When You Least Expect

Just when you think you're going to totally be done doing a thing, an idea hits and it's too generally decent to ignore. Not exactly that it's too good to pass up, just that the idea is so exactly what is expected and necessary that you can't not do it.

Am I the only one with this sense of things? Of incredible mediocrity so massive that it's impressive in its own right? You've heard me talk about Sapporo, right? That stuff is amazingly middle-of-the-road. The whole reason I turned from "Ugh, beer" to "Well, beer, I guess!" was because of Sapporo's incredibly unassuming, beer-like taste. When you think of a beer, you are thinking of the way Sapporo is, whether you know it or not. It's the beeriest beer, the Platonic beer. Ur-beer. We do not love it because it is the best beer, but because it is the most beer beer you can find.

In the same way, we were gripped with fervor to make this comic because the idea was so wholly, ideally standard in an entirely Polytopes way. It is a very good thing. Of course the couch and Puppy's ring-thing are easily recognizable. I'm vaguely proud of the sub-conversation in the background, not for its content but for its presentation, because for the longest time I couldn't figure out how to make whispering in the background happen.

Almost as if to balance out that pride, I frown at the way the word bubbles in the last panel worked out. I should probably just get rid of the bubble-tail leading to Rondo, so it doesn't look so much like he's the one screaming. Oh well. At least the third panel and the bubbles leading to it transition nicely, and I like that Otto remembers the event incorrectly. It sure made the comic easier to write!