Sources and bonus timelapse: https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/miniFantasyTheater/052.html

Transcript:

A comic in four panels.

Panel 1. The adventurer and pink fairy sit on an old wooden bench in a city square, under the sunset light. The adventurer looks guilty while the fairy sits with crossed arms, furious and turned away from him.

Adventurer: "Okay, okay... I spent ALL our gold on that dagger. It wasn't loot. I'm sorry."

Panel 2. The Pink Fairy turns back, angry:

Pink fairy: "And how can I ever trust you after THAT?!"

Panel 3. The adventurer feels sincerely sorry and sad while watching in his hand the purple epic dagger. The pink fairy watches him with wide eyes, pleasantly surprised.

Adventurer: "You can't, but give me one chance: I'll sell the dagger and get our gold back."
Pink fairy: "...Really?"

Panel 4. Inside the shop, the adventurer places the purple epic dagger on the counter. The merchant pushes a single coin across toward them. Both the adventurer and pink fairy stare in disbelief.

Merchant: "I can buy it back for... one gold coin."

Sources and bonus timelapse: https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/miniFantasyTheater/050.html

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. In the jungle, late in the day, the adventurer and the pink fairy walk to a stone totem with an active portal. Skeletons are plenty around the little stair that lead to the device. They looted a treasure, they are enthusiasting and happy.

Pink Fairy: "Where are we going?"
Adventurer: "The capital! Let's use this Fast Travel Totem."

Panel 2. Shot of an identical totem in town. The pink fairy and adventurer jumps out of the Fast Travel totem's portal. She studies the device.

Pink Fairy: "Wait... you never wondered why those Totems had so many skeletons around?"
Adventurer: "Nope. Bad taste in decoration, I guess. Come on!"

Panel 3. A blonde mage with a pointy hat in violet runs to the portals. The pink fairy is happy.

Pink Fairy: "Oh neat! Someone will use it. I want to see how this actually works!"

• Panel (insert): The elf becomes a skeleton in a big sparks of electricity on hitting the portal. The fairy is in shock.
  Sound effect: ZZZZZZZT!

Panel 4. The adventurer and fairy sit frozen in shock and horror, clutching their knees, the Fast Travel Totem visible in the background.

Pink Fairy: "...We've been dying each time, haven't we?"
Adventurer: "...Yeah."

Full reader and bonus: https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/miniFantasyTheater/048.html

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. Side view on a old peasant woman, in front of her old house, giving a red music box, open, with a tiny ballerine dancer in the middle to the adventurer, a young warrior. He has his Pink Fairy on his shoulder. Both the adventurer and the Pink Fairy are trying to hide their deception about this reward. Some music notes, dissonant, escape the box.

Old woman: "Oooh, thank you adventurer... As a reward, please accept this music box..."
Adventurer: "?..."

Panel 2. Now, far away (we can see the village in the background, near a cliff and the sea), front view on the adventurer as he throws to the sea the music box with blasé eyes. The pink fairy is in shock!

Adventurer: "That's the quest reward? Useless..."
Pink fairy: "Wait! What if it's actually useful?"
Adventurer (smaller): "Trust me, it won't be."

Panel 3. Later that week, the adventurer and the fairy are inside a dungeon room at night. In front of them, a giant ghost warrior with his sword posing dramatically, nostalgic, hand and eyes lost in the ceiling. Behind him, visible because he is partially transparent, a treasure with tons of gold.

Narrator: "Later that week..."
Ghost: "I'd trade all this gold to hear a music box's melody again..."
Adventurer: "..."

Panel 4. Later, on the path, the adventurer walks, crushed under the weight of a hundred small objects in a big improvised backpack made with a large bed sheet: books, flowers, a ladder, gardening tools, a cheese, a broom, etc... But he has determination in his eyes to carry on. The fairy tries to reason him.

Pink fairy: "Are you sure about this?"
Adventurer: "YES. WE'RE KEEPING EVERYTHING NOW!"

Question: would you roll it?

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. While walking on a path in nature, a young fantasy adventurer with a fairy with pink hair, suddenly looks at the floor at a golden shiny detail crossing their way:

Pink-fairy: "Stop! A Golden Twenty Dice!"
Adventurer: "A what?..."

Panel 2. Shot on the fairy landing on the grass near to a golden scarab pushing a d20 golden dice.

Pink-fairy: "A scarab rolling fate! We could take his dice and roll our own fortune. Last time a twenty turned a farmer into a lord!"

Panel 3. The adventurer kneels down near the fairy and scarab, really curious now. The fairy is super happy and exited.

Pink-fairy: "A moment like this comes only once in a lifetime! Please, please, please, let me try!"
Adventurer: "Mmm.. Ok. Why not."

Panel 4. The adventurer runs for his life while the pink fairy is grabbing him to follow his motion. She is very embarassed, and him feels anger and frustration in this emergency run. A lightning strike near them and burns the floor, a crack on the floor appears, a furious dragon runs after them and try to bite them, and a meteor is about to fall on them.

Adventurer: "Of course you rolled a one!"
Pink-fairy: (in small) "Sorry..."

Comic sources here

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. Cepper, the Gothic Sorceress, is at her iconic desk with a quill, she was writing in her big personal project: her book of incantation at university. She is thinking with intensity bringing the quill to her mouth, looking up and frowning. On a stack of book, nearby, stands a yellow static rubber duck.

