Making of "Math Homework"

This is another one I've been bouncing around a while because I wasn't quite sure how to tell it. My oldest was getting into a flap about how stupid and pointless long division is, so I did what any parent would do -pretend it's important while privately completely agreeing with him! We got through the homework, but not before having to watch a bunch of long division how-to videos, further cementing my resentment towards it!

I knew this was comic material, but wasn't quite sure how to frame it. I originally wanted to have kitten Fran annoyed about long division and have her being told it's important to learn, only to jump forward to present day with her realizing that literally the only time she's used it is right now, forcing Vince to learn it like she did. A cycle of annoying math! I loved the concept, but there was no way it wasn't going to be a long comic with a pretty downer ending! I wrote a bunch of variations on the script and this one was J's fav -with the added punch of her needing to look it up at the end, which is what happened!

After coloring, I wasn't happy with Vincent's expression in the final panel. I use that staring into camera, small mouth look a lot already and it didn't seem right for Vincent. I wanted squinting eyes, but I try not to have characters hold their expressions over several frames (seems less "alive" somehow?) so to have squinting eyes at the end I had to change panel 2 to wide eyed.

I also had a problem with the pencils. I drew them separately for panels 1 and 2, but when I sized up the lines from 2 to draw the new expression in 4, the pencil in his hand was noticeably smaller than the broken one on the table! I had to go back in and resize the pencil in those panels. Very annoying!