Alice Grove- The End

Have to admit, I really got into Alice more than I thought I would. Was nice to have something different and out of the norm. Thank you for sharing this unique world with us. Can't wait for what is next.

I love seeing the end of this but it breaks my heart that there is no more coming. I LOVED Alice Grove.

Erin Moriarty

I was always so excited to see an alert from Tumblr that the next strip was up. I'll miss that.

Brent Catherman

I only found out that Iain M. Banks, authour of some of my most life-changing reads, died several years ago. That was profound. Thank you for this fitting tribute to him.

Freya Thurell

Feel like just started, looking forward to your next side project!

*deep breath* thank you Jeph. This has been...really special to me. Thank you.

Dylan T

crazy that this has been going for years.

SSJ Carrot Cake

An amazing deconstruction of the ending of Alice, which gave me a lot of food for thought on it, and put into a much more poetic way than I could have how well written the story was as well as how deeply thought out Jeph was in its writing.

Julienne Ignace

That is about it for me, but that could just be that I wanted more yet.

Julienne Ignace

Thank you Jeph!

giacomo vaghi

I devoured every one of these comics with glee. Thank you so much for sharing them with us!

It's taking place right at the same time, in one of the other Praeses. <a href="http://jephjacques.com/post/162942877405/holterya-alicegrovecomic-theyre-all-like-oh" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">See?</a>

Peter Jensen

So sad to see this end, really feels like the climax of book one of a trilogy, so hopefully we'll see this universe revisited somewhere along the line. Maybe a trip to, or visitors from the moon?

quarridors

I can't wait to buy the book version of this. Hint, hint...

Michael

Oh, and please turn Alice Grove into a book. This is one serious "must read" title!

David Paul

Jeph, that was one excellent story you wrote. It is a shame to see it end, but... who knows, maybe when humanity does finally wake up and move forward, we will see what happens next :)

David Paul

Thank you so much for this story. I really loved Alice Grove and I'll miss her and her friends a lot. But I'm also excited about what will come next... It will be fun, I'm sure ;)

Cracking work on Alice grove...but I have a question. Assuming that QC exists in the same universe as Alice Grove, does QC take place before the war or after humanity reawakes? :-)

Honestly, I loved this and I'm sad to see it go but it was a beautiful ending to a series I've really enjoyed reading.

Alice Grove was excellent, and although I'm sad to see it end, I'm excited by what you come up with next. :)

Patteroast

Whoa, and I was just going back and reading the beginning, and saw the bit where the kid asks, "Is it true you can make the sun go out?" Yes. Yes it is true.

Auros Harman

Damn, has this really been running for years? Feels like it started just a few months ago... Great story. Agree with others, I'd buy the hard copy.

Auros Harman

Thank you, Jeph! What a ride! Would purchase a PDF version!

SC

Thank you for sharing this story with us Jeph. I'm sorry to see that it's over, but so happy to have had it here.

Nikki

I didn't realize it was ending so soon! I was really smitten with the world of Alice Grove and the different characters.

Jed

thank you

Sad to see Alice Grove ending. Even though I didn't care for some of where the story went in the end, I still greatly enjoyed it, and it was a super neat piece of sci-fi! I've just been rereading through earlier strips, and in her fight with Sedna, Alice makes a threat to submerge her in molten rock, and let it cool. Well, after the flashback with Church, we can see that wasn't just an idle threat! Great bit of foreshadowing! :D

Chris Hewson

Loved the whole story Jeph. Thank you.

Loved your work on this not enough good sci fi out there tho qc is getting pretty sci fi these days

very wild ride; not gonna lie and say I understand it all, but it was entertaining for sure

Matt

I really liked this series! The tone and execution felt a lot like some short stories that I enjoy. I hope very much to purchase it as a collection at some point in the future. Thank you

Well done. Thanks for the terrific read over the last three years. I hope you collect it all into a book, because I'd like a hard copy of Alice Grove.

ducksauz

Jeph, that was perfect! Thank you.

It... ends? Here? But... this reads like a set-up arc! I thought this was the "ok now you know the characters AND the story, time to really get started!" moment... It was awesome, Jeph, and I hope you return to it one day.

gatherer818

In addition to a kick ass novel, I've realized that an anime adaptation might be even better.

darklion

I'm sad to see the story end, but thank you. :-)

Mooster

Loved this story and it was a good sendoff by you for Banks. Hopefully you do another because I love your sci-fi stories.

Became a patron just to see the end one day early. I would love to see Alice Grove on the big screen someday. Please turn it into a screenplay!

Do you mean why did Gavia's hair grow out? There is a time gap, though it is a bit strange that Alice is still wearing her battle outfit with chopped hair.

