Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson for January 18, 2014

I walked.I’m sure I was healthier for it.

I had to walk 10 minutes to the highway to catch the school bus, followed by a half hour bus ride to town. I sure coulda used a Unicorn!!!

They didn’t have magical tablets when Marigold was little? I’m sure we would all like to hear more of those times when Marigold was a little filly. Did the shield of boringness work on the T.Rex?

I wonder what the teachers, Max and Dakota will say when they see her writing in the lap all the time.

Marigold’s vanity is a small price to pay for having personal transportation.

Yes No one ever puts chewing gum on the unicorn and theres no fighting over the seat thats over the hump. Also when you were young Marigold did you have to walk to school careful not to step on the early life forms of the planet?

Someone’s pet is high-class. Haha

When I was a little fillyA galloping blaze overtook my city

My memories of the school bus weren’t fun either, 5 mile paper route in the morning followed by the ten minute walk to the bus stop, and ‘occasional’ poor timing usually meant I ended up cycling 1.5 hours to school to turn up late for the 3rd lesson of the day, oh the fun. Then when I did catch the bus, the typical bullies made you wish you was late again. :)

I must have lucked out, riding the bus for me was no big deal, and certainly not anything like what I’m seeing from everybody else.

I missed the Sunday strip today.I hpe that it ends up in the archives…

I hope Dana is ok. : (

It’s fairly common for the strip to fall behind a day or two, whether it being GoComics glitching, or Dana traveling and not having internet access.

See, this is what I don’t get. I thought the comics were submitted to the syndicate/website/whatever it is nowadays weeks in advance. In fact, one of the “pros” mentioned that in the comments of this strip (or maybe it was another — that stuff runs together for me) not long ago.

So if that’s the case, why does Dana being out of town or having computer trouble delay the strip? I can’t imagine she sends these in the day of publication and they run without advance approved by an editor of some sort.

Someone needs to explain the process to me, because I don’t get it. Seems like it would have to be some sort of problem with the website or the syndicate.

That said, I share Happy, happy, happy’s sentiment — I hope Dana’s OK.

As long as Dana is fit and well I don’t mind, it’s great to have the suspense and then a sudden burst to catch up on, the comic is so great :-)

As far as I can tell, Dana is not currently traveling (if she is, she has made no mention of it on the interwebs that I can find). As for the delay in comics, Dana has repeatedly claimed in the past that, more often than not, it was something on GoComics end and not hers. She gets the strip submitted in time, but after that its out of her hands.

This isn’t to say that she might not have some part in the lateness still, but for the moment, there isn’t much evidence to say as such.

However, the lateness of this strip has indeed been consistent enough that I am immensely curious as to what the explanation is.

If the problem is on Dana’s end, she could at least tweet or something.

If I was earning my living as a cartoonist, and delays were this persistent, I would ask the publishers “What is the latest time of day the new strip will be posted barring a problem?” Then I’d be sure to be up at that time, and if the new strip was not there, I would call, not e-mail, to investigate immediately.

It also bothers me that GoComics seems to not even consider this a problem- all the more irritating since they do not even draw or write a single strip- they have one simple job, to be middleman between cartoonist and reader.

Reading all your favorite comics in one sitting over breakfast is an American tradition over a century old. If it were to end, it should not be because of stupid technical errors or laziness.

But that doesn’t explain yesterday. I assume they have someone on duty on Sundays or else last Saturday’s strip wouldn’t have shown up on Sunday. Also about your first answer, about Dana having said she sent a previous strip in the wrong format, I have a feeling she wouldn’t make that same mistake more than once or twice. The bottom line is that this is happening frequently enough that it’s being discussed in depth here. That means there’s a problem, for everyone, not just the readers. Since it’s not clear where the problem lays, maybe GoComics should be contacted to see if they can correct the problem, as with PreTeena last week or the week before.

Oi! GoComics! We want our Heavenly Nostrils!…Oh wait, you probably meant e-mail them or something, didn’t you? :P

I bet she is at some kind of BronyCon

to quote dana’s twitter “@Sharif12 Yes but im behind a convenation table with spotty internet! Will email this evening.”

oops I forgot to add 12:40 PM – 19 Jan 2014 and https://twitter.com/MizDanaClaire

PreTeena is (was) good, but the strip ended a few years ago, so it’s all repeats. all the strips are in the archives. read the wiki on it @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PreTeena I personally thought the last year was the best.

Type it into the search box next time you’re on. It’s kind of cute, but GoComics sometimes has trouble with getting it loaded. The incident I was talking about, they would put the icon in my lineup, but the strip wouldn’t show, just the blue link. Since i can’t zoom on the zoomable strips, I also couldn’t get the link to work (however I don’t think I was the only one). Some other problems are that it isn’t a zoomable strip & they are several months & 1 day of the week out of sync. As was mentioned before, it’s a strip no longer being written, like For Better For Worse. It’s my first experience with it though so they’re all new to me.

I’ll bet Dana does not have curly hair. Those with curly hair know that moisture tends to make curls even more curly, not less.

this is getting silly, everyone els would at least post a “will be back soon strip” #depressed

What doesn’t make sense is her other comic Ozzy & Millie has been posted every day so what makes this one more difficult?

For those who are concerned, There’s a couple things going on. The Sunday was late due to travel difficulties; it turns out FTP doesn’t work over a mobile hot spot, who knew? Since then the site has refused to update in spite of repeated uploads. Hopefully it’ll be resolved soon. 

Yeah, Dana, please come back or get well soon or whatever! We miss you!

C’mon, guys. I want Phoebe and Marigold et al back as much as anyone. But IT’S A COMIC, not your doctor, your lawyer, your mechanic or a lost child we’re waiting for. As someone pointed out, this is Dana’s bread-and-butter, so if something interfered it’s more a problem for her than for us. So can we please lighten up??

If Dana ever draws inspiration from our comments, we may see Phoebe explaining the term “flame war” to Marigold sometime in the future… :-\

Worried about Dana… What happened? Is she on vacation?

Dana’s fine – there’s an issue getting the strips to upload.

This update delay is beyond unacceptable. I’m strongly considering just asking for my $50 weekly payment to gocomics back. …Oh wait, I use this site for free. For a second I was having really unreasonable feelings about not having the strip right when I want it.

Well, when it finally DOES update, at least we’ll be getting several strips on one day rather than the usual one-a-day that I’m totally expecting, so there is that.