Intermission – April 21 — Evolution Success

Posted on April 21, 2026 by Brad Guigar

Build-a-Baddie Returns (And It’s Bigger, Badder, and More Chaotic)

The last Build-a-Baddie Poll was such a hit, it spun off not one but two projects — a microfic and a 1,500-word short story!

So naturally… we’re doing it again.

Welcome back to Build-a-Baddie — the crowd-sourced character experiment where you decide:

  • The creature

  • The personality

  • The situation they’re caught in

I take your winning combo and turn it into a brand-new illustration.

There’s also a Wildcard section if you want to whisper your weirdest ideas into the void. No promises… but I will read them.

Voting opens this week on Patreon. Bring your best (and worst) ideas.

Transcript — Evolution Success Stories

A single-panel cartoon shows two bug-like creatures standing on a forest floor surrounded by large green leaves. Both have tall, thin, purple bodies with spindly limbs and antennae. The bug on the right has colorful, symmetrical butterfly wings with orange, black, and white patterns and looks relatively normal — an evolution success story The bug on the left has a strange, mismatched set of wings that resemble bold, graphic signage instead of natural wings. The wings are black with bright orange arrows and large words pointing in different directions, including “TASTY,” “HERE,” and “YUM!” with arrows directing attention toward the bug’s own body. The malformed-wing bug looks uneasy, while the butterfly-wing bug looks on. Beneath the comic, a caption reads: “All I’m saying is… it’s easy to be a fan of evolution if all you hear about are the success stories…”

To the right of the panel is a blue box that reads: “Intermission — The Evil Inc storyline will continue next week.”

Courting Disaster, Aug 18, 2006

Posted on August 18, 2006 by Brad Guigar

Courting Disaster

There’s no new cartoon this week, but there’s a really great question from a reader.

Hi, I have a pretty big problem and I was wondering if any of you could help me out a bit. See, I’m a guy, pretty handsome, 19 years old (turning 20 in october) but never had a girlfriend. Actually, it’s worse than that, I’ve never even kissed anyone yet, and sometimes it feels like it’s gonna stay that way forever.

I’ve tried asking out women from my daily routine (college), but that always somehow ends up in friendship and nothing else. To be honest, “always” is probably not the right word, because I’ve only really got over enough of my shyness to actually ask women out in the last year, but in the three cases so far, that’s what happened, friendship.

Going to a bar/party/concert and trying to pick up a random woman doesn’t seem like it would work, first because of my shyness and also because I wouldn’t even know what to do or what to say. The whole thing just seems forced and unnatural… Plus, it seems to me that these kinds of places are just for people looking for a one-time thing. While I wouldn’t mind making out with a hot stranger and never seeing her again, what I actually wanted was to have a relationship, you know?

So, what should I do? Are there any good places for a somewhat shy guy to meet single women? Is there any way to do so outside the whole bar/party context, maybe in an environment where there’s less pressure?

Also, you must have noticed by my post that I’m pretty desperate at the moment, but letting people know you’re desperate doesn’t make you much attractive, so I often cover it up, but then people get the impression I’m aloof, distant, even snobbish. What can I do to stay away from both extremes?

I’d appreciate if you could help me out with these questions, it’s really bothering me. I know it’s a lot of stuff and most of it is common sense for most people, but it unfortunately isn’t common sense to me. Like the username says, I have No Idea what to do right now.

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