Strip 425 -- First Seen: 2010-04-23
Escape From Terra is updated with new pages every Monday through Friday.

On Their Way....

This is a message for the IGG QV9 backers! For those of you who ordered physical perks, they are on their way via USPS. For those of you who selected one or more of the PDF perks, you should have received an email from DriveThruComics.com. That email contains links to the vouchers you need to download your copy of the PDF you requested.

If you haven't seen it yet, be sure to check your spam folder. If you still can't find the email from DriveThruComics, let us know and we'll get the links you need.

Signing and Shipping

Scott has finished autographing all the books, and we've started shipping them out. Your physical perks should show up in the next week or so (might be a bit longer for international shipments). We expect to send out vouchers (via email) to those who wanted the PDF e-books.

Once again, many thanks to our backers. Stand by for further updates.

The Transcript For This Page

Panel 1
Half-page tall panel. Establishing shot of the Lunar Youth Rescue Tower. The structure is 500 storeys, or one mile, high. It is a glass-and-steel cylinder, tapering slightly towards the top. To the extent you can at this scale, it should look dingy.
The tower sits on the Lunar south pole, so we see the Sun near one horizon and the Earth near another (we're not likely to see both in the same panel at once, except near the time of the eclipse, which will come several pages later). When we see the Earth, it appears to be 'upside-down,' with Earth's southern hemisphere pointed up.

Caption: For our readers, some background:

Caption: 'Lunar Kiddie Slammer' was one of many slang terms for the United World Youth Authority's juvenile work farm at the Moon's south pole.

Caption: The official name was the Lunar Youth Rescue Tower.

Caption: Originally, the mile-high glass-and-steel cylinder was a resort run by the UW government. At that time, it was called the Macroscian Tower – actually a rather clever name.

Panel 2
First of two panels stacked on the right side of the page next to the tall panel. Here we have an aerial view of the tower, casting a shadow at least three times as long as the tower is high.

Caption: 'Macroscian' means someone who casts a long shadow, and also means someone who inhabits a polar region.

Caption: The name was chosen by a committee of academics – the general public couldn't pronounce it and had no idea what it meant.

Panel 3
Inside a suite high in the tower. A trio of tourists are gazing through a wall-sized window at the Earth, near the Lunar horizon. We can't see their faces, but their body language (scratching heads, crossed arms, etc.) indicate they are not exactly pleased.

Caption. The tower was a commercial flop, for many reasons.

Caption: Not the least of which being that when tourists viewed the Earth from the Lunar south pole, they complained it was 'upside-down.'


Panel 4
Another group of tourists seated around a table in a lounge, all looking exhausted. A waitress is serving drinks.

Caption: For political reasons, the Tower operated on a single time zone, UTC, aka Greenwich Mean Time.

Caption: This was fine for European tourists, but the vast majority of guests were from the Americas, or Asia. They suffered from artificial 'jet lag.'


Panel 5
The hotel suite from earlier has been transformed into a vegetable garden. Sunlight streams through the large window. An pair of attendants are examining a sample soybean plant they've pulled from the 'ground.'

Caption: After the Macroscian Tower failed as a resort, it was converted into a vertical indoor farm.

Caption: As it was bathed in perpetual sunlight, it produced bumper crops of grains, vegetables, dairy and meat.

Panel 6
Same scene, except now the attendant has been replaced by a trio of young teens wearing prison-style jumpsuits, harvesting what is now a carrot crop.

Caption: When the UW Youth Authority needed more 'correctional facilities,' they cut a deal with the Tower administration to turn the tower into a juvenile prison, in exchange for 'free' labor.

Caption: Thus was born the Lunar Youth Rescue Tower.

Panel 7
Distance shot of another, even taller tower.
Caption: Two years later, the Macroscian Tower was surpassed by the Ten K tower, a privately-developed residential, business and tourist complex at the Moon's north pole. At ten kilometers, it dwarfed the Macroscian Tower six times over.