Original Commentary
When I as writing this, Isabel told me "Just make sure it's easy to draw". So I wrote four days of one-sided phone conversations. The problem is that once you start doing that, it's tough to justify showing the other side in future comics. I know we've done arcs both ways before - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Yes, Sofia has just left her apartment.

And "Get-together at my place. Bring food and movies" shouldn't take this level of co-ordination but here we are. - Terrence

Original Commentary
Do they even make TVs without built-in speakers? I hope so. I realized that they might not, but I liked the joke. Robert, like me, buys things online because they're cheaper then, when he gets them, realizes why they're so cheap - Terrence

Modern Commentary
My job has changed a bit between now and then, but over half of it is still translating between what people are asking for and what they actually need.

This is inspired by Black Friday sales. Sometimes stuff is a couple bucks cheaper because they downgraded or removed some features. Maybe your laptop has less RAM. Maybe your stereo doesn't have an RCA input. Maybe your TV doesn't have speakers. - Terrence

Original Commentary
I try to remember to give the name of the person on the other end of the line. The difficulty in one-sided phone conversations is making sure that the reader knows what's going on, without having one of those soap-opera style phone calls where they're obviously just repeating what the other person said in the form of a question. I mean, if the end you hear goes "They kidnapped my uncle?!" "They want one billion dollars?!", then the other end is almost certainly "Joe, they kidnapped your uncle." "And they want one billion dollars" - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Why don't they have this shindig at Sandra's? Because she's house-sitting at her uncle's. It's a fancy place and they'd be terrified of breaking something. It's full of technology that was very expensive and advanced thirty years ago. There's no documentation of how any of it works and Sandra can't decipher the pictograms on the remotes.

I'm not sure why Sandra couldn't decamp back to her own apartment and host everybody else, other than Jane is organizing this shindig and Sandra is too shy to suggest this.

Jane hasn't been over to Sandra's yet and isn't about to invite herself over, especially since Sandra isn't there herself. - Terrence

Original Commentary
I hadn't originally planned it like this, but as soon as Sofia said she didn't want to cook, it was just about certain that she was going to cook something before this arc ended. Anyhow, I went to college in Gainesville. Gainesville is a college town, as opposed to other places I've lived, which are simply towns with colleges in them. The hardest thing to adjust to was the schedule; there were a few times I was trying to find something to eat at ten only to find that everything closed an hour or two ago - Terrence

Modern Commentary
What are they going to do, be like "Sandra, we're having a get-together and you're invited. It's your turn to bring food".

And she would, but they'd be afraid that it seems like they only invited her to get a free meal out of it.

I figure Jane would be a bit more annoyed in the last panel. Perhaps I rewrote this after it was drawn. I do that sometimes. - Terrence

Original Commentary
Yes. Finally, we've got a comic with more than one character. It had to happen eventually. I don't think I could've done it where they never met up. Anyhow, there were a whole bunch of discarded drafts that involved Sandra bringing some kind of fancy food thing because it was just sitting around, thereby invalidating the hard work Sofia put into cooking. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the idea to go any further than that - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Could Sofia even get popcorn? The pizza place is closed, what else is open? Was she going to walk to the movie theatre, and pick up an extra-large bag to go? - Terrence

Original Commentary
Yes, I think this is the first pregnancy we've had in You Say it First. Lawrence and Collette have never shown up and aren't married, at least not yet. They probably never will show up. Emily is the only one who knows them, and Collette doesn't like her. Anyhow, why all this? Because relationships can get really complex if you don't manage them right, and Emily is really bad at it - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Sofia's line in the second panel was originally "You have to watch this one first" rather than "It won't make sense unless you watch them in order". Because I had to adjust the line anyhow so it'd fit. I don't change a lot, but I didn't feel that it got across the idea that there's strict continuity between those two stupid, stupid movies - Terrence

Original Commentary
I was sure that Emily mentioned going out with Rod some time during year one. I can't find it right now. Anyhow, after the second comic in the arc, it pretty much had to end like this. So, will David ever show up again? I'm considering it - Terrence

Modern Commentary
I've probably mentioned it before, but I don't care for Marmaduke. I don't understand how they got seventy years of material out of "Dog is big".

I started Unlike Minerva for a variety of reasons. One of them is that I felt newspaper comics were stagnant and I could do things differently and better. I was in my early 20s, which is a good time to have such thoughts. I have generally been disabused of that notion; telling ongoing stories is more difficult than it looked. My weird comic didn't take the world by storm. I'm glad we tried, though. You have to try doing things.

But also, Marmaduke is pure hackery - Terrence