Original Commentary

It's been a while since we've seen the laundry mat... at least in this comic. I know it's been seen in Grover Hills and Ten Minutes to... (now, that's a name I haven't seen in a while) but it's been years since it's been seen in the comic the background was made for. It's a shame too, I really like this one.

It's also been a good long while since we've seen Lola and Kimberly... those two have a better relationship than Kimberly and her mother have- they have more conversations to. -Isabel

Modern Commentary
Grover Hills is a NamirDeiter.net-exclusive comic. It's based on Isabel's earliest comics and it stars Rocky, Rue (who was later Nicole and Derek's homeroom teacher), Tom (who was a recurring character in Namir Deiter as the guy Blue kept flirting with) and his wife Cassie (who are Avery's grandparents in Nicole and Derek).

Ten Minutes To... was a different namirdeiter.net comic that featured four characters based on our real-life cats. Three of them also showed up in Joy's kindergarten class.

I had wanted to put Leif, Miwa, and Susan in Nicole and Derek but never found the right place for them. Just as well. Those cats have all since passed on and it would be weird writing them now. - Terrence

Original Commentary

While drawing this comic yesterday, I asked Terrence, "In panel three, how is she reacting?". His response was "Well, Kimberly isn't exactly interested in the conversation-". "I meant Lola." "Oh, I picture her saying that with a smile", he said with a slight smile on his face, "Is that weird?". I told him yes... that's what makes it work. -Isabel

Modern Commentary
Because Lola likes talking about pro wrestling. She's a fan of a thing and enjoys it.

Not just for the oiled-up muscle-men in skimpy briefs. But not not for the oiled-up muscle-men in skimpy briefs. - Terrence

Original Commentary

Yes, an Internet argument. I can't be too negative about the Internet since that's our medium of choice. A few days ago, I felt I had to do something about a really fractious group. I could either do something about an Internet fan base or have Emily join some kind of radical student group. Since that would've involved coming up with a whole bunch of new characters (and you probably wouldn't care about their argument), it ended up like this - Terrence

Modern Commentary
I am so glad I didn't do the storyline where Emily joins a radical student group. That would've been such a bad idea, in part because my only frame of reference was MAD Magazine making fun of radical student groups in ways that were only marginally accurate when they were first published in 1968. - Terrence

Original Commentary

We've seen Kimberly complain about the lights in the hallway before. It's a set of two lights. One works, the other flickers - Terrence

When I showed this comic to Terrence, he had a problem with it- he didn't like the fact that Lola was only handing Kimberly one tape. He had meant for her to have lots of them. I explained she can only fit so much into that apron of hers and reworded the script so, in the end, there will be more tapes. Thus, the equilibrium is maintained. -Isabel

Modern Commentary
WCW Monday Nitro and WWE Raw were, at times, three hours long. "A few episodes" could be several business days worth of content.

Raw would, back when we were watching it, have overruns so it'd go to three and a quarter hours, which is entirely too long for a weekly episode of anything. It wore out its welcome after about two hours; after that, we didn't care who won or lost as long as the show ended. That was about when we stopped watching. I was like there are movies - good movies - that are shorter than this.

Also, the line in the last panel was originally "I'll bring the others to your apartment later tonight". I adjusted that to specify that she's bringing over videotapes. I don't like to rewrite things too much, but you've got to be clear sometimes. - Terrence

Original Commentary

Three times so far, they've shut off water for a day to make repairs. They leave us a note the night before and shut it off from 9 - 5. Problem is, I work the night shift so I wake up around noon and get no water. Slows a person's morning down, it does - Terrence

Modern Commentary
So, there are a number of folks who have played similar (but legally distinct) characters in different wrestling promotions. WWE has a habit of renaming wrestlers because if they come up with the name, they own it. However, this was inspired by Fred Ottman. I thought that he was Tugboat in WWE and Typhoon in WCW or maybe the other way around. That wasn't correct; he was Tugboat in WWE and changed his name to Typhoon when he turned heel.

He was The Shockmaster in WCW, who is an entirely different character. He wore a fur vest and a Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet covered in purple glitter. He's most famous for (intentionally) crashing through a wall and (unintentionally) falling down during his first appearance. Words cannot do it justice. Just watch is initial appearance.

But anyhow, I was wrong about the specifics of that character, but Broken Matt Hardy and Woken Matt Hardy are the same character with the same catchphrases. The only difference is that WWE owns Woken Matt Hardy. Or how Bryan Danielson and Daniel Bryan are the same guy but one name is owned by the WWE. - Terrence

Original Commentary

A gimmick, to explain things a bit, is what makes a wrestler stand out. They range from fairly realistic ones (like Rowdy Roddy Piper - I think he's Scottish or something. Also, he's a jerk) to silly (like Irwin R. Shyster, the wrestling tax attorney) to downright ridiculous (like The Shark, a wrestling shark-man hailing from the Great Barrier Reef). Sometimes they're more abstract. For instance, Captain Lou Albano's gimmick is that he's Captain Lou Albano. I still haven't figured that one out - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Kimberly was going to use all the student tricks. Restate your premise. Make the margins larger. Use a slightly larger font.

Kimberly has no intention of watching the tapes. There's, like, twenty 4-hour VHS tapes in there. Her plan is to sit down for an hour and...do whatever she does in her spare time. Then bring the VHS tapes back and tell Lola she's obviously right.

I never did figure out what Kimberly's hobbies are. I'm not sure she did either - Terrence

Original Commentary

This is the first comic I wrote in this arc. Mind you, in the original draft it started with "Kimberly is watching wrestling, bored, for 3 panels". It's been a long time since I've watched wrestling; the commentary in panel 3 is "heavily inspired" by a Hulk Hogan/Shawn Michaels match I found on YouTube. At least I think they said "Shoulder block". - Terrence.

The announcer commentary was written right before completing this one... it helps as a reminder of just what Kimberly is doing without spelling it out, much. -Isabel

Modern Commentary
The "Detention Suplex" is just a regular suplex. Maybe he does a little dance first or something.

I do note that the announcer is counting 3-2-1 for the pin rather than the traditional 1-2-3. Must be a regional thing. Not a mistake I made because I hadn't watched wrestling for fifteen years or so before writing this. - Terrence