From the department of mixed emotions…someone expressed surprise on today’s Digger, that if Ed’s mate was beating him, they would nevertheless still be having sex, as Blood-Eyes is pregnant.

The rather cynical part of me pinches the bridge of my nose and sighs a bit and says “No, Victoria, there is no Santa Claus…people in physically abusive relationships do indeed have sex, and it’s not necessarily rape either, because human* hardwiring is a wondrous and terrible thing.”

The other part of me is rather weirdly glad at the straightforward bafflement involved and just kinda hopes the issue remains permanently moot for them, because…well…shit. (This is probably terribly condescending of me, I grant you, nor does it necessarily help the cause, but there y’are.)

This current story arc of Digger is going well, and the readers are taking it like troopers. It’s kinda weird–I know that Digger reads a lot more gracefully in print form, the flow is a lot better, and I’m very proud of all the print collections and will be very glad when all of Digger is done and available in print form in a tidy package–but at the same time, the serial release of the webcomic has a certain joy that really only comes out in story arcs like these, where I find myself sort of oddly proud of my readership for taking it so well and maturely and sanely and sympathetically and being such damn decent people.

The readers of the print format are presumably just as decent, but I am not aware of their reading in the same way that I am of the web version. And even though I want y’all to hit me with a frickin’ BRICK if I ever start another goddamn comic epic after Digger, I admit I’ll miss that intimate immediacy when it’s finally over.

A large brick, though. With spikes on it. And lead weights. I love Digger, I regret nothing, but man, I had no idea what I was cutting myself in for….

*Or, in this case, hyena…or human-in-hyena-clothing, or however one would class it…