Making of "Hard Pill to Swallow"

I always struggled to swallow pills until I met my husband and he taught me his family's trick. You put the pill in your mouth, forget it's there and then just drink normally through a straw. His grandfather apparently discovered it while working at 3M. They did some study into the best way to swallow pills and that one came out on top. Something about the way we drink with straws just opens the throat up! It can take a little bit of practice, especially with large tablets, because if your body gets wind of there being something there, then it can close up again, but once you do get used to the mechanism, it becomes a lot easier to swallow pills, even without a straw!

Roll on to us having kids and our oldest would fight us on the liquid medicine. He HATED it! You could put it in a drink, but then what happens if he doesn't drink it all? As they get older, it takes bigger quantities to be effective, so we reached a point where it was not happening. We taught him the straw technique and oh my goodness! Everyone was so much happier! No more fights over medicine! Just, down it goes!

Doctors and nurses were often surprised at someone so young opting for pills over liquid, so I'd eagerly tell them about the method in the hopes that they could spread the word. After a few years of doing that though, still nobody had heard of it! I thought about putting out a tweet, because the world needs to know, but then it hit me that a comic would go further!

I brainstormed ideas of how to tell the tale in a way that was informative, but still a bit funny. The break came when I rolled in the cat element. Giving pills to animals (especial cats!) is often a nightmare and sometimes people will wrap up their pet in a towel so they can shove the pill into their mouth. Fran casually appearing talking about "burritoing up" a kid was funny in itself and then I could get on with the PSA.

I wanted Fran going crazy in the last panel and my mind immediately went to Kermit flapping his arms around.

Often with these things I'll try drawing the reference pic and then draw it again, closer to my characters, but with this one, it made me laugh giving her a proper Muppet mouth, so I kept going! It was actually easier to draw Fran as a Muppet than try to draw her true proportions in that pose, so win-win!

I really hope this one can help some people! I did see one comment saying their 12yo can now take pills, so that makes it worth it right there! :)