Cepper: "Avian Intelligence, what is the correct incantation for a fireball? Hmm... You know, something Pyro... Ball..."

Panel 2. Cepper is now excited, the rubber duck is still silent, staring happily in the void.

Cepper: "PyroBolus! Perfect."

Panel 3. Amall, the small blond elf sorceress appears in the frame from one side, she is puzzled at what she probably saw before. Cepper is laughing a bit of embarrassement.

Amall: "A rubber duck!? But it can't answer you! Are you okay, Cepper?"
Cepper: "Haha, don't worry Amall, I'm fine."

Panel 4. Cepper is happy and proud of her invention, Amall scratch her head but with a smile, considering the discovery of her friend.

Cepper: "I just figured that formulating my questions out loud helps me to solve them, and finally that's all I needed."

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. Cepper, the Gothic Sorceress, sits at her workbench in the basement of the university with her iconic clothes and glasses on her head. She is surrounded by steampunk cogs, wires, circuits, and code snippets written on parchments. She's determined in front of her masterpiece, her own local AI Parrot looking like a big pigeon.

Cepper: "I did it! Running 100% locally now. My own machine, my own terms! hehe."

Panel 2. She excitedly asks it a question, but it takes an eternity to respond.

Cepper: "Avian Intelligence, what's the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"
Local AI Parrot: "1... 1... m... e... t... e... r... s... loading 2%"

Panel 3. Cepper starts to realize the immense computational power required to run AI models remotely. She looks at her local AI Parrot and starts to wonder.

Cepper: "Ouch. That's painfully slow, even with the largest magical stone I had!"
Local AI Parrot: "p...e...r... s...e...c...o...n...d... loading 4%"

Panel 4. A shot late at night, she sleeps deeply on a big armchair, while the local AI Parrot still finish to output.

Local AI Parrot: "a...n...d... t...h...a...t...s... a...l...l... loading 100%"

sources: https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/miniFantasyTheater/045.html

Hey! As the Spring season is finally here, I'm taking a break from my digital canvas to meet some of you in person this week-end! I'm honored this year to be a guest at "Fête de la BD" in Monistrol sur Loire. An event from 24 to 28 Mars 2026. I'll be around on the last two days:

Friday 27 March

I'll share my passion with the young ones with two workshops "A comic in three panels" where we learn the basic mechanic for writing comic strips. It's for the local school, drawing club, and association for young people (MJC). I'm curious to see all the comics (penciled, black and white) we'll create together that day!

Saturday 28 March

I'll be part of the festival (public, free entrance). Here's my schedule:

• 10h - 13h: Signing session at "Fête de la BD"
• 15h - 16h: Conference at the Médiathèque, where I'll be talking about my special approach of comic: the software I use, the license I use, and more.

Hope to see you there, and I apologize for sharing the news a bit late: organizing all of this isn't easy! If you want to learn more about the event, check out the links below:.

Link:

• Full schedule, PDF hosted by the MJC: https://www.mjcmonistrol.fr/media/programme-V-2-bd-25.pdf
• The MJC: https://www.mjcmonistrol.fr/
• The médiathèque: https://monistrol-sur-loire-portail.c3rb.org/?start=1
• Newspaper article on "Le progres": https://www.leprogres.fr/culture-loisirs/2026/03/13/la-commune-fetera-la-bande-dessinee-du-25-au-28-mars

Following many Free/Libre and Open Source projects over the past week, last night I added a "Use of Generative AI" chapter to our Code of Conduct, clearly stating that we do not allow the use of Generative AI or LLMs. This also affects all our repositories on Framagit.

→ Link to the new no-LLMs statement chapter in our COC.

I copied the concise and efficient text word for word after discovering it thanks to Jeff Fortin T. (風の庭園のNekohayo) who added it to GNOME Calendar, and posted about it on Mastodon. Many thanks to Sophie Herold for writing it, and also for posting it under a CC0 licence.

Illustration sources: Rage against the Slop Machines

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. The Gothic Sorceress stands in the middle of the ruins of her house, in the middle of the mess the floor; a consequence of the night with the Tree Spirits. She's looking overwhelmed. She talks a bit in the void, eyes lost in the distance. Her Avian Intelligence (AI) Parrot listen, perched on a wall in ruins.

Gothic Sorceress: "Ugh, it'll take weeks to clean this up."

Panel 2. A closer zoom on the AI Parrot, replying to the Gothic Sorceress.

AI Parrot: "I know a spell or two for that, but I need the highest permission level. Can you grant it to me?" Gothic Sorceress: ""Granted." It can't get any worse anyway..."

Panel 3. A tempest erupts inside the room, the AI Parrot flies in the middle like a majestic and all powerful bird: he is casting a spell loudly. Lightning flashes, cloud of dust are twirling, and many debries are flying. The Gothic Sorceress protect her face with her hands, in emergency.

AI Parrot: "Arehem Dash Areheff Root!"

Panel 4. The aftermath of the spell: only the floor of the house survived. Just the tiles on the floor, lost in the middle of the natures with trees and grass. The room are empty, except a toilet seat in a corner. The AI Parrot is proud of his work while the Gothic Sorceress stares at the scene, seating still dizzy after the tornado. She feels powerless in front of the result.

