About the Calendar

The current year of the series is GSY 3010. A year features five quinaries, designated as Q1-5, akin to quarters of the year. Each quinary spans roughly three months of 25 days each. Therefore, a Galactic Standard Year is roughly 375 days.

Story Archive – Canon Timeline

Storyline volumes will be marked with bold text, spinoffs will include the series title. Please enjoy this glimpse at the universe through the story archive. We will also provide canon notes and corrections at the bottom of the page.

Vol. 4 – On the Road – GSY 3010 (Q4)

“On the Road” is the current volume of Cosmic Dash and, while currently unfinished, will span 18 days.

• Cosmic Dash: Vol. 4 Ep. 3 – Ladies’ Fight
• Cosmic Dash: Soar – (only the framing story is set in volume 4, this is an extended flashback)
• Silver Spiral Stories: Vark #2 – Work Mandated Equipment
• Cosmic Dash: Vol 4. Ep. 2 – Battle at Foragetti Plains
• Silver Spiral Stories: The Passenger
• Silver Spiral Stories: Blood & Oil
• Cosmic Dash: Vol. 4 Ep. 1 – Special Delivery
• Silver Spiral Stories: Vark #1 – Released From HyperMax
• Silver Spiral Stories: The Ten Triggers

Cosmic Dash: Vol. 3 – Re-Employment – GSY 3010 (Q3)

Volume 3, “Re-Employment,” covers a period of 25 days.

• Silver Spiral Stories: Rogue on the Run
• Silver Spiral Stories: Vigil
• Nightlifers: On the Horizon
• Silver Spiral Stories: Grudge Match
• Silver Spiral Stories: Rehabilitation
• Cosmic Dash: Vol. 3 Ep. 3 – FTL (Failure to Launch)
• Cosmic Dash: GalactiCorp’s New Gamble
• Cosmic Dash: Signing Bonus
  • Signing Bonus – Part Three
  • Signing Bonus – Part Two
  • Signing Bonus – Part One
• Cosmic Dash: Vol 3. Ep. 2 – Under New Management
• Silver Spiral Stories: Orthos: Eye for Vengeance
• Silver Spiral Stories: The Cell
• Cosmic Dash: Vol. 3 Ep. 1 – Grounded

Cosmic Dash: Vol. 2 – The Cube – GSY 3010 (Q3)

The events of “The Cube,” the second Cosmic Dash volume, span a period of 15 days.

• Silver Spiral Stories: Captain Comet
• Cosmic Dash: Vol. 2 Ep. 2 – The Cube: Part Two
• Cosmic Dash: Vol. 2 Ep. 1 – The Cube: Part One
• Silver Spiral Stories: Hostile Negotiations

Cosmic Dash: Vol. 1 – Connections – GSY 3010 (Q2)

Volume one of Cosmic Dash, dubbed “Connections,” spans roughly three months, starting about one month into the journey of the Lucky Strike. This is also where Angn D’Lazmuh begins his job as Administrator of Galactic Hub Serreven.

• Cosmic Dash: Pause & Effect
• Cosmic Dash: The Trap
• Cosmic Dash: Vol. 1 Ep. 3 – “Paranoia”
• Silver Spiral Stories: Investigation
• Silver Spiral Stories: The Meeting
• Cosmic Dash: “Son of the Soil”
• Silver Spiral Stories: The Grudge
• Cosmic Dash: Vol. 1 Ep. 2 – “Death and the High Cost of Delivery”
• Galactic Hub Serreven – “Those Before Us”
• Galactic Hub Serreven – Diner Dash
  • Diner Dash – Part One
  • Diner Dash – Part Two
• Galactic Hub Serreven – Welcome Home
  • Welcome Home – Part One
  • Welcome Home – Part Two
• Silver Spiral Stories: Reboot
• Cosmic Dash: Vol. 1 Ep. 1 – “Shmoofyland Robot Rampage”

Pre-Cosmic Dash

This period covers events set decades or even centuries before the current canon adventures of the Lucky Strike II crew.

• Cosmic Dash: Soar 
  • The framing elements are set in volume 4, just before “Ladies’ Fight”
• Silver Spiral Stories: Three Brothers
• Silver Spiral Stories: Generals
• Silver Spiral Stories: “Preacher”
• Silver Spiral Stories: The Trench

Canon Notes

Cosmic Dash canon notes will be added in order of release. Keep an eye out for posts.

The post Cosmic Dash – Series Timeline appeared first on hpkomics.com.

New Zine

First off, I have a new zine available which you can find it over at my Ko-Fi store. it is a pay-what-you want situation, but I don’t expect anyone to pay. This is just a good way for me to store the things and take the load off my website. It feels like it is held together with tape and dreams sometimes.

Anyway, the zine is a single-page print and fold project titled “Don’t Be Afraid to Ask.” It was done as a final project for my cohort of new hires at the college where I work and concerns communication, networking, and finding peers. It’s kind of educational, I guess. It also has funny pictures of me. Those are always good.

You can also find my mini-comic, “The Goblin,” there as well, by the way.

Zine Page

Another update I want to discuss is that I have started a “zine” hub on the site (that is still very much under discussion as I write this now). The purpose of the zine hub is to be a repository of zine projects I have done, in addition to a collection of zine resources and tools I am going to be developing over time.

For example, this is a single-sheet zine folding guide I put together.

So, expect some fun material like that to pop up very soon!

As it stands, I am working zine creation into some future classes and want to pool together a number of helpful resources for my students. By that measure, though, I also want to create educational material here on my site. So, it just makes sense to have a dedicated zine page.

I have some spare time coming up for the next couple of weeks, so I will make sure I develop the page. Additionally, expect me to try to knock out a few more zines pretty quickly. I want to make sure there is plenty of stuff to see.

