Chronillogical

It’s funny: John and I talk with one another about the comic on a pretty reg­u­lar basis, so I know he’s work­ing on the next strip, and we’re col­lab­o­rat­ing on scripts for sub­se­quent strips. Admit­tedly, we’re not pump­ing them out or any­thing, but it’s on our minds and we know stuff is get­ting done.

But then we get a legit­i­mately polite and kind email along the lines of: “Erm, hello? Are either of you two still, well, um, alive? Or is the comic on hiatus again? Or some­thing? It’s… it’s all just a little con­fus­ing, you see, because there haven’t been any updates in a little while. Just curious!” And we real­ize that Oh, hmm, maybe we should post some… thing on the site every now and again. Just to remind every­one that this is still a thing that we are actu­ally work­ing on, seri­ously, no kidding!

So! Here’s a little scrap of con­tent of sorts. It’s a script for a strip that John and I decided not to do. Per­haps it will give you a little insight into our writ­ing process.

Basi­cally, the gang is trying to figure out what to do with Cas­san­dra. How do you deal with a mytho­log­i­cal char­ac­ter that you’ve saved from the fires of Troy? How does she adjust to the present?

Seems like a solid enough premise, right? Well, for some reason we couldn’t make it work. I think there are some funny bits in the script we pro­duced (which is why I’m shar­ing it at all), but ulti­mately not enough was going on to devote an actual strip to it. Also, we kind of just want to get on with the time trav­el­ing already; enough with the dick­ing around in the present.

Maybe it’s an idea we’ll return to the idea later. Who knows! Anyway, here’s the script:

---

TITLE PANEL: How Do You Solve a Prob­lem Like Cas­san­dra? (Part 1)

—

[Milo, Jen, Roy, and Cas­san­dra are sit­ting at a table.]

Milo: A thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion of this afternoon’s events have lead to the fol­low­ing conclusions.

—

Milo: One: Cas­san­dra mis­took the bath­room for a temple to Poseidon.

[point­ing to a dia­gram of var­i­ous objects being placed into a toilet: food (bread, fruits, veg­eta­bles, burnt offer­ings), maybe some scented candles]

—

Milo: Two: Our plumb­ing system is woe­fully out of date and ill-​suited to process such gen­er­ous votives.
Three: We are now com­pletely toiletless.

—

[Every­one silently con­sid­ers this very thought­fully. Cas­san­dra looks abashed.]

—

[Milo dra­mat­i­cally swings his body around to face Roy.]

Milo: ROY!

Roy: Gaah!

—

Milo: You’ve been lead­ing the effort to adjust Cas­san­dra to the 21st cen­tury, isn’t that right?

Roy [vis­i­bly disconcerted]:O—osten­si­bly, yes

—

Milo: [look­ing judge­men­tal] Mm-​HMM.

And does anyone here feel that Roy’s efforts in this par­tic­u­lar regard have been … SUB-​OPTIMAL?

—

[simul­ta­ne­ously]
Jen [pound­ing the table]: OH MY GOD YES
Cas­san­dra [hands flung up in the air]: HE IS THE WORST

—

Cas­san­dra: Every­thing here is TER­RI­FY­ING AND STRANGE.
Back in Troy, we had the common sense to keep the rivers OUT OF OUR HOUSES.

—

Milo: Then we are AGREED!
Roy is an AWFUL person who is AWFUL at everything.

Roy: [off-​panel] Hey!

—

[Milo raises an inge­nious finger with one hand and places a remote con­trol device on the table with the other.]

Milo: But I have a solution!

—

Milo: Look: Cas­san­dra is out of place place and out of time. She’s iso­lated and lonely.

Cas­san­dra: I am?

Milo: You ARE.

—

Milo: Now, when you’re mis­er­able alone, you’re just mis­er­able. But when you’re sur­rounded by people JUST as mis­er­able as you are…

Well, that’s what we call “community”.

—

Jen: Milo, what are you saying?

Milo: I’m SAYING that we are due for a trip to the DIS­TANT FUTURE…

—

Milo: Where we can all be mis­er­able TOGETHER!

[He presses the button]