or a boatswain

good job Moray

the plank at Cubetown is 400 meters long, sentient, and horny

Moray could lay an egg like a monotreme if she wanted

boof

Don't worry she's fine

a thousand beaks, a million talons, ten billion eyes. RIP Ms. Beakman, you beautiful bird

Stretchy friend...

Emily is my wife's favourite character so this story is basically a little present for her (and possibly...for you???)

psst if you sign up for the $5/month tier on my patreon you can see the (very nsfw) thirst pic

Oh no babby Anh :(

the second generation Moray units smelled like a Red Lobster dumpster

At first I was like "is an Ed Sheeran reference going to make this comic seem dated" but then remembered Ed Sheeran's music sucks no matter what year it is

Moray is safety conscious

Not THAT bubbles

or Moray will have to do it again

something's fishy

well SOMEONE has to keep her in check

cajolery

might be a digestive issue

I'm a boy, I'm allowed to say boys are dumb

teens

OH NO

hi Jim

bein' 'spended's no big deal

horrormones

it felt weird writing Sam using swears

of course that's what happened. of course

oh my god how has it been two years since we last saw Grim Samantha

and nothing of value was learned

her ears are burning

Cute hanners :3

Moray is doing her best :)

aaaaaa

is that an org chart in your pants or are you just happy to see me

I think Hannelore is about 28 in comic time now but I also reserve the right to change this if/when it becomes necessary or I feel like it

The Older, Wiser Sister

It's technically a novella

Good job Ayo

thank you, past jeph, for setting up this callback

we've been over this. scented candles

check out the hook while the DJ revolves it

2026 off to a classy start

These goobers

Aw, I kinda like the art in this one! It took literally over a decade for me to get to the point where looking at my own drawings didn't make me want to gag, so it's super wild to see these older comics and think "actually my art had some good points back then too." I used to tell people "if you don't like the comic's art, give it a couple weeks and it'll look different." That isn't really the case anymore- my style has solidified pretty well the last several years. There are still changes, but they're more subtle most of the time and I suspect 90% of my readers don't even notice them. Every now and then I still get a wild hair and go "agh I hate how I draw my comic!!!" and change things up, and while it usually doesn't produce permanent, radical change, it often forces me to learn how to do something different, or better than I used to. I'll never be a Great Artist but I at least enjoy drawing now, and as long as it's fun and conveying the actions I'm trying to convey, that's really all I could ask for.

It's hard to believe the first Cubetown visit was like 800 friggin' comics ago, holy crap. Time does weird things when you draw a comic every day for 20-odd years. As I recall, at this point I was still trying to figure out if QC would switch solely to focus on Marten and Claire's Cubetown adventures, or if I'd split the focus between Cubetown and Northampton. I ended up doing the latter, which I think was the right choice. Too many fun characters to just leave behind like that! And of course then I immediately added like four new ones, and then Anh basically took over the comic for a year. Is Sam still going through her goth phase? IS it just a phase? ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT (I will do whatever seems funniest at the time)

A Bembo comic! Man I love these. IIRC, the whole idea for Bembo started off on twitter when I went on a bit of a "dumb barbarian but not in the way you'd expect" style of shitposting spree. Then later that year I needed some filler comics for the week between xmas and new year's so I decided to turn some of those posts into actual comics. And then it became a semi-regular thing! They're very fun and I hope to do more in the future. Bembo is obviously heavily indebted to Oglaf, a comic I adore. Go read Oglaf, unless you don't like cartoons with tits and wieners in them I guess.

