jephjacques patreon

Directember: Ring My Bell

🕑 Added 2024-12-10 01:31:38 +0000 UTC

Comments

Clifton Royston

I remember we had someone in the Patreon comments quite a while back saying that Claire's story and representation here had helped her come out as trans.

Melissa Wilson

“Marten” is both a noun (one of the world’s most adorable weasels!) & a name & I find the fact that it gets autocorrected to “Martin”highly offensive.

Melissa Wilson

I’d join in, but all my rage is potent. 💯

Boots McGoot

god, of course he wouldn't, thank you person with a functioning brain 🙏

Clifton Royston

There are some of the best Claire faces in the entire comic if you just read forward from here for a bit, for the phone interview with Moray.

Lily Ballard

I'd be fine with Marten riding off into the sunset but Claire needs to stay

Mattezhion Zane Corgan Campbell

I 100% expected Claire and Marten to gently ride off into the sunset because their story was told and they deserved to be boring for a while. I am so very pleased you proved us both wrong.

SilverbackRon

I am personally invested in Marten and Claire's relationship for the long haul. #relationshipgoals

PsychOut

I love these commentary strips so much!!! You have my blessing to go on vacation way more often, especially if we get more commentary-loaded classic reruns like this!

Joseph Bonnar

Not in MY hotel, please. :)

BioGeek42

I love these. It was my favorite part of the physical books. Any plans to come out with physical copies for the more resent comics?

Justin Seifert

I hope you never let Martin exit the comic. Been following this comic for so long it would feel like losing touch with a family member.

Robert Weber

glad to know cubetown was you attempting to write out Martin and Claire but also glad to know that writing them out is impossible

Halloween Jack

Being stable is fine when they have stealth-adopted the roboarmed neo-partyhearty goblin Liz.

Marty BlackEagle

Claire's my fave i think....

Marc Ducharme

Marten and Claire are indeed fairly stable and normal. Thankfully Cubetown turned out to be a complete shitshow.

David Michaels

Does that mean it could be a... sustainable business? In this economy?

marcus erronius

Yeah including the new ones, Jeph'd actually never run out, and in fact never get to comment on 90% of the pages

alphanor

Exactly!!

Carrie

I think there are a bunch of us who are trans who've taken to the comic because of how great Jeph's story of Claire is. Before her I enjoyed the comic, now it is my favourite by a mile.

Marc Tabor

Probably just spell check, relax. If the spelling/grammar doesn't interfere with understanding, it's not worth bringing up.

Boots McGoot

208 years with sundays off? and that's not accounting for the new ones you'd be writing as you go? help

Boots McGoot

did you know: you could do Directember every year for over 175 years without needing to reuse any strips. wait, is that right? that's insane. i'm bad at numbers somebody check

RaptorShadow

I am here for the long haul, but I might have trashed a hotel room in impotent rage if you actually wrote Marten out of the comic.

Jan Szejko

I'm sorry for being That Person, but his name is Marten, not Martin edit: apparently everyone says Martin, so it's maybe some inside joke I'm not in on

Charlotte Grubbs

I'm currently job hunting and this is basically my worst nightmare, though I suppose it did work out for Claire in the end.

Munchkin Threats

Claire is so cute.

enchantedsleeper

No, it's a thing; but also, it's a job opportunity anxiety. In many cases missing a step of the process, even for simple and explainable reasons (couldn't get to the phone) can impact your chances of getting the job. But picking up unprepared could also impact them. I never thought this was anything other than very real x3

enchantedsleeper

In comic time it probably has. Or something in that region xD

enchantedsleeper

I'm not sure if Jeph has written out other characters (proactively) so much as just... not featured them in ages xD I guess Angus got a proper writing-out. Not sure what other candidates there would be, other than eaten-by-an-allosaurus Sara.

enchantedsleeper

To be fair, a lot of places wouldn't be as chill as Cubetown was about you missing the initial call x3

Joseph Bonnar

Then they met Moray, then they met Liz, then they met the Director, and then the Director messaged Yay... THIS WHOLE CUBETOWN ARC WAS TO GET RID OF YAY!!! :P

SpookyPenguin

also i can't imagine Martin without Claire now, that was seamless.

