Panel 1: This new character’s name won’t be revealed ’til the end of this story as a punchline of sorts, so in the meantime I’ll refer to her thusly: “AYUK,” standing for “As Yet Unnamed Kunoichi.” (Kunoichi meaning “female ninja,” in case you’d forgotten.) 

Note that I kept a printout of this page taped to my (gigantic) drawing table for years, in a wan attempt to remember her character design details. Over time, to my retrospective annoyance, I nonetheless forgot one of her key facial traits—that she’s supposed to have a notably thinner upper lip and a fuller lower lip. Instead, whoops, she eventually sports Emp-like Big Pouty Lips of near-identical size. (My apologies in advance for the inconsistency.)

Panel 2: In case you’d forgotten from earlier in the volume, “hensojutsu” is the apparently magical art of ninja disguise. This particular masquerade act, however, was clearly pushing the limits of what hensojutsu can accomplish. Or, more to the point, Ninjette perceived the limits of the Unnamed Kunoichi’s male disguise a few pages back.

Webcomic readers might note a certain… pattern to this new character’s dialogue in the pages that follow. (Ahem.)

-Adam Warren