Now, as I am finishing lettering the comic, I remember the proper title for this particular piece: "Shades of Meaning". But heretofore let it be known by its baptismal name above. That's what happens when you misplace the scrap of paper you wrote the script on, kids. Let it be a lesson for us all.

It seems strange and potentially unwise to be making purchases for one's own self during this particular season, a time marked with offerings of free goods beneath an electrically-lit pagan symbol, as though one's immediate family were great and terrible creatures whose bloodlust may only been slaked by the unrivalled powers of generosity, capitalism, and really shiny ribbon.

This may or may not be an accurate description of your home life. If it is, please let me know so I may avoid your kin at all costs. But I digress.

Yesterday, while meandering through the mall with an esteemed companion, I stumbled across several bargains that were simply too good to pass up. The first of these basement-priced but unnecessary purchases I made was of a New International Version of Ye Olde Bible. Being a Daoist Wheatonist heathen (among other things), I'm not really in terrible need of salvation--but a good writer should be familiar with all manner of reference material, and I sincerely doubt there is any text more often referenced than the Bible in western literature.

The second item I picked up was a copy of the novel Hyperion--like the above-mentioned Bible, it was marked down twenty percent due to the bookstore it resided in circling the economic porcelain pathway. Add to that the sentence, "In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all", which appears in the summary on the back of the book, and I was practically salivating with anticipation. I have a weakness for stories that fuck with time, I've noticed. Even Gurren Lagann does it, by at one point having the titular mecha fire off a barrage of missiles targeted at enemies hiding in the immediate future and past. Then there is, of course, Ocarina of Time...but anyone who doesn't love that game is a complete philistine.

Anyway.

My third and final purchase of the evening came about by pure accident. I had sworn to myself that I would expend no more of my resources on acquiring material goods at the mall. It is, as I mentioned, a time of giving, and anything bought within this frame of time may prove to be a redundancy when Christmas parcels are gutted on the day of the twenty-fifth. But when I discovered a used copy of the complete Indiana Jones trilogy--and I do mean trilogy--for a mere thirty dollars, my tacit self-promise immediately disintegrated into visions of Harrison Ford wielding a whip, a revolver, and a fucking badass hat.

I suppose my point in all of this is that each and every one of us has our weaknesses...though for the life of me, I'm not sure what manner of weakness this combination of items represents. It's just a punchline away from a joke, really. Christ, the Shrike, and Indiana Jones walk into a bar...