Joyce and Walky!

(“When I was 18, I was stupid” is not only the theme of Dumbing of Age, but also essentially a Google translation of the title)

Speaking of one’s late teens, when I was in mine, one of the parents at my church got kidney stones. As he lay there in the hospital, some other churchmembers came to visit him. This wasn’t a representative group of my church, but these few had apparently decided that these kidney stones were a sign by God that this person had done something terribly wrong, and they’d taken it upon themselves to gently ask him to confess. It was a literal recreation of the Book of Job but without any irony.

That’s where Mary comes from, here. The knowledge that some people are so awful that they’ll see something terrible happen to somebody and assume it’s because God sent punishment… and believe this confrontational response of theirs is a kindness.

In other It’s Walky! news, I’m Kickstarting the first It’s Walky! book! It collects the first, redrawn storyline that began It’s Walky!, plus the original strips upon which that redraw was based. There’s also an opportunity to get yourself some sweet Squad 128 character magnets. If this Kickstarter does well, I’ll print other It’s Walky! books, so head on over. We’re not quite at 100% funding as of this writing, but hopefully soon!