I should like to say how glad I am to be featured here once again. Did you think I had failed to notice my relative absence over many of the more recent strips? Not one jot did I, and it was beginning to rankle. After all – without intending to brag – I was the first character to appear. It is my face that graces the various social media across the world wide web. I am greatly confident that it will be my form that will be used in the initial run of plush toys.

Though for some reason the action-figure people are insisting on producing the shark and the cat before myself. When pressed for a reason, they simple mumble some rubbish about me not being active enough, whatever that means. Have they no understanding of the dynamism of internal conflict? The fascination of the long, slow zoom toward the solitary and motionless figure staring solemnly into the middle distance? No, no, it is all about “points of articulation” and “accessory add-on packs”. What nonsense!

Ahem. Returning to the copious amounts of free time of which I have lately been the recipient. I admit the occasional break is welcome, but if the phone is not precisely ringing off the hook with offers and one’s agent has seemingly vanished into the ether, the time begins to hang quite heavily. There are only so many Sudoku that one can do before going quite mad. (2,347, to be precise. Any more, and I should have been really barking.)

However, it is joyfully back into the trenches for yours truly, to once again remind everyone of my place at the forefront of the comic. We will see what the toy people have to say then. I should think they will immediately realize their mistake, and equip my little homunculi with at least a jetpack.