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

Strip 53

Panel 1
Focus in close on one of the ice hockey skaters. He’s wearing a helmet with a plexiglass visor that has metal bars in it for reinforcement. The pressure suit looks like an inch-thick divers wet-shit, except there is no exposed skin, and there is some armor-padding attached at shoulders, elbows, knees. If the back can be seen it has a 3-inch-thick padding that contains compressed air and other suit apparatus. There are control surfaces on the suit’s forearms. The arrangement is brightly colored with team colors and has large two-digit numbers front and back like team jerseys.

Guy: What an odd arrangement. Why not play the game indoors, in pressure?

Ernie: It has to do with how the sport began here.

Panel 2
Looking into the Guzman box from outside, Guy, Fiorella, Babbette and Ernie in their seats.

Ernie: When the colony was just getting established somebody just got the idea of cutting a flat surface suitable for ice-skating.

Ernie (2): After a while, people started playing hockey there on a pick-up basis.

Panel 3
View of the hockey rink, one Rock Hunter dribbles the puck while two Ice Hammers bear down hard on him, one on the ice and the other dropping in from a leap.

Announcer: And the tip-off goes to the Rock Hunters as Tantimedh passes to Singh, but the Ice Hammers’ Bowen is bearing down hard …. And dives for a shot …

Ernie (out of frame): Eventually teams formed and watching them play became a popular past-time.

Panel 4
Pull back a bit so we seem to be looking into the box from a bit more than a meter outside the plastic window. A hockey player chasing a puck flies into the frame from the right, looking as it he will crash right into the Guzman viewing box. Ernie and Babbette flinch reflexively, but Guy is showing real terror in his expression.

Guy: ZUT!

Strip 53 - Click on page above to goto the next page. -- First Seen: 2008-11-26
Escape From Terra is updated with new pages every Monday through Friday.

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.

Kickstarter successful and closed

The Kickstarter campaign for Not-Safe.Space Chapter 3 concluded successfully on April 21, and Scott extended the time allowed for late pledges until May 19.

Books have been ordered from the printer and Scott will be spending the next week or so setting up and sending the PDF files to those who asked for them.

(There are still six of you who have not responded to the survey asking for e-mail and snail-mail addresses, he'll do the best he can.)

Thanks to all for supporting this Kickstarter!

The Transcript For This Page

Strip 53

Panel 1
Focus in close on one of the ice hockey skaters. He’s wearing a helmet with a plexiglass visor that has metal bars in it for reinforcement. The pressure suit looks like an inch-thick divers wet-shit, except there is no exposed skin, and there is some armor-padding attached at shoulders, elbows, knees. If the back can be seen it has a 3-inch-thick padding that contains compressed air and other suit apparatus. There are control surfaces on the suit’s forearms. The arrangement is brightly colored with team colors and has large two-digit numbers front and back like team jerseys.

Guy: What an odd arrangement. Why not play the game indoors, in pressure?

Ernie: It has to do with how the sport began here.

Panel 2
Looking into the Guzman box from outside, Guy, Fiorella, Babbette and Ernie in their seats.

Ernie: When the colony was just getting established somebody just got the idea of cutting a flat surface suitable for ice-skating.

Ernie (2): After a while, people started playing hockey there on a pick-up basis.

Panel 3
View of the hockey rink, one Rock Hunter dribbles the puck while two Ice Hammers bear down hard on him, one on the ice and the other dropping in from a leap.

Announcer: And the tip-off goes to the Rock Hunters as Tantimedh passes to Singh, but the Ice Hammers’ Bowen is bearing down hard …. And dives for a shot …

Ernie (out of frame): Eventually teams formed and watching them play became a popular past-time.

Panel 4
Pull back a bit so we seem to be looking into the box from a bit more than a meter outside the plastic window. A hockey player chasing a puck flies into the frame from the right, looking as it he will crash right into the Guzman viewing box. Ernie and Babbette flinch reflexively, but Guy is showing real terror in his expression.

Guy: ZUT!