R.K. Milholland likes to append a message at the bottom of every comic he posts. Sometimes these are in-jokes, sometimes they are random quotes, sometimes they are a commentary on the comic itself.One such comment, placed at a turning-point in the most recent storyline, was as follows:

“‘You’re supposed to redeem Kharisma.’ Funny. I don’t remember making that promise.”

It seems self-explanatory from the quote that there were quite a few people who expected Kharisma to overcome her own inherently hateful nature. The seeds were there, sure – Something Positive is about people, and no one person is no more than an icon of evil or hate.

(Well, not entirely true – many side characters, from e-bay scammers to perverse gamers, are presented as two-dimensional objects to be mocked and pitied and hated. But all the recurring characters in S*P have at least some measure of depth.)

I’ve touched on this topic before, when Kharisma’s fate was still up in the air. Would she end up like Mike, and find some measure of acceptance… and personal redemption? Or another Eva, whose view of the world would only grow darker as it fed upon itself?

I use Eva as an example here, but it is an imperfect one. We saw Mike’s redemption and development throughout the first years of the strip. Eva’s downfall happened in pieces here and there, often off-screen. She was more scenery than character, and while her flaws certainly grew and grew, it was more as an obstacle in Davan’s life, not as fully a story all her own.

So I suppose I can understand why some people expected Kharisma to find her better side. Randy invested time in her. She’s shown up more and more the last few years – and even had quite a few storylines focusing around her. Like Mike she was an outcast, slowly becoming more and more attached to the main cast.

And for a time, she actually was a sympathetic figure. While working alongside Davan in his hellish job… well, let’s say she was the lesser evil in those environs. And when she left… well, those were the moments when she seemed to genuinely have the capacity to interact with the rest of the cast on an equal level. And when she even seemed to have a heart.And then she embarked on the path to becoming a homicidal murderess.

Kharisma is the counterpart to Mike. Eva wasn’t – Eva started off good, and then her duplicity was revealed. That’s a different story entirely – and one that, for the most part, happened out of sight.

We’ve watched Kharisma. Like with Mike, we saw her fail at being a human being from the very start, but she stayed in sight despite it. And we saw that the possibility for redemption was there.

But it was never promised. It was never guaranteed.

And in the end, she fell, and she fell hard.

I’m not surprised, and I’m not disappointed. I liked Mike’s path to humanity, but if every character was destined to overcome their petty flaws? Then doing so would be absolutely meaningless.

Would I have enjoyed a storyline where Kharisma did manage to overcome her failings? Probably. But this is the story Milholland is telling… and he’s telling it damn well.

Scott Kurtz never ceases to surprise me.

Addendum: Oh, and what’s with this? You guys aren’t allowed to be all serious and cliffhangery on a weekend! I’m not primed to deal with character development right now, man – it’s just too much!

Today Queen of Wands attained the honor of having successfully completed it’s second full run, this time with full commentary from Aeire.

Part of the final comic is in absentia, (though can still be found in the archives), and the last sequence remains just as bittersweet as it was the first time around.

When Queen of Wands first ended, over a year and a half ago, it was an unusual decision to air the old strips once more – but I think it was clearly a successful one. The commentary was… nice, though I think it is to the comic’s credit that it can easily stand alone without the explanations being needed.

I recall, in the distant days of yore, reading Xenith. Xenith was Aiere’s first comic. It was… good, yes, in it’s own way. Incredibly pretty. Incredibly dark. And yes, you could very much feel the youthfulness of the work.

I remember discovering Queen of Wands, early in the strip’s infancy, quite some time after Xenith had stopped updating and/or vanished from my mind. I remember, after falling in love with the strip, at some point noticing it was produced by the same author. And I remember being amazed.

There was a world of difference between the two strips. It wasn’t just that Queen of Wands was light and funny and true to life where Xenith had been dark and depressing and fantastical – her new comic showed her maturity, as an artist, as a storyteller, as a person. And yes, it may seem a bit much to judge a person by the comic that they draw – but it seemed clear that the person telling the story of Kestrel and friends was a far cry from the person behind the story of Xenith.

And Queen of Wands was clearly a success. It was a comic with characters that many people formed attachments to – no doubt Aeire most of all – and she still managed to bring it to it’s proper ending. Well… a proper ending, if nothing else, and I think that was half the story behind the strip.

These days, Kestrel lives on through the magic of r*k*milholland. As for what may be next in line for Aiere herself?

I’ve heard word of a sequel arising sometime early next year. That could be cool. It’s certain I’ll be keeping my eyes and ears open, given my usual propensity to completely fail to notice important announcements. If something nifty develops, there will be no complaints here.

And if not?

Well, we’ve always got the Queen of Wands archives. They were just as good a second time around, and I’m sure they’ll be just as sweet every time thereafter.

Ok, I am aware that I talk about Sluggy Freelance all the damn time. My bad. Apologies in advance. Etc.

