The Utopian: Foundation – a webcomic by Pj Perez

I don’t usually put a whole lot of thought into the titles of these comics (because each individual strip is really just part of a whole, right?), but I did wrestle over this one for a while, but ultimately, it kept coming back to #blacklivesmatter, because, well, it was the entire movement that inspired this scene and the sequence of events that led to it, so … here we are.

In totally unrelated news, I came back from Emerald City Comic Con with the worst case of “con crud” I’ve ever experienced (OK, the only case, but it’s … baaaad). “Con crud” is the generic term those of us in the comic world refer to as cold/flu developed immediately after spending a number of days at a comic book convention, usually as a result of being exposed to a whole lot of strange germs in an enclosed space and a bunch of people who, I’m sorry to say, have widely varying levels of hygienic responsibility. (To be fair, it probably is also made worse by the exposure to airports, public transportation, different climates, etc.)

What started as a minor cough on Monday turned into a fever and chills by Tuesday, which continued to kick my butt into the next weekend. I was pretty useless most of the week, which was not very helpful at the day job, where we’re in the mission-critical stage of a massive project for which I’m supposed to be the go-to guy. Wracked nerves probably did not help with recovery. But the weird fever/chills/fatigue stuff leveled out by Saturday, and today (Sunday) I was feeling at least good enough to work from my couch all day, walk my dogs, and eat a few meals (or try to). I have a yucky cough and sinus congestion, but I can deal with that.

Anyway, due to all of the above, I still have yet to do a proper decompression/debriefing from ECCC. The next 10 days is going to be nuts due to the aforementioned work stuff, which gives me one more reason to be thankful that I have a cache of new strips done and ready to schedule (thanks, again, in part to Ali Cooney-Uribe, who did the color flats for today’s strip).