For the record, I do not have an iPod. My MP3 levels seem normal, at least to me. (Sorry -- I desperately wanted to insert that empathy/MP3 pun in the strip but couldn't find a home for it without the dialogue feeling forced. A lesson I have to relearn again and again, and sometimes do not heed: Be ready to leave favourite gags on the cutting-room floor if they get in the way of the flow.)
Another lesson: re-read the comic strip again and again before sending to print. A word was left out when inking -- it was too late to correct the error in Eye Weekly, but it's correct here and in other papers. When I letter, I sometimes get so caught up in the ink flow that I lose track of the meaning. I think I was looking forward to a week-long respite from cartooning deadlines and quality control went through the window.
[Cartooning Geek Speak Ahead!] For this cartoon, I experimented with a different technique to convey nighttime. Normally, I would colour the cartoon in shades of blue (see the previous bed scene). While it made for a quicker colouring process, it got a little boring. Here I coloured everything normally, then applied a desaturate filter, plus a muted cyan layer (set to "mulitply") above it. I like how it looks on-screen; it remains to be seen whether it turns to mud on newsprint.
 10 Years Ago This Week: January 9, 1997
As 1997 broke in Ontario, we were being buffeted by a cutback culture, so cutting the new year by 20 percent fitted the Zeitgeist. But no amount of cuts could prepare me for the spike in seventies fashion crimes.


Retailers for Attack of the Same-Sex Sleeper Cells:
Toronto:
Pages, 256 Queen Street West (at John). On the graphic novels table.
The Beguiling, 601 Markham Street (near Bloor and Bathurst)
Book City, three locations - 501 Bloor St. West, 348 Danforth Ave., 663 Yonge St.
Hairy Tarantula, 354 Yonge Street (near Dundas).
Guelph:
The Bookshelf, 41 Quebec Street.
Macondo Books, 18 Wilson Street
Waterloo: Words Worth Books, 100 King Street South
Kitchener: KW Bookstore, 308 King Street West
Hamilton: Bryan Prince Bookseller, 1060 King Street West
Ottawa: Collected Works, 1242 Wellington Street West (at Holland)
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