Original Commentary

I had the trickiest time with the last panel's background... long, really boring story short (that really just consists of a lot of clicking and even more swearing) I lost the first version of the elevator background, so in frustration I drew this one in about 5 minutes ><. May make it again for tomorrow's comic, may not. I'm still feeling bitter about it.

I really dislike losing backgrounds, if you couldn't tell.

...and I think Kimberly's outfit's colors got swapped a few comics back... oh well, they'll both be grey in the book anyway XD (I really should make customized color palates per story arc- especially with epics)-Isabel

Modern Commentary
Yeah, the original script for the comic four days ago Dan mentioned that Ms. Taylor tried to bribe Kimberly.

I'm glad Isabel suggested I save that detail for later; Brisbane wouldn't have let that go without follow-up questions and sometimes you need to let things move forward - Terrence

Original Commentary

Not the company car. The coffee machine. And yes, they're still in the Lemon Technology offices. I was considering having them head home, but I'd rather have a little mystery about how they get too and from work. I like how Isabel drew the last panel; they're touching each other so you can tell they're not mad. They just had things to talk about - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Is a company car worth $20,000? I mean, you get to use it but you don't own it. And you're probably theoretically only supposed to use it for official company business.

I mean, not like anybody could call them on it. But it's not the same as owning your own car. - Terrence

Original Commentary

Yes, it is a pattern in which things happen and are, a week or two later, explained. It seems to be my style when writing You Say it First. Kimberly's original line in the last panel was "If it happened again, I'd tell you". But when I reread it it took me a moment to figure out what she was talking about. And if the writer can't figure out his own words, he changes them - Terrence

Modern Commentary
That's what makes this storyline different - Brisbane and Kimberly were trying to solve this problem separately. As a result, they helped push the pieces together to solve it but they weren't really integral to the solution.

They were lucky that Constance, Clarence, and Dan managed to work something out. I like to have the solutions come from who the characters are. - Terrence

Original Commentary

Like in today's Namir Deiter, Mr. Taylor's funky chicken scratch is also a font that I made of my own hand-writing. This was actually the first of the two and thus has lower case versions of the letters.

That's 20,000 for those of you who can't see it well. Now we know why Mr. Taylor needed that money so quickly. -Isabel

Modern Commentary
So, does this set things even between Kimberly and her father? I mean, he kinda "borrowed" her college fund and left her homeless for a little while.

But she managed to land on her feet and this is a nice gesture. The past cannot be undone but debts have been repaid - Terrence

Original Commentary

Now for some backstory to the backstory. When I started seriously thinking about how Lemon Technology ran, I was working for this company. One of my co-workers was the owner's grandson (let's call him Junior). His father (Senior) was the manager of that department. Not a department head or even a high-level manager. He managed about ten of us. All three - grandfather, father, and son - had the same last name. But Senior's position and the few details he told me about his youth didn't add up with him being the son of the company founder. Or he was a serious black sheep back in those days. The most reasonable explanation I had was that Senior took his wife's name and kept it after the divorce. I have no idea if that's true or not.
Interestingly, he was a vice president. But so were three other people in that department. About a third of the employees were vice presidents, so I'm not sure it actually meant anything. There were about three or four people between him and the actual Executive Vice Presidents, which is a lot in a fairly small company. One of Junior's uncles was an executive vice president. Or family must've just played favorites. Anyhow, it was something that was in my mind when I was designing the Lemon Technology power structure - Terrence

Modern Commentary
I'm glad that Isabel wrote the follow-up/epilogue here because having it end on a hug is a bit anticlimactic.

Did this story do what we set out for it to do? I mean, kinda. The goal was to get Brisbane and Kimberly a bit more active and it succeeded but not in the way I originally meant (see next chapter). Instead it set Kimberly and her mother in a conflict that would culminate the comic.

But that's kinda how it goes. You can't go back to the past. All you can do is tear down the past to create your own future. That's what half of You Say it First is about, really. - Terrence