Far Out There

Huh, that’s weird. After the nightmare that was yesterday’s page, this one came together like a breeze. I mean, it’s still late, but that’s just ‘cos I got started late ‘cos I was wrapping stuff last night. As far as actually drawing the thing went, this was super easy. Admittedly, I did have to reconceive the second panel, originally it was supposed to be more of an overhead angle where you could actually see the ring in the distance behind Frank, but that wouldn’t been to much of a headache to pull off. For once, though, I actually caught the problem BEFORE I started drawing, which saved hours for frustration and thrown out pages. And, honestly, I like the peaking-over-the-crowd angle better anyway. It gave me a chance to squeeze in the backs of a bunch of rarely-seen character’s heads (I wonder how many of them stayed recognizable from behind?)

Not a whole lot to say otherwise, except that this whole “inflatable reindeer” running gag is a reference to the beach balls that occasionally plague WWE shows (particularly the ones the night after a major pay per view, where the crowds are still hungover and rowdy from the night before, apparently). I find myself wanting to expound upon the people who do disruptive stuff like that, but it’d basically just be me dusting off an old rant about people who go to conventions and spontaneously decide to throw their own part in the middle of somebody else’s event. Gotta save that stuff for Conventional Wisdom, right?

EDIT: …aaaaaand somehow I managed to post a version that’s missing one (and ONLY one) line of dialog. Really not sure how that even happened, but I’ll have it fixed in a sec. Whoopsie!

(Historical Notes: Man, even if it’s just for one random, non-canonical moment, it still feels WEIRD to see Cap’n Crosby in short sleeves.)