ZPX

I'm so glad you get to do this for a living. I look forward to each new strip. They brighten my day.

BobC

I loved it. It did feel very rushed and im super sad to see it go as it was one of my favorite online comics. My day was 1: check Questionablecontent.net. and 2: Check Alicegrove. I'm assuming, perhaps, that running a second comic became too much work and stress. The possibilities with this comic was endless and I wish we could have explored it more but....still an amazing work and It'll hold a special place in time for me. Thanks, Jeph!

Derp

Nice, but the ending felt really rushed.

Matthew Foweraker

I really enjoyed this story and the last thing I want to do is gripe about it, but the ending has felt kind of rushed. When I look at the pace of things previously in the story versus the pace in the last two chapters it's felt like a full-speed rush to get to closure. Which, oddly enough, is how I feel about a few of Iain M. Banks' novels (most notably, _Matter_), so that's not necessarily the worst choice. On the whole, though, this story did a workmanlike job of entertaining and surprising me. Thanks for a great ride and some real surprises along the way.

Gary Walker

Damm, I was hoping for the storyline to go to the moon. We got teased about colonies / craters there, and it's such a great location / set for a story. I'm hoping the unresolved Nightwalker blast is setup for the story to continue, maybe there. (I'm thinking X-Men 137 and especially Heinlein's The Menace From Earth). There's also plenty of backstory on Alice's tech / origin / and especially her ship that hit Church with the heat beam. (What language did she communicate in?) Why was she in conflict with Church? Presumably in a war she'd be on the same side as the guy with the same tech. Is that tech, in fact, alien? Linking with a black hole certainly suggests it. Lots of material to keep going (ever read Marvel's Hercules title when he goes out into space and has adventures in advanced tech worlds?), and I must be a real sci fi guy as, with the exception of Bubbles and the bad news AI, I liked Alice Grove even more than QC. I hope we get more.

Ian MacLean

That's it? Awww. I was hoping for more backstory on what happened to humanity to regress so much, who the Praeses are, things like that. How did things get to the starting point of the series?

Wild Card

I had no idea about this comic, though I have been reading QC for over 10 years now. I just read the whole thing and it is phenomenal!!! Great job!!!

DrummerGeek

One thing I really love about this story is that in the end, Alice was essentially correct about Ardent. He was in fact an invasion from orbit, designed to 'retake' the Earth -- on behalf of the AIs instead of the Praeses, perhaps, but still. The thing that changed, at its core, was Alice recognizing that the careful balance she preserved was hampering the Earth, and the 'invasion' would liberate it. That's some seriously good storytelling. My pet theory is the Praeses were in fact created by the AIs on their way out of this reality, at the same time as they edited the rest of the world in the Blink. That way, humanity's survivors could be taken care of while the Praeses created realities within themselves, incubating the *dream* of what humanity *could* be. Then, when a certain point was reached in the Praeses, the visitors were sent to Earth to begin the process of awakening the original human species. This is why the visitors had to come from within the Praeses -- all of them -- and why the Praeses themselves didn't understand how it could have happened. There's some multi-level stuff going on in here. It also shows interesting contrasts with atavistic humans like Pate, who retained the ruthlessness that likely led to the war in the first place, and the biological constructs like Alice, Sedna, and Church. The visitors would interact with humanity and naturally identify these anomalies, leading to the capacity to deal with them one way or another. Church and Alice couldn't adapt -- they were made to ossify around service. And now Church is likely dead and Alice is leaving. Sedna, at a lower level of that process, could adapt so long as she could find productive ways to harness her compulsions. Ardent and Gavia naturally identified the construct who could adapt and led to the two who couldn't being neutralized... and in the process identified the atavist and neatly eliminated him as well. I have to imagine this plays out over and over again across the world. I'm impressed as well by the final image -- the forests of Earth, with Alice's windmill still rising above them. Alice's windmill -- *not* an Ardent-enhanced version. In the time that's passed (Gavia's hair length is likely meant that way), I have to imagine Ardent's been cheerfully enhancing the solar panels and stills of folks in town even as Alice prepared to leave. But that windmill? That's Alice's, and folks don't touch that. Beautifully done, Jeph. I'm going to miss this story and world a lot.

Eric Burns-White

This was lots of fun, thank you! A big step away from QC, it was great to see a different side of storytelling

J. Toufic Chahin

I really enjoyed this. Sorry to see it end. You've created quite an interesting world here.

Dan Wilson

Is there any plan for a print edition, or more works in the Alice Grove universe?

David D.

Loved it!

So long, yet felt so solid it was almost short. A full-fledged comic. Excellent work, Jeph, and hello from Russia -- you have fans even many time zones away from you!

