Making of "Ready to Tumble"

The kids were playfighting on our bed -which is pretty high.  J walked in and 7yo (while getting repeated hit in the head with a pillow) cheerfully explained that they were playing "Idiots: Battle Arena", to which J replied "Looks like you're both winning" and left.

I wanted to up the ante for the comic -make them even MORE ridiculous!  I immediately thought of the old British show "Gladiators" where two contestants would stand on pillars and try to knock each other off with giant q-tips:

I wanted the kids to look like that, but with random things they'd found around the house.  I needed to make it look unsafe, but not dangerous, so all blunt weapons.

I showed J what I'd done, but he said they looked like they were having too good a time!  The senseless, repetitive attack was vital to the joke.  I moved them closer and had Cooper smacking Vince with the fly swatter, then gave Vince a more derpy expression.  Once I had them figured out, I could just repeat the art, changing their expressions slightly in the 2nd panel.

Joel's expressions ended up being the tricky bit!  Those ambiguous expressions are always hard to nail.  I could easily do it if it was animated; a flash of deadpan, followed by a coy smile and delivery, but with a comic you only get 1 frame to tell a complicated emotional story.  I leaned more deadpan initially, but J cautioned against him looking too grim while talking to the kids.  He doesn't hate what they are doing, he just thinks it's dumb.

I was also having an issue with Joel looking like he was walking sideways.  I can usually get away with their heads barely turning, but it looked weird here.  I drew him slightly more in profile (an angle I'd never drawn before for him) and cheered him up.  The emotion behind the punchline still isn't quite where I wanted it to be, but I'd rather err on the side of him being entertained than mad.