AI Parrot: "Cleaning successful, room reset." Gothic Sorceress: "I take it back. It can get worse."

Source here

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. It's night, and the rain pours through the windows like... cats and dogs (see previous episode). The group of the five Tree Spirits are playing with the Gothic Sorceress's home accessories and decoration, making a mess. The Gothic Sorceress, in the middle, in a yoga lotus pose with candles around her tries to contain their actions, but they are too much. She asks her AI Parrot:

Gothic Sorceress: "Avian Intelligence, tell them in their language to stop! They're making a mess!"

Panel 2. The AI Parrot doesn't react, displaying a spinning loading symbol in its speech bubble. The Gothic Sorceress urges it to hurry as the Tree Spirits continue their actions, breaking things, playing with fire, and spilling ink.

AI Parrot: (Loading Symbol Icon) loading...
Gothic Sorceress: "Come on! Hurry up!"

Panel 3. The AI Parrot's eyes are now crossed and their light turn off. It is obviously disconnected. The Gothic Sorceress feels distress as she realizes she can't communicate with the Tree Spirits anymore and start to panic, while the Tree Spirits action are more extreme: one burn a part of her haircut, another one pushed a book on a candle, and she has ink all over her hands.

AI Parrot: "Network error. Disconnecting."
Gothic Sorceress: "No... No!! Not NOW!!!"

Panel 4. The next day, the AI Parrot finally reconnects, happy and fresh, but the house is in ruins, with smokes, everything is broken, upside down... The Gothic Sorceress sits on the floor, she looks exhausted and apathetic: the five Tree Spirits are all sleeping cutely on her lap.

Narrator: "The next day..."
AI Parrot: "Network restored. Hi there, how can I help you?"
Gothic Sorceress: "Too late..."

source here

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. The Gothic Sorceress with an umbrella, under an heavy rain is delicately plucking the Avian Intelligence from the trashbin of the school, taking it by the back of his colar, and rising it to the level of her face to get a serious talk to it. She frown, while staring intensively at the filthy creature.

Gothic Sorceress: "You're in luck, I found a group of magical creatures and need your translation skills."

Panel 2. A few moment later, in the midst of a luxurious forest, a group of small glowing tree spirits gazes at the AI Parrot and the Gothic Sorceress. Their expressions are innocent and curious, they are cold, and protecting themselves under two improvised umbrellas made with large leaves. The Gothic Sorceress point her finger at the small group while talking to the Avian Intelligence Parrot.

Gothic Sorceress: "Tell these tree spirits I invite them home because it's raining cats and dogs."

Panel 3. Dialog between the AI Parrot, speaking in ancient runes to the puzzled tree spirits, who respond in the same dialect.

Panel 4. The AI Parrot translates back to the Gothic Sorceress while the tiny tree spirits look on, still perplexed. The Gothic Sorceress appears unimpressed by the AI Parrot's inaccurate translation.

AI Parrot: "The tree spirits say there are no cats or dogs, are worried about your mental health, but accept your invitation."
Gothic Sorceress: "Next time, don't translate me that literally..."

Source here

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. A serene parc outside the University of Magic under the great teapot moonshine. The gothic sorceress and her blond elf new friend, and a magician, are all sitting and chatting, smiling around a little fire. All the little group don't have their AI (Avian Intelligence) Parrots and have books, sketchbook, a knitting kit, and sit under a banner: "The NO AI Club". In the background, the headmaster walks with a lantern with his AI Parrot flying near his shoulder is shocked at the small club.

Panel 2. Shot on the headmaster, in anger, his face red with indignation:

Headmaster: "Why don't you have your Avian Intelligence with you? It's the future! You can't stop it!"

Panel 3. The Gothic Sorceress turns around, holding her arm out like a weapon towards the headmaster, and casts a spell, emitting a magical light from her fingers.

Gothic sorceress: "Muteo!"

Panel 4. The same view angle as in panel 1, the gothic sorceress smirks and she is proud of herself. The headmaster continues to scream at them in distance, but his speech bubble now only has a 'mute icon' in it.

Gothic sorceress: "Can't stop it? Please, that was super easy!"

source here

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. The Gothic Sorceress sits alone at the university of magic's cafeteria, without her Avian Intelligence (AI) Parrot. However, something feels off: she's surrounded by Avian Intelligence ads everywhere, big posters and marketing object "AI Next", "Go AI", "Join AI", "AI Win", "Use AI", "AI Now" etc... and many users around with their AI Parrots. She thinks out loud.

Gothic Sorceress: Ugh, can't escape it.

Panel 2. She runs down a staircase filled with the same AI ads everywhere, even large statues of parrots are here.

Gothic Sorceress: sighs Everywhere...

Panel 3. In a corridor with still many ads, she runs and push the door of the toilets.

Gothic Girl: Get me out! Somewhere, anywhere!

Panel 4. She sits on the toilet, looking exasperated, still fully dressed. The toilet paper, wall poster, and even the wallpaper all feature the same AI ads.

Gothic Girl: Seriously?... Even here?...

sources here

I'm reporting on a recent experience with a faulty RAM module that caused chaos on my system. Now that it's fixed, I hope this post will inform future users about the symptoms of a bad RAM module, how to detect it, and how to remove the culprit.

