You're Lost, Little Girl

This strip was in rewrites quite literally until the moment I typed the punchline into PotatoShop when dialoguing it. It was originally going to be an eight or nine panel affair with a lengthier exchange about the door and another joke before Tara got to the point. When I read it back at first Tara seemed to just be feeding Halifax lines, which seemed stupid, given the circumstances. I cut two or three panels to make way for the huge first panel (I felt it was important to have the shellshocked Tara appear in a splash panel, for some reason).
There was even another panel scripted and drawn that Mary and I decided to cut when laying out the strip -- put simply, we had too much dialogue already and an unfinished punchline. (We couldn't decide if Phil Collins or Geri Halliwell was the most evil person on Earth.) So instead it was cut and an extra line added to the existing panel five -- one that conjures rather pleasing mental images of Hindu gods in some kind of EastEnders-esque setting. ("Oi, Brahma, wass goin' on?" etc. I may do a strip on that idea at the end of the year, if I remember.)

Art-wise, I love this strip. I think this is the first time I've really nailed it with what Tara should look like, especially in the more advanced art style that Year Two has adopted. Halifax here adopts something of a mime role, if for no better reason than the other two panels of Tara are meant to be taken from the first as she sits there unmoving. (So no, it isn't artistic laziness. For once. And I think it works well, to be honest.)