Soup the Comic Strip by Alun Clewe
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Comic strip for September 2 2023.
PANEL ONE: The male adventurer we've been following reaches for a jar. MAN: Hey, what's in this jar? DEVALLON: Don't open that! PANEL TWO: A small creature comes out of the jar. CREATURE: Yes! I'm free! Free! Free at last! PANEL THREE: The small creature faces the adventurer. That rogue DeVallon had kept me trapped in that jar for years, hoping to find a way to tap my powers. But you have freed me! I must return to my home plane now, to gather my strength, but when it is restored I vow I _will_ find a way to repay you! PANEL FOUR: The adventurer looks on as the creature vanishes. PANEL FIVE: Devallon glares at the adventurer. MAN (thinking): It's probably just as well I didn't get a chance to tell him I'd been hoping there would be cookies in there.
September 2 2023

When I created this strip in the year 2000, I created five new dialogue fonts for it. (That's not counting the two sound effects fonts I mentioned in the first strip commentary and which I only used once or twice.) Mortal characters had one font; gods had another. Drv'dxx had a special demonic font (as discussed in last Sunday's strip commentary). There's another character who'll be showing up in mid-October who has her own font.

And then there's this guy.

Why did I give this guy his own font? I'm not sure. Sure, it's neither human nor god, but neither was the "imp" in the first strip, and neither is a major character who'll be introduced in a few weeks, and neither of them got their own font. And this creature definitely isn't a major character. I did plan on bringing this creature back eventually, but not for long and not often; it might become a recurring character, but if so a very minor one. I don't think there was really any good reason for this creature's getting its own bespoke font. I think I just got kind of carried away with font creation. Still, I did go ahead and modify the font to make it more legible, though I maybe didn't put quite as much effort into it as the other fonts, since it's not going to be used nearly as much. Maybe I'll do some more tweaking to this font before the next time this character shows up, whenever that is.

One more thing: Yes, the first panel has an issue with awkward crossed dialogue balloon tails again. I think (I hope) arranging the dialogue balloons is yet another thing that I did get better with over time.