Wallace the Brave by Will Henry for November 30, 2021

Mr. Henry is on his tiptoes.

Playing marbles with a seagull, Spud?

I’ll bet the seagull is winning.

Hmmm. A new character? Boy or girl? Or will we ever know?

Alternate forms include Zoe, Zoey, and Zooey.

Those first two are fairly common and are almost always regarded as female names.

The (first?) best known Zooey was one of the preternaturally intelligent Glass family siblings in several short fictions by J.D. Salinger. The name has gained ground as a popular male name in the 21st Century.

But: All three spellings have been used for both male and female characters.

Don’t feel threatened, Spud. Friendship is not a finite resource..!

And that, folks, is how it’s done.

Maybe meeting Zoey will make you forget about Amelia, Spud.

Wallace: “Let me guess. You enjoy eating mud pies, right Zoey?”

Love the seagull’s “stance” in panel three…

Obviously I’ve had a misconception about Snug Harbor. My image had it as a cozy little town where meeting a kid you didn’t know at all would be big news.

A new friend, a new comic character being added? Interesting. Zoey.

See, I don’t believe there’s a kid in the area Wallace doesn’t already know from school due to the small area of the town.

I understand Spud’s concern. When I was seven, I moved into a new town and made a new friend right away; we became best friends. Until another kid moved in next door. Then they started chumming around together and I was pushed aside, left out of their activities.

If only it was always that easy, Wallace!

Wouldn’t a fist bump be more prudent?

An outgoing extrovert? A born salesman. Selling refrigerators to Eskimos. Though that’s probably already a thing. Or soon may be.

I feel seen. Spud, I relate to you.

Wow, I keep relating to Wallace more and more. My grandkids now get upset with me when I do stuff like that. When I was a kid, it was my siblings, later my wife and now my grandkids. I think my kids grew up with me doing it so they did not see anything strange about it. In fact, my son does the same thing. (It is my daughter’s kids that freak out.) And I got it from my mom.

Can’t keep him for yourself Spud. Gotta share…..

It’s funny that I identify with Spud, because at that age, I used to go up to people and introduce myself.

Marbles…

Wallace’s eyes in the last panel…