But enough about Helen and Dave and their thing! Let's get back to Artie and his much more horrible evening! Even though my perspective drawing is crap as always, I did manage to give Dr. Narbon an appropriately insane bedroom. The bars on the window are probably the best touch. I still wasn't very good at drawing Artie naked, but I just needed time.

Artie's fondness for pockets has come up in Skin Horse as well. They're just really useful, is all.

I wrote this early on. I still enjoy it.

When this strip first ran, people expressed skepticism that Dave would need an hour for whatever's going on over there. Poor guy gets no respect.

The third panel has Artie's eyes the way I ended up drawing them. I'm probably the only person who cares about this, but I gradually shifted from doing Doonesbury-style parenthesis-shaped eyes to this sort of Archie Comics look. I continued to give Artie dot eyes for a while but eventually gave it up.

This was designed as filler strip to keep the plot going, but I like the timing from panel to panel. I also like that Dr. Narbon apparently leaves half-finished glasses of wine all over her lair. And barrels of... stuff.

I remember Eric Burns liking Mell's final line in this strip, but for me it's all about her line in the first panel. Because it's true. Notice how I got around drawing that? I'm so smart.

I also like the dorky photo of Young Helen. Again, depictions of Helen as a kid tend to be based directly on me.

Sorry for the late update. My computer was down last night. But now at last I can comment on this strip, which... You know, I remember being unhappy with it at the time, mainly because Artie's expression in the last panel didn't come out the way I wanted, but looking at it now it's pretty good. You really can't go wrong with Mell saying "junk."