Our Gulf Relief piece is still up for auction!! The pelicans are calling! Our sense of self-worth is directly tied to how much this guy ends up going for, so drag out the Victorian coin purses and let them flow!!

As to the comic, our Frederick's grandfather, Frederick I (whose hair alone took about an hour and twenty minutes in inking between panels 1 and 4 - I'm really slow) was an unabashed Louis XIV impersonator who had as Queen one of the awesomest women in Prussian history, Sophia Charlotte.

We've talked in depth about Frederick's father before, and his words here are most likely wishful thinking on my part - a hope within me that he wasn't as entirely led by the nose his whole life as he appears in all accounts.

So, it is down to the Netherlands and Spain... I feel the force of history demanding a win for the Netherlands to make up for the decades and decades that Spain spent invading their nation and covertly assassinating their leadership. I think a World Cup victory would even everybody up again, right?

- Count Dolby von Luckner