One thing I didn’t pay strict attention to in the early comics was differentiating other people from myself. I established from the start that I’d draw myself as the most basic stick-person possible (path of least resistance, you see) but I didn’t always remember that it can be confusing to add other people to the mix and have them look, well, pretty much the same.

Light hair is a super-simple way to change that. For light hair I draw a stick person, and then throw a few spikey lines across the forehead. Boom, altogether different character. I’m not going to go and count, but I’m betting that if the comic requires a non-specific “extra” character they’ll have light hair nine times out of ten. [November 24, 2011]