And now the pay-off! This comic, more than any other in the series, shows why these five compose a deleted scene. If you've ever wondered why there is an occasional double-size comic for an apparently random reason, it is because I was trying to fit this much stuff into a single-sized strip and failed. As you can see, I also failed in this case, but I didn't let that stop me. No, I stuffed everything I possibly could into its tight little wrapper and left you to sort it all out.

The "Get Out of Jail Free" card is a tired and droll joke, so it was entirely necessary that I use it. In fact, this sequence was originally planned to go on even longer, with Hew and Pzamdriel making an elaborate plan to free Shirk before he just wanders out on his own. In the interest of not boring people out of their skull (and because that sentence was the entirety of the script for that bit), the whole thing was dropped and even this recreation was cut down to fit nicely within one week.

Okay! I admit it! This whole week was a nefarious plot to do less work and still keep myself on schedule with this comic! And it failed! Failed horribly! I had to draw new strips anyway (the whole "deleted" concept itself being a dastardly lie), and all the time saved on coloring and creating effects was wasted on this superfluous yet highly amusing commentary! I blame you! It's all your fault! And if it's not your fault then I blame Society, because Society is too damn big to notice and is not very likely to fight back! And I blame exclamation points!