Original Commentary
Note the Wedding Photo background on Kimberly's computer. The previous arc ended on a Friday. This one is the following Monday. As you can tell from the titles, Chair Trouble was a prelude to this - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Yeah, I should have made it more explicit that this storyline immediately follows the previous one; sometimes they don't. - Terrence

Original Commentary
All that I gave Isabel for the middle panel was "[flashback, showing Ms. Taylor extravagantly announcing that she is taking a day off]". I honestly meant to come up with something specific and put it in before the comic ran, but I didn't.

I usually shorthand some details when I write. Most of the one-shot characters are Mr. [lastname] until the day before the comic goes up. Otherwise I get distracted looking things up, and get less writing done - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Yeah, I wish I had come up with something better for that middle panel. There are a lot of moving parts in this story and I didn't have a good one-panel thing for this, and if I cut this comic, that would throw off the pacing of the week since the Sunday comic needs to run on Sunday...

Sometimes I think "one extra-large comic per week, on the day we think is best" might have been a better way, but sometimes you need to have a structure. - Terrence

Original Commentary
Brisbane still doesn't think of Ms. Taylor as his mother-in-law. He's too involved in her being his boss to really make the transition. And Kimberly is too caught up in Ms. Taylor being her mom to think of her as a boss - Terrence

Modern Commentary
One of the conversations we had was "We already did a 'Ms Taylor didn't show up today' storyline at the beginning of the year. Should we do another one?"

Obviously, we said yes. It's a major storyline here. It's not a rerun. It's a pattern of behavior. It's why they're currently just finding things mildly unusual.

Not to spoil things, but this is comic 3 of 80. Things will develop. - Terrence

Original Commentary
Terrence recently mentioned having things set up in the scripts where he'll write something like *something* and put that something in later on. Most of the time he doesn't and it's up to me to place something in there. Sometimes, it can be an entire scene, such as yesterday's panel two flashback. Today it was as simple as the last name to an unknown business man in panel one. I prefer these, as they don't involve much actual thinking from me. XD -Isabel

Modern Commentary
This is the next day. In most of these longer storylines, I've got a definite timeline and you can tell when the day changes because the characters' wardrobes change.

It's Tuesday. Brisbane and Kimberly came in to work on time, despite Kimberly grousing about it. - Terrence

Original Commentary
When I was pitching this arc, Isabel said "Wouldn't Ms. Taylor have some kind of plan for if she weren't there?". This is the result - Terrence

Modern Commentary
And day two is, in the notes, as "full-blown emergency". In retrospect, that's not how I'd really describe this but they're taking the situation seriously.

But also, Kimberly's right. If people can't find your emergency plan during an emergency, it's mostly useless. - Terrence

Original Commentary
Yes, Kimberly's second-worst fear is that the plan hasn't been updated in eight years and doesn't include her. Her worst fear is that the plan was updated recently and doesn't include her. The hardest part of the comic was phrasing it so it didn't say "Exit through the north exit" - Terrence

Modern Commentary
I kinda wish we had delved more into what Kimberly was afraid the plans would or wouldn't say. It would have been a nice character moment. But there's enough happening in this storyline. - Terrence

Original Commentary
Brisbane is uncertain. Kimberly is decisive. Because that's what they do in situations like this. So, together, they own more of the company than anyone (besides Kimberly's grandfather, who lives in another country). Does that mean they're in charge? Are you going to tell Kimberly otherwise? - Terrence

Modern Commentary
That's their dynamic. Brisbane handles people. Kimberly handles decisions. They balance each other well.

That was one of the things I wanted to do here - show Brisbane and Kimberly teaming up together against a larger problem that they couldn't solve individually.

But also, look at that smile in panel 4 - Terrence