Strip 185 -- First Seen: 2009-05-29
Escape From Terra is updated with new pages every Monday through Friday.

What Comes Next

The war is over, but This Means War has a ways to go. Novo Paolo/Bubbleopolis is still in a nebula/stellar nursery, no one knows what happened to the planet Sharen (center of the Intergalactic Council), and the status of the now-surrendered Invaders is yet to be resolved. What will they do when they learn their homeworld is basically destroyed? Will Alyss and Li be re-united? How about Diana (the real one) and Otto?

These questions will be resolved in the next few weeks, before This Means War part 3 wraps in late May.

After that, I plan to go BACK in time about 400 years, to when Alyss and Li left their home in the Sol System to colonize a new world on the far side of the galaxy. As one might expect, hijinks ensue. New subtitle yet to be determined, start date sometime in around the start of July. Stay tuned!

A Little House Cleaning

I can't tell you how much I appreciate everyone who backed our Kickstarter project. One small matter remains: a couple of you have yet to provide your shipping address for your rewards. As soon as possible, please either fill out the Kickstarter survey request found on the Kickstarter site, or simply send us an email Orders address and we will ship your reward soon after. If you're wondering why you haven't received a notice about this via email, please check your spam folder.

The Transcript For This Page

Panel 1
Three-shot of Smyth, Ernie and Bert at the café table. Show some background to re-establish the scene. Smyth is holding up his wrist-PDA, flashing a small holoscreen where the brothers can see it. Ernie's eyes are wide, as are Bert's who blurts out a remark.

Caption: Using his wrist PDA, Smyth shows the Guzmán brothers how much they can earn delivering ice to a mysterious planetoid.

Bert: Hell, for that much gold, we'll deliver it to the Sun! On our backs!

Panel 2
Side shot of the three at the table again, where we can see Ernie kicking Bert in the shin, again. Ernie is trying to be smooth.

Ernie: Yes, that should be quite sufficient. Of course we will need a down payment ...

Panel 3
Two-shot of Smyth flashing his PDA holoscreen at Ernie again. Ernie is struggling to maintain his cool.

Ernie: Yes, um, that should cover our fuel, supplies and ship's chandlery costs.

Panel 4
Focus on Smyth, although we can see Ernie to the right, and the Pale Man in his booth behind Smyth.
Smith: Do you have a fast ship?
Ernie: Fast? It made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs!


Panel 5
Under the table, we can see Bert's foot kicking Ernie's shin.
Ernie: That is to say, we should have no problem making a rapid delivery.

Panel 6
A high-angle shot, from between Bert and Ernie, showing the entire table and the three men. Smyth has pulled a thin, flat pad about the size of an 8.5x14 sheet of thick paper out of his attaché case which is now laying open on the table. The face of the pad is 2/3 full of lettering (which we can't read from here) and Smyth is holding it forward to where the Guzmáns can place their thumb prints in a box at the bottom. (At this moment Ernie has his thumb on the box and Bert is holding his thumb forward.)

Smyth: If you will, gentlemen.


Panel 7
In the foreground, we see the three men at their table. In the background, we see the cashier's stand with Babbette standing behind it. Smyth is keying something into his PDA. Babbette is reacting to a “DING” sound coming from her cash register. The brothers are grinning at each other.

Smyth: A pleasure doing business.

SFX (cash register): DING!