Original Commentary

And that's why we didn't have Sofia go with Brisbane. It would've been very interesting, but I can't see it being very productive. Assuming that Sofia didn't start on Kimberly when they saw each other, Sofia would jump into the discussion the moment she sensed weakness on either side. But if Brisbane couldn't deal with Sofia, he definitely couldn't deal with Kimberly - Terrence

Modern Commentary
One of the tricks to overcoming procrastination is to come up with a bigger, less appealing task. That way you can use the more urgent task (eg. mowing the lawn) to avoid the new task (eg. cleaning out the entire attic).

If you're currently doomscrolling social media to avoid mowing the lawn, then that's a step forward. The attic never gets cleaned out, but a lot of other things get done.

In this case, he's able to go talk to Kimberly to avoid the less pleasant job of explaining to Sofia why he's not talking to Kimberly. - Terrence

Original Commentary

"Pesky". I believe that's the first negative thing Brisbane has said about anybody. At least to them. You have to start somewhere. Sofia is family, and besides, she doesn't really have anyone else to turn to - Terrence

Modern Commentary
And whatever I had originally wrote got overwritten. But a comic about Brisbane not moving forward towards the big confrontation is also, metatextually, a comic about me not having written that comic with the big confrontation yet. - Terrence

Original Commentary

I wrote this comic. The script for the first panel read, as I originally had it, "do something with this comic - maybe Brisbane complaining about Sofia having changed". So Isabel wrote that line, which brings the point home. He didn't want the Sofia of Unlike Minerva. He wanted the Sofia he knew before that, who you readers have seen only in flashbacks. Funny how what you ask for isn't always what you want - Terrence

Modern Commentary
I mean, Brandie was cheating on him, dumped him, and was pregnant with someone else's child at that point. That was kind of a good exit point for that relationship. By which I mean she broke up with him, not the other way around.

But we all like to think that we have control over our lives even when sometimes we are merely carried by the tides. And if it takes Brisbane telling himself that he dumped Brandie for him to start swimming against the current, then at least it's a harmless lie. - Terrence

Original Commentary

Yes, it is December 24th in the comic. Not much else to say - Terrence

I usually try to keep the time-line within the comic as much in time with real life, but with longer story arcs such as this, you kind of have to jump around and "time travel" in order to make things go well. I think this is the first time You Say it First has done something along this line. -Isabel

Modern Commentary
This is set an hour or so before the previous comic. Kimberly isn't going to bed right as Brisbane arrives. It makes narrative sense to show Brisbane arriving first, though. - Terrence

Original Commentary

Note that Brent has put on weight. Kimberly has no real idea how much to feed him or when to stop. I thought we should have a comic before this, with Sofia wandering around Brisbane's apartment and worrying about where he was out so late. Isabel said it'd add pointless drama, and she's right. It'd distract from our main point - Terrence

Modern Commentary
The next morning. The third panel is the hallway outside the apartment. If we had another panel, we probably would have shown Kimberly opening the door. - Terrence

Original Commentary

So where was Kimberly last night? Well, if we look at the comic for the 19th, she went right to bed on Christmas Eve- so one can determine from this is that she just went to bed on Christmas Eve. Of course, if you were talking to someone who you were going out with, wouldn't you want to rile him a little bit, too? -Isabel

Modern Commentary
Brisbane knocked, but he didn't knock loudly. That and Kimberly is a sound sleeper. - Terrence