Every time I see one of these old comics I think "man, remember when QC was about indie rock lol." Also remember when I used to make jokes about the size of Faye's ass but didn't really know how to draw thicker ladies yet so she pretty much looked like every other character, lol.

lmao that the first comic to pop up when I hit the random button on my site was Faye saying "why's there always gotta be new people"

Looking back at this year, I feel like Anh basically took over the comic? It's wild how it's always the unexpected ones who have the most juice. No offense to Ayo, who is also plenty juicy and I also love writing. But Anh's a couple orders of magnitude more of a mess. But THIS comic is about AYO! Who is a delightful little idiot and I can't wait to do more with. OKAY THANKS I LOVE YOU ALL BYE

just a regular girl

Sexual Edward

gasp

she's a smart* cookie

*not actually smart

Angel worries too much

Moray continues to have the best day ever

beep beep dumpling car beep beep

she's got one hell of a poker face

could be both a ponzi scheme AND a sex cult

she's doing the voice again

Bok bok bok

less painful than an apology

and she's got HUGE...tracts of land

personally I'd never ask someone about their pronouns like that, but Clinton is nosy

Hi sven

Everything immediately coated in dog hair, as it should be

Yay and Steve now have something in common

Oh hi

cwinton :<

Elliot :(

A flashback!!

[ducks]

nothing good has ever come from ego-searching

sssssecretsssss

the third one???

Teh cake is a lie!!1!

awww wait no! no!!!!

it was only a matter of time

he's very trusting

Glug glug glug

ffffff

oh god I've been in Canada long enough that "neighborly" looks WRONG without the U

it's FIGURATIVE

gregor samsa awoke to find he had transformed into a webcomic character

Zlata!x!!

LEARNING

Questionable content

time for learning

Just girl stuff

pooping out a window is legal in massachusetts thanks to an obscure 18th century law that is still on the books

Pintsize and Date would get along pretty well

RIP

Yay stop trying to be coquettish it's weird

d'aww

ch ch ch changes

So gloopy...

the exposition will continue until Roko's morale improves

Yay is doing great

Roko is still bad at knitting

[sees something wild] whoa.....

Moray is helping :)

Melon just wants to be inclusive

Beeps knows Yay but she doesn't KNOW Yay

And possibly her knee

not sure that's true, Ayo!!!

stick to the plan

ker-chunk

funny like a clown???

get a shovel and start diggin'

so many knobs and input jacks. the cartoonist's nightmare

bloop blorp

Roko don't do it!!!!!

Easy poeasy

that's just, like, your opinion, man

MEANWHILE:

Bok bok

rofl

Turn off your feed, Bubbles

Go away Chet

just a couple million

Remember this?

Could be

Hanners is Nice

yaaay

inconvenient port placement? must be a Mac lmao

they typically come in sets

smoosh

And is good at sleeping

baby, you've got to be kind

Drama!

That's no ottoman, that's my slime girl friend

he's not wrong...

never let go

Evanescent more like Incandescent

taking off her shirt acts as a flashbang

Liz is very smart

starting to notice a pattern with these two

Two...

Good job Anh

Or a natural disadvantage, depending

that sports bra cost as much as a nice used car

We first met BT way back here

I set this joke up four months ago

I got tired of the center part

I believe in you, Zlata

Oh :/

It's more about the jars

Two of them...

Everybody to the limit

bap

Lotta anime references lately

a tiny, angry fiddle

she probably would've done it by now

the most infuriating punchline I have ever written...so far

things

hello Violence, hello Regret

sit. stay.

just two gals talking about jorkin' it

Anh has a thing with fast cars

hasn't even been open a year and he's already enshittifying

While I am salty about the casting, I am still INSANELY excited about the Murderbot TV show. I love Murderbot.

where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner

R O D R I G O

Tai briefly dated a lot of people's roommates in college

where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner

she stayed!

but will she stay?????

girl ain't got no butt

we all saw it coming

Anh's heart is in the right place (her chest)

high capacity buttfors are illegal in canada

What if there isn't even a mop at all?????

it's a Pintsize joke, you see

You gotta admit, when Anh makes a decision, she really makes a decision

SO charming :)

Anh is so charming! :)

And is a perfect fit

Anh is back! Hooray!!!!!

lotta hugging this week!!

Mom vibes...

A few graves

Hi Willow

ahhhh

Hello Melon

Hur hur hur

g'morning Porsche

he's only a medium-level silly

it's got kitties on it!

GREAT

the mortifying ordeal of being Ayo

Beep beep

Whew! Sorry for the long absence of RSS. I think we've finally got it figured out.