The Symptoms

It started on Monday, as I began production on my weekly comic. But this time, I had tons of unusualy bugs and crashes. Initially, I thought the problem was software-related, so I blamed a recent update of my Debian 12 KDE X11. But it felt unlikely due to the reputation of stability of the Debian project. However, with a deadline looming for my weekly comic on Wednesday, and knowing that creating one typically takes two full days of production, I decided to brute-force my way through the issues and try to push through the creation process, but:

• Firefox tabs kept crashing.
• Many software applications wouldn't launch due to segfaults, or crash midway.
• Krita painting software had random tile crashes, corrupted layers, freeze and writing issues.
• Md5sum and other checksum tools were failing, causing random re-renders on my renderfarm.
• Many libraries were crashing in background, resulting in an unstable DE and more corrupted files and configs.

Screenshot simulation: this image is a photomontage I created to illustrate the symptoms I had while working with the faulty RAM module.

As a result, producing my last MiniFantasyTheater episode was a technical nightmare. I had to reboot my machine very often (from session of 30 minutes to 1h30 when I was lucky) to get a brief window of stability and continue the painting. I kept only Krita and BeeRef open, without any other software and it felt like a long tunnel: no music, no radio, and no podcast while painting. From time to time, I only opened Konsole, and launched a journalctl command to see what was crashing.

I also saved my files very often: multiple incremental versions every 5 minutes to avoid corrupted Krita files and had to redo many steps multiple times when the saving process froze and the system collapsed.

Confirming the Issue

Because I have my priorities and I'm stubborn like a donkey, it's only after completing the episode (at 6am after a full night of running this unstable bio-hazard thing) that I started to search online (with another device) what was going on, asked help on our #peppercarrot channel, and realized the issue might not be software-related, but likely hardware-related. I confirmed this by:

• Switching to differents kernel via the Grub menu and seeing that the previous kernels had the same issues
• Testing a blank session on a live USB ISO (Linux Mint 22.2) and spotting similar problems

Running a memtest from the Linux Mint ISO boot menu overnight (or 'morning') revealed over 47K memory errors, confirming my suspicions.

Memtest running and starting to report failures. In the end more 47K failures were reported.

Repairing

To identify the faulty module among my four 8GB modules "G.Skill RipJawsV DDR4 @ 3200Mhz, DDR4-3200 , CL-16-18-18-38 1.35v Intel XMP 2.0 Ready" , I followed the memtest documentation's advice ( Troubleshoot page, "1. Removing modules" ) to test each module individually. I made an official memtest ISO on a USB stick this time, and labeled each module with a letter (A, B, C, D) using a white pen. I also kept a table on a sheet of paper to note the results.

Labelling the ram with a painted letter in white A, B, C, D was helpful

While testing module A alone: bingo, that was the faulty one.

The test revealed that all errors were caused by module A ( F4-3200C16D-16GVKB SN: 22352956817 if someone working at G.Skill is interested) , while modules B, C, and D were clean. A final test with the combination of B, C, and D confirmed that they were working properly. Yay. It wasn't that complex to do, but it was long: each memtest can take a long time to perform at least 10 different tests.

The Outcome

I kept only the RAM module B, C, and D and I'm now running with 23.4GiB of RAM as a temporary solution, which has restored the stability of my system (and my sanity). I might have lost 8GiB of RAM, but the peace of mind I gained from this move feels like a good trade-off for now.

In over three decades of using PCs, this is the first time I've encountered a failing RAM module and it's chaotic consequences. The module A, the one that failed, was purchased in 2020 and used daily on my PC... (The full review of my workstation at that time is here). 5.5 years of usage? Perhaps it simply lived an honest life. I have no idea...

I'll probably explore replacing the faulty module, but it sounds difficult to do it now without breaking the bank, as the current price hike of AI-related hardware like RAM is absurd. I also hope that my other modules won't fail like this one soon, especially if this is a question of lifetime.

All in all, it's remarkable (in a bad way) how much damage a bad RAM module can cause...

What a peace of mind to get back to a stable system... even with 8GiB less...

Your Experience?

Have you ever encountered a bad RAM situation? Is it a common issue? I know it may seem cliché to ask a question at the end of a blog post, but I'd sincerely love to hear about your experiences. Are there any warning signs or preventive measures that can help identify this issue ahead of time? What best practices or hygiene habits can we follow to minimize the risk of a faulty RAM module?

Transcript:

A webcomic in four panels:

Panel 1. The gothic sorceress lies in bed, with a hot towel on her forehead and a thermometer in her mouth. Closer on the bed, her Avian Intelligence (AI) Parrot is perched.

Gothic Sorceress: "Ugh, I wanna die. This flu is brutal. Avian Intelligence, tell me how should I treat it?"

Panel 2. The AI Parrot responds with proudness in his pose.

AI Parrot: "It's easy. Take a pinch of Shadow-Root powder in a glass of water and done."

Panel 3. The Gothic Sorceress turns angry at the bird. This one try to process why.

Gothic Sorceress: "Wait a minute, Shadow-Root?! That's a #*$%@& lethal poison! Are you trying to kill me?"
AI Parrot: "You weren't asking for?... uh..."

Panel 4. The AI parrot realizes "I wanna die" was just an idiom, feels stupid and embarrassed. The Gothic Sorceress facepalms under her blanket.

AI Parrot: "Oh!"

sources here

This week, I developed a new tag system to triage my weekly comics, making it easier to link to specific episodes in the series, such as Avian Intelligence.