Sketchbook Update

Lastly, we’re approaching the year 2026, and I have been posting sketches for the year 2025 since November of last year. Now seems as good a time as any to update the series to a 2026 sketchbook. My goal is to be more consistent over the next year than I was this year.

Right now, the count of sketchbook updates for 2025 was 35 total updates. I know I can do better. I had some real-life circumstances get in the way, but things seem more manageable now.

So, the next sketchbook update you’ll see will be part of the 2026 run.

And with that… it is back to business as usual. If you enjoy my work, consider commissioning me or joining my Ko-Fi page as a subscriber for as little as $1 a month.

The post New Zine Release and Site Update appeared first on hpkomics.com.

Bloggery

Welcome to the blog portion of the mailbag post, I may start doing some blogging more regularly as a way to keep up when I can’t post any of my stories or columns. on that note, though, you may be asking what’s up? Why have updates fallen behind?

Well, let’s get into some news.

New Class

A surprising development that hit me in mid-March was the sudden passing of a colleague of mine. I am not sure about the details, but suffice to say, her passing created a bit of a crisis and there was a need for someone to take over one of her classes. I was asked to do so. Normally, I am limited to two classes a semester, but I was given this third class with about half of the semester remaining. I had a backlog of material to grade in addition to planning out the rest of the semester for a new batch of students.

With that said, I handled it well and I have fallen into the rhythm of handling three classes, but that came at the cost of production time on my other work. I don’t mind that so much because I am helping out some students in a moment of uncertainty, though.

Regardless, that’s been a bit of a schedule crunch for me. I at least have some Cosmic Dash pages coming out. But everything else has fallen by the wayside, largely. Hence lacking updates in any of my fiction or writing any new articles for the website. My apologies.

Production Uncertainty

Another recent discovery has me worried about the production schedule through the summer. For the past few years I have been able to reliably pick up summer classes to teach. Unfortunately, I have no classes scheduled for this summer which means I’ll be job hunting and freelancing to make up the difference.

There is always a chance the college may open up more sections if the demand is there for summer classes, but I am not optimistic. I am hopeful, but not optimistic. Considering my partner has yet to find a job in a year of searching, summer is looking a little scary for us. I’ll be busting my hump just to keep a roof over our heads, and that is going to inevitably leave less time for comics and stories.

So, while I have you here in the mailbag, I’ll just casually remind everyone that I take commissions. I’ve had a good number come through recently, but anything I can pull in from this work and save for the months ahead is essential. I may even run a commission special later this month.

I also take subscriptions on Ko-Fi, even at $1 a month. It helps cover material I am already producing.

Mailbag Questions

We have three questions in the mailbag to kick us off this week. Let’s dive in.

First off, we have Lenora:

What are your favorite narrative devices/tropes, and what are some stories (any medium), that utilize these best in your opinion and why?

I have always been partial to in medias res., though I prefer it when it is done a little more simply, though, like a title card that takes us back to the beginning of a story instead of narrated forms of dealing with it. I am positive we’ve all heard that joke of “*record scratch* You may be wondering how I got here…” It can be fun, but the best modern example of the narrated version I can recall from recently is the Deadpool movies, particularly because they lean on the cliche.

I love Rashomon plots and I am surprised I have not dove into them myself as a writer. I don’t think I’ve quite found a story to approach for that just yet. Seeing the same events from multiple perspectives and the truth being some element of the three or more perspectives is very exciting to me.

I am sure there are others I could write about. I may do that as a separate post one day.

Next, we have Allybear:

What do you do to get yourself in the mood to create? I struggle with motivation so anytime I make something it’s a spur-of-the-moment decision.

My feeling is that I am always thinking about things I want to do and conceptualizing stuff, but it is a lack of time to put it into action. I get a lot of ideas for stories and scenes. There’s no struggle there.

However, given my work schedule, day-to-day life, and just feeling older and more tired year after year, there are times when I lack motivation to work when a window arrives. Usually what gets me going is tremendous levels of guilt. I do not recommend that. Pressure motivates me but I am sure it is probably eating me alive.

Something I have been doing off and on is scheduling work time. Find about an hour each day to work toward something. Having that hour consistently has been gearing me up to at least work on something creative, even for a bit. I found that in the moment that hour becomes two or three hours organically.

Lastly, we have Nick Wright:

How long have you been doing comics, and how did you get into doing them?

I started drawing comics as a kid but only got serious about them in high school. I was drawing comics for my friends and decided to try to put them online. It was kind of in the zeitgeist at the time as a bunch of those types of comics were beginning to emerge on the back of Penny Arcade.

So I got a cracked version of Photoshop, scanned a bunch of my pencil art, and then colored it all. It was kind of a crash course I threw myself into back when I had more motivation and time.

This would have been around 2004. I began posting comics on a GeoCities website in addition to what was then Drunk Duck. Some of those old comics are still available online. I eventually started Cosmic Dash around 2007, of which I have little remaining art, but did a reboot in 2010.

That’s basically it.

Also, be sure to read Nick’s webcomic.

Have Questions?

Thank you for checking out this first installment of the mailbag. As an old-school internet guy, I have a lot of fond memories of mailbags on websites and it’s nice to live out that thing again. I would like to make this a monthly thing, so please feel free to ask me questions you have, even if they’re just for fun.

I’ll answer just about anything, but I might be best suited to questions related to the kind of subjects and material I cover regularly. I have no issue diving into other areas, I have a take on everything. Hell, I’ll even answer questions about academia and writing if they come up.

If you want to ask questions, you can comment on this post, hit up my contact page, or check my socials for posts on Bluesky and Mastodon where I call for questions.

Otherwise, thank you for checking out the mailbag. We’ll do this again in May, hopefully.

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