It can be nerve-wracking as an adult to get a "serious" message from your parents, right?

- Gunwild

I'm typing out this update on my phone so forgive me if the thoughts are disjointed. I just gotta say, I'm pretty happy with how this page came out. On a technical level, these past few pages have been simple to draw. Vanaa don't have any hands, and each hand adds like twenty minutes to the time it takes to finish! But without those, I got to focus on all the nice colors and atmospherics. And with the extra time left over from drawing I got to finally work on other comics stuff!

Being able to focus on art has been a blessing, as tough as it can be to be working on drawings every day. But having something to do that makes people happier is still important to me. So thank you for sticking with us for it.

- Psu

In case you missed it, there was a free Thanksgiving update to the Patreon - just a doodle of Nimoo, but hey, it's free, so please enjoy it!

My first impression of Deus Ex: Human Revolution is that it's far superior to its predecessor in one regard: I can now watch Eliza Cassan give reports in full moving video, not still images. Whenever I feel like it, too. Excellent feature. Cutting edge game design. Mad props.

- Gunwild

Thanksgiving consisted of Thanksgiving Lunch with close family, and that was fun. And then later binging on Dragon Quest Builders. Also fun. Seriously, a whole lot of fun. I fear I'm going to lose a lot of hours to this one game...

- Psu

Speaking of giving gifts, here is a cool thing I can recommend for this season o' giving! Because naturally, my taste is perfect. Utterly perfect.

Image Comics seems to have some kind of deal going with Amazon, so that the first volumes of some of their neat creator-owned comics are very, very affordable. Stuff I've recommended previously like Monstress and East of West  and Wayward are up to 25% off cover price. There are also popular choices like Lazarus, Wytches, and Copperhead. I like creator-owned comics (Cassiopeia Quinn is one, y'know), so I'm always happy to see good ones be easy to get.

- Gunwild

Seems I keep having bits of bad luck, but at least thanks to my Patreon and the Cassiopeia Patreon I've been better equipped to handle these things. IE, I have considerably more money. Looks like my phone is experiencing some major issues right now. I hope I can get this one straightened away with some know electronics know how.

(Quick update, a hard reset seems to have done the trick for now. Though I think I should reset the whole phone. I'm not quite sure if all my contacts are backed up on my Android here.)

- Psu

Kwah is a tough guy, but he's actually very thoughtful about his gifts. For example, you might think a bag as small as the one he was carrying on the previous page just has a gift card in it. But in reality, he's picked up Prince Gleb some plant food for his little tree.

Also there for the makeday boy: a book from Maddy and a scepter (previously owned by some other royalty) from Cassiopeia. He's a very popular fellow!

- Gunwild

Man, there are so many movies I'd like to watch in the theater now. Maybe I should go do that this holiday...

I'd have a longer newspost for you guys. But it's 7am. I'm goin to bed. I might watch some more Lazy Game Reviews to fall asleep to. That's how I end a Friday evening makin comics.

- Psu

If you'd like a really wonderful last-minute gift to give someone, I recommend donating in their name to UNICEF's fund to help Syrian kids. It'll make you feel nice, and do them a lot of good, okay? Just think about it.

Also, if you're a grown-up and would like to get yourself something nice, our color assistant pal Brellom has released a fun, affordable sketchbook, and it's got some Cassiopeia Quinn stuff in it! Titillating. Ooo.

- Gunwild

Craaap, it's Christmas again. Last minute gift time. Thank Jeff Bezos for free overnight shipping.

I'm really happy with this month's Patreon pinup, and I definitely ended up putting a lot of work into it. Since there wasn't really any clear requests for a specific character to do a pinup of, I took the opportunity to do one of fan favorite Motor Minx. Something about a cyborg getting a tune up and some buffing strikes me as more unique and interesting than a simple skimpy pose.

I've been trying to inject a lot of character into these extra drawings, and taking a moment to do things that aren't exactly out of character but getting to approach different ideas than the comic itself. And when I had the choice of characters this month, I used a couple of my favorites from the last story arc. I don't know if Gunwild will censor me saying, but anyone whose followed my art blogs will recognize these two from a previous comic we were working on. How they ended up in the Cassiopeia universe is another story altogether. But why we brought them on board, well we were both just too attached to them to keep them in the ideas drawer forever.

So that's how you get me drawing a cyborg getting a cleaning. Which, again, if you know me, is the kind of stuff I really really like drawing. Thanks again for being patrons everyone!

- Psu

This comic's subject matter may be a little bit of a downer, but have happy holidays, and don't worry, we won't make you wait http://www.cassiopeiaquinn.com//comic/her-first-mechanical-accomplice">another year to find out what happens to Beebot next! It's the season of hope, so send good vibes his way and things may yet work out, okay?