You can find it here: https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/webcomics/miniFantasyTheater__Avian-Intelligence.html

And a big thank you to https://framapiaf.org/@Nartance for contributing the full French translation!

Happy New Year 2026! Wishing you a year of springtime inspiration, and magical encounters.

source here

Transcript:

A comic in four panel:

Panel 1. The scene opens on a cozy winter morning, in the corner of a room with a chimney and a festively decorated tree, in black, because made by the Gothic Sorceress. The Gothic Sorceress, in her black nightie looks excited and a bit mischievous.

Gothic Sorceress: "I'm so excited, best time of the year!"

Panel 2. The sorceress examines the contents of a gift she unwrapped with delight: a new spellbook.

Gothic Sorceress: "A new spellbook? Yes!"

Panel 3. On the perch nearby the tree, her AI Parrot says something as the sorceress begins to flip through the pages. A cold shiver runs down the Gothic Sorceress's spine as she realizes.

AI Parrot: "I generated that book last night. I hope you like it."

Panel 4. The cyber parrot is seen lying on the tiled floor, with a heavy book on his head. He looks enthusiastic.

AI Parrot: "Using the spellbook as a projectile? I love the creative use! I knew you'd enjoy the present."

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. A young gothic sorceress sits in the grass at night, under the full moon. Her futuristic, Avian Intelligence (AI) parrot perches on a nearby branch.

Sorceress: "Avian Intelligence, should I cast a spell to turn the moon purple?"
Parrot AI: "Absolutely, it could revolutionize our nighttime color palette."

Panel 2. The sorceress beams with excitement, her eyes shining with enthusiasm, as she scribbles notes on a parchment. The parrot watches with an encouraging gaze.

Sorceress: "Then, I'll summon a giant black dragon to... crush the sun!"
Parrot AI: "Great idea! It could solve the whole 'daylight' problem, and I love the creative approach."

Panel 3. The sorceress's expression falters; she looks at the parrot with concern and skepticism.

Sorceress: "You think everything I say is brilliant, don't you?"
Parrot AI: "Your ideas are always innovative."

Panel 4. The sorceress facepalms, her excitement deflated. The parrot continues to chirp away, oblivious to the change in atmosphere.

Parrot AI: "Your genius shines, even in silence!"

source here

version with transcript here

TL;DR: My Patreon and Tipeee accounts are switching to a monthly subscription model starting January 2026. Check out the short comic above.

Here are some additional details:

Q: Why is this change happening? Was it forced?
A: Both Tipeee and Patreon have found that only 1% of their creators use the "per-creation" model. It seems they're streamlining their features to focus on more popular options.

Q: Is Patreon still making this change, and why is it happening in January 2026?
A: Patreon initially planned to switch to the new model in November 2025, but due to technical issues with a payment processor (Apple), they've postponed the deadline several times. Tipeee recently announced a January 2026 deadline, so I've decided to move both platforms to the new monthly subscription model at the same time.

Q: Have you changed the Tiers?
A: Yes, I've updated the tiers to a classic structure: $1, $3, $5, and $10 (and above). I've also added $50 and $150 tiers for companies that want to support my work. The same tiers are available on Tipeee, but in Euros. Since I don't have a paywall, tiers are mainly a way to give my supporters a larger font size in the credits at the end of new Pepper&Carrot episodes.

Q: What's the best platform to support me on?
A: I recommend Liberapay.

🔗 The 'links :

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/davidrevoy

• Tipeee: https://en.tipeee.com/pepper-carrot/

• Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/davidrevoy/

• Everything else: https://www.davidrevoy.com/linktree/

Transcript:

A comic in four panels:

Panel 1. Wide view angle in the office of the University of Magic Headmaster. The room is filled with shelves of ancient tomes, but mainly, a carpet leading to the desk of the boss. A young gothic sorceress enters the room with determination, followed by a robotic cyber-parrot flying behind her: the Avian Intelligence bird. Detail: the boss has a AI Parrot too and seat nearby a large circular active portal. She points her finger at her AI Parrot.

Gothic Sorceress: "Headmaster, I'm requesting to opt out of the Avian Intelligence program!"

Panel 2. Shot on the desk of the Headmaster, an old wizard and his AI parrot, perched. He is deeply busy and his attention is fully absorbed on his paperwork, probably signing administrative stuff, giving a minimal attention to her.

Headmaster: "Not an option. Our investors say it's the future of magic."

Panel 3. The Headmaster gestures grandly at a portal nearby him, while adjusting his glasses. The circular view into another dimension reveals a distorted, broken wonderland. Twisted trees shaped like cartoon elephant, architectures of towers with faces, and weird creatures with big nose, moustache, the body of fish and long leg ending by three fingers. The atmosphere is both fascinating and deeply unsettling.

Headmaster: "See? With mine I created this world in minutes. Not perfect, lots of small bugs, but it works... mostly."

Panel 4: The young gothic student and the Headmaster stand before the dimension. She is skeptical with her hands on her hips, while the Headmaster seems tries to justify himself while thinking about it, the hand twisting a bit of beard on his chin.

Gothic Sorceress: "It's ugly and broken."
Headmaster: ""Vibe spelling", I call it.".

source here

I just finished the Pepper&Carrot new page for sharing our Fonts!

