Last Kiss by John Lustig for July 18, 2012

Here’s the link to the original art.

I haven’t been able to say much lately because of limited access during Comic-Con, but I’m back now.For those of you following breathlessly to find out how this all wraps up—-you’ll find out this Friday when the final episode of this story takes its final, twisted turn. For those of you, waiting for the return of the one-panel, standalone gags—-rejoice. The one-panels start up again on Monday.

@pcolliThanks. Thanks. And thanks again!

I did indeed use bit.ly as a URL length shortener. It’s not really necessary for my posting on GoComics since I don’t show the URL here. But it comes in handy for postings I do on other sites. And it has the added advantage of tellling me how many times a link has been clicked. (Please note that it doesn’t tell me who has clicked the link. It just tells me how many times the link has been clicked.)Bit.ly is a widely used service. And I’ve used it many times. For now——on the possibility that it’s causing false negatives virus alerts and/or giving people jitters—-I’ll stop using it here.

@ZombieKittenI can’t thank you enough for checking this out. This whole thing was starting to freak me out. (And, yes, I was taking it seriously. Very seriously.)

This morning (still waking up!) I started reading up on “Javascript obfuscation” and everything I’ve seen jibes with what you said about it not being a virus.

Knowing that you’ve scanned through my code—-and apparently have the credentials to understand this stuff—-puts my mind at ease.

@JohnnyDiego & Michael McMillan, I thank you for your concern. I hope this closes the matter, though.

@Lin WFirst of all, Andy Stewart (Martha’s exhusband as opposed to the musician) is—-to the best of my knowledge—-still alive.

Or at least he was a few months ago according to the most recent web articles I could find:

http://nymag.com/news/media/50517/index3.html

If he’s died since then, I couldn’t find any record of it. And, of course, the web isn’t always the most accurate source of info.

Yes, he did have cancer years ago while he and Martha were still married. And, yes—-from what I’ve read—-Martha treated him very badly.

I will say that I wasn’t aware of his cancer when I wrote this story and published it 11 years ago in the first issue of my Last Kiss comic book series.

Does that make me an insensitive jerk? I don’t think so.

Are you aware that my mother died from cancer earlier this year? Or that I was widowed when I was 29? Or that I’ve had two children die?

No? Well, that doesn’t make you an insensitive jerk either. I don’t expect you to know about the tragedies in my life. And I shouldn’t have to know everything about anyone I make a joke about.

For the record, years after my original “Martha StewTart” story came out, I did read a biography of the real Martha and so I knew about her ex-husband’s cancer when I began posting the comic here.

I do think people need to be sensitive—-whether they are posting a comment or writing a comic book story—-when it impacts real people. But ultimately I think we just have to use common sense and be fair.

I think the real Martha has weathered much worse criticism than the silliness in my comic. She’s aggressively courted media attention over the years and is an international figure. So I think she’ll survive my parody just fine.

Finally, I think the chances that Andy Stewart or his family will read this story and be offended are incredibly miniscule. The fictional Martha is the one who comes across badly here. Not her poor hubby.

I think that’s all I have to say about this. (Or anything else today.)

@Veridian @John Russco @thehag & @everyone else!

Thanks!!