What a nightmare this strip was.  Sometimes moving the plot along is a joy.  Anytime I do it I already know what the point of the strip is, I just have to figure out what the joke is.  Except…for this one…I had no joke.  I had a set-up, but no payoff.  Still, I started drawing, trusting that my ambitious 6-panel strip would find its way.

Halfway through drawing I realized I’d drawn eight panels. Oops. What we have in the end is a strip that was written pretty much panel-by-panel as improved my way through it.  Not the best working conditions, but it kind of worked out.  This is actually one of the stronger pieces I’ve done, I think.  I like how each panel has an echo of color in another panel.  It was completely unintentional, but the match-up goes something like this:

1=7
2=8
3=6
4=5

Pretty crazy, huh?

Panel 5 is a lift and magnification of a panel from strip 54 in Chapter 2.  No, I didn’t know I was going to follow up on it when I originally did it.  However, I needed to give Gene some motivation and there it was!