I haven't followed your comic for years, and this is the first one I see.

...

...

My god.

Welcome back? :)

Well, I mainly used to read your submissions in Furrlough. ...ten years ago.

But... wow. What a thing to come back to.

Well, check out the archive. :D

I probably will.

Also, if anything dramatastic happens on FA due to this, let me know. >_>

I'll set aside some nuclear grenades for you.

Well, thanks! :)

I'll just ignore it. ;) If people start to come looking for me then I might you up on that offer. :D

take you up on* (Damn typos)

Please let this be a dream.

Fraid not. :(

It's a given that some people will be upset to the point of attack about this. Just the nature of the beast.

The fact that it gets so bad sometimes that it discourages authors from killing off characters when the plot requires it is amazing.

Tell your story as you have to tell it. The deepest depths serve to make the ups more vibrant and high.

The response should be interesting. :)

What pathetic loser would want to attack because of a webcomic?

Beats me, but those are the ones I laugh at. :)

For maximal laughs, find the comic "Red Lantern" on this site and look for the 'dragon wars'. About a thousand posts of flames back and forth by people screaming and whining and moaning because 'the poor dragons' were getting killed and it was 'racist'.

For bonus points, look up 'Cheap Thrills', also on this site, and the people screaming and carrying on when the author killed off one character's mother and little brother as part of a pre-arranged plot.

FFFFFFFFFFFfurries, you know...

"Furries"? I think the word you're looking for is "nerds". Same thing'll happen in any fandom.

And while I don't support attacks on the author based on his own creations, expressing personal disapproval and disappointment as a fan is, IMHO, perfectly acceptable. If you don't object when someone expresses their dissatisfaction regarding, say, the way DC killed Superman, then why object when someone does the same of another comic?


And if I say, for example, that I don't like it when a fun, light-hearted comic comes back after years of inactivity and turns into heavy drama in the first ten pages, it's not mean. It's an opinion.

If, as a author and an artist, you're creating for no one but yourself, then you have no one to answer to but yourself. If you like it, then that's all that matters. But if you're looking for an audience, then their opinion does matter; and I offer mine, for what' it's worth:

Dutch, I still love your art, and I'm still a fan... but I won't be reading Misty anymore. Sorry, dude.

Fair enough, but I say at least give it a chance.

Fun and light-hearted? Was this person only reading two out of three pages or what? Sure there was a lot of fun and lighthearted, but also relationship troubles, conflict, misunderstandings, et al...

Far as I can remember, Misty's always had depth, not just fluff.

Never said it was just fluff... just not so heavy drama.

And Dutch, you're right. I shouldn't dismiss it too fast.

No sweat, man.

*laughs*

Agreed with this. Don't let the "Aww no! no! no!" stop you from telling the story.

if the hospital's advanced enough to have heart monitors and all that, one would expect an alarm and a crash cart right about now.

Well, the docs already diagnosed he was gonna be gone. He held on long enough to see Misty one last time.

Wow... I aint even been reading the comic and I find this heartbreaking... :C *just saw the page, checked back only three or four pages*
I can only imagine what kinda brick wall this must be for people who've been reading the comic! :C

Now you have to go back and read the archives. :)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Yeah. :(

O_O damn dude... I'm amazed you could even finish this considering you've drawn the character for quite some time, well if anything it'd be interesting to see where it goes from here.

Yes. Yes, it will. :)

ALL THE SAD. D:

:(

Damn.. stay your guns Dutch.
I know it's hard to kill a character..

Oh, those guns ain't go anywhere. ;)

I don't believe in cop outs. :D

*salutes*

Well...done.

Thanks. Still kinda sad, though.

Yes.

Aw, now I feel bad in teasing you in bringing Misty the Mouse back, just to kill off Jackob =(

Who the hell is Jacob? :)

Bah, its been so long I forget his name now ;D ITS BEEN YEARS!!

Last time the comic was on hiatus your characters attacked you cause you were playing WoW, what are they going to do to you now? ;P

I don't recall you ever suggesting anything. And since these are fictional characters, I'm not going to worry too much about that. :)

Had a feeling this was gonna happen. Not too often someone survives a driver side impact with a Semi....or if they do it's a long difficult period of recovery. Still very sad.

there's tugging the heartstrings, then there's just attaching a pair of jet engines to them and just letting them go. dang. D:

Yeah, sorry about that. :(

actually it's a good thing to be able to evoke an emotional response in the medium, 'tis good writing.

We aim to please. :D

Holy crap! You not only killed off Jules, but you made the sequence of events resulting in his death a direct consequence of the sit-com style drama that Misty had been beating herself up over. If you were planning this all along then wow, that's evil! Eeeeeeeevil.

Can't fault your emotional investment, though. *sniff* Those poor fictional characters.

Indeed!

Tangentally, yer av rawks.

Oh, yeah. It was no accident.
The primary idea was mine, with a bit of help from Drake and inspiration from other good sources. :)

You evil-minded good writing bastards!

Okay, I'm done. You get major points for story illustration because you really ruined my day off with a piece of fiction. That takes talent. Evil talent. Okay, I'm really done now. Good writing.

Thanks, man! :D Sorry for ruining yer day. :(

Well, shit. Very stirring, and the EKG line jumps at you even from the preview. Good storytelling, there!

I like to smack people around with comic panels. :D

Sad and powerful..so much to be said in one six-panel comic.

holy jumping spit.
Dutch, you amaze me.
and as an ER nurse, your commentary of Jules being previously evaluated, and they were letting him go, is very apt.
I have seen it numerous times where the patient hangs on to see someone, then passes.
It seems hollywood cliche, but it happens.
this was a very powerful scene

Thank God I didn't screw that up. I was gettin worried there.
Thanks for puttin my concerns to rest. :)

Hell. As soon as I saw page 5, I knew this was going to happen. As sad as it is, well played, Dutch. VERY well played.

