![[0100] Love, Hate, Etc.](http://www.sandraandwoo.com/comics/2009-10-05-[0100]-love,-hate,-etc..png "[0100] Love, Hate, Etc.")
The current story arc started with this strip: Bribe Money. (Some readers have pointed out that some earlier strips are also related to the current storyline, but if you just want to know what’s going on you can start reading at this one.)
To be continued.
Yay, Sandra and Woo celebrates its first major milestone, the publishing of the 100th strip, by showing its main character in a moment of utter despair and sadness. 
But gladly this is not the end of the story, so don’t miss the next strip that’ll see the light of day on Thursday. It will be a full page consisting of seven panels!
This is certainly an unusual Sandra and Woo strip since it’s not even trying to make any kind of joke. So I think some of our readers who have described Sandra and Woo as a “cute and funny” comic on several occasions won’t like it that much. But I wanted to do this strip anyway because I believe that one shouldn’t impose punchlines on cartoon characters no matter how inappropriate the current situation is for that. That’s also one of the reasons Pixar (and some Dreamworks) movies are so great: They don’t try to be funny when it’s not the right time to be funny. And I want Sandra and Woo to be just like that as well.
This is also the most personal strip yet, because, damn, I wish someone gave the same advice to my best friend when I did something stupid when I was twelve years old. There are many feelings between love/deep friendship and hate, but way too many people just seem to oscillate between these two.
- Richard: What’s wrong, sweetie?
- Sandra: Larisa is wrong! And Cloud, too!
- Richard: Don’t take it so hard. At the moment, you may feel like it’s the end of the world, but things are usually not as bad as they seem.
- Sandra: But sometimes they are!
- Richard: Yes, sometimes they are… Sometimes it’s not like in the movies where everything will be alright again in the end.
- Richard: … But whatever happened, I’m sure they didn’t mean to hurt you. So please don’t start hating your best friends because of it. You’d just make all three of you very unhappy.
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But the feel and emotion of this page really bring it to life. I actually felt a tug on my heartstrings when I read this one. I think it was a very nice choice for a 100th issue, even if it was unintentional. x3 (Ahh, how storylines can effect things!)
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Also, I’ve been lurking around here for a while, and I thoroughly enjoy your comic.
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EDIT BY NOVIL: thomas’ comment does no longer make much sense since I have removed my remark about Calvin and Hobbes in the description of the comic.
I like that this comic has sombre moments, I feel it brings the carecters to life.
as to Your coment on calvin & hobbes. how’s this for a punshline
” *sniff* ..I know. i’m crying because out there he’s gone, but he’s not gone inside me. ”
( calvin finds a little raccoon, who he tries to save, but it dies shortly after. )
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Deep comic is deep.
Steph O’Dell wrote: “I think it was a very nice choice for a 100th issue, even if it was unintentional.”
Yes, that was not intentional at all and I tried to avoid it, but I didn’t want to interrupt the storyline.
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Hey, I added a little bit on TVtropes.com in the Toy Shipping section about the current story arc. Go check it out!
@ Jcatgrl: The whole premise of that article is kinda bizarre, especially the paragraph about Ozy and Millie. Why should 11 year old girls not be interested in boys of the same age (and vice versa)? On the contrary it would be rather strange if they were not interested in the opposite sex at all.
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You also forgot to mention that you decided to continue the arc even though most people would break away from it to do a milestone celebration.
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dont forget, its practically the anniversary too! well almost
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I suppose, to celebrate the 100th strip, it could have been colored. On the topic of the strip, I enjoyed it. It’s nice to see every aspect of each character.
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I’m a big fan of Sandra and Woo, I have followed the comic and checked it every week, I have to say that Sandra and woo is one of my favourite web comics and that you’re making an awesome job on it, I like the actual story arc because it feels more personal and deep.
Congratulations on the 100th strip!!, I hope to see a lot more from Sandra and woo (:
@ ChaoStar: I don’t think this particular strip would have looked much better with color. Powree has already more than enough work with the next strip consisting of seven panels which was initially planned to be published as the 100th strip.
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This is a nice choice, a step away from being a comic strip to being more of a “graphic novel.” =]
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…And that’s why I’ve regularly checked your “comic” every Monday and Thursday, and will keep doing so until you says “the end” (if you’ll ever do). =) I enjoy jokes like everyone, but I know all too well that life isn’t all fun and games either. The way you manage laughs and tears in your story is masterfully done, hands down. (I also love the art-style of the comic itself, of course. XD )
…I do (always) hope for a happy ending, though, since there’s so little of it nowadays. =)
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Hey, as fond as I am of cute and cheery strips, I can respect the occasional shot of drama, as long as it’s handled well. After all, even Calvin & Hobbes wasn’t all happy.
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those are some very sound words for her!!
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This is one of the reasons why I enjoy reading webcomics like this,or anything like this in general.They manage to cover a wide spectrum of different emotions and topics even if they deviate from there main premise at times,which is usually a good thing in their regard.It doesn’t just make the characters seem as “cartoons”,but gives them a level of humility that people can relate to or empathize on,and it makes my experience and love for the piece of work that much stronger and sincere.Even though I was expecting something theatrical and epic for the 100 strip,I think this works just fine,and I don’t think I would have it any other way.
So thank you Novil and Powree for holding my attention with this strip for nearly a year.It has given me something to relate to,laugh with,to ponder on,to empathize with.The experience you delivered is something I hope to pull off myself with my own work one day.