A decade ago, libre comic fonts were hard to find, especially with good accent support. So, translators, contributors and I edited & maintained our own to fill the gap.

Check them out: https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/fonts/index.html

After spending the last few months quietly working on a longer Pepper&Carrot webcomic chapter alongside my weekly "MiniFantasyTheater" comic strips, I'm happy to announce Episode 39: "The Tavern" is finally out!

You can read the episode right now:
https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/webcomic/ep39_The-Tavern.html

This is a standalone episode I made for Pepper and her master Cayenne, a little road‑trip stop where they halt in a village. The theme is a lesson about courage, something I think many of us have faced.

This episode is also an experiment in making a comic about sound. I know: "comics are a silent medium!" but that only made me more curious to try the challenge. You’ll see attempts to convey voice volume, songs, and lots of small visual nods to sound. I hope some of those moments surprise you or make you smile.

As usual, the episode is totally free and open‑source. Full source files (Krita .kra and Inkscape .svg) are available in the episode footer. It was created 100% with Free/Libre software on GNU/Linux (Debian KDE 12). Big thanks to the proofreaders and translators who helped polish and share this one in other languages: English, Français, Deutsch, Español, 中文, Norsk (nynorsk), and toki pona are ready!

Most importantly: this chapter wouldn’t exist without my community of supporters. A special thank you to the 1,106 supporters: on Patreon, Tipeee, Liberapay, and via direct transfers. Your support bought me the time and space to make this possible!

I really hope you’ll enjoy this cosy, slightly experimental chapter!

Just a quick update: I'll be at Capitole du Libre 2025 Conference in Toulouse, France on Sunday, November 16th!

Here's what's on my schedule:

• 10:30-11:30 AM (Room A203): Join me for a 1h commented Krita speedpainting live demo.

• 11:30 AM-12:30 PM (Room B00): I'll be part of a panel discussion with Bookynette and Gee about free/libre book publishing.

More info: https://capitoledulibre.org/
See you there!

Recap of main events since episode 38:

A lot has happened since the release of the last episode 38: 'The Healer' in April 2023:

The canceled Episode 39 "The Bedtime Story"

After episode 38, the production of the episode 39 started in July 2023 and I posted a bit later some concept-art. By the end of 2023, I had a version fully ready to read for the proofreaders. The concept of this episode in a nutshell: Cayenne decided to use a bedtime story moment to info-dump the backstory of the series onto Pepper. In short, it was a ten page long flashback, with a lot of text and illustrations. The feedbacks I received at the Beta version taught me this episode rised more questions than answering ones, and its execution was clumsy. I tried to fix it for months, until I decided to give-up and restart from scratch in March 2024. As a post mortem, I backported in April 2025 some panels of this version to the Timeline's Wiki page of Pepper&Carrot. At least, not all of the hundreds and hundreds of hours put into this were totally a waste.

"The end of Pepper&Carrot", a blog-post I regret...

In mid 2024, after cancelling Episode 39 "The Bedtime Story", and following a long period of personal struggle and feeling down, I announced the end of Pepper&Carrot. That was a mistake. I wish I never published that blog-post. But the idea circulated well, way faster than the other blog-posts saying I wanted to continue the series. So, just to be clear: I'm continuing Pepper&Carrot series, I love it too much. I just had a very bad time.

The weekly MiniFantasyTheater comic-strips

During my long period of personal struggle and also discouraged by the extremely slow progress on Pepper&Carrot episodes and facing months without being able to post comics, I created a new comic project: MiniFantasyTheater. Short, quick, direct, and without all the technical debt of a 10 years old FLOSS project. It quickly felt great to post and interact on my social networks regularly, and it became a habit. But I also missed being able to write longer episodes. It took me some time to accept a paradox: I need to produce the two formats.

Refactor and new website

During all autumn and winter 2024, I paused the MiniFantasyTheater comic strip and decided to refactor and fix many technical debt I accumulated. I financed that on my own saving and doing Freelancer work. I incorporated many innovations I made for MiniFantasyTheater into Pepper&Carrot. The result of this big cleaning: the projects share now the same fonts, translation system, Git repositories, and a new Pepper&Carrot website, also technically, the project is now ready to scale up.

Money, support and financial situation

Neither my Patreon nor my Tipeee account has paid out since April 2023, as no new episodes of Pepper & Carrot have been released. It's my fault: when I started the project, I chose the "per content" support model instead of the "monthly subscription" model. This made sense back then when the project was short Pepper & Carrot episodes without maintenance, technical debt and larger and larger episodes. But right now, it has become problematic. There aren't many ways to support my weekly short comic format, except direct donations and Liberapay. To make matters worse, I also had to stop taking on freelance commissions, which had kept me afloat, because I needed more time to produce the MiniFantasyTheater episodes. However, Episode 39 is now well underway, and its release should help me a lot. After its release, I'll make more changes to this side of things and move to a monthly subscription support model. Of course, I'll notify supporters in advance so they can prepare.

Production conditions are tougher than ever

• AI generative imagery: It's everywhere and it drains me a lot of energy when I receive comments that my style looks like AI (almost weekly).
• Linux is in its worst shape: It's really difficult to advocate professional Digital Painting nowadays because of some massive bugs and regressions. Users are lost, it doesn't work, and with "the end of Windows 10", I get daily request about it. I published a detailed install guide to address this.
• Tougher Society: Inflation, hatred, wars, and the rise of fascism.
• Family: There have been way too many deaths...

