I’ve been much encouraged by the way Soviet Sam has been accepted by the majority of you since his proper introduction to the strip in SF 322. In a story with A LOT of characters (seriously, the cast is getting too big. I gotta kill a few off), he’s managed to come in fairly late to the party and become a favorite of both yours and mine.

I think new characters are the lifeblood of any story (hello, Atomic Fly). It’s a rare work of fiction that can get by with just the core group talking to each other over and over again, but introducing new characters can be risky business if you don’t do it properly and they aren’t interesting enough. I know I’ve been fan of shows and comics that have tried to push unwanted characters on me. It’s not fun and it can really ruin your enjoyment of something you use to love. Here’s hoping that never happens with any new characters here… or that I have the sense to kill off the character before it does!

We’re getting near the end now. A week from today: the end of Chapter 16 – Invasion, Pt. 3: Secrets, Secrets are No Fun.

Remember my article The Jedi are Pricks: How Star Wars VII-IX Can Make the Prequels Retroactively Better? Mega movie news site Slashfilm picked it up and included it in one of their daily Page 2 articles. How cool is that?