SpookyPenguin

ahahah god Jeph you can still make me laugh even by analysing your work, you're a natural :D

Bridgette Ryan

Lol, that was a hasty fix while I am working, lol. But thanks for pointing that out, I thought I had fixed it 😄

JCfromNC

Good for you for catching yourself and making corrections. You only get half credit because you missed the first pronoun, though. (Kidding about the half-credit -- although you *did* miss correcting the first pronoun. But you made the effort and that's gotta count.)

Scott

I absolutely cannot imagine QC without Martin (and now Claire), TBH. For the very reason you mention - they ARE the stable core, and as much fun as the swirling "outer planets and comets" of the various other character arcs are, it's really nice to have the (relative) stability of Martin/Claire to come back to. And given that they are leaving the country, to move to Cubetown, which is not exactly a super conventional/conformist path to follow, they still have a lot of room to grow and surprise - and delight!

Graydon Armstrong

Wait, holy shit, you were going to write them out?!!

Minzoku Bokumetsu

Enjoying writing ALL the characters: good problems to have!

Octoprocessor

I've always thought that QC is the story about all of the people in Martin's life. Like a reverse narrator.

ElChorizoTX

Yeah, it's crazy the way time flies. Like, the one that always gets me is Faye's alcoholism saga just felt like the biggest event of the series and while I know it was like a decade ago at this point, I still sort of see QC as sort of pre and post firing.

William Cole

Seriously! 2 years is simply unpossible.

Xkox

Thank you for sharing your creativity! The older stuff may not hold up to your self reflection as an artist but please know that it appreciated by so so many!! I've been following for years and the first thing I do most weekdays is to check for a new comic. Thank you again for so many years of hard work.

Foal Papers

I’m really glad you didn’t write them out. I’ve followed the comic since near the very start, and I’m fond of Marten, but it’s Claire I’d miss the most. I’m trans, and getting to witness her journey and the pitch-perfect work you’ve done in bringing her into the story has meant a lot to me. It’s affected my own journey in very positive and meaningful ways. So, while I would have understood it from a storytelling perspective, and would have respected your creative decision and not taken it personally, I’d still have been quite sad to see her go. Thank you for deciding to keep her story going. And thank you for taking time for yourself this month. You deserve a break for some self-care, and thinking about it (and although I wouldn’t presume to put words in her mouth), I feel like Claire would be someone who’d applaud you for that, too. :-)

Drazi

2 years? 😲

BookBeard

They/them

Bridgette Ryan

This feels 100% right.

Melissa Wilson

For some reason, my imagination tells me that the box she’s in is cardboard, but it’s wrapped in shiny purple paper. Where the actual fuck did that come from, brain of mine?!?

Michael Steamweed

SO much of therapy is just going over the basic units of plain common sense. So, yeah, if Marten can figure out shit, he can definitely help others figure out shit. Over coffee. :)

Michael Steamweed

Ahhh, yes, Claire, if only you knew _then_ what you were getting into. ... Come to think of it, if only you know _now_ what you were getting into... :D

Melissa Wilson

That’s a thing? I just thought Jeph was being silly… I’m so sorry; I can see how that would suck.

Mandy Hoskins

Ooh, maybe they'll meet Alice up there!!

Melissa Wilson

But she clearly knows their number… She can Just. Call. Back.

Melissa Wilson

But is he technically *in* Cubetown, or merely adjacent?

Bridgette Ryan

Other spinoff ideas... Yay's comic of them just being in a box hiding in the dark, and it is just daily comics of them saying "I miss my friends." I am thinking dinosaur comic style. Lol. *Edited cause I fucked up pronouns!

