Part Four's title was supposed to be supplied by Doug Barre--see the opening notes of Part One for a description of the penkwe rules and how we'd adapted them into the little "penkwomics" game that drove me to produce this story.
But, well, Doug was under several pressures at the time--Mythstalkers, the series he was writing for Image Comics was coming apart as 2003 turned to 2004, and his wife, Pastor Kay, was in the hospital, due to deliver their second child at any moment. To tell the truth, Doug hadn't actually managed to get any comics drawn for the previous three rounds of the penkwe, which was perfectly understandable in his situation.
So he and Marilyn Scott-Waters, who'd been scheduled to give us the title for the fifth round, agreed to switch, and the title that Marilyn sent out, inspired by Doug's situation, was "Where's the Baby?"
This one, I actually had to think about. After the events at the end of Part Three: "Sock Puppet Carbuncle", I'd wanted Part Four to focus on Tharka's investigatory skills. The title I'd been given, though, turned my thoughts in a slightly different direction, and this is what came out.
A brief disclaimer: this episode has a bit of "indecent language," including a line that I later had Tharka repeat in the July 18 installment of Daily Grind. I apologize for it, but, well, Tharka's feeling a little strain at this point in the story, and he and the other character involved here aren't really known to mince words...
Anyway, here's "Where's the Baby?", Part Four of Hearts and Minds, one of the many pre-Daily Grind adventures of D. F. Tharka and A. Gana Belea.
One more note: while putting things together into the backstory of Daily Grind, I decided that Tharka would refer to his former boss as "Scratch" instead of "Nick." But I've kept the original dialogue here for historical value. Also 'cause I'm too lazy to go in and make the change...
Astute readers may notice several differences of this sort when comparing Hearts and Minds to the world of Daily Grind. Feel free to chalk it up to more laziness on my part: I just didn't wanna go back through this older story and change what are pretty much all minor bits and pieces so they'll conform to the way I'm doing things now.
In short, the story of Hearts and Minds is part of the Daily Grind continuity, but certain of the details aren't.
Anyway, the title of Part Five: "Gigantic Prehensile Unction, Incorporated" will also need a bit of explaining, but I'll save that for the opening remarks on that page. You can read the explanation for the title of Part Three: "Sock Puppet Carbuncle" on its page if you haven't yet; you can head back to the Archive Page or the Table of Contents; or you can pop over to the Daily Grind Main Page. We're all about the options here at Daily Grind.
