Escape From Terra - by Sandy Sandfort, Scott Bieser and Lee Oaks! - Big Head Press, publishing Thoughtful Stories since 2002

Strip 2 – Life in UWRS

Panel 1
Medium-close shot of Guy at desk looking at some paperwork, while speaking to someone via a headset he’s put on. POV could be from monitor or from a point either side of the monitor, we want to see his face.

This is the face of a man who hates his job even more than he realizes -- and yet has the sort of pride in himself that he undertakes to do the best he can at it. His eyes seem to express a permanent annoyance.

It’s also a bit warm in the office – he has taken off his jacket and has loosened his collar. He has a bit of sweat on his brow.

Caption: His day began as usual – he sat in row 5, cube 3, reviewing audit lists, processing settlements, scheduling prosecutions.

Panel 2
Wide shot of cubicle area. We see around a dozen occupied cubes but not necessarily the people in them, other office drone types of variouis shapes and sizes walking about or stopped in a cube doorway talking to its inhabitant. Everyone is in “shirtsleeves” (some of them wear armless shirts), all of them wearing their badges, a few fanning themselves with whatever papers they’re holding.

Caption: The UWRS offices were air-conditioned, but the temperature was set by law at 26°C.

Caption 2: Guy preferred winter, when the legal maximum was only 14°C – you can wear extra clothes in the chill…

Panel 3
Medium shot of Guy in his cube talking to some woman clerk – he’s handing her some paperwork. She is a 90-kg woman wearing clothes that used to fit when she weighed 55 – a stretch tank-top that’s not large enough to conceal the brassiere that doesn’t support well, and a pair of Post-Office-cut shorts – wide-cut legs that go to about an inch above the knee. It looks like she’ll burst out of them any second. Her ID Badge dangles from one of her shirt-straps.

He is sitting with his head at roughly her rib-cage level and looks at her sagging breasts with even more annoyance.

Caption 3: In the summer heat, there was a limit to just how much clothing you could take off.

Strip 2 - Click on page above to goto the next page. -- First Seen: 2008-09-26
Escape From Terra is updated with new pages every Monday through Friday.

Kick Starter Campaign

The Kickstarter campaign to print the next volume of Quantum Vibe: Novo Palermo - Part 1 took flight on Oct 19th, 2026.

Your reward for backing our campaign starts with a personalized signed copy of the perfect bound printed collection of the online strip. You may also choose the ebook edition, a PDF downloadable from DriveThruComics.

And back by popular demand, coasters, magnets and stickers. Click on the art on the left, to go to our campaign page where you can back our campaign.

QV on a short break

QUANTUM VIVE is taking a break for a few weeks, as we prepare for Part 2 of the Novo Palermo story, and also for a Kickstarter campaign for Part 1, which will start in September.

In the meantime, Not-Safe.Space will continue, as a murder mystery begins and the relationship between Eithne and Diana develops in unexpected directions.

Not-Safe.Space is a NSFW strip but more than half the pages are SFW so I've set those to *not* require a Patreon membership. Readers should be able to follow the story without seeing the NSFW pages. If I've done this right.

The Transcript For This Page

Strip 2 – Life in UWRS

Panel 1
Medium-close shot of Guy at desk looking at some paperwork, while speaking to someone via a headset he’s put on. POV could be from monitor or from a point either side of the monitor, we want to see his face.

This is the face of a man who hates his job even more than he realizes -- and yet has the sort of pride in himself that he undertakes to do the best he can at it. His eyes seem to express a permanent annoyance.

It’s also a bit warm in the office – he has taken off his jacket and has loosened his collar. He has a bit of sweat on his brow.

Caption: His day began as usual – he sat in row 5, cube 3, reviewing audit lists, processing settlements, scheduling prosecutions.

Panel 2
Wide shot of cubicle area. We see around a dozen occupied cubes but not necessarily the people in them, other office drone types of variouis shapes and sizes walking about or stopped in a cube doorway talking to its inhabitant. Everyone is in “shirtsleeves” (some of them wear armless shirts), all of them wearing their badges, a few fanning themselves with whatever papers they’re holding.

Caption: The UWRS offices were air-conditioned, but the temperature was set by law at 26°C.

Caption 2: Guy preferred winter, when the legal maximum was only 14°C – you can wear extra clothes in the chill…

Panel 3
Medium shot of Guy in his cube talking to some woman clerk – he’s handing her some paperwork. She is a 90-kg woman wearing clothes that used to fit when she weighed 55 – a stretch tank-top that’s not large enough to conceal the brassiere that doesn’t support well, and a pair of Post-Office-cut shorts – wide-cut legs that go to about an inch above the knee. It looks like she’ll burst out of them any second. Her ID Badge dangles from one of her shirt-straps.

He is sitting with his head at roughly her rib-cage level and looks at her sagging breasts with even more annoyance.

Caption 3: In the summer heat, there was a limit to just how much clothing you could take off.