My oddly-colored drawing of Helen is based on Raphael's "Woman with a Veil."



It sounds very classy and all, but really I just wanted to use a portrait painted by a Ninja Turtle.

I don't know what's up with the random spot color. I should have just left it in black and white. The text next to the coat of arms is, of course, all James Wolf's.

Meanwhile, James Rice has been waiting forever for me to post the latest photos of Speedy the globe-trotting gerbil. Writes James:

A brazen conspiracy has come to light. Last Sunday’s Narbonic purported to show Speedy visiting the Antarctic. Photographic evidence was given as “Proof” of this endeavor.  Unfortunately, it was all a hoax. You see, Speedy, the *real* Speedy was in fact in China, Belize & Guatemala at the time.  Here are genuine photos of Speedys two recent trips.

A cultural trip to China...







...and an archaeological cave surveying trip to Belize and Guatemala.





It appears that this impersonation was orchestrated by the CIA. Note that the imposter Speedy left from “DC”, that’s spy jargon for “Washington DC”, a city very near the CIA headquarters.  And who else would be able or interested in forging a fake Speedy passport?  The question then becomes why would they do it? Why go to all the effort to fake a trip to the southern hemisphere by Speedy? I think the evidence speaks for itself. The CIA is planning to invade Antarctica.  Perhaps most disturbing of all is how high this conspiracy has gone. Shaenon herself publicly endorsed the impostor as genuine. Therefore she must be in on it. Surly, she of all people must be able to tell her gerbils apart, even if the average layperson can not. To help prevent this type of fraud in the future, Here is a comparison of the real Speedy, and the obvious impostor.

By the way, if anyone would like to take the real Speedy to Antarctica or South America, he would be happy to go.

James also sent me some recent photos of Speedy with a camel at Speed Week on the Bonneville Salt Flats.



Camel notwithstanding, this appears to be the start of a bitter globe-trotting-plush-gerbil rivalry. Sometimes I worry about what I did to my life by drawing this strip.