Plays saxophone in the band Jorocks & the Quads. Sister to Timothy.
The final chapter is starting! This splash page was a lot of fun to do, going back through the archives of the past five years. There is one comic from each story arc in here, as well as a couple bonus things like SR: Scouting. Can you name them all? (I decided not to include reference links on this one a) so that you could try to find them all, and b) ’cause I didn’t want to link to each one.)
This strip was a little bit of character development and a little bit of personal gratification. After I had come up with the characters in Jorocks & the Quads, I wanted to show them as people, not just members of Jorocks’ band. The once-a-week schedule limits how much time I can spend on side characters, so I settled for this.
Also, I think this is the first time we’ve ever seen Chris wearing a different outfit (excluding the Pitchfork 3 and April Fools’ comics).
Next week has all sorts of stuff going on! It will be the end of The Secret Life of Jorocks Raefish, the comic will turn four years old, and there will be A FULL WEEK of comics, including the start of the next arc, which is looking to be the most clever storyline I’ve written yet!
Ref: Class with Timothy | He apparently moved
I realized I was still one band member short (the lack of two members, the other being Ella, was mentioned in the commentary here) when I sat down to make this comic and had to quickly come up with Mindy’s design (apparently she couldn’t make the photo shoot for the splash page). I was quite pleased with the result and the character personality I thought up for her (even though you don’t see it much here).
Obviously, Ella is just saying things to harass Percy. If you’ve ever been on stage before, you know that those lights are BRIGHT! Not to mention the audience is in the dark, so sunglasses wouldn’t help.
Ref: Jorocks and Holly
This comic is probably my favorite of this story arc, so it gets a panel-by-panel explanation. In the first panel, Nikki knows about Percy’s mad science and will put up with it, but she does worry that he will hurt himself. Panel two does not show all of the band members; there are two more. I have several friends who play in various bands, so this is a tribute to them. This might also have some significance in the future… Also, although it is hard to see, all of the band members are wearing Stein Auf shirts. Panel three was a tribute to the origins of Jorocks. He originally was modeled after one of my best friends (by the time the comic started, I had made an effort to separate his character, though). My friend used to work at The Quilted Kitty, a quilt store. Not the most manly of jobs… Admittedly, he was their computer technician and the company is owned by family friends, but it still provided us with a plethora of jokes to heckle him with. Thus, Jorocks wound up in a flower shop (plus he’s fun to draw with flowers). And finally, the reference to Holly is something that was brought up back in the early days of Spoofy Randomness, but never was touched on since. I figured it was time to mention it again.
Also, the quote is from a close friend of mine. There are several meanings that can be attached to it (we had a long discussion about what it means at one point). To me, it means that if someone can see the humor in life, they will get more out of it. What do you think? Drop me an e-mail at spoofyrandomnesscomic@gmail.com or post on the Facebook fan page!
Have fun!
~Stretch Longfellow~
