Chimps are much admired for their tool use and for their problem-solving relationship with things as they find them...the orang is, let us say, not so replete with enterprise. Give an orangutan the hexagonal peg and the several shapes of hole, and then hide behind the two-way mirror and watch how he engages with the problem.

And watch and watch and watch--because he does not engage with the problem. He uses the peg to scratch his back, has a look-see at his right wrist, makes a half-hearted and soon abandoned attempt to use his fur as a macramé project, stares dreamily out the window if there is one and at nothing in particular if not, and the sun begins to set. (The sun will also set if you are observing a chimp, but the chimp is more amusing, so you are less likely to mark the moment in your notes. An orang observer has plenty of time to be a student of the vanities of sunset.)

You watch, and the orang dreams...when casually and as if thinking of something else, the orang slips the hexagonal peg into the hexagonal hole. And continues staring off dreamily."

“Whatever happened to T-shirt Medusa?” by J. Richmond

Whew. 60 panels in 3 days. This is the longest “24 Hour comic” I’ve ever done (And of course it doesn’t count as a 24 Hour Comic at all because it took 3 days). As a point of reference, I usually do 8 Modest Medusa strips each month. So this is 15 comics worth of panels, or about 2 whole months of Modest Medusa strips.

This one is a deep dive. 6 or 7 years ago I launched a “t-shirt of the month” project created the character “T-shirt Medusa” to promote it. T-shirt Medusa starred in a few promotional strips that appeared in 2016 and 2017, where she would mysteriously show up to taunt Modest (the main character of my comic) into buying a shirt (I incorporated two of those strips into this comic). I had kind of sort of thought I’d maybe offer a canonical explanation for this someday, and that thought eventually turned into this comic. Obviously not canon.

This comic is more about me and my uncertainties, fears and anxiety over the last few years than anything else, but I think maybe a lot of you can find something relatable here. I came up with the idea for this comic during the most recent Modest Medusa Kickstarter when I thought that project wasn’t going to fund and I suddenly realized I had no idea what I was going to do with myself if I couldn’t make a living doing Modest Medusa anymore after 12 years. The project did fund, but that feeling of dread has lingered. I’ve decided to try to learn from it.

This comic takes its name from the classic Superman story “Whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” It was created for the new 48 Hour Modest Medusa book. Which is available now on my site.