Making of "Nightmare Fuel"

I had an idea of everything going crazy around Fran while she's doing some universally hated thing.  She wakes up screaming and for a second we think it was because of the horrors she just witnessed, but instead it was mundane thing she had to do.

I didn't yet know what the thing would be, but before anything else, I had to see if my friend JTA was up to collaborate, because this kind of thing is exactly his wheelhouse.  He was very excited, so I had to nail down the punchline.

I came up with things like going to the gym, having to exercise in a group, attending a parent teacher conference and getting a call from school.  That last one gave me the idea of the classic "terrified of talking on the phone" phobia that so many people (me included!) have nowadays.  It was the perfect level of ridiculousness! 

I sketched out the strip and handed it over to JTA.  I told him to go nuts on the first 3 panels, with her remaining pretty much untouched and everything getting increasingly mad around her.  His first draft was tamer than I was expecting, so I instructed him to dial up the insanity.  The 2nd draft was actually a bit further than I had in mind, but after sitting with it a while I came to love it!  My only issue was that with Cooper taken off the counter it looked too bare.  J suggesting removing the eyeballs between Cooper and Fran and making the counter eyebally instead.  JTA moved forward with no changes from me after that.

Once he sent me his final version, I was worried that the joke had become unclear.  I needed it obvious that she was scared of making a regular phonecall, not having to make a phonecall on a horrible squirming monster phone!  I really liked his phone so it pained me to do it, but I switched it back to a regular phone.

Lastly, he'd done this great effect with blue and red linework on top of the black.  It looked cool, but I thought having it progress more gradually would add to the increasing sense of insanity.  I completely removed the effect in panel 1 and the blue line from panel 2.

It's always a bit scary working with friends, but JTA was so great at following my directions while also bringing his own flair to the comic.  I love how it turned out! :)