The space station arc! Definitely the most ambitious thing I had attempted in the comic at that point, and honestly beyond my capabilities at the time. But that’s how you grow- you bite off more than you can chew, and you fuckin figure out how to chew it anyway. And then you choke a little and cough bits of food all over the place and everyone at the restaurant stares at you and you realize that the metaphor has escaped containment and is rampaging through the countryside. I forgot where I was going with this. Anyway, Hannelore is the best.

Welcome to the start of Director’s Commentary month! Or as I call it, Directember. I don’t call it that. ANYWAY

It felt appropriate to start with the first QC strip I ever made! For the rest of these entries I think I’m just gonna hit the “random comic” button and write about whatever pops up.

It’s funny how even this incredibly rough comic still held some elements that persist to this day. I was in the ballpark with Pintsize’s original design, but making him less baby-shaped was definitely a good choice. The vertical panel layout was also a smart move, considering how small displays/browser windows were back then (and we didn’t even have smartphones yet, dear god). On the flip side, losing the goofy dialog font and drop-shadow speech bubbles was also a good decision. I don’t really remember why I thought the zigzag panel thing was cool, I guess because it looked “different?” And of course there’s Marten’s TEH shirt which somehow persists to this day.

Fun fact: up until I was about 14, if you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said “a cartoonist.” Then I heard Nirvana and my head exploded and I was like “FUCK comics I wanna be a ROCK STAR” and so I only did music stuff for the next several years. Looking back, I would not have been happy as a rock star. I’m glad I went back to comics, which ironically happened because I was tired of being in bands and wanted a creative outlet I could do on my own. I remember when my BIG UNREALISTIC GOAL was “maybe one day I’ll have 10,000 people reading my comic.” Several hundred thousand of you and 21 years later…

And that concludes QC for this year! I'll be posting some Director's Commentary on old strips I find interesting for the next couple weeks, as well as maybe some other stuff. Just gonna chill and do what seems fun for December. Regular QC will resume in January. Thank you so much for the kind messages and support, I'm so incredibly lucky to have such amazing readers and I can't express how grateful I am to have you reading my work.

eider you get the joke or you don't

Y'all, I have been drawing QC for 22 years without anything even resembling an actual vacation in longer than I can remember. I have drawn over 5000 comics. I am tired.

So I'm taking December off. The last regular QC comic of 2024 will be this Friday. It will resume in January. This is not the end of QC. I promise.

I'll still be posting stuff to patreon and to the website. There'll be a couple weeks at least of "director's commentary" on random old strips. I spent some time today hitting the "random comic" button on my site and writing a lil' thing about whatever comic I happened to land on. And maybe I'll do some other stuff, I dunno. The main thing I need to do for the next 4 weeks is, for the first time since 2003, not make comics.

I'd appreciate it if you stuck around. I have to admit it is pretty fucking scary to be taking a break for the first time ever. What if everyone leaves and doesn't come back? AAAAAA.

But despite that (hopefully irrational?) worry, the moment I actually said the words "I'm thinking about taking a break" to my wife a couple months ago, I knew it was something I desperately needed. I need time to recharge, and do things that aren't related to the comic, and just fucking chill for a little while. So that's what I'm gonna do.

Thanks for your patience and understanding. It may sound fake but I am honestly already looking forward to getting back to work in January. I have a ton of ideas I'm really excited about, and the thought of coming at them fresh feels really good.

THESE two….

These two

it was Chair Pose Night at yoga tonight and my legs are very angry at me

now *I* want donuts >:(

a co-opolycule

:(

okapi Hannelore...

Richard is in safe hands

more like RIPchard

more like RIPchard

don't EVER think about who you are as a person

A kinder, gentler Faye(?)

Hannelore smells like fabric softener

PICKLED

PERVERTS

Anh no

THAT'S WHAT I'M ASKIN' YOU

A noble death

RICHARD

nice grimace, Tai

and if she was a catgirl she'd be a necro-nepo-neko-baby

don't worry it's non-alcoholic bitters

who even invited her

Anh is just awful (writing awful people is fun)

Choo choo

don't ever buy pants at the dress store

wait, who's funding this research anyway

Hannelore doesn't have much experience when it comes to hand-holding

These two…

DARK EMMETT

omg

remember when Steve bought a boat?

two wives a wiving

It's good to know the floating black slab emitting a low hum is a regular customer

She's just got a chunk of her butt missing now

it's probably fine

go to bed Moray

NO MORE CLUBBING

And the elbows

do not perceive her

it's a boob joke

house centipedes are our friends. our creepy, disturbing little friends.