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I actually found panel 3 to be funny. The dads not really helping with that comment so it was the ironic humor that made me lol.
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While this particular strip is not funny, I’m glad that it’s not. This is an issue that many people have or will have to deal with in their lifetime. When someone is feeling hurt or betrayed, it’s not appropriate to try to poke fun at it or find the humor in it. Some things aren’t meant to be funny.
I say this because I’ve been in the almost the EXACT same position that Sandra is in right now. Two really close friends of mine starting dating two weeks after I let it be known that I had a crush on her for almost three years (she was a fair amount younger than I, and I didn’t want to be that creepy guy in college with a high school girlfriend). A year later, my situation ended fairly badly with me still being at odds with friend and me not talking to the girl.
It’s funny to be worrying about the well-being of a comic character, but I do hope things work out in the end. I think it’s obvious, however, that I’m not as optimistic as Sandra’s father when it come to situations like these.
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It seems, true enough, the conclusion was quickly jumped to and how much you want to bet she will confront them and Larissa and Cloud will start laughing
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Well, while most of the fans are amazed with this piece I actually find it really dull, I think Novil is in the realistic stuff (character development etc..) but there is no way someone could find this strip “natural”, the mood is forced no one should write about something you “wish to happend”, so yeah, great and all but Pixars movie dont have that explicit “epiphany” moment, if that were the case UP and Wall-E wont be such great movies, there is no a scene when the “voice of wisdom” appears and tell the “great advice”.
It dont matters if the Character dont lisent to the Voice, the audience would lisent and then the story would be corrupt.
Kurt Voneguit (a pseudo senile writter now) said the great thing about hamlet is that doesnt tell you what are the good news and what are the bad news, in the end we dont know. This strip is TELLING ME “look these are the good and the bad news”.
Also some french writer said that if you want to speak OF something you use the discourse if you want to speak FROM something you use art, in other words art arent statements if I want to make an statement I write an article.
In one of your strips Woo was imitating a moment in the life of M.L. King, but that strip wasnt an statement, maybe conitained some political words but the way they were putted (in the discourse of a racoon) and in the context (the animals wandering between humans), that strip was heartmoving because it wasnt the words it was the meaning of the whole piece.
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@That Guy: I was that creepy college guy till 22 (or was 21?) my sister was dating with some one 5 years older when she was 17 in las two years of highschool. Belive me there are 15 yo girls who seems to have 20 and 23 yo woman who seem to have 13.
Childhood is stoping at 14 in these crazy days. Im not telling you to go with a 14 yo girl!!!! but you know what I mean
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Novil, I don’t think the Toy Ship page is bizarre, even when it gets into 11-year-olds. My peers at age 11 didn’t seem interested in getting boyfriends or girlfriends, even with their budding lust. Besides, there is a certain creepiness to the fervor with which O&M fans have wanted to see them kiss.
Anyway, I approve your decision not to joke every time. “The Simpsons” was better before it stopped daring to be jokeless for more than a few seconds. I’ve come to find adventure comics like “Girl Genius” and “El Goonish Shive” funnier than most joke-a-day comics, partly because you don’t always know when the next punchline is coming. (So why do I have a joke-a-day comic?)
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Very good comic– and I love the strip. Wishing you 100 more!
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I totally get what you mean.
That’s actually why when I started a new comic I refused to limit myself to 4 panels.. that way I can have people talk and get ideas across in as many panels as it takes, but always end on a funny note.. if things were bad, there’d be a joke about how hopeless it looks..
Hell, in this one, what I’d have done is make a fifth panel that is just a big :C emoticon.
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… Why do I get the feeling, especially in the last two panels, that he’s speaking from experience? :/
Btw, congrats on 4 strips! (sorry, but when I see 4 binary digits in a group like that, my mind goes straight to “nibble”, and I just couldn’t resist.
)
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So very true… I can really associate with this strip.
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This really is a good comic. I love a comic that can inspire emotions, and this did it’s job well, i feel very bad for her.
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*applause for integrity* It’s refreshing to see an artist that doesn’t get locked into a single mindset in their work. It happens all too often in comics of all kinds. Your humor is funny, and the more serious moments are well done. You do a great job bringing out the emotion of the moment, no matter what the moment is.
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I do wonder if there are newspapers/magazines that host nominations for comic strips to include into their publications. Sandra and Woo would make a very fitting addition to an intelligent publication, IMHO.
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her dad is awful perceptive if he correctly read that much from “Larisa and Cloud are wrong”
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Congratulations on 100 strips! This strip is deep.
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@ leinad: I don’t think he’d need to be too perceptive in this regard. After all Cloud and Larissa, from only a reader’s perspective, make-up her circle of peers. I imagine that would be quite devastating to feel that all her friends in her peer group have abandoned her; even if that isn’t really the case.
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What!!!! they hide my comment.
Well I dont Care if He is talking from experience it still looks kind of a tour de force (no clue how to say it in english) “unnatural”.
I am really mad that after all no one cares about some real critic,
After the dumasses who talk in the Martin luther Woo thing no one like the critics? Do you think I am like them? that I think like them? Come on!!
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I know this isn’t on topic for the strip and I apologize to Novil and Froggiechan…
@ gerardo: Better to critique and render the good and bad than to be lazy and just be critic-al. And it would be interesting to point out, that while you may have a point that folks are being hard on your criticism, there seem to be no lack of emotional baggage in the reply above.
As for a tour de force, I think the term in rhetorical English writing you may be looking for is omniscience (usually referring to third person).