I dont know if the announcement of the 4,000th episode should count as an episode, but here we are anyway.

Let that sink in for a moment… four thousand episodes. Long form stories, some multi panel one pagers, some single gag panels… four thousand of them.

It’s kinda scary when you think about it. I mean, this thing represents a life’s work for the past thirty years (Toss the print ones in and it’s about 4250, but who’s counting, right?), with stories of aliens and April Fools’ jokes and people getting married and other people getting married and home decorating turning into a meeting with Wall Street brass and investigations by Congress that look suspiciously like the Match Game and Broadway shows based on cult films and more serious stories of infidelity and near-fatal car accidents and talks with God after your husband has been gay-bashed…

It gets pretty heady to think about after a while.

Honestly, it wasnt my intention for it to run this long. I dont know when I was planning on stopping it, but it just kept going on and on and on (and on and on and on) because every time there was another story to tell about… well, something. A politician would say something remarkably stupid or a movie worth a lampoon would premiere or people would just show up, demanding their stories be told and their voices heard — and who am I to tell them no?

I should point out that about 150 of these are on the Secret Doc and Raider Facebook page, and if you dont know about it, ask me. It’s where things get… well, to use the old term, racier. Lots of nekkidness, but still lots of (hopefully) fun. And that page has now been around for so long that it’s time to consider it part of the canon. It’s not just bawdy stuff: it’s also where potential new characters get a try out (like Connor, who’ll figure in soon enough) or an opportunity to play a bit before getting tossed into the madness on this site. It’s my little x-rated workshop, as it were.

The number does *not* include the Road Trip for the 150th anniversary of Canadian confederation. That’s a special item all on its own, to eventually be gathered up for publication, a celebration of the country that makes these boys possible. It’s verging on 100 pages at the moment, so you might want to check it out as well. You’ll find it here. You’ll discover some pretty cool things about Canada, if you’re so inclined…

So all of this is saying we’re nowhere near the end of this thing. As I mentioned once before, it’s time to start looking at animation and standalone publications and maybe even (dare I say it?) licensing… but for now, it’s about what it’s always been about: giving you something hopefully enjoyable every day. And if indeed you do like it, let me know. And if you dont — for whatever reason — let me know that as well. After all, without you folks reading this stuff, there’s not a whole lot of point to it, right?

OK, I dont know what happens tomrrow. Maybe another storyline. Maybe some time-stepping. We’ll see. But, as always, thanks for being such great readers.