Soup the Comic Strip by Alun Clewe
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Comic strip for August 27 2023.
PANEL ONE: A bar where a number of gods sit at tables. The god Erlak stands at the bar, facing the bartender, a demon named Drv'dxx. ERLAK: The usual, Drv'dxx. DRV'DXX: Here you go. PANEL TWO: Closer on Erlak and Drv'dxx ERLAK: You know, Drv'dxx, I'm depressed. DRV'DXX: Tell me what's on your mind. PANEL THREE: Close on Erlak ERLAK: Well, you know, I'm a _god_, right? And people should _respect_ me, right? PANEL FOUR: Still close on Erlak ERLAK: But lately I've been trying to find some hero to patronize, and they're all giving me the cold shoulder. PANEL FIVE: Still close on Erlak. ERLAK: I'm the joke of the gods—a divine embarrassment! PANEL SIX: We see Erlak facing Drv'dxx again. DRV'DXX: Well, if you think you have problems, consider this... PANEL SEVEN: Close on Drv'dxx DRV'DXX: I was once a free and mighty demon, raining doom and destruction over many worlds. PANEL EIGHT: Different angle on Drv'dxx. DRV'DXX: Strength was my standard, and chaos my champion. PANEL NINE: Closer on Drv'dxx DRV'DXX: But then the gods came down, and bound me with chains of will... PANEL TEN: Drv'dxx raises his arms in anger DRV'DXX: ...And forced me to spend the rest of eternity here, tending bar for a gaggle of miserable godlings! PANEL ELEVEN: Again we see Erlak facing Drv'dxx across the bar. ERLAK: Y'know, Drv'dxx, any time anyone shares their problems with you, you always give about the same response. DRV'DXX: Somehow, it always seems appropriate. Another drink? ERLAK: Sure.
August 27 2023

Phew, okay. So when I said on the About page that "[t]here are a few strips where I did make minor alterations or additions besides the fonts, but I'll explain those in the commentary below the applicable strips"? This is one of those few strips. Namely, in the original strip in the middle two panels of the bottom row I gave Drv'dxx eyelids. I later decided that he shouldn't have eyelids, and he never had them in any future strip. Is this a bit of a retcon? Eh, maybe, I guess, but it's something I decided on very early in the strip's run; I just didn't go back to this strip and change it. But now that I'm restarting the comic anyway, I figure I may as well. Sure, not having eyelids makes it a little harder for Drv'dxx to emote, but he can still emote with his arms. He's a demon; he doesn't have to emote like humans anyway.

However, there was a significant change to the fonts for this strip as well. You may have noticed that the strip uses multiple fonts for the dialogue. Mortals get one font; gods get another. And Drv'dxx, as a demon, gets a font all his own. And I mentioned before that the fonts were hard to read, but Drv'dxx's font was especially hard to read. When this strip originally ran, Drv'dxx's dialogue was downright unintelligible. (It also didn't help matters that in the first panel his dialogue balloon had somehow ended up behind his... antennae and other top-of-head appendages.) So this font I definitely had to redo... and it took a lot of time, but I did. (So much time, in fact, that I didn't quite have it done by midnight today, so from about 12 to 12:30 PST the site showed the old version of the strip.) Granted, it's still not the easiest font to read and could maybe do with some further tweaking, but trust me, compared to how it was the original version of this strip, Drv'dxx's dialogue is now a model of legibility.

One more thing about this strip: I mentioned back in the commentary on the first strip that I reused the "Splut" font I'd made for the dialogue in that strip in one future strip? This is that strip. The "SOUP" letters in the first panel are done with the Splut font. This was probably not a good decision.