Firstly, I want to thank everyone who opened up in yesterday’s commentary about their own experiences with bullying and harassment. I know this stuff isn’t always easy to speak about or relive, and I wanted to say something openly to express my appreciation for sharing those with everyone. I am aware that the bullying aspects of the strip can bring back a lot of painful memories in readers, and I appreciate everyone trusting us with those stories. Thank you.

Secondly, today’s strip is a half-strip due to, basically, epic fail. ;P I knew I had to work today (or tomorrow at the time I was working on the strip) and at about 1am, as I was finishing up the character shadows and starting in on the backgrounds, I realized that I could not recall what TIME I had to be at work. My job is at a 24hr business (thankfully) so I gave them a call. Usually I don’t go to work until 4pm, but apparently I start work at 7:30 AM today. And it is now… 1:30 am.

So, bedtime, and backgrounds later in the day. Thanks for understanding and see you all Monday.

Oh, and for those that don’t follow the Selkie Facebook page, I sometimes make commentary on it while working on strips, and I shared an idle thought about the post-snowball fight strips you may be interested in.

Also, if you haven’t visited or liked/shared the Selkie Facebook page, great time to do so. PLUG! 😉

-EDIT- One little alteration, to fix some perspective issues I can only attribute to drinking a big hot steaming mug of FAIL.

I went through multiple iterations of what action Selkie should take to defend herself against Truck in this strip and had a hard time weighing pros and cons of different reactions. First draft of this scene, she bit him. And I did not miss all the readers calling for that particular action beforehand, either. ;) But I decided biting him, with her sharp teeth and venomous saliva, presented too many problems story-wise. How does she explain it to witnesses? How drastic of an effect does it have? Does Truck even LIVE through it? A different iteration on this theme had her spit a huge loogie in his face instead of biting, but that had the same problems. Another draft had Selkie screeching right in his face and slashing with her claws. The problem here is that Selkie, by the nature of her character design, walks a very fragile line where she can easily become too "monstrous" and lose empathy. Plus slashing with her claws creates more witness and severity of reaction problems on top of that. In another draft, she dodged the grab, returned snowball fire, and knocked Truck over on top of Amanda and Tony. It's funnier and more light-hearted than the other ideas and was a strong candidate for awhile, but made her victory too easy and robbed "Tommy the Truck" of his chance to establish himself as a valid threat in the Rogues Gallery. Ultimately, I went with the groin kick because it allowed Selkie to obtain a victory over her aggressor without overdoing the combat elements of the scene or making her victory too easy (you could probably argue that I made it a little TOO difficult for her actually...). Eventually, though... I'd like Selkie to utilize her saliva in self defense. But it's still too early for that. Someday, though. Someday...