Special thanks to Angela Watts of Tekoa Rose Photography. While this is the final comic, we’re not completely done here yet. We’ve got the Season 3 finale of the podcast to conclude on Monday, as well as numerous little cosmetic changes across the site as we move towards locking the website into an archival state for others to enjoy. Over three years of weekly comics has certainly pushed our creative limits and I’m quite pleased with the results. I couldn’t have done it without you Tim. Thank you. And thank you to the fans – your comments, fan art, phone calls, videos, criticisms, and friendships have meant everything.

And a very special thank you to Brawl in the Family for their Farewell 2P START tribute.

I can’t be happier with how this last comic turned out, and I’m even more blown away by the immensely positive response, not just for this comic, but for the entirety of our work here on 2P START! I’ve never worked so long or so hard on a project with someone, but I can’t imagine another person with whom so much could have been accomplished. Ray and I have worked so well together these past 3 years, I’m still astonished that we ever did anything at all. In the end, I’m very proud of what’s been done here, and I must confess that I’m sad to see it go. The sweet farewells from all our fans makes it that much harder to say goodbye. Ironically, I feel that last message in the comic, meant for Ray, will turn out to be something Future Tim needs more than anyone. So thanks Ray, and thanks to everyone out there who read, laughed, and was kind enough to leave a word of encouragement. I know we never would have gone 3 years without the support of all of you. 2P START! was a lot of work, but it was well worth it. Crazy to think that so much could have come from such a simple idea.

Here’s the truth my friends. 2P START! as you know it is ending. As this story arc moved along, we thought it would become apparent through our little hints that the end was truly coming. It seems our hints have been too cryptic. It’s actually quite a compliment to see your hope that this would just be a prank, but I’m afraid it’s not.

Next week will be the end of the story arc, and the end of our regular, weekly comics. We felt it was only right to come out and give the warning for those holding out hope. It’s the end of an era, folks! There is a little bit of truth to what the comics have been saying about why it had to end, why it was right, but we’ll certainly give the whole truth in our next podcast.

I don’t want to say too much more except that we really hope to conclude the 2P END! story in a satisfactory way, and that we’ll still be around in one form or another. Ray and I have really enjoyed working together and sharing that with all of you, and I know there will be more collaboration, in one form or another, in the near future. As many of you know, Ray is working on his next album, and I’m excited to see how the extra time he’ll be able to devote to it will pay off. Anyway, I really hope you enjoy this week’s comic as much as I do!

Special thanks to Richard Aguirre for Ray’s psycho wall art.

Not sure what to say about this week’s comic, except that it’s a lot of fun reading the comments and speculation these days. Now do you guys see why soap operas are so popular? Anyway, TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR THE EXCITING CONTINUATION OF 2P START!

A comic without a joke? Tim with a new look? Something awfully strange is going on here, but I wouldn’t recommend taking this comic lightly.

Is Ray in Japan? Don’t we know what the game looks like already? Very strange, indeed… Well, I hope that the new Pokémon title will actually have animated sprites during their battles, do away with needless text (ROWANS WORDS ECHOED THERE IS A TIME AND PLACE FOR EVERYTHING!), and can you please just let me walk diagonally? It’s 2010, people. I think we can do it.

This is how I know I was never meant to be a hardcore gamer: I was excited by the thought of being abstinent with Aphrodite. Not sure what else to say about that.

Once a year, we have every right to torture our audience and not feel the least bit guilty! Ok, so I’d feel a bit guilty if you took the extra time to read the comic, were late to an important meeting, got fired, and the rest of your life was a downward spiral. Other than that though, GUILT-FREE!

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It’s a trifecta. The comic tests the site’s bandwidth, your patience, and my sanity.

I figured I would go with something a little stylistically different this time around. We’ll have to see how Tim feels about the look. Oh, and did I mention we did a guest strip for Brawl in the Family this week?

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Despite the hatred controversy with this week’s comic, I made time to whip up a Tim’s Take with Yoshi. Enjoy the bonus content. It doesn’t cost a penny more than the regular subscription fee you pay us to read the normal comics. Oh wait…

Update: We’ve updated the comic to please the masses. Of course now there will be an equally angry populace shouting ‘How dare you!’ for changing things, but you can still see the original here. Honestly, we felt the new last panel worked better for a number of reasons, so thanks for all the feedback everyone!

Well, Ray’s birthday yesterday threw a wrench in the comic schedule, so a planned Tim’s Take was in order. On the one hand, this might be great timing, since there was no way to top our hit ‘Heart Man‘ comic last week (so why try, right?). On the other hand, we may have a host of new readers who will see this comic and never return 🙁 On the other, other hand, maybe some of you will even like this comic! Either way, I promise we’ll make it up to you guys as there will kinda-sorta be 2 comics next week for you!

Interesting Fact #1: There have only been 4 Tim’s Take comics in 162 weeks.
Interesting Fact #2: The time between Tim’s Take comics is shrinking; from a 2 1/2 year gap, to a 3 1/2 month gap, to a 2 1/2 month gap. At this rate, Tim’s Take comics will become daily long before the polar ice caps melt.

It was getting down to the wire, so we chose to do this joke after many fruitless hours of running around in circles chasing dozens of different Mega Man jokes. I won’t spoil any of them here, so you’ll just have to wait for episode #118 of 2P START! Live!