It’s individual strips like this I occasionally worry about new readers wandering in and seeing first off. Why does Grace call her conscience Wendy? You lot know, of course, but just occasionally I wonder if strips like this that don’t quite stand alone possibly drive new readers off on the odd chance they pick today to wander through.
Then I usually think ‘well, I’ve been here seven years now, they should have come earlier!’
When I try out a new strip I always start from the beginning and work back to the current one. I can’t see that any strip that isn’t pure “gag-a-day” would be any more immediately comprehensible to a reader coming in part-way through.
Your concern is valid – but there’s also a responsibility to the reader to realize they came into an established strip and need to go back and read the back story.
And I’m with Grace – I’m all for peaceful solutions but there are times when the only way to stop something is directly. Doesn’t always have to involve fisticuffs, but it doesn’t also have to be the “Oh they realized the error of their ways and became my friend” way, either. Too much like the 80′s Super Friends cartoons, in that regard :-D I’ll be interested to see which way it goes!