Original Commentary

In order to stretch out the suspense a bit longer, panel three of today's comic was moved to Tuesday's comic and the second panel of today's comic turned into panels two and three... ok that wasn't the real reason... there just wasn't enough action in Tuesday's comic and I felt it worked better. Far less lop-sided. I'll try to have Tuesday's comic updated right on time to keep the suspense down... -Isabel

Modern Commentary
Nothing to add here. It's all anticipation. Sometimes you've got to create a moment.

Or, rather, you should always structure the comic so that folks want to see what the next strip will bring. Sometimes we're very good about that (usually when Isabel is writing) and sometimes less so (usually when I'm writing). - Terrence

Original Commentary

Yes, he named the pet. This is, of course, the least interesting part of today's comic. This is, of course, the beginning of something big. That's really all I can say that doesn't give things away - Terrence

Modern Commentary
I will point out that Kimberly has been gone for two or three hours, giving Brisbane plenty of time to doom-spiral. Also, neither of them have cellphones. This could have gone better if they could have texted each other.

I like what Isabel did with the shading in the second panel. - Terrence

Original Commentary

Even I feel that this story arc is going a bit slowly, same as ND. It may take a little time, but right now it needs to take a little time - Isabel

Modern Commentary
I feel bad for Kimberly here.- Terrence

Original Commentary

...and Kimberly starts to realize that she in fact may not know Brisbane as well as she thought she did and the basis of one of her reasons to be mad is now crumbling... how this will affect her in later strips will become more apparent later. Sorry that we have to be so hush-hush about this... but we have to be careful not to give too much away. -Isabel

Modern Commentary
NDU in-jokes! Carl is the male lead in Spare Parts and Banira is the male lead in The Shokora Diaries (which is only available at NamirDeiter.net).

We've gotten Carl and Robert confused a few times, ourselves. They're more similar than different. In the NamirDeiter.net library (where all our characters hang out "backstage"), there have been a handful of appearances by Fuzzy Spare Parts Carl and Human YSiF Robert, which just complicates things further. - Terrence

Original Commentary

Of course, the job situation complicates things even further. And yes, Kimberly waited a bit before heading back to Lola's. Same day, just a few hours later from their first conversation. Lola has a lot of faith in Brisbane, and in the relationship - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Lola knows a little about Kimberly's family drama. Not the full story, but she knows the basics from Kimberly venting.

But as you can tell from the third panel, she's here to give Kimberly encouragement. She's not here to give a blunt and honest assessment. That's not what the situation calls for.

Especially at 2 AM or so.

Hope for the best for the future, believe in the good of others, and figure out what you'll do if that doesn't happen. - Terrence

Original Commentary

I love it when Kimberly uses ambiguous words like "together".

A few days ago, when we were out doing laundry, Isabel wrote the next three weeks of You Say it First. But this comic wound up getting left out and was 75% finished. So tonight she asked me to finish it up. The third panel was mine, to be exact. I was going to have the line be "...instead of being a man and talking to me", but that pulled emotions in the wrong direction. Toughest part was finding enough synonyms for "upset" to make the dialogue seem varied, but not make Kimberly seem like Thesaurus Girl. Isabel had already used the good ones - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Note: Brent does not eat three cans of tuna. He will reject the first two cans of tuna, uneaten. He will, reluctantly, eat the third one since his owners obviously aren't going to feed him anything better today.

Brisbane eats a lot of tuna fish sandwiches for lunch. - Terrence