MyOtheHedgeFox

And then Ardent presses the big red button.

tresi

I feel a lot more emotional than I could ever anticipate. I loved it since beginning, and was not like anything I had ever read. Kudos.

Patty

Thanks for the awesome story, Jeph! I'm sad to see AG ending since I was really enjoying the story. I hope you'll start another comic project besides QC, you're a wonderful storyteller and I love your creativity.

IC Wolf

I totally want a paper version in one piece.

Yola Leroch

thank you so much.

Thank you for a great sci-fi story, and still optimistic, even with all the problems. Do you plan creating other stories now, besides QC?

frank sands

I kind of got the feeling that Alice wanted to find the black hole she's entangled with as a way of choosing how she would end. Specifically, speghettification. (It probably is the only way she could be sure that she actually *does* end.)

Czarzhan

I complete forgot about Alice Grove! At first felt put out, then realized binge!!!!!!! thank you, thank you!

Guy Edwards

I got the urge to start rereading Banks again...

Just a weird question - why did Gavia change? Did I miss that explanation?

Mari Toshimitsu

This was such a good story - I hope Alice finds peace and maybe someplace to settle down and be happy

Mari Toshimitsu

Jeph, it's been a real privilege to join you on this...trip. Maybe someday we can accompany you on another one.

Scott Kenney

Damn that was so good.

ps: Would *love* to buy a dead tree version!

Bruce Steinberg

Congratulations on an amazing story. A little sad to be seeing Alice &amp; co for the last time. :)

Bruce Steinberg

I guess real stories have loose ends.

Scott Kenney

Was it ever explained why the nanomachine giant shooted at the moon? Maybe I missed it?

Thank you for this story. It's been quite the ride, and I look forward to your next creative endeavor (as well as of course years more of QC).

Peter Jensen

Alice Grove is a story Jeph was drawing in addition to QC. You can start at the beginning at <a href="http://www.alicegrove.com/page/219" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://www.alicegrove.com/page/219</a>

Paul Rendell

Beautiful. Thank you!

drij

I'm not crying, you're crying.

Josh

Excellent, a great read, a great ride &amp; compelling characters. Thank you, sir, you earn your pay indeed.

Rooty-Toot-Toot

Thanks for the "Delightful Tale" Jeph!! I've thoroughly enjoyed every moment of Alice Grove and hope we may get to see another non-QC story at some point in the future!

Kit Fletcher

This would make a bomb-ass novel, if it could be adapted.

darklion

This story has been such an incredible ride!! Thank you so much!

Lora Key

It's been a pleasure reading Jeph. Thanks for a fun alternative world and for stepping outside your QC groove to deliver it.

Matt

Whew. More! While QC is way cool, I loved the additional creative freedom you showed here (I'm not just talking about the gore here … or the skin for that matter); this is why I'm supporting you here.

Matthias Urlichs

I'm a new patron and uhhhh I think I missed something?

Great story. Loved to follow it from the very beginning. I hope you feel a great sense of accomplishment and maybe even a little bit of sadness. Would love to see your future non-QC works. Thank you.

Evgeniy Semyonov

Thank you!!

Mark Landes

Thank you for this. It was a true gift to share it with us. I've loved this comic since the start.

Jason Hunter

This was a great story! Personally, I feel like the ending was a little abrupt, and could have been paced a little better, but the concept and the characters were top-notch! I'm glad to have read it :)

Stevie C-K

Thank you.

Captain Button

Thank you for sharing this world with us.

aetherspoon

Thank you

When the only possible complaint is that you wanted more, life is good. Thanks man. And should you ever decide to revisit this, or create another universe I will be happy to join for the ride.

Ronald Stimbert

Great story and everyone should read Iain M Bank's books !

Rob Wright

Like with all good stories, the only problem is that it was over far to soon! ;-)

mano

Thanks, Jeph! Alice was a great trip, and loved all the characters.

Emmanuele Bassi

wow ❤️

Boots McGoot

That was wonderful. I alway prefered that comic to Questionable Content, and the end deliver.

Frederick Ohlmann

Fantastic!!

Dave

This was wonderful. Thank you.

What an amazing journey this was. I'm so excited to see what other non-QC out of the box comics you create in the future!

Elizabeth Beishline

Sad to see this end, but eager to see what you do next too :D

David Howe

Love this story. Thanks for creating it.

Thanks for this adventure, Jeph!

Laura-Kathleen Redman

:'( ♡

Laura-Kathleen Redman

Having listened to "Excession" recently, I very much appreciate your dedication. Hope there will be a Kickstarter of this! Thanks for all your work on it.

Adam Wagner

I‘m sad it’s over but glad it is instead of goung on and on. Loved it

Dominik Reichardt

Man, that was a great ride. Thank you.

Loved every minute of this comic!

Stray