Hi Cosmo

Roko I know you're worried but I don't think that would be survivable

Get it???

Bubbles is doing her best

Hooray!

Liz knows her place

a confederacy of dunces (four of them are Yay)

training for marten's future barista job

Questions, questions

never change, Sven. wait no, maybe change

dont make it weird!!!

the neighbors are noisy though

RIP

I mean, yes,

pizza up in da club

Dog in da club

Gencon was amazing! It was so nice to meet so many of y'all in person after all these years away from conventions. Thanks so much to everyone who came by and said hello!

I'm gonna be at Gencon at booth 1237 this weekend! I'll have some books and stuff and will be doing sketches and complimenting your pet photos. SEE YOU THERE???

I'm gonna be at Gencon at booth 1237 this weekend! I'll have some books and stuff and will be doing sketches and complimenting your pet photos. SEE YOU THERE???

Gencon is this week! I will be at booth 1237! Come say hi and buy some stuff! WOO

I'm gonna be at Gencon at booth 1237 this August! I'll have some books and stuff and will be doing sketches and complimenting your pet photos. SEE YOU THERE???

I'm gonna be at Gencon at booth 1237 this August! I'll have some books and stuff and will be doing sketches and complimenting your pet photos. SEE YOU THERE???

I'm gonna be at Gencon at booth 1237 this August! I'll have some books and stuff and will be doing sketches and complimenting your pet photos. SEE YOU THERE???

I'm gonna be at Gencon this August! I'll have some books and stuff and will be doing sketches and complimenting your pet photos. SEE YOU THERE???

I'm gonna be at Gencon this August! I'll have some books and stuff and will be doing sketches and complimenting your pet photos. SEE YOU THERE???

put those down, Moray

:)

It's been a while since we've seen Lt. Potter

turns out I don't have Pintsize's usual dialog font on my ipad so he gets to have the same voice as the human characters while I'm traveling

two girls, a guy, and a robot, sitting on a couch, playing video games. it's 2002 babey

i's bri'ish, innit guv

Video james

Yay has the worst poker face(s) in history

Liz is A-tier imho

Yay could have had the conversation entirely within their head, but they were trying to impress Roko

Hi Yay

I'm gonna be at Gencon this year! Assuming the USA still exists by then lol [SWEATING EMOJI]

wait this ISN'T Liz's villain arc?!

Lotta heavy lifting

Yay more like boo

I set this up a WHILE ago and lemme tell you it's very funny to drop the shoe now

the quest reward isn't even that good

mmm spaghettification

apologies to the real life Dr. Burnell

You're probably not still high, Ayo

I was laughing the whole time I was drawing that last panel

Hi Tai

(it was TS Eliot)

THE BATTLE SPATULA

Claire knows Yay, but doesn't know there are multiple Yays

Rajesh is a good dude

Rajesh is chill

whatchoo tolkien about

Pintsize is doing book reviews now???

It's pretty average tbh

I want spicy M&Ms!!!!

the oldest recorded joke in human history is a fart joke

Hanners has never been more okay in her life

or TWO knives

Hanners is having a good time

Poke poke poke

Tolerability

the Joyce special

lurking…

Could be!

and Moray is Moray

banana

Evan's never tried Dora's tea

Dutch angles, get it

Hi Moray

A good day to be Willow

eeeeee

haaaaaahhhh

just $9.99 per inch

watch out for leeches Ayo

eggplant and peach emoji

eeeep

I wonder if I still have the extra-tough silly putty from when I had to do hand rehab. That shit was cool

Just butts and weenies as far as the eye can see

Hip and with it

Clinton is helping

Brat Benatar

I have TWO NEW T SHIRT DESIGNS up for pre-order! Click that graphic below if you agree that A) shit is fucked or B) people should be nice to you or C) all of the above. Thank you.