Our second installment of Commander & Scout is brought to you by James Anderson! Jim has been working in stealth mode for awhile preparing his webcomic for launch, so I’m happy to announce to you a new webcomic: Ellie on Planet X!

Ellie is an amazingly creative and cute comic about Ellie, a spunky robot nicknamed Ellie was sent on a mission to a remote planet circling a distant star. It took more than thirty years for her to travel across the vacuum of space before she reached her destination eight light years from Earth. Finally, after years of waiting, the first transmissions from Ellie on Planet X have reached our radio receivers. Now you can follow Ellie along on her adventures exploring the surface of this alien world as she discovers new life forms and makes first contact with intelligent creatures!

Yeah, how cool is that?!

Jim uses beautiful drawings with a simple and effective limited color palette to present just a beautiful comic. Plus it’s super creatively written, with lots of fun moments. I’ve got a few favorites already. Plus it’s sci-fi and has a robot – I mean what more do you want?!

It’s rare nowadays that I add a comic to my daily reading list, but as soon as I saw this one, I added it immediately. I suggest you do too. Now head over to Ellie on Planet X and start reading! (And tell Jim what a great job he did!)

Okay folks, the digital version is now ready! If you couldn’t (or didn’t want) to spring for the price of the book, this is the second best way to get it. You can download it as soon as you pay, and all the content is included just like the print version. Heck, print it out on your printer if you want!

Find out more about the book here.

Buy Mars Wars here for only $5.99!

Tip the Cartoonist?

Since it’s the season of giving, I’ve put up a Tip page where you can help fill Ril’s tip jar If you’ve enjoyed all the FREE content I’ve provided you throughout the year, and you can’t buy a book, leaving a donation of any size is a great way to show your appreciation. The costs of keeping the comic going are not insignificant. Why not skip that next coffee or snack and leave a tip in Ril’s jar right here!

I hope you all enjoyed this short story. I want to thank Wouter for doing such an awesome job! I really appreciate his help, and I love how this came out. Don’t forget to visit his excellent comic “The Adventures of Captain Wayne.” I hope everyone has a great Independence Day this Thursday (those of you in the U.S., anyway!)

Remember, Marooned’s FINAL CHAPTER begins NEXT WEEK! On Monday the 8th, I’ll begin posting pages DAILY, Monday-Thursday for three weeks until the tale is complete.

After which, the Kickstarter will launch. See you then!

So… Asimov. Changes.

This one was tough, especially since I haven’t done a day scene on the surface in awhile either. So I talked to Steve a lot about Asimov, and I think I mentioned he showed me his ideas for Asimov while working on his Marooned short story (which is turning out fantastic!) I liked what he did with Asimov quite a bit.

Still, change is hard. I didn’t want to copy exactly what Steve did, although I did take a fair amount. Really, there’s just a few extra lines to help with fleshing him out a bit, a bit more definition to the buttons and the red “pressable” area to the them. But clearly the biggest change (other than the body colors) is the screen color. It’s a real big move it seems.

The thing is, it doesn’t work with the lighter blue anymore, not with the lighter body color. And the move to a darker color scheme for Asimov was a mistake because he’s always getting lost in the background – the very thing I was trying to avoid! (Sometimes I don’t know what is wrong with my brain.)

And it was tricky to avoid having him look like R2D2. I really think this color scheme works the best. I’ll be interested to hear what you all think. Like I said, I know change can be difficult with an established character. But I really feel like this is pretty necessary. Hopefully Steve doesn’t mind too much that I stole some of his ideas!

The surface is a little more orange here too. Not only is it daytime, but I had strayed a bit too much into brown. I mean this is MARS for cryin’ out loud!

If you are a newer reader, you may not get what Ril is wearing. She’s wearing an invention by the Geboraga called simply a “bioshield.” It allows her to go onto the surface without dying (always a good thing). The nice thing is the shield is completely flexible. She can grab things, walk, etc without any problem at all.

Of course Ugo doesn’t need one, being a supersonic cybernetic creation and all.

This strip was a ton of work, both physically and mentally. Not only with Asimov, but drawing all the panels properly with Ril’s expressions and John flipping (my favorite John drawing so far) – and *8* panels to boot! Phew! But I like how it came out. Definitely one of my favorites.

New Readers

If you are a new reader, you have jumped in at the perfect time. Episode 9 is just beginning. Sit back and enjoy the story!

If you want to be fully informed, you can start reading from the beginning

You can also read Episodes in full-screen mode without digging through the archive!

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