Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson for June 07, 2016

…and how to avoid awkward run-on sentences.

Wait, what? Kids learn boolean logic in school these days? That’s awesome!

Naw, Marigold’s suggestion’s no good. Dakota would have a field-day with THAT. XD

Noooo! I was wrong!!!!

Just try to separate well the subjects or you’ll get a major headache.

Dana, please can I ask a favour? I will not be the only one who benefits. I have trouble reading black on coloured backgrounds. Please could you provide more contrast for those panels?

The best thing is, if Phoebe uses lots of glitter, her diorama will SPARKLE!

I don’t have waycybers problem here, but i can relate.As my eyes get worse i find that sometimes just enlarging doesn’t always help.As much as i love bound books, all my book purchases these days are digital downloads.Backlit screens are far easier to see.And, yes, there are some color combinations that just make it impossible for me to focus.

Heck, just beg a cardboard Quaker Oats tube and say it’s a representation of the curvature of tie and space, enriched with iron. That should gain some academic creds.

@waycyber: Dana said a few weeks ago that a separate person does the coloring on the artwork and she doesn’t see it until the day each strip is released. But contrast between elements like text and background is sometimes overlooked. For example: one company uses glossy white letters on a glossy yellow background for their delivery vehicles, which looks cool until the sunlight hits it and causes the two to fade together so that you can’t read the company name.

Agreed Unicorn.

Remember Calvin’s “Jack and Joe” math problem? Way above his usual simple addition. You can’t trust comic school.

Sounds like Phoebe is well on the way to achieving nerdvana!

You’re a smart kid, Phoebe. If anything, you’re to be called a “smart.”.“Nerd” is the other N-word. And just as bad.

Dana, I know of ONE webcomic strip that had someone mention the reading issue and you know what they did? They put the words that the characters said in a readable box BELOW the comic. This way, no matter what color combo they used, the black print on white background was readable. I dunno if you could do something like this (or even want to) but it might be nice for the readers. You could probably just add it in a “author comment” box or something with replies off.

For the people who can’t get the zoom they need by clicking the pic, how about using the CTRL + Mouse Scroll Wheel to do zoom for the whole page until it was big enough?

I had a teacher once who pronounced “Boolean” like “Boo-lean”. She was my favorite teacher.

I didn’t know they still made kids memorize the multiplication tables. :)