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Yes, I did sit there and stare at that last panel for a long time. "This has no punchline," I said to myself. "This page has some funny stuff on it, but it ends with nothing. Is that what I want?"
I considered two possible changes. I could force a punch on the last panel, but any little throwaway I came up with just didn't have as much oomph as the stuff that came earlier. It would have felt forced. Anticlimactic.
I could also have dropped a drama point there, by having Bogroll explicitly point out that if Parson failed to show up in the Situation Room at dawn, he'd have disobeyed Stanley's order and would die.
I almost did that, but in the end I decided not to. Reason: Parson already knew it (and isn't really taking it seriously), Bogroll certainly knew it (and is taking it seriously, which shows), and the reader should know it already, too (and should be withholding judgement).
It would be a heavy-handed mood change in what was meant to be a light and personal scene. It would also be petty drama for nothing, since I had every intention of having Parson show up on time. We've got enough "DUM, dum, dummmmmmmmm!" in this story for now, relating to real plot points. No need for pointless foot-dangling when the whole story is set on a cliff edge.
So, in the end, I went with the natural "more to follow" panel that I think will flow quite well in a few months, when the story is one complete block. It wasn't exciting, but it did the job and it was exactly what Bogroll would say and do.
Sorry it wasn't fireworks, but this page really did a lot of necessary stuff. It established the Bogroll/Parson dynamic, did the costume change, began to answer some of the basics of daily life, and helped set a mood/tone we're working hard to establish. We want the comic to have that mundane feel of reality, even against a setting as bizarre and surreal as Erfworld. Jamie, I think, is doing a fantastic job at conveying that with his color choices (orange firelight before, and now ashen pre-dawn chill) and little visual details (the crumpled golem-skin on the bed).
I think I managed to do all of that, and still throw in three pretty decent gags. It just happened that none of them came at the very end.
I really don't intend to make the whole Erfworld writing process transparent like I do with PartiallyClips. But I hope you guys can see that I'm actually giving a lot of thought to these choices, and I'm making the best calls I can.