#86 - Snow

See you in January. :)

#85 - Screw You, Quad Shuttle

"If you can't stop your suffering, pass it on to others."

You can quote me.

#84 - Please Do Not Feed the Birds

#83 - Priorities

Once one of my friends passed out in the restroom but I told my other friend that we could wait until Mean Girls was over. I mean, come on! Lindsay was giving her Homecoming Queen speech...

#82 - Craig's Liquor Store

#81 - Thanksgiving is All About Family

#80 - Pwned

#79 - Off to Work

You know how it is.

#78 - Smoking's Bad for You

Anyone who knows me at all knows I hate smoking.

#77 - Posers!

Did you know that there are actually three Vincent Chengs at Harvard? Two, technically, since the "grad student" turned out to be an Extension School student who paid tons of money for joke classes. HA! Anyway, I totally have bragging rights on being the first Vincent Cheng at Harvard. I'm sure you'll agree that I'm also the coolest. :)

#76 - Hello Cubby

I didn't realize how much Cubby looked like a striped Hello Kitty until about a month after Stripes started over two semesters ago. By then, I had already gotten used to drawing Cubby as he appears now.

#75 - More Than Meets the Eye

For those who don't know, Crimson Cash lets Harvard students put money on their student IDs to use as credit cards. It bites when an on-campus vending machine doesn't take Crimson Cash.

#74 - Keep It Simple Stupid

Actually, if you compare the character's appearances now to their appearance in earlier Stripes, you'll notice subtle changes in how they look.

This strip ran in the Crimson on 10-30-07 because the scanner in Pfoho hates me.

#73 - Geography Lesson

#72 - Free?

The conclusion to the longest Stripes storyline ever!

#71 - Snapped

The Widener saga concludes on Wednesday - stay tuned!

#70 - Close, But No Cigar (Clean)

Stripes on Facebook #3 (Uncensored)

This is Stripes #70 uncensored.

If you read this strip in the Crimson, you might notice the last two panels have different dialogue. The pacing in the third panel was slightly off and Grim's last line didn't quite have the punch I wanted so I changed it here for the Facebook version. This is probably as hardcore as I'm ever going to get in Stripes.

#69 - Click the Red Button

Inspired by a true story.

#68 - Inauguration

Drawing President Faust and rain both take a ton of time. Please appreciate them now because chances are you'll never see them again in Stripes.

"Crimson layout people are morons" piece of trivia for the day: For the last few weeks I've been bending over backwards trying to get the stupid layout people to print my name correctly (it's "Cheng," not "Chang") Now that they've gotten it right for two strips in a row (oh em gee) they completely LEFT OFF THE LAST PANEL for this strip. Way to kill a joke, people. So please look for it in its proper format tomorrow.

And if you see any of those layout idiots, punch them in the face for me.

^_^

#67 - The Stacks

At last, Grim's belated return to Stripes! Stay tuned.

#66 - So Organized Right Now

In the second panel, the librarian is holding up the Widener Call Number Locations sheet, as shown here: http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/widener/docs/wid_loc_chart.pdf

So confusing.

#65 - Tight Security

Harvard librarians are such psychos. On your way out, they make you open up your backpack to make sure you're not taking any books out of the library without properly checking them out first. Like anyone would want to?

#64 - Fail

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

#63 - CRACK

You should have known this was coming. No Stripes season is complete without an "illegal drug with cute euphemism" strip.

Note: Of course, no Stripes season is complete without a screw-up from the layout people at the Crimson either. They left this strip out of today's paper, so I think it'll run on Monday. Bah!

#62 - Shopping Period

#61 - Back in Business...Again!

#60 - WASPs

Stripes #60 (5-18-07)

#59 - Context is Everything

Stripes #59 (5-11-07)

This is about as close to an ECO announcement as Stripes will ever get.

#58 - Other Means

Stripes #58 (5-4-07)

#57 - Bidding War

Stripes #57 (5-2-07)

#56 - eBay

Stripes #56 (4-30-07)

Hmm, this strip has more talking than most. I also planned on changing Dallas's line in the last panel but never had time to think of a better one...so there ya go.

#55 - Social Commentary

Stripes #55 (4-27-07)

You know it's true.

#54 - I Choose You!