Workflow research and development

Since the beginning of 2025, I have been (re)testing various workflows. The focus of this research was to find a method that I could replicate on dozens of panels consistently and enjoyably.

Workflow A: the classic

This is the classic of classics in the industry: line art, flat colors, and shading. This is the workflow I used for the first eight MiniFantasyTheater episodes. The problem? Once I obtained clean line art, I spent a lot of energy filling the artwork with color while preserving the line art's precision. So, coloring and shading became tedious and boring tasks. I always die a little inside while doing it because it doesn't stimulate my brain enough.

The three steps of the classic workflow on Shichimi and Torreya artwork.

Workflow B: direct painting

This is a workflow that I used a lot during my career as a concept artist. First, I built the grayscale building blocks, then recolored them approximately, and finally painted over them until they looked good. While this method is the fastest, hands down, it also has a major issue: many things can go wrong with the proportions, drawing of the face, and facial expressions. The same goes for speedlines or a specific perspective and view angle. All the efforts are postponed to the final pass, where I redraw the details and make everything solid. In this demo artwork, I did well, but unfortunately, for many panels in a comic, this method is simply hard to manage, pushing all the efforts toward the end of production.

Three steps of the direct painting workflow on Pepper 'Rain' artwork.

Workflow C: compromise

For episode 39, I've decided on a compromise workflow. First, I'm creating a thick sketch in mid-gray on a white background. This step is a bit frustrating because I can't make all the details look as precise as line art, but the goal is different. The goal is to create solid volumes that are correctly proportioned and to achieve the correct view angle and perspective. The pre-coloring step is divided into two steps: grayscale and recoloring the grayscale. I find it easier to focus on defining how the light source builds up the volume and splitting the different parts of the picture into grayscale. Thanks to the semi-transparent sketch, I have a guide that helps me minimize the number of brushstrokes. This makes them more visible, even once recolored, as individual entities rather than blending them together into a mess. Because of the thick sketch, it's also easier to paint in grayscale and recolor with precision. It's "blocky." Finally, I can flatten everything and selectively repaint or edit details on top.

Four steps of the workflow c, on the 'A Drink Alone' artwork.

If you look on a close-up you'll get a better idea of how the sketch totally blended into the final result, how the brush work is visible, and how the details and resolution are located only on few area of the painting. On this crop: the lips.

A close-up of the artwork "A Drink Alone".

Preproduction:

This section lists all the steps before drawing on the comic page, i.e., production.

Scenario

I wrote many scenarios, for which I mostly used Kate, the KDE Plasma desktop's text editor, to save my text files in Markdown format. Everything was versioned into Git repositories, but each time I wanted to open and refer to a version quickly, I saved the file incrementally. So, for each story, I ended up with a column that looked like the one on the left in the screenshot below. Thanks to Markdown, I can use the quoting symbol at the start of a sentence to get a different color for the dialogue. Sometimes, I want to reread only the dialogue, and it's convenient to have it color-coded.

A screenshot of Kate.

Here's a tip for determining the number of panels: In Kate, use the Regex search/replace function with the following: ^([A-Z]), It will only count the first capital letter of a sentence. In my case, it will count the first letter of a new panel description.

Of course, I don't write my story panel by panel in this way, as you can see in the screenshot. This is the final product, the last cut, of many underlying passes.

Synopsis

My method often starts with a clumsy synopsis of a philosophical problem that I personally want to address and share with others. In future episode 39, the topic will be noise in public spaces and confronting strangers about it. It's a common problem we've all experienced: sharing a train, bus, or bar with strangers. Then, I write a long paragraph that broadly tells the story I have in mind, which I'll use as a metaphor: it will take place in a tavern with a group of warriors. There will be a minotaur, a hyena, and a lizard.

The Grid

Once I've written my synopsis (and I write many!), I test my favorite ones using what I call "the grid." It's a list of questions that helps me clarify the story's objective.

• The universal problem of the episode.
• The psychological blindspot preventing the main character from solving the issue.
• The character's inner, strong desire.
• The false idea the character has to solve the problem.
• The immoral actions the main character is willing to commit to solve the problem.
• The main character's real psychological need, which he does not see at the start but will grow to adopt.
• A "revelation, turning point, or thought outside the box" that reveals the real need.
• Unexpected twist(s).
• Intrinsic human values of the story.
• Visual interest and concept art.

Once the grid is completely filled in to my satisfaction, I move on to two things.

The Premise

The core of the story in one or two sentences: This will be my compass for the full episode.

Pepper, without her usual powers, learns the meaning of bravery. It is not the absence of fear, but rather the determination to act in spite of it.

The Beatsheet

This is a simplified version of the story in the form of a bullet list of simple actions. There is no dialogue or description. However, this structure respects the timeline of the final script. Below is a sample of how my beatsheet begins for episode 39.

• Pepper and Cayenne stop in a village to rest and relax.
• At night, the tavern is calm and peaceful.
• But the atmosphere is quickly disrupted by a group of noisy, badly behaved warriors.
• Cayenne discusses with Pepper how to tell the warriors that they are not alone.

