Making of "Finally"

Star Wars Day (May The 4th Be With You) was fast approaching and I felt bad that I would just be posting the cupcake comic AGAIN.  I'm nerdy!  Surely I had another Star Wars joke in me?!  And so began a miserable week of trying to come up with a Star Wars comic. 

I got stuck on 2 ideas.  The heartbreak of kids not liking a cherished childhood movie and something about Vincent being Kylo to Joel's Han Solo.  My first sketch combined the 2 ideas -the kids being like little Kylo's, stabbing Joel in the heart with their lightsabers when they don't like Star Wars.  It was a bit weird though, so I kept pushing ideas around.  Getting nowhere, I turned to my friend group chat.  I posted some of the ideas I'd had and "Vincent leaving because of the reading at the start" was a winner with them.  One of my good friends, Inez (wife to Last Place Comics) suggested throwing in an "It's a Trap!" gag in there somewhere to add another level to it.

So I had a direction at last!  But how to tell the story?  I initially kept the camera facing the sofa so you could see their reactions (one of my rules is to favor showing reaction faces) but I worried that without seeing the screen people might not get the joke.  So I spun the camera around to see the screen, but I didn't want to draw all the stuff AROUND the screen (cabinets and such) so I went with a Mystery Science Theater 3000 silhouette look.  (Honestly I haven't really watched Mystery Science Theatre 3000, but it's popular with my friends and seemed like a good visual solution!)

I showed my progress to J and he suggested having the last panel face the sofa and adding another panel to up the drama.  I wasn't really sure he was right, but I did miss showing Cooper leaping over Fran's legs, so I went along with it.

Now with 3 panels, I tried to add a joke into the 2nd one by making the kittens tilt their heads the way cats do when they're confused.  I loved the idea, but it wasn't terribly clear what was going on, so I backtracked.  

I realized Vincent hopping off the couch on the final panel looked like this SpongeBob meme, so I leaned into it!

All said and done?  I'm not sure I got what I was after with this one.  It's alright, but still missing something I can't quite put my finger on!  I do wonder if I should have just stuck with the 2 panel silhouette one.  Trying to force out a Star Wars comic on a deadline might not have been the best idea!  On the plus side, on Star Wars Day, my kids delivered not one, but TWO funny comic ideas!  So next year will be a breeze! :)