Michael Phillips

And I personally find it incredibly fun to read, write, and perform the straight man role in a double act. I also find it amusing explaining that neither straight nor man are operative words in the role's name

Bridgette Ryan

So because you don't have enough on your plate, I say we need a cube town spinoff of questionable content. Yes! Write them out of the comic and into a new one. That way you can have even less time for a break (this is a joke, btw, Jeph. Do not do this, we love you, take care of yourself!)

Michael Phillips

I mean cubetown is absolutely ardly Wooster and those two are collectively Jeeves

Alias Fakename

It definitely did come off like your original intention, like they were getting written out. I even went so far as to think this was heralding the end of QC, since so much of the cast was ending up in just such a good place. But I'm glad neither of those are the case, honestly.

BookBeard

Ol' Boaty seems pretty stable. I mean, he hasn't capsized yet.

Thisguy

One of the issues with long running stories is you need to continuously introduce drama to keep the story going. And this does a disservice for a long running character whos already earned their happy ending, and often annoys the audience who wants to see that character be happy. However, moving them to a new location, where they have new challenges, and introducing new people with their own stories definitely re-invigorates the characters, while still leaving them in a satisfying place.

BookBeard

Oh yes, the phone anxiety is real.

BookBeard

It's that sort of brilliant and insightful advice that will make him a top notch barista-therapist.

Taigan

I’m glad Claire didn’t get written out.

Miyaa

So it’ll be like 2027 before Marten & Claire finally moves to 🇨🇦.

Miyaa

@Captain Button • I thought that would happen when Momo found out that May did the deed with Sven.

BookBeard

She didn't even miss the call, that's just how she answers the phone.

BookBeard

Same principle. In terms of the amount of chaos introduced to a situation, Moray is easily equivalent to an explosion.

Shawn K. Younkin

"Uh, pick up?" Clutch advice coming in from Marten!

Everett Bradshaw

Sad you were going to write Marten and Claire out of the story, but sometimes you have to say goodbye, I get it.

Doc Gumby

One of the rare profane moments, and spot-on called for too.

James R. Strickland

You've never been afraid to write characters out when their character DNA was all spent. Writing out the whole town? That's brave. :)

ArtemisFolly

No Jeph - it took you closer to 4900 😁💜 (been here since '05)

Captain Button

In the words of Raymond Chandler: "When in doubt have a AnthroPC come through a door with a gun in their tentacle." (May not be an exact quote.)

Cathal Mc Ginley

I remember he said that in the Patreon notes at a pivotal point of the Cubetown arc, probably when Claire decided to take the Librarian job. Though, again, I can't believe that was like 18 months ago.

Armcannon Productions

High quality Claire faces in this one. 10/10

Sean Kinlin

"I'm a professional, eh." -Geddy Lee

Aerin Moriarty

I'm so glad cause this really renewed my interest. I mean... I've been reading for like 18 years so I clearly like everything else you've done but this was like... oh shit, what have we here?

Bill Silvia

At least you didn't follow Stephen King's advice of "if you run out of ideas, blow someone up"

Pejo

Reading the caption, I yelled out "TWO YEARS?!" So, yeah, that's me agreeing.

Miyaa

I hope one of the random strips is a Bembo one.

Sage Johnson

As a fellow professional writer, you meant to do that. I once described writing as being like a cat: you do something that turns out to be important or clever or "I should have thought of this sooner whoops" and then you pretend like you meant to do that. (While then scrambling to figure where you're going. Or possibly what planet youre now on.) I'm glad you chose another path for those two. I love them and their stupid dorky squishy faces

Gone

I’d be bummed if Marten were written out. I know the comic has evolved past him being the main character and there are whole, major wings of the QCU that don’t even know him, but he is who I came to the party with. I started following like RIGHT after “The Talk” so he still feels like one of the pillars of the comic to me.