. If I ran it the way it was — the way I thought it had the most impact as a humorous piece — I would risk alienating some of my readers. But would changing it be tantamount to buckling to a dogmatic sense of religion?

I gave this a tremendous amount of thought, and I finally decided to change the way the story was presented. Taking a page from Alfred Hitchcock, I let the action appear off panel, letting the reader’s imagination fill in the rest. I also made the reference to the Bible itself more ambiguous.

And here’s why: I want people to enjoy Phables for what it is — great storytelling about Philadelphia. If the presentation of that story antagonized a portion of my readership to the point that they wouldn’t be able to enjoy the story, then perhaps that presentation had to be re-thought.

I didn’t change any of the facts of the story, mind you. Rather, I chose to present it in such a way that a greater number of readers could enjoy it.

I’m sure some readers still found it offensive. Let’s face it, you don’t present a humorous piece to 150,000 people and avoid offending someone. (And that doesn’t even include the online readership.) But I think the new version was more appealing to a wider range of people.

With that in mind, here’s the original version. Please don’t click on the link if you’re easily offended over religious issues.