I like this strip. It’s pretty much the first of the new series to end with an actual punchline. It’s a gag I’ve been wanting to use for a long time now. It was one of the first jokes I thought of when I was trying to come up with a new direction for the series and how to reintroduce Ribcage and company. And here they finally are: Ribcage, Count Cyanide and Furface.

You can bet Ribcage isn’t too happy that it took this long for him to show up in his own comic strip, especially after I left him out almost entirely of the last storyline of the original strip. And good ol’ Cyanide. He’s a character that I came up with much later on than the originals. See, most of my characters date back to when I was in elementary school (just like Jeff Smith and his Bone characters). Cyanide is one I added during high school. He wasn’t a very prominent character at first, but in later incarnations of Ribcage’s story, he took on a very major role. When I first developed my Grimstone concept, he’s a character I knew would appear almost as much as Ribcage himself. He’s grown way beyond what I ever envisioned for the character and become one of my favorites, second to Ribcage himself. In doing so, he’s pushed other, older characters back a bit (like Dingbat). But he’s such a joy to write and draw that I don’t mind it at all. Which would infuriate Furface, another of my original characters that has waited a long time to finally make it into the comic. And here he is, at long last. We will soon see that Cyanide and he do not get along very well, it’s a whole werewolves hating vampires thing. I’ll elaborate more on that in the future. Furface will also feature prominently in the series. He’s changed quite a bit over the years as well. For a time, he was basically a hairier version of Disney’s Goofy. Now, he’s a bit more like Gimli from Lord of the Rings. He’s tough and gruff on the outside, but deep down he has a heart of gold and is fiercly loyal to his friends. He’s still not the brightest of the bunch, but what he lacks in brains he more than makes up for in heart.

It feels good though to finally get this idea out of my system and reintroduce Ribcage & friends to Grimstone. It’s still not much of appearance, but there is much more to come. I will also eventually get around to doing character evolution series on our three main monsters. I want to try and round up some really old designs of Ribcage & Furface, from back in their Ribcage Show days. So stay tuned.