Akane has only one way to get back home: collect the 42 keys to parallel worlds. Eri and Ben are just trying to get through the summer before university. When a magical key turns up in an old spare set, all three are forced to change their plans and fast.
Shaderunners
Alex Assan, Lin Darrow
A ragtag band of bootleggers open a speakeasy for bottled colour in the greyscale city of Ironwell.
Hemlock
Josceline Fenton
A witch accidentally marries a monster, and now she and her familiar has to navigate life around her monstrous husband and her even more terrifying in-laws.
No End
Erli, Kromi
A queer romance about people attempting to build lives in a cold, post-apocalyptic world ravaged by hordes of undead.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Commentary
Posted July 25, 2008 at 1:00 am
Now THAT is a Friday comic!
The title is a reference to several video game RPGs I played on the [[wp:Nintendo Entertainment System|Nintendo]] and [[wp:Super Nintendo Entertainment System|Super Nintendo]] where opening a treasure chest could result in a combat situation instead of treasure. I always hated those things, because unless I had played through the game or already been killed by the monster within and had just gotten back from my last save point, there was no chance of me not opening every last treasure chest I found. I think [[wp:Dragon Quest III]] (called Dragon Warrior III in the USA back then) had a class that could detect such chests, but I could just be completely jumbling my video RPG memories.
In my original vision for this comic, Elliot kicked the box. That seemed unnatural to me, though, as she'd have to look in, get back up, then kick, and the entire act of sending the box flying is supposed to be a knee-jerk reaction to being startled. I changed it so she's holding the box when she gets startled and winds up throwing the box in a sort of underhand motion instead. She ALSO originally didn't think "girly scream" and just thought "scream", but I think the more redundant version is funnier.
Speaking of using "she" to refer to Elliot, isn't amazing how complicated and confusing pronoun usage can get while discussing El Goonish Shive?
Anyway, this comic means that it wasn't the Bloodgrem that [[2008-06-23|Nanase sensed by the vents earlier.]] So what the gingersnaps did she sense?
It took a bit of work to get the hue shift just right in the last panel. Not much work, but definitely a bit. I just thought it would be cool for everything to go even more red for the reveal in the last panel.
