In the last days of producing a comic, I get a bit strange, I think; can't stop working, no matter where I am, I'm imaptient with everything not precisely to the point, and every surface gets covered with doodles of the characters; in this case, Crispin, and Pritney the magic fish -- and, oddly, Crispin's mate John, though he's only in the strip for two panels -- as I go over and over them in my mind.

At the same time, images, details, phrases, patterns and suchlike become much more vivid and striking; lines like "needs some work but of robust german quality", "today is my friday", "you can have dates every day with different chicks" and "if you were an 8-handed goddess version of yourself, what would you be holding?" take on a jewel-like quality; and everywhere I look I see photographs.

It's probably just the lack of sleep.

With no time and an emergency head on I used up one of my one-time only-cards in This week's strip, the blank panel one. Still to go: comic strip about not knowing what to write about, comic strip about being late doing your comics strip. Any more? Can't think.

Anyone, this week's strip came from something concourse said, down the pub (I was working, and not paying attention to much else) about my ruining more of those lovely blank panels (I'm ruling the panels before I draw for Mermaunder) and while he meant it lightly I still had to grit at that, for all that I own (and treasure) a pop-up book blank and a zen children's book no artist wants to be told they're ruining the paper ... the same evening he took me to task for showing off work in progress, claiming it would diminish the effect of the finished product.

Well, that's comics, I guess, scrappy and scuffed; the world where it's all work in progress, and none of them are blank panels.