Stripes #54 (4-25-07)

Man, I remember back in sixth grade everyone played Pokemon except me because I didn't have a Game Boy. I was so unpopular. Anyway, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl were released this past weekend. Little kids may now fill their minds memorizing 493 species of fictional creatures instead of learning the 50 state capitals...or some nonsense like that.

I still maintain Pokemon is just a cute version of animal cruelty.

#53 - Girl on the Rebound

Stripes #53 (4-23-07)

The conclusion of the Karyn story arc. You Wellesley girls may rest safely....for now!! (Bwahahaha....)

#52 - Two Whole Days

Stripes #52 (4-20-07)

If you read this in the Crimson, you may have caught my messed-up collar on Audrey in the third panel. I forgot to edit it before I sent it in to the paper, but here you can see the cleaned-up version. And no, the unedited version won't surface. Thou shalt not see my hideous scribbles!

#51 - Forever and Ever and Ever

Stripes #51 (4-18-07)

I showed this strip to my blockmates and none of them got it. I'm not sure I do either.

#50 - News Travels Fast These Days

Stripes #50 (4-13-07)

For the 50th strip, I decided to make fun of Facebook...again.

#49 - Holiday

Stripes #49 (4-11-07)

My family went to England during the summer of 2003. It was around the beginning of July, so this strip is very much inspired by my personal experiences (minus the "moron" bit).
I was going to run this during this summer as part of the Stripes summer vacation set of stories, but since I had a friend go to the UK over spring break I thought it'd fit nicely here.

#48 - Mystery Meat

Stripes #48 (4-9-07)

I had fun with the format of this strip.

#47 - Karyn the Wellesley Girl

Stripes #47 (4-6-07)

No offense to all my Wellesley friends. I'm totally, like, kidding.

#46 - Smooth Talkers

Stripes #46 (4-4-07)

Whenever I see someone talking on these ear pieces, it takes me a minute to realize they're not insane.

#45 - Needs

Stripes #45 (4-2-07)

This strip was originally written around the time Audrey first moved in with the other characters. Then Harvard-Yale came along, and this and that...its placement here serves as a nice reminder that the characters are all roommates.

#44 - Spring Break

Stripes #44 (3-23-07)

Have a great Spring Break everyone!

This past week used three ideas I came up with and made within one afternoon. I was really busy that weekend and was planning on just using random Stripes ideas I had thought up of a long time ago but wanted to address the MAC closing, midterms, and spring break. Since I worked extra hard on the ideas for this week, please enjoy them!

#43 - Test Taking

Stripes #43 (3-21-07)

Here we have the return of the sacrificial lamb plus the professor from the very first Stripes story. I like this strip because, unlike all the other Stripes so far, it uses recurring characters and nothing but.

#42 - Exercise

Stripes #42 (3-19-07)

This strip ended up being more biographical than I intended it to be. I live in Pfoho but had to skip my workout to do work. Since I had been busy all day, and it's 1am, I'm looking a bit like Audrey here.

Man could I use a protein shake right now.

#41 - Newspaper Comics

Stripes #41 (3-16-07)

Ba-dum, ching.

#40 - Evil Mastermind

Stripes #40 (3-14-07)

This strip is an example of my amazing skills at cutting and pasting in Paint (because I don't know how to use Photoshop). Dallas's head in the second panel is pretty much all cut and paste, because on the original I hated how I drew his head. I composed it using parts from his head in the first panel and various curved lines found elsewhere in the strip. I think the only original thing to stay in the second panel is his left ear, face, and body.

#39 - Wii Nunchuk, Part 2

Stripes #39 (3-12-07)

Thank to an observant reader who pointed out that everyone but Dallas has "gotten" the other characters. Ironically, Dallas is the smartest of the group. Here, Dallas finally gets his due.

For more Wii nunchuk action, check out the Facebook-exclusive strip preceding this story by clicking "Next."

Stripes Online #2

Stripes Online #2

I realized I've only had two exclusive Stripes stories online so far - the reminder about Stripes's schedule change (back when the strip was first starting out) and a Halloween Special.
Originally, this strip was going to run in the Crimson as part of the Wii story. Professional comic strips can get away with repeating a gag several times, since they're daily, but when you only run three times a week the extra time you have should be reflected in the creativity and quality of your work.
Since this joke is basically a repeat of Friday's, I decided to turn it into a online exclusive instead of dragging out the same gag. It's hard because every strip I make takes a lot of time, but in the end I feel it was the right decision. Plus, you guys get another exclusive. Enjoy.