- Gunwild

Oh man, it's Christmas already. I'm feeling a little sick and under the weather, I hope you'll forgive me if I just leave you with my fondest well wishes. It's been challenging but I've been reminded that so many of you guys read and enjoy the comic. And have taken your time to support us. It's a unique privilege. And I hope to entertain you more in the years to come.

- Psu

Poor little bug. What will happen next in this story...?

Hey, I don't respond to every comment (I feel like it would be interfering a lot of the time), but I wanna tell you dudes I've enjoyed reading your theories about how this one is gonna play out. I just hope what actually happens isn't disappointing compared to what you've imagined!

- Gunwild

Sorry for the delay. Stress related holiday stuff, I don't want to bore you with the details. Page looks alright though.

I'm sad about Carrie Fisher. I'm sad about a lot of things really but I wish we made the time to properly make a send off strip. I don't think it should be a regular thing for us to go out of our way, but if we can take the time to do a respectful nod to one of our inspirations, we will. It's a heck of a way to end a year, but the reality is we're still going. End of the year or not, we're still here. And we still gotta keep moving and making pages for our own stories.

- Psu

Maybe the future's not as bleak for Beebot as it once looked...

You'd think that eating leftover Christmas-shaped Goldfish crackers after the holiday season is over would make me kind of sad. And yet, it doesn't! I still like the shapes. The stockings, well, you wear socks every day. The trees? Spearheads. How martial! And stars, well, I write a sci-fi comic all year long. Yep, no matter how old I get, I never stop preferring that my food be in a variety of fun shapes.

- Gunwild

Ya know what this makes me think of? You ever find like an old Gameboy or Nintendo Cartridge in the basement of your parent's house? And then you power it back on and like, all your saves are still there and it's like you still remember just what level you left everything on. It's a pretty special feeling. I wonder what the equivalent of that will be in the future.

- Psu

Here's an alternative version of the page with all the same dialogue, but the addition of Beebot's "internal monologue" of sorts. It was decided that there wasn't really room to fit it comfortably in the resolution we have on the website, but it's free on our Patreon!

I was surprised by how much I found myself enjoying Westworld. Well, not completely surprised, as obviously HBO original series tend to have a reputation for quality. But I was glad to see it had a bit more going on than a few of the lighter HBO offerings, like, say, True Blood. Definitely check it out!

Also, do the same for the new season of Voltron: Legendary Defender on Netflix, which I've been looking forward to for months and months. Y'know, to the point that we had that reference to it http://www.cassiopeiaquinn.com//comic/smug-magazine-vol-2-issue-22">a few updates ago.

- Gunwild

I've been saying this a lot. Sorry again for being late. I got myself pretty sick this past week and it slowed down progress on a number of things. Started off strong but just kinda broke down bodily right after that. At least the page is pretty good I think. I'll see you soon for the end of this little bee-utiful episode.

- Psu

P.S.: Ultimately I decided it was better with the "Beebot" messages visible on the page. It better showed that the comic was from it's perspective. Doing a little bit of extra work, I think I fit the graphics on the page a little better. Sometimes we're really tight on deadlines and the idea for the Beebot messages was incredibly last minute. It took a week before I figured that they really fit the scene so reinserting them into the story feels like the right thing to do.

- Psu

In case you missed it, we made a slight addition to http://www.cassiopeiaquinn.com//comic/let39s-bee-friends-again">the previous page that we like, adding in some extra words. Previously, they were only available for viewing on our Patreon.

Recent world events have gotten me angry enough that I decided I had to do something. I think I have an ethical obligation to help hungry, endangered, displaced children. You should help too, if you can.

To make use of the *excess* rage, I've also bought a new heavy bag. I'm a few years out of practice, so if anyone has excellent instructional videos they would like to link me as a refresher, they'd be welcome. I think I have a tendency to rise too much when I move already, so if I have the bag at the wrong height, I need to find out about it soon! I might not recall much about fighting, but I do remember that bad habits are easier to make than break. In sport as in life.

By the way, I'm still not sure what to say about the Apocalypse Now video game Kickstarter. But I do think people should be aware of it, because wow. It sure exists.

- Gunwild

As a much younger Psu, I was once browsing the fantasy section of the cheap bus station newsstand books and came across a familiar edition of Lord of the Rings. I owned the same one, it has these great Alan Lee paintings for the covers. But next to it, under JRR Tolkien's name was another book that I never heard of before, called Roverandom. And I read a tiny bit about it in the intro, where it's said that when Tolkien's son lost a beloved toy lead dog on a trip to the beach, the boy was heartbroken. So Tolkien told him a the story of how the dog went on to have many adventures.

