Making of "Witch"

I was in a doctors waiting room with my oldest when he was little and a lady with an eyepatch walked in.  I bet you can guess where this is going!  Yes... wide-eyed, voice trembling with excitement, he asked her if she was a pirate.  I can't remember exactly what she said, but she took it in her stride, obviously used to the question from little ones by now.

Browsing over the Comictober prompts I saw "Witch" and wondered how often something similar happens to goths.  I've met so many friendly goths over the years, I can imagine them replying as sweetly as the "pirate" lady did.  It would be a nice moment, everyone smiling.  What then, I wondered, would it be like for the unfiltered child to shatter that wholesome moment with an inexcusable follow up?!  There was a comic here!

The "witch" of course needed to be a toad (green, warts).  The family had to be trapped socially with her somehow, like her as a cashier, checking out their groceries.  I came up with a few options for Vince:

"That’s a shame that you’re just a boring lady"

"Yeah I guess if you were magic you could wish yourself out of this crummy job!"

"See, I told you Cooper! She's just ugly."

On realizing I'd have to draw a bunch of shop stuff, I moved them to a (much easier to draw!) waiting room.  J suggested changing it to "normal ugly", which was exactly the level of burn I was after!

I designed the toad from the 1st panel on another page and then drew the others directly into the comic.  If you look closely at the animated GIF, you can see that I adjusted her a lot in panels 2 and 3.  I really liked her proportions in the original drawing and struggled to keep her on model.

I recalled how my oldest had been so in awe of the "pirate".  He was a little scared, but also drawn to her.  I wanted Coop to be doing the same, pushing on Fran's arm to get a closer look, but also hiding a bit.  I placed a handbag on Fran's lap for him to press/hide behind, which also made the whole thing easier to draw!  Love those win-win moments!

When it came time to fill in the magazines, I vaguely remembered this tweet exchange:

I say vaguely, because I forgot it was supposed to be a costume, but it gave me the idea of giving Vince a Quest Sprout comic!

I couldn't think of anything for the toad, so I asked J for ideas.  He immediately suggested a French cooking magazine (frogs legs and all!) so I Googled some reference pics and put something together quickly.

I added the blue effects to the background to emphasize Fran's discomfort. I left Vince with the normal background, because of course, he doesn't feel the cringe at all!