So jefbot doesn’t get to go with cel to the crash site due to his injured foot, but it’s probably for the best since he doesn’t have cel’s fighting skills or her blaster. Speaking of which, some readers were already skeptical when cel said her gun was just a replica almost a year ago (JEFBOT.227) and now it appears your distrust and paranoia were justified.

And what souvenir could cel possibly bring back from the crashed alien ship? Ray gun? Neuralizer? Probe? If it’s the latter, let’s hope it’s sanitized.

Looks like jefbot owes cel big time. Also looks like we can rule out these aliens being on a mission of peace.

So those that suspected the aliens were back have been proven correct! And those that are new here and don’t have the slightest clue as to what’s going on, check out the beginning of this storyline here:
• JEFBOT.272_Going Postal

Or the first appearance of the aliens, here:
• JEFBOT.181_Party Crashers

It feels great to be back drawing the strip! Thanks for all the generous support that went above and beyond during the hiatus due to the Emerald City Comicon (details here). And again, a big thank you to Charles Arrington of Redux Deluxe for the great guest strips while I was away! Now without further ado or interruption, we can continue and conclude this epilogue. I’m pretty sure cel’s not going to stand there admiring the lights for long…

I wonder how many of us will have our bodies remain miraculously intact through the ages. At least intact enough to be dissected, mounted and placed in some museum like the mummies of Egypt, Otzi the Iceman or even Lucy, the Australopithecus. On the one hand it’s kind of cool that these ancients were able to live on in some way, but on the other, it’s somewhat grotesque. I think about this often and have come to the conclusion that I’d rather be unearthed by a (hopefully) benevolent alien race then sentient robots. Neither can be trusted, really, but my hope is that aliens would learn more from my DNA, stomach contents and bone structure  than robots would. Of course, in the end, there’s always cremation as an option, but that may be robbing my corpse of an adventure, and I wouldn’t want to do that.

Oh, and if you’ve just joined us and have no idea what’s going on, I’d suggest going back a few strips to the beginning of this storyline, here, and all will become clear.

I’ve told you since the beginning of this storyline that things were going to get weird by the end. And so it goes: just when things seemed to be settling down as far as the aliens were concerned, they up and abduct our favorite little hamster. However, no need to worry, Musashi fans – this isn’t the end of his story, it’s really just the beginning.

This strip (or something very much like it) has been in my head since I introduced Musashi and Miyuki way back in JEFBOT.28_Hamster God. Yeah, they looked a little different back then, but I knew that one day (should the strip go on long enough) the events in this very strip would eventually occur. Well, today’s the day, and I’m excited to finally get this strip out of my head and onto your screens via the web. Although nothing will change with JEFbot immediately, Musashi’s abduction is one of the milestones I’ve been waiting to get to, and it’ll have wide-ranging effects on the JEFbot Universe at a later date.

Thanks for indulging me with this storyline (the longest one, yet!). It was a lot of fun to write and draw and I can’t wait for you guys to see where it all leads. If you’re experiencing storyline fatigue though, no worries – we’ll be getting back into some more lighthearted fare for the rest of the year before hitting the next storyline, in 2010. See you Friday!

So it seems the Cornfather’s not so drunk he can’t still tease jefbot a bit before the party’s over. Unfortunately, he’s not kidding about cel taking off and leaving jefbot behind.

JEFbot trivia: Almost called this one “Mal-Odies of the Mind” but even I have a “groaner” limit.