Unrelated to that, the creation of Beebot was inspired by my then 5-year-old niece. She asked for a robot butterfly that would give ribbons to all the boys and girls. I think I had to settle for getting her a storybook. A long time later, I was doing early design sketches and one was of a young Cassiopeia making a daring escape. I figured she needed some help, and what better way to make a quick getaway than flying with a robot bee (that is easy to draw.)

 I'm glad when a bunch of silly ideas seem to come together and work out. It's pretty cool.

- Psu

Huh. We haven't seen Lefyne in a while. His Saturday nights are... slightly different than what one might imagine? I don't think he wants people to know that, though...

If you're already a Patreon supporter (or are thinking about it), here's the latest pinup, featuring Talps, Kettering, and best of all, more futuristic ice cream! What, you don't remember that time we did http://www.cassiopeiaquinn.com//comic/quinn-ice-cream-ventures-summer-offerings">an update about that? Geez.

- Gunwild

Two things. One, I enjoyed doing this page. Two, I'm pretty sleepy so I'm gonna go do that soon. I intend to take a proper week off at some point as soon as we can arrange a proper guest piece. Thank you for your patience.

- Psu

Our sometimes-colorist Brellom provided this guest page while Psu gets some rare chill-time. It's nice to know someone has our BACK. Eh? Yes. If you would like to see more art of Brellom (watch out, it's not all safe for kids 'n such), you are encouraged to go here.

- Gunwild

Thank you for supporting Cassiopeia Quinn, Gun and Psu work really hard to make you cool things.

- Brellom

We went with the thing about Ashley being from another dimension 'cause it shows we're not about to start taking the setting too seriously, even though all this stuff is gonna play into ongoing plot threads. Our other choice of thing for her to say at the end there? "She also helped me with my report. It's about different colors of squirrels!"

That's a pretty important topic, you know. Like, for instance, I live in an urban area, and we mostly have those big gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis). But in the summer, when I go to the country, I see the littler pointy-eared red ones (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus).

Did you know that the American gray squirrel is an invasive species in Britain? It's true! They're a hardy breed and not averse to foraging on the ground, so they make it through tough winters pretty well. In places they're out-breeding the Eurasian red squirrel (Scurius vulgaris), which has been there for millennia. That kind is even MORE pointy-eared and red than the American kind of red squirrel, and their white bellies are typically a lot brighter... next time you see a squirrel, maybe find out what kind it is. You'll be surprised how many varieties of this everyday animal there actually are!

See? This is a serious subject, suitable for a report!

- Gunwild

Yes, I know it's Comic-Sans. This was an intentional artistic decision on my part to better represent the graphic design senses of a twelve year old. Thank you very much. Anyway, it's good to be back. And back to being late! This page was trickier to put together than I expected!

- Psu

I didn't notice when Psu first sketched it out that there's a callback with the magnetic harpoon being on this page. I do know that Beebot considers Zeke a good kid at least in part because he fixed up the lil' guy using his technical knowhow. See? He's all shiny and has a non-busted wing, now! How nice.

One thing I didn't think up while writing this is where Beebot is getting all these flowers and ribbons from. Maybe Cassiopeia set him aside a little garden and some fabric...

- Gunwild

The more I look at this page, the more tiny things I want to change or add. But I think it came out pretty nice. And it's 6:40 am. There were a couple things that happened this week, I'm not sure I have the where withal to discuss them with the sincerity they need right now. Nor do I know if it's my place to do so. But at least through that, I'm still proud of the work on Cassiopeia. I like to think our space comic is unique as far as space comics go. If it weren't for the holographic cat and the cyborg tin man, it can be hard to place pages like this as science fiction.

- Psu

In case any patrons missed it (or potential patrons haven't seen it), new Patreon pinup! Thank you to the roughly 200 folks supporting us. I paid for the domain name and stuff a few months back using Cassiopatreon funds instead of doing it out of pocket, it was a really good feeling.

- Gunwild

Okay, so my embarrassing back log of videogames is about to become a shameful exercise nearing futility. With recent games like Yakuza 0, Gravity Rush 2, The Last Guardian added to my queue along with wanting to beat plenty of older games ranging from Fallout 4 to Dragon's Dogma I'm fearing that there are all these experiences I'm looking forward to that it starts sounding like work and pressure rather than play. And that's all without buying a Switch and Zelda before Nier Automata and Mass Effect come my way. But who am I kidding. I'm just gonna waste all my free time playing Egg, INC.