I can only imagine what this is going to do to Misty. I also wonder how Whitney is going to take this when she finds out that Jules was on his way to apologize to her on his and Misty's behalf.

All will be made clear in time. :)

I also remembered that Lyle had a hand in this. He's gonna get hit hard, too, when he finds out.

CRAP! I should've seen it coming from the FOURTH page in with the Queen song!

It was Freddy Mercury's last song done before he died! A foreshadowing on Jules' fate!

In-DEED!

*the saddest dragon*

:(

Ouch. Poor Misty. :\

And after a brief moment of mourning out of respect, all the fanboys cried, "HUZZAH ! Misty is back, and she's available now !" in an unwashed squeal.



(you aren't the only person that can be evil, you know)

Yes, but at least my evil has class. ;)

And you are also a God given ass.

My ass is sexy! What the hell you talkin' 'bout, Willis?

I see this as a sad moment but then look back at the guitar in the first page you posted on fa. Will that have some sort of impact later on in the series?

I can't say much right now in fear it'll ruin the story for folks. :)

i smell Chekhov gun. Keep on making your stuff dude.

Oh no...not him.

Lyle needs to be in the room with her and ask her out on a date now that she's single.

Too soon.
Give him a few pages.

-B.

Maybe a 4 or 5 panel limit? You know Lyle's been wanting to hit that for years.

While everyone in the public realm has their ideas and opinions, these are your characters and ideas at the end of the day and l'm glad to see that you aren't afraid to just do what you want.

I don't have time to not do what I want. :D

-_- God help him.

Just a raminder..life sucks..even in a comic

I respect your vision as an artist, but it doesn't make me happy. If you squander this I'll never forgive you. You better be going someplace amazing with it.

And I would call you the biggest hypocrite for negatively citing this sort of creative discourse.

Fuck you. I did no such thing.

It's a good thing you haven't then. ^^

Very well done it captures the emotions very well.
That said, after losing my younger sister I think I can summarize my feelings as "Been there, done that, bought the tee shirt don't need any more , thank you."
But I'm someone who really never had a taste for tragedy.

Holy monkey.... Wow dude, just wow.

Damn Dutch, I've been a fan for years, you even know my ex-wife, but crap dude these new pages have knocked me on my ass. What I can't stand though is your heartless comments on your own characters... I try to write every day, characters that I've created since I was a kid are still here (taps my heart), the hardest part after creating a character and evolving said character is putting them in danger or killing them... To just write one off emotionally... Is heartless...

Life writes off many of us every day for no reason at all. That's the tragedy within the comedy that is existence.

Ah geez Dutch, I just got married two weeks ago, this is like my worst nightmare!

This is a really well drawn page though.

*bawls*

*hugs*

awesome comic! went to the website to catch up on all of it.....keep up the great work

BAWWWWWWW!!!

Eh, just give the machine a reboot. Probably a just false positive or something. :v

Whoa, breaking out the hard stuff early! Wow.

WHY?!

Beautifully sad

Damn.

David, I am so disappointed in you. How dare you take away my happiness, sunshine, and puppy farts?

Dramatic !

So, who did Jules piss off on the set to have them not only write him out but kill off the character so no returns are possible.

Then the bigger twist, we discover that Whitney or Lyle was the truck driver and start to chase after Misty through the mountainous desert.

He bailed out on the underground boxing match. :(

Wow, that's some powerful stuff to hit people with in a comic that doesn't have superheroes in it.

oh me oh my! The art style darkens considerably for an event like this. I'm on the edge of my seat here!

Yep.

Yeah. :(

You gotta be kidding me....

No. :(

Sigh...

As  Farx would say: "Just because you feel good doesn't mean you can stop taking the medicine."

Dutch...
I started to read Misty the mouse since this was published on genus and furlough 12 years ago, and I remember that your toonish style really liked me too much. You was one of my reference artist when I started to draw furry in this fandmo.

Misty with her gorgeous beatty and Jules with his artistic scence. they was the ideal couple in a furry comic and I must admit I taken this idea for a comic of mine some years ago in my country.

now... I've seen those pages and the uncomming Jules' death and I cannot describe the sadness of each box of this last page in the intensive care room with "this ideal couple"

Why?
Why did Jules deserve this horrid final?
maybe the tragedy is part of a musician karma.

I'll miss Jules too much.

Sincerly
an old fan your art... Osozeth.
*Hugs*

Dutch...I can only say...I hope to GOD the FUCKING TRUCK DRIVER SPENDS THE REST OF HIS LIFE BEHIND BARS FOR THIS

Wow... after all these years I come back and see Misty is running again.. JOY!!!

Page 2.. Oh GOD here we go AGAIN...

Page 3.. Go Jules

Page 4: Eh?

Page 5: WTF?

Page 6: OMG

Page 7: ... (stunned speechless)

Good job, sir. Welcome back.

Thanks! :D

As a fan, I respect your decisions on your work.

Welcome back, sir!

Thanks! Currently workin on page 9. :)

nooooooooooooooooooooooo you Bastages

.............

So... What was the purpose of killing him? To give characters a reason to move someplace else? To resolve all conflicts? There were better ways to do it :) Funnier and less melodramatic. Tired of writing a comedy and want to write a drama? So far it's not as convincing as it's boring :) Got tired of the comic and started to hate it? :)

Hard to believe it’s been nearly 10 years since Misty became a widow