AN ACTUAL COMIC UPDATE? SAY IT AIN'T SO!

Don't get your hopes up though--this isn't the long-discounted chapter four update. Instead I've realized that I should post this up because it's Ara & Celi related of course: a short side story!

I have a bunch of those, planned to be done whenever it's fit to do them--but that would, you know, entail having done more than three chapters. Oops. Too bad, I guess. Maybe someday before I'm dead. Depressive digression aside, I originally wrote and drew this for Aradia Collective's ARADIA BEAT, back in 2023, for our first volume. It took me a long time to make it because I still had the same affliction as the one that hasn't helped in not making new chapters: [everything around me and also something mentally]. Seriously, had to force myself to draw, so a lot of it doesn't look good.

This side story, besides having to match the theme of the 1990s, came about because I love the idea behind Berlin, Germany's Urania Weltzeituhr (Urania World Clock). In researching anything theme-relevance involving the clock, I found that it had an overhaul in December of 1997; seeing that the official date for German unification is October 1990, I knew I had something to mine there and then. The rules of magic in the world of A&C are a little wonky when it comes to the "laws of man," so I combined that with the concept of mauer im kopf ("walls in the head"), an idea still being discussed in the late 90s in a now reunified Germany. Something still discussed even now.

The concept as such: the physical walls may break, but the ones in the minds and hearts of man might not have.

I thought it was perfect for two friends who care more for and about each other than for and about the walls.

I recommend listening to some songs from the Puhdys while reading--specifically the 1992 album, Wie ein Engel ("Like An Angel"), and the 1997 album, Frei wie die Geier ("Free like Vultures"). The 1997 one is almost impossible to find, aside from the usual Discogs listing. But the lyrics found on both albums reflect the evolution of unification from an East German band's perspective.

Only seven pages, so I hope you enjoy!