I’m finding myself at odds at the moment. On the one hand, I need to applaud Adis of Count Your Sheep for doing the unexpected and finally showing another character in the comic; Laurie’s sister Karla has joined the cast of drawn characters in CYS. On the other hand, Adis drew one panel and reused it four times; what’s worse is that he didn’t even do all that great of a job drawing that one panel. And this is truly a shame, for it feels like this momentous occasion, the visual introduction of a new member of the cast, deserves more than a half-fast sketch that lacks life or even a modicum of the skill that Adis possesses.

One of the cornerstones of CYS lies with the simplicity of the cast. Outside of a few non-sentient animals (and briefly a talking mouse), the only characters shown in the comic have been Laurie, Katie, and Ship. It’s as if CYS exists in its own imaginary world, and those who cannot see Ship exist outside of it. We can hear them, but even as they cannot see Ship, so too are they not seen by the reader. This changes though when Laurie’s older sister Karla visits and tells her sister and niece that she’s going to have a baby. Suddenly, the comic shifts from greys and muted blues to the pastel blues that are trademark CYS, and Karla herself not only appears to the readers, but in turn suddenly sees and hears Ship.

Unfortunately, even as CYS takes a step forward (and goes outside of its comfortable traditions), the artwork has suffered a step back. Part of this may lie with Adis’ expanded venue of comics; his March 9th update reveals that Adis is working on four separate comics, with CYS sharing an update schedule with The Wisdom of Moo (which I’ve not read). Admittedly, time’s short for Adis these days, but CYS is his flagship comic. While not everyone will enjoy the strip, it still will draw people to those projects of his they may enjoy, and it deserves the extra effort to stand out. CYS has suffered from intermittent bouts of CaP over the years, and usually I can overlook it. But for such an important update, the use of CaP was a definite mistake. Hopefully we’ve witnessed a temporary bow to time pressures rather than a harbinger of comics to come.