Soup the Comic Strip by Alun Clewe
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Comic strip for October 23 2023.
PANEL ONE: The cloaked figure with the knife is about to plunge it into the champion's chest when the high priestess runs in. HIGH PRIESTESS: Wait! Xak'lar has just informed me that he wishes this man to be set free after all! PANEL TWO: The cloaked figures all stare at the champion. PANEL THREE: The other cloaked figures look at the high priestess. HIGH PRIESTESS: Uh... what's going on? CLOAKED FIGURE #1: I think he just had a heart attack. CLOAKED FIGURE #2: Hey, we should kill all our victims this way! Saves us from having to clean the knife!
October 23 2023

Okay, yet again I didn't get this commentary up until long after the strip had gone up (about 10:30 a.m. PST). I've really got to get these commentaries done further in advance. To be fair, I have been occupied the last few days trying to finish an important and long-overdue project; at the time did finally get around to uploading this commentary on Monday morning, I've been up all night working on this project (and still am not quite finished with it, though I'm getting there). Anyway, once I finally get this project done—which should be today"I'll be able to focus more on other things, including but by no means limited to Soup.

(I'm not trying to be coy about what the project is; it's just that it's probably not interesting enough to anyone else to be worth getting into. But I guess now that I brought it up I should probably explain it briefly; it's a twenty-minute video for an online class (an online class I'm teaching, not taking; it's a middle-school physics lesson). I... kind of got a bit carried away adding illustrations and animation, which is why it's taking so long.)

Okay, I talk a lot about the issues with the art in these old strips (and with good reason), but credit where it's due, I think I gave the high priestess / princess a dynamic pose in the first panel that's actually very well done relative to most of my art at the time.

Of course, it's entirely possible the anatomy in that pose is actually all wrong and I just lack the discernment to realize it. As I said, I think my artistic skills have increased in the twenty-plus years since I drew these strips, but they haven't increased nearly as much as I wish they had, and they still leave a lot to be desired.

I will be less complimentary to my past self about the stupid crossed dialogue balloon tails in the last panel.