But I felt that today could not go by without commenting on today’s strip. While Oasis has continued to develop as a character, her mystery still remains in full force, with more unanswered questions around every bend. Which isn’t a bad thing – having her resolve any core complexities while isolated from the main cast would have, at best, been a bittersweet success.

More importantly, though, we have the survival of our latest favorite bad guy, “Nash Straw.” I had been fairly certain Pete wasn’t going to kill him off, given the instant hit success he was – but I admit to having been left with my share of doubts after the latest scuffle.

In any case, my final verdict on the latest Sluggy storyline: A+! Oceans Unmoving definitely left a lot of people anxious about the state of the strip, and Sluggy started rather slowly building back up since then, but I’d say the old magic is back and in action.

Now, a lot will still depend on how things pan out once the camera is focused once more on the standard cast and crew… but Pete has done a lot to restore my faith in the strip. I’m grateful for that.

Anyway! I hope yesterday everyone had a merry Thanksgiving, or for those for whom it is irrelevant, a fantastic thursday!

Last week I mentioned Dominic Deegan, and spoke about how pleased I was with what was going on.

Or, more specifically, how pleased I was about how well Mookie was avoiding falling into old potential pitfalls, and making use of a new plot focusing on many of the side characters.

It strikes me, however, that I wasn’t so much talking about the things he was doing right as I was talking about the things he wasn’t doing wrong.

And while it is all well and good to avoid making blunders, not screwing up alone won’t make a comic inherently good.

So what is it about Dominic Deegan that has, for the last few weeks, been constantly rocking my socks off?

Concerning the overall plot, he’s certainly been doing strong.

He’s added an new villain who isn’t an infernomancer, or an arch-devil, or an ancient reincarnation of an powerfully evil wizard.

He has our band of heroes up against someone who, in the end, is just a petty thug.

Of course, more than that, he’s a petty thug trying to hit the big leagues of organized crime. And he is smart, and it isn’t just a matter of going toe to toe with brute force, but having them actively do their best to outthink each other. That’s not just a nice change of pace – that’s a genuinely interesting new character and a great set-up.

In the realm of humor I have no real complaints. I’ve never been big on the puns laden throughout DD, but I’ve been finding even them charming throughout this storyline. (Well ok, that might not accurately describe today’s all that well.) But in general he’s managed to mix things up just right, with the jokes laden throughout the story naturally rather than having them actively bog it down.

Output of content, of course, has always been a strong point – 8 panel strips every day of the week? Full color sundays? You are going to be damn hard pressed to find a match for that.

But what has really been doing it for me, in the end, is the crafting within each individual strip. Throughout this storyarc there have simply been a slew of great individual moments.

Moments that are either picture perfect segments of humor, or ones that nail a character perfectly dead-on.

That’s the impressive part. We’ve got this large-scale production of content, and yet we have these moments being perfectly executed in every single strip. That takes more than just dedication – that takes damn solid skill.

And that’s what Dominic Deegan is doing right.

Sluggy Freelance has been running the long-awaited next chapter in the story of Oasis.

And it’s definitely good stuff, and a long way away from the slump Sluggy had been going through. We have glimpses into Oasis’s past, though the mystery of her origin remains unrevealed. Torg and Riff are doing their best to track that down – and unsurprisingly, their ‘best’ involves blundering through sewers ineffectually.

And, primarily, we get to see what Oasis herself has been up to, having taken up residence in a nice little town where she exterminates crime with an iron fist. A ton of new characters are introduced: her adopted family, her mentor, a variety of townsfolk… and Nash Straw.

Nash is an intrepid reporter out to figure out the town’s secrets, despite the fact that everyone in town is doing their best to confound him.

He’s a fun character to follow the exploits of, and even though if he gets his story, it won’t bode that well for Oasis or the town, watching him work on uncovering the truth leaves us half rooting for him.

Unfortunately he’s also a bad guy.

He’s a professional bad guy. That means that he’s not outright unlikeable, not just cruel for the sake of being cruel – but it also means he’ll kill a young girl if the job calls for it.

I’m torn. He’s a really well designed character, and its not like half of the cast and crew of Sluggy haven’t been villains at one point or another. But I get the feeling it’s only a matter of time before he gets taken out – Oasis has survived far, far worse in the past, and has an unfortunate tendency not to leave her enemies alive.

I think a lot of the success of any given storyline in Sluggy comes down to the villains. Pointless and stupid villains just don’t work for me. That’s why I hated Gofotron – and conversely, some of my favorite storylines – The Bug, the Witch and the Robot, Fire and Rain, That Which Redeems – all have an interesting take on the good guys vs the bad guys.

So I’m really liking what Abrams has done here, even as I’m torn as to what direction I want to see the story go.

Lesson of the day – getting your audience invested in your bad guy before the evil reveal is both very effective, and very, very mean.