Perhaps I’m misremembering, but doesn’t Agent Vinegar talk to a “Catalina” at a couple points in the current timeline? She seems to be pretty thoroughly exploded in the last page. Has this already been explained, and I forgot, or is the connection still coming in the future?
He talked ABOUT her, specifically he blamed Dug the Gnome for her death and promised to bring him to justice over it. He seemed to be under the impression that Dug murdered her in cold blood.
Very interesting new comic. Now we know why the Cell Knights, and by extension Vinegar, hate Dug so much. Though I have to wonder just how well liked Catalina was in the Cell Knights to warrant such a response, or was it her death in conjecture with the explosion which presumably killed a ton of people that caused the resistance to become so reviled? On a more lighthearted and entirely unrelated note, I just want to say I love the character dynamics in this comic. For instance, Dug and Chocolate Explosion’s dynamic of her being diet-evil and him mildly exasperated with her sadistic tendencies but still getting along with her despite that. Or, for a less relevant example, Mango and Bleu’s dynamic where they constantly rib one-another but are still clearly care about one-another at the end of the day in spite of their mutual friendship tsundere-ness towards each other (is it weird that I kinda ship them a bit). Also, this comic has inspired some aspects of my own fantasy worldbuilding with one of my nations where dragons once ruled the land as benevolent tyrants (for a given value of benevolent). Also one of my original characters, Doran, is surprisingly similar to Candy, in that both are summoners who have issues with summoning magic, though in Doran’s case his summoning spells have an unfortunate tendency of conjuring d&d style demons due to demonic possession related childhood trauma. Sorry if this got a bit too rambly.
The sane should tremble when a mad scientist like Chocolate Explosion actually has to use her contingency plans. I’m sure rainy day bombs are only the start.
Happy Holidays you guys! Love all the Holiday comics. Although, I’m nobody submitted something mistletoe-related for the 12 days of Christmas thing (seems like the sort of thing that would be popular). Also, I just started watching slayers and I can’t help but notice a degree of similarity. Did dragon mango take any inspiration from Slayers? Mango and Bleu’s dynamic does kinda remind me of something in between Lina and Naga’s rivalry and Lina and Gourry’s friendship, in how they insult each other and seemingly can’t stand each other, but still clearly care about one another and travel for a common goal despite their differences (though, thankfully, Mango and Bleu aren’t as prone to collateral damage as Lina).
Thanks for all the thoughtful comments, everyone! I’m trying to actually USE the messageboard from time to time now, as well as updating the comic. I hope the new interface is slightly less ugly and unusable. I’ll keep trying to improve it.
>Did Dragon Mango take any inspiration from Slayers?
A lot of people ask this, but surprisingly, no. I did read the Slayers manga and watch some of the show after everyone kept mentioning it, and I was like “wow, this is really good!” – but any similarities are coincidental. (Except one – as a tribute, since everyone kept pointing out the similarity, Mango’s pose when launching Mango Passion Blast in the Chapter 3 finale a shout-out to Dragon Slave. If you noticed that, you’re absolutely right!)
I suspect it must be that the authors of Slayers took inspiration from a lot of the same anime as I did (since I’m a bit older than many of our readers, I tend to be more grounded in the 80’s than the 90’s.) Plus having friends you can bicker with while on adventure is just fun!
>The sane should tremble when a mad scientist like Chocolate Explosion actually has to use her contingency plans.
Very true. I hope the results won’t disappoint you!
>Though I have to wonder just how well liked Catalina was in the Cell Knights to warrant such a response, or was it her death in
>conjecture with the explosion which presumably killed a ton of people that caused the resistance to become so reviled?
Partly that, partly the propaganda machine and partly due to… the results of Chocolate Explosion’s contingency plan, which you shall find out shortly. I promise you everything will make sense by the end of this chapter… or at least, I hope so!
>Also, this comic has inspired some aspects of my own fantasy worldbuilding
That’s super-cool, and thanks for sharing! I’m really happy we could have been an inspiration. That sounds like a cool setting.
And that’s interesting about Doran’s background and how it relates to his summoning complications – you may be surprised to learn that he has more in common with Candy than you know!
Don’t ever worry about being too rambly – I may be very slow to actually RESPOND to the messageboard, but I very much enjoying reading what you’ve written. Thanks for all the encouragement!