For various reasons it is sometimes extremely difficult to come with a new idea when I sit down to write a comic. Since I have almost never had any kind of backlog of work, I have done almost every comic on the day and as such my mental state is subject to the various pressures and goings-on of that day. And some days it just doesn’t seem possible to write something good.

At those times I have the debate that I’ve never really managed to definitively solve in the years since I started Interesting Times; is it better to post nothing at all than to post something I know will be lackluster? More often than not I try to write SOMETHING, partly because I don’t want to fall out of the habit and partly because I have learned that I really can’t predict which comics are going to really resonate with people. [May 22, 2011]