Countess Influencia has arrived — and Fairmount City’s heroes are already under her spell.
As her livestreamed crime spree unfolds, the heroes of Justice Ltd. are doing what any brave, noble defenders of justice would do in a moment of crisis: They’re staring at their phones, smashing the Like button, and assembling in her comments section.
Only Captain Heroic seems immune to her influence. Why? Because the last thing waiting on his phone is a text from Miss Match that reads: “We have to talk.”
And sometimes, emotional avoidance is the only thing standing between civilization and total collapse.
Dear Pentagram Forum
If you enjoyed the illustration that parodied those old “Dear Penthouse Forum” letters, the following exclusive post takes the joke all the way.
The short story tells the entire encounter from start to finish — the setup, the invitation, the escalation, and the kind of filthy left turn those letters always seemed to take when you realized you were no longer in the “saucy anecdote” section of the magazine.
This one is pure retro smut nostalgia: A horny little time capsule from the era when “I never thought this would happen to me…” was basically the Bat-Signal for bad decisions.
Transcript
Panel 1
A large monitor displays footage of Countess Influencia hovering over Fairmount City.
Several Justice Ltd heroes are gathered in the room, but instead of leaping into action, they’re all staring at their phones. Pink hearts stream upward from their screens.
Amazing Amazon: She’s… weirdly compelling.
Elastic Man: I only ‘liked’ ironically.
Wingman: I subscribed UN-ironically.
Captain Heroic: Why isn’t anyone… y’know… assembling?
Panel 2
Amazing Amazon: We are assembling.
Elastic Man: In her comments section.
Phenomenal Lass: Grab your phone and join us.
Panel 3
Captain Heroic remembers his last text from Miss Match: “We have to talk”
Cap, in a narration box: I… uhhhh… turned that off for a while.
Panel 4
Captain Heroic, flying into action: Who knew emotional avoidance could be a superpower?
Seven Years!
Today marks seven years of producing a daily comic strip for me! I launched my first comic,
Greystone Inn seven years ago
today. Greystone ran six-days-a-week (with few exceptions) until
June 21, 2005.
The next day, of course,
Evil Inc was launched. It has run Monday-through-Saturday ever since.
The past seven years have also seen the rise of no fewer than two weekly comics.
Courting Disaster, a single-panel strip about sex and relationships, was launched on
Jan 12, 2005.
And
Phables, which began as a bi-weekly but has been promoted to a weekly earlier this year, is a full-page comic about life in Philadelphia which started last year on
Feb. 20.
I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be reaching this benchmark. There’s no way I could have done it without the amazing support of my family. My wife is, was, and always will be, the best wife in webcomics.
And then there’s you.
I can’t thank you enough for your friendship and support. It was brought into sharp focus last week during our battle with Wikipedia. You guys rallied, railed, ranted, and raged…
And you
won.
You guys make it all worthwhile. I can’t say how much your support means to me. Every book you buy… every convention you visit me at… every e-mail, blog response, and forum comment… wow.
Thank you.
