This comic is about the very first time I asked out the woman who is now my wife. I actually did it over Facebook. I tried feebly to disguise the situation just in case she somehow saw it, but it didn’t work; Unknown to me she was a regular reader and after receiving my message that morning guessed the truth on her own. It would be a few dates before she revealed (sheepishly, nervously) that she’d been through my entire site before we ever started going out. [October 7th, 2013]
Panel 1 is a callback to #977 from a few days earlier, in which I fired a gift from a catapult. Nobody ever mentioned it and I was never sure if the joke was clear or not. [October 7th, 2013]
The very first time I drew Gideon he was all black, and then the next number of times he’s gray. Which is weird, because he actually is all black. I suppose I was influenced by Bryan Lee O’Malley’s style (the cat’s name, after all, comes from his comics) and didn’t want the lines of his body to get lost in all the black. Later I came to realize that hiding those lines on purpose makes my drawing job a heck of a lot easier; just draw a black blob, some points for ears and white dots for eyes and then hey presto! The cat is curled up. No worries. [October 2, 2013]
This comic made it to the 2nd page of /r/Funny on popular website Reddit.com. I didn’t submit it and have no proof of this happening. It’s also what inspired me to start putting the URL on my comics, because I was never cited and as far as I can tell I’ve gotten no additional traffic because of it. My claim to fame! [October 2, 2013]
No joke I wish for this power all the time [October 2, 2013]
First panel happens to me all the time. Second panel not so much. Third panel? Well, first I’ll reveal that this comic was secretly inspired by the first time I actually asked someone out on a date. She’ll remain nameless, but she did say yes, so we went for dinner. We watched some of the other staff sing happy birthday and she told me, speaking as a former server herself, that repeatedly forcing a smile while singing Happy Birthday on a busy shift was the Actual Worst.
Epilogue: that was our only date.
Epilogue II: But! In a roundabout way, that date led to me dating the lady who is now my wife. It’s a bit of a story. Ask me in person sometime 🙂 [January 19th, 2017]
I hate drawing vehicles and yet sometimes I find I need to do it. If you see a car in my comics it is probably A.) drawn from the top down, which is relatively simple, B.) drawn from very close up to the windshield, so I don’t have to draw the rest of it, or C.) Childlike as in panel 2 here. [October 2, 2013]
The bad apostrophes on the sign in panel one are intentional. Also, is that the “Metal Health” album by Quiet Riot on the left of the middle shelf? I don’t remember, but it miiiiight beeee [October 2, 2013]
This is what ended up happening that year: I bought a big box of Sunkist gummy candies to hand out (they’re in little packets, naturally) but made plans for the evening with a friend of mine to watch scary movies. At that point I was using a projector in the basement so there was no way I could hear kids coming or going. I decided to make a sign on cardboard, and hang a bag of the candies (Honor System!) from the latch of my screen door outside. The sign said something to the effect of “please just take one” but honestly I wouldn’t have cared either way.
I don’t think anybody took anything. I didn’t realize until later that you could barely see the bag from the street and with no decorations probably nobody even checked it out. Those that did might’ve been creeped out by the lack of supervision. In any case I was stuck with a pile of gummies for a long time after that.
Addendum: Lori and I tried handing out candies in 2012 and we had like five kids all evening, so it’s also possible my street is just super unpopular. [October 2, 2013]
Does this comic break my informal rule of No Dialogue In The Artwork? Kind of, although I often make exceptions for what I consider to be song lyrics. Three things:
1st, I was concerned that the Oompa-loompa’s expression alone (combined with the narration) wouldn’t be clear enough for people to make the association to their judgmental songs. Maybe I’m under-estimating my audience, but I felt like in this case the text added rather than took away.
2nd, I once had a film professor who was going on about the Dogme 95 movement. The movement had a lot of rules for how a film was to be made (natural light only, no guns to move the plot forward etc.) but the prof pointed out that what was more interesting about these films was they way they selectively chose to break their own rules. I happen to think he’s right, so that’s why it’s fun to do something unexpected from time to time.
3rd, and this has nothing to do with the “rules” but look at that green hair! I’m really proud of that hair. [October 2, 2013]
