Commentary
Lucky wasn’t kidding about there not being any running water in the Nicotash village, earlier in the story. Electricity and natural gas heating weren’t available either. The nearest running water was a river located miles away from the village. Many of the people of Nicotash worked about three miles away. There, electricity and water powered farm machinery and irrigated crops for an industrial farm. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that the Soviet government treated its crops better than the people who picked them.
The sad reality is that many Romani still don’t have access to running water, gas or electricity, even to this day.
(Note: Romani is the same thing as Rromani, I just tend to use the spelling that was common before Romanes language standardization efforts began. I still use Rroma rather than Roma to avoid confusion with Rome or Romans.)
The State of the Staff
Today’s comic was delayed once again. I am extremely sorry for that. I was going to work on it all day on Friday, but I ended up in the emergency room due to a freak health incident that caused the entire right side of my body to suffer from paresthesia. I couldn’t even smile on that side of the face. But don’t worry, it wasn’t a tumor or stroke.
That incident, paired with a a very busy weekend, took away the time I needed to color today’s comic. Mandarr and I worked on it, as soon as we had a moment. Of course, we were both half-asleep by the time we both were able to get to it, so wacky hijinks ensued.
As you probably surmised from the last sentence, Mandarr’s is finally well enough to work on Rasputin Barxotka again. YAY! Hopefully we’ll finish all of the redraws from the first chapter by the end of the month. I am crazy excited about that.
Mandarr is currently is helping out with a fundraiser. A paralyzed puppy needs help with its surgery expenses. Click here to learn more about how you can help this little chihuahua and get art from Mandarr at an amazing discount at the same time. I donated and Mandarr is donating her entire payment for this week’s comic to the cause. We hope that you’ll pitch in as well.
On sad news, Flavin the puppetmaster’s post-chemo tumor remission was short-lived. Please keep him in your thoughts as we works towards a speedy recovery.
Live Below the Line
Thanks for everyone who gave me support and helped me raise $115.00 for Malaria No More during the Live Below the Line challenge. It meant a lot to me. If you want to read up on what it was like for me to live on $1.50 a day for food, or if you still want to give a donation to Malaria No More, please visit my page here. It was a fascinating experience to be sure.
Stuff I Must Share
Awesome Rroma Art
I have been totally captivated with Alisa Didkovsky‘s illustration work as of late. She has an absolutely charming webcomic entitled Horny Tails about the antics of satyrs. She does a lot of Romani culture-oriented art and illustrations that are just total candy to look at. While you are there, consider hiring Alisa for you art commission needs.
Additionally, Alisa maintains an outstanding Rroma issues blog at http://aj-rromale.tumblr.com/. I’m probably going to pore through it this week for my research quota. The amount of Romani resources and information is mind-boggling. Be sure to check it all out.
Help Out My Friends and Get Some Awesome Art
My buds Jack Cayless and Tristan J. Tarwater are both taking donations for their respective book printing campaigns. I donated enough bucks to get print copies of their books, and you should too! Here’s where you can access their campaigns:
Dead Conscious
There aren’t a lot of pages online yet, but Insanity In a Box’s Dead Conscious online graphic novel looks like it has a ton of potential. It takes the overplayed zombie genre and breathes new life into it. The illustrations, which appear to combine digital, photo and traditional media are unusual, gritty and visually engaging. I can’t wait to see how it develops.
Comic Rank
WebcomicZ