The first Primo looks an awful lot like the stinky-cheese-loving professor from today's Sheldon...

http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/111111.html

Coincidence?

Wait a minute.
So when the current emperor was very young, the Tres Primos were already old enough to have done a large amount of grand-scale theft on the past Emperor's military and assorted corporations. So they must have been significantly older than him, particularly in consideration of the fact that theirs was not a single act, but rather a campaign of theft that probably would have stretched over several years. And then now, when the current emperor is old a decrepit, they are still agile, dextrous, and strong enough to board a moving transport vehice and forcibly pull the driver out of it without hurting themselves.

Is there some kind of medical advancement that allows either significant improvements in longevity or deterrence of physical weakness in old age?
Because otherwise this doesn't make much sense to me.
I mean really, even if they had a rigorous training routine that they continued through all those years (despite being retired), by the time they get to be 90 or 100, they ought to show some signs of it.

Anyways, I like their appearance as much as anybody, even if it doesn't make sense with their logical ages.

I think you might've misread the linked strip: They were active (or previously active) when Fernando was a boy, not when the current emperor was a boy. :)

Ahhhh. I see.
Well, that was a waste of time.

The only questions that remain are where they hid and what they did all these years. But that's up to your discretion to reveal or not through the story.

It seems you're doing a bang up job!

It could be a Dread Pirate Roberts sort of situation, too!

That's an interesting idea.
But they do look rather old, and if it was a title that was already handed down, they should be much younger.

I take it then, that since the Tres Primos are "outlaws" they didn't have to go to the Emperor's familia summit? Were they still summoned though, or do they not have the implants?

In case it wasn't known already in these parts, in Spain "primo", other than meaning "cousin" is also shorthand for "sucker".

Which is fun to ponder in this case.

So... the updates will be... monthly? bimonthly? tetraweekly? tesseractdaily? :(

...Any given Thursday, generally at random.

:)

The updates will be... free. :P

That's really the only part you should be concerned about. We likes free entertainment 'round these here parts, even if it's running a little late from time to time. :D

This being a space-travellin' kind of strip, the Tres Primos' apparently unnatural age could also be a result of living fewer years in the interim than everyone else... Maybe they took a slower-than-light relativistic jaunt and just recently came back to Ring travellin'?

Wait, this is one of Skitter's folk? This is the moon depot? I'm so confused!

I love the Tres Primos ship. Probably my favorite model so far.

O My G! The big reveal has been revealed!!!!! Revealingly!

Wait: Nando's mom said that the Tres Primos grew up on the moon, right? She didn't specify WHICH moon. As far as we know it could be Kochis! In which case they might have run into Skitter's race(BTW Dave: now that we've got more of them, we need a race name. What we gonna call them-Scitterians?), and maybe Skitter even joined them? And that's whit he was on the prison moon for?!?!?! WAITASECONDITSALLMAKINGSEEEEENSE!

Oh my Creator!!! They have a mohawk-headed piloting that ring ship!!!! Whoa! Whoa y recontra Whoa!!!

Looking at the features of this one suggests female lips and eyes.

Ooohh!!! Would one of them have the nome de garre of "Steve"?!!! That would make it such a small Universe! (well, at least a little smaller than it already is with space pinching engines. I cannot wait to see the impact of these guys on Nando (although I have pegged Nando as a future Emperor) Are the Tres Primos like The three Musketeers and Zorro in one?

Might want to correct that "they'l" in panel 2 to "they'll" before it goes to print. Or not :uD

When I read the first reference to the Tres Primos, I took it that Nando being told the story about 8 years before the current storyline, and that it was about historical (or semi-historical, though presumably not too distorted as the Familia presumably has pretty good records of its own history) characters. Then it occurred to me that Conrado's discovery of a ring ship was only 143 years "ago", and the development of the empire to the point where it was spanning several worlds (with associated problems) obviously took several decades, so it doesn't make sense to be referring to events of more than 40 years Nando hears about them. As we see in http://www.drivecomic.com/archive/110302.html , Familia entered the Drive Corps at age 15 in those days, which is presumably when they "came to Earth" and immediately rebelled. If we assume that their initial campaign lasted 7 years before they quietly hid, that would make them 70 now, which is believable enough.

In summary, this makes perfect sense as far as I can see.

Given that, once again, people are analysing details of the strip in depth, is the Drive podcast still on the cards?

The Drive podcast, if it ever does happen, probably won't be done until after Dave's comic strip documentary is finished.

I'm quite sure I'm not the only one who has noticed this, but the ship bellonging to the Tres Primos looks quite a lot like Arthur in flight. In other words, awesome !!!