**Warning: Comic Spoiler Ahead**

Well, that’s that for this issue of Space Archaeologist. Out of eight possible endings, two were “to-be-continued” endings, and I really didn’t expect to end up at this one. I thought for sure that given Ethan’s broken arm and general ineptitude people would vote to wait for Mach’s help. Still, it leads us to an interesting idea I have for issue three later on this year, and the decisions made in this issue will continue to effect Ethan in different ways.

After the first Choose Our Adventure story, many people pointed out that I had riddled the story tree with death options, so much so that it would be terribly difficult to have made it to an ending on a first try. I was probably caught up in the novelty of the whole idea, and the concept that we could lead Ethan to a gruesome death. However it becomes difficult to get any kind of story going if Ethan is constantly dying, so I took that into consideration this time around.

However, there’s still a little ways to go as I try and find a balance between telling a story and giving the audience options to direct the story. The gimmick really does work best in book-form where you can go back and choose a different option, but I feel confident that we can find a way for it to work with a democratic voting system.

Eventually I will create one of these for a book, so that everyone can make their own choices, and read all of the options, but before I do I want to get a little more practice on them, get a better grasp of the mechanics.

But for now it’s time to get back to some more traditional strips, and of course the storyline that everyone has been anxious to return to. I appreciate you all bearing with me while I stretched my legs creatively, so to speak. Last year was pretty heavy with the storyline, especially towards the fall, and so I wanted to take a step back,
and work on some other stuff while I “recharged” for the next chapter of the story. Being able to do a more “action-adventure” kind of thing is really fun once in a while. I mean, when am I really going to get to draw spaceships in the regular storyline, right?

A lot of you have been asking about the Ctrl+Alt+Del Maquettes, and they should be arriving soon. As soon as I know when they’ll be on sale, you’ll know. They sent us some pictures from the factory as they were packaging the Maquettes.

Also the Winter-een-mas 2009 shirt is available now and shipping right away. We also found a box of Winter-een-mas 2008 shirts at the warehouse, and have marked those down to $10 to move ’em out. Good chance to grab one for your collection if you didn’t last year.