It doesn't look like the "most recent appearance" doodad is working anymore. I'm sure I've seen Diablo more recently than July 24th [goats.com]...

most likely it's because transcriptions for strips since then with Diablo haven't been transcribed and approved.

If you can find a strip with him, and a full transcription between then and now, let me know, and I can use that to track down what's up.

This one [goats.com] is three strips later, but not sure that it counts, since it's in the same series?

Death*,

The strip [goats.com] is part of the "Open Mic week" series.

Diablo's appearance in "One for the road" series has been entered (by me) but not yet approved so it won't pop up in the search.

It's that damned Salami. Not the yummy deli meat of mysterious composition, but the character from the late-'70s Ken Howard TV series, The White Shadow. Ever since the show's untimely cancellation, the embittered Salami, unable to find work in TV or movies (except for a walk-on role in Scott Baio's never-aired series Rewind [or whatever it was called]), has devoted his life to messing with other people's stuff. This can be as harmless as poking a hole in the bag protecting a neighbor's newspaper from the rain or as vicious as putting someone on Pat Buchanan's mailing list. Messing with the archive function on a webcomic is an unusual step for Salami to take, but one he finds completely justifiable deep down inside the darkest nooks and crannies of his fevered brain. Efforts to find Salami and put an end to his campaign of pointless and mildly irritating pranks have so far been unsuccessful.

Okay, so it looks like "recent appearance" links to the *first* appearance in the most recent series?

When Jon designed those boxes back in 2003, the email he sent me (actually, on Goats' 6th anniversary) to describe how he thought it should work said:

The recent appearances bit should link to the first strip that the character appears in for the 3 most recent series they have been in -- in other words, you shouldn't repeat a series for a given character.

Of course, he followed that with a "Does that make sense?" to which I foolishly said "yes".

Like a lot of things that Jon does ... it doesn't make no sense... in fact, it makes a kind of sense.

It's ... sensical, if not quite sensible.

It might make more sense if it linked to the LAST strip that the character appears in for the 3 most recent serieses...

But it might make more sense if it linked to the Last strip that the character appeared in for the MOST recent series (other than the current), and the First Strip for the remaining two series...

But now your SQL looks even uglier than I do in a moustache.

And that's nonsensible, even if it's not nonsensical.

What?

Just tell me what to do.

...and he'll ask me to do it.

What?

Heheh.

Don't mind me - I like it find the way it is. I just ran off into my own little world where sense and sensical made music in my brain.

I blame Indiana.

The recent appearances bit should link to the first strip that the character appears in for the 3 most recent series they have been in -- in other words, you shouldn't repeat a series for a given character.

Of course, he followed that with a "Does that make sense?" to which I foolishly said "yes".

I'm scared because that makes perfect sense to me.

Might be nice to have the light gray of strip data entry not have white text on it... just a suggestion for happiness.