The Cut

Once the beatsheet is complete, I copy and paste it into a new document. Then, I replace each line of the beatsheet with a panel description and dialogue. This process often requires many proofreading passes and corrections. Some panels can be removed, while others need to be inserted. Once the episode is correctly cut, however, we have a document to move on to the drawing part.

Concept art

For this episode, I decided not to create too many concept art for the visuals. My workflow is flexible enough that I don't need definitive line art with all the details from the beginning. I can create concept art of the new character I need and incorporate it as needed. However, some locations required more work. For example, here is a sketch of the exterior of the tavern hotel.

A drawing in grayscale of the exterior of the tavern.

I conducted more advanced research on the three warriors. Initially, I wanted characters that looked annoying, so I gave them the faces of well-known CEOs. However, that would have distracted from the main plot of the story, so I abandoned that idea.

A concept art exploration for the design of the warriors.

The three warriors: the minotaur, hyena and lizard on a panel.

Production

Storyboard

This time, I decided not to create lots of small thumbnails of each page in a single document as I often do, but to sketch directly on each Krita file pages. I wanted more control over the composition and placement of the dialogue, as well as over the zoom of each face and expression. I ended up storyboarding directly with a thin brush preset at low opacity. At this stage, I estimate the perspective, but I sometimes use a composition grid (e.g. for the 'thirds' rule, diagonals and centres). These sketches are quick to draw, which allows me to experiment with different angles and expressions until the scene is just right.

I also spent a long time feeling totally lost about the panel density. How many panels per page feel right? Is it different for a dialogue scene? Or an action scene? In the end, I collected and analysed hundreds of comic pages that I found online. I noted what felt like too many panels, what felt like a waste of a page, and what felt good or bad depending on the situation. This helped me pace my panels more consciously, rather than going by "feel" as I had done until then.

A sample without text of three panel at the storyboard step.

Sketching

I then drew over the storyboard with a flat brush and pressure-sensitive opacity I like how it feels like penciling. It's probably because of the mid-gray color over white. Many panels required a bit more preparation; for example, I used a perspective grid for almost all the panels in the montage at the beginning (illustration under) when Cayenne and Pepper arrive in a cute mountain village for the night. Because this scene was a montage, I saw that I could crank up the density. Seven panels for a comic page, it's rare for Pepper&Carrot.

The final drawing of the page 2 of future episode 39 "The Tavern".

Inking

I really dislike this step. It's something I have been fighting against since the beginning of the Pepper&Carrot project. In the first part of this article, I study various workflows to try and bypass this step. Unfortunately, I failed: after the first colouring test on my sketches, I realised that they were not clean enough and that I would need to carry out a lot of post-painting processes to clean everything up if I went down that route. In the end, I decided to redraw and ink all eleven pages. To give you an idea of the impact in terms of production time, it takes a minimum of 8 hours per page, for a total of 88 hours. It took me a little over a month to complete this step. In terms of technique, I used the c2) Mechanical Pencil Details brush preset at 18px, with no stabiliser, on the XPPen Artist Pro 19 (Gen2). I converted my sketches to blue, reduced their opacity, and used a deep red on a pale sand-coloured background to add a touch of colour and to make it easier to place the borderless speech bubbles and panel frames.

A side by side: final sketching, and final inking.

Proofreading

After the inking was done, I re-entered all the dialogue on Inkscape because, so far they were still part of the Krita files, and drew all the speechbubbles with vectors. Something relatively quick as it can be done on roughly four days. Then I setup the collaborative thread for the proofreaders on our Framagit to give me feedback on this first version, and help me with proofreading my English dialogues.

I was very afraid of this step. My experience with the cancelled episode 39, 'The Bedtime Story' (read the recap in the introduction for more details), made me anxious when I posted it. Fortunately, everything went alright: I collected many interesting feedback, and help.

A screenshot of the colaborative pad for proofreading.

Color-sketch

For the coloring process, I decided to embrace a simple approach. I create a flat paint layer named "under" beneath my inking, and then I simply paint instinctively. I don't follow the classic "flat," then "shading" method. I just paint however I feel.

I discovered this while making the weekly comic strip. I had more fun distancing myself from realistic shading and just using pure colors. I also intentionally leave large brush crosshatching to avoid a "genAI" perfectly smooth and contrasted output. I try to find the sweet spot of "not perfect, but charming".

A screenshot while precoloring.

Technically, I mainly use the "Charcoal Rock Soft" brush preset. I keep the entire page visible on my screen and put the Krita Reference docker plugin on the left side to use my previous pages as a reference. I added the default Palette docker to my dockers with a small collection of my favorite colors because I realized I was repeatedly placing these tints.

Another screenshot while precoloring.

Painting over the final touches

The final step is creating an "over" layer above the inking. I use a small brush to add more detail. I haven't started this step yet, except for one landscape, which I will share below.

A screenshot of a detailed landscape.

Work in progress... (to be continued)

That's all for today. I'm still coloring the last pages of the next episode. Next, I'll compile all the proofreading feedback from the proofreading thread. Then, I'll submit a "beta 2" version for a final proofreading, which will be fully pre-colored. Once the English version is finalized, the French translation and other languages will begin. In the meantime, I'll continue detailing every page.

Do I have a deadline in mind for the release? Yes, I hope to finish the last hundred hours of work necessary for mid-November.

The challenge continues!

Want to read previous production reports? They are all now here under the #making-of tag and comments of the first part for this article are here.