- Psu

I really, really, really rarely buy new video games. It's cost-prohibitive, in my situation. But enough people were recommending Horizon: Zero Dawn to me that when I was able to get it at a helpful discount, I went for it.

I'm pretty glad I did. The gameplay is good, but the story – which I don't wanna spoil – has been really excellent so far, at least from my point of view. Takes some risks I didn't expect, and I always appreciate surprises. Lots of video games aren't interested in providing those.

Maybe I should have seen some of the difference in structure coming, though. It's by a Dutch studio, and reminds me in a pleasant way of some of my favorite Eurocomics. They could maybe have used a little more inspiration from those art-wise (Psu has tons of that, in case you're wondering), but still! It's got the best new sci-fi setting I've run across in, like, a couple of years at least.

- Gunwild

I'm pretty sleepy again. That seems to happen around 3am working on the comic. I'd love to talk about Nier Automata. I made some gushing words about it on the Twitter between retweeting politics. It's going up there as one of my favorite videogames. And I'll probably draw 2B more times while I'm at it.

- Psu

Beebot is always worried when kids roughhouse that they might hurt each other! Be careful, you guys!

You know, now that I think about it, the way we handle returning side-characters in Cassiopeia Quinn is probably inspired in a big way by classic Simpsons. If you need a doctor, it's going to be Dr. Hibbert. If a lawyer is involved, Lionel Hutz is your go-to guy. For psychiatric matters, you have Dr. Marvin Monroe. It lets them nurture a schtick over the course of their small appearances... obviously we can't do it to the same extent, but it's probably where I got the impulse.

Well, I can honestly say that I did not expect to see a sitting president of the United States under investigation by the FBI in my lifetime. Figured that was something that wouldn't, um, happen again so soon. It's... not a great position for a country to be in, I think we can all agree on that. But hey, around the last time this went down, the music got incredibly funky, which is pretty cool. Can we hope that'll happen again?

- Gunwild

Sorry for the delay. In between family issues, I seemed to forget how to draw a comic. But now it's 5am. I'm gonna hit the hay. Take care everyone.

P.S., Nier Automata is fantastic.

- Psu

If you're wondering why Maddy didn't get a special entrance, well, one, she's not a reigning champion... and two, it's not her style, man! I can't figure on her cutting much of an intimidating promo, if someone asked her to. It would be beneath her dignity to throw insults at a competitor.

Still, I don't think she's going to have much nice stuff to say about this competitor...

- Gunwild

Samurai Jack is really really cool, guys. You should check it out.

I hope you guys want to see more of this tournament than we can reasonably get around to drawing. If there's even some sense that you might want to see more of these random background characters or different fights then we'd be doing part of our job well. But at one page a week and a relative tight constraint on panels we aren't going to be able to get through lots of fights in a reasonable amount of time.

I think a lot about ANY tournament arc in shonen manga and I find myself almost universally falling away from a series that gets into those things. It can be fun to come up with all kinds of enemies with boss battle type gimmick powers but the further we delve into those then the longer we delay meaningful story.

Look, basically this is a long way of saying as much as I want to see more of the guy with the glowy chest armor and how he actually fights, I'd rather see more about those nurses in the clean suits. Uh I mean Madison. Yeah.

- Psu

Whoa, new Patreon-exclusive pinup of Dr. Botz! What's she up to since she was busted? How's her looking since she was cut in half? How alluring can we make a would-be planet-conqueror with sharp metal teeth?! Click through for the answers!

Now, if you'd like to make your own helping of the tasty Roman favorite mentioned in the comic today, here's a cacio e pepe recipe I really like. Consider throwing a cooked egg in there, it's great.

And hey, in case you've never checked it out, a streaming service finally put up Babylon 5 legitimately on the internet. For free, no less! People have sung the show's praises all over the internet since, well, there was only Usenet to do so on. But if you like science fiction (you probably do, since you're here and all) and you've never seen it before, Babylon 5 is streaming right now and you should watch it.

- Gunwild

Sorry for bein late again. The page is rough, there are a number of spots I'm not too happy with. I really like the robot though. I was thinkin of my PlayStation Eye Toy when putting him together.

Anyway, it's 5am again. And I find myself needing to head out. Take care everyone.

- Psu

Hi, Captain Alberic! You were http://www.cassiopeiaquinn.com//comic/humanoid-resources">mentioned as an aside before, but it's good to finally see you! You're sure a neat design!

Oh, snap -- well, uh, bye, Captain Alberic.

Got my free #BringBackTheBees seeds today. I'm so hype to plant some fragrant and attractive wildflowers to support the ecosystem, guys, for real. It's gonna be dope.

- Gunwild

Moustaches seem to the fashion in the Regency Navy...

- Psu