Standby To Repel Boarders!

Ahhh…Diogee, you just gotta love that mutt. For two weeks in a row now, he’s been the “star” of the strip, and this week he gets a little revenge for all the stuff he’s had to put up with lately. It’s been interesting exploring and developing the relationship between Ben and Diogee. For those of you who had a canine companion growing up, you know that “a boy and his dog” share a very special bond. When I was a kid, my dog Mitzi (a half daschund mutt) was my best friend.

She was the most gentle and patient little dog in the world. One of my fondest childhood memories is sitting on the living room floor and lining up my matchbox cars all along her back when she was curled up sleeping underneath the Christmas tree. A couple of times she opened her eyes, but she didn’t seem to care at all. Most dogs would’ve gotten annoyed in two seconds and shook all the cars off, but Mitzi didn’t mind. That’s how comfortable she was around me and how much trust she had in me. I like to think Ben and Diogee are on that level, but I think sometimes Ben takes him for granted and makes him do things he really isn’t interested in doing, like forcing him into co-pilot duty on the “starship” when he much rather be playing fetch or some other more traditonal dog/master stuff. Anyway, I think this week’s strip is really funny and I love the way Marc drew Diogee’s face in that first panel. Enjoy!

Before I go I’d like to say a few words about the “webcomic community”. Being so new to all this, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from other comic strip creators, but for the past few days I’ve been perusing the topics and posting here and there on the forums on numerous webcomic sties and I have to say that I’ve come across a lot of friendly, talented, and supportive individuals. Boxcar Astronaut is new to the neighborhood, but the neighborhood is wonderful and we’d like to settle down here for a good, long time.