Original Commentary
And thus it begins in media res, a fancy term for "the middle of the story". Why? To give it a sense of mystery, so you wonder what's actually going on - Terrence

Modern Commentary
When this originally ran, I noted to Isabel that this should be "One Morning (1 of ???)" and we shouldn't reveal how many comics are in the arc before it's over.

Usually we do this because we haven't quite finished writing things; sometimes a story can go in unexpected directions and branch off too places we never expected. YSIF is a very "deal with the emotional aftermath of what happened" comic.

This time, I was trying to be clever... - Terrence

Original Commentary
You can always tell when Terrence is the one who picks the character's outfit colors... he tends to go for a more daring look while I tend to go with safer colors. But I figure what the hey, it is his arc after all. Terrence had originally had Brisbane's words from this comic's panel one be his line in panel three of yesterday's, but I had drawn them with the old "didn't really get it" look on Brisbane's face in yesterday's. It wouldn't have looked as good. Fortunately I was able to convince Terrence to keep the line as it was, and all is right in the world... kind of. -Isabel

Modern Commentary
Sometimes, when you look at your old work you see things you wish you had done differently. Maybe a joke could've been told a little better. Maybe an emotional moment could be made a bit more prominent. A punchline could've used a little more punch.

This one, I thought I was being really clever. Looking back on it, I have no justification for that. - Terrence

Original Commentary
The guy started out as "Government Agent", with no description given. The night before it was drawn I said "How about one of the guys from the lounge?".
The original exchange was going to be:

Agent: I'm with the government
Brisbane: Which one?

But that got cut because of space, and because it was a verbatim quote from The Firesign Theatre - Terrence

Modern Commentary
So, there were a lot of webcomics that did sudden, jarring genre-shifts. In 2009, I'm sure. And also in the years before since I definitely wasn't reacting to anything recent.

So this is kind of a goof on that. It's not a good one. The best thing about it is that it's only one week long. It could be improved by cutting that week entirely - Terrence

Original Commentary
Brisbane hasn't seen the flying saucers. I'm not sure what his plan is. Anyhow, this is inspired just a bit by my re-reading Unlike Minerva, and how the Minerva Theatre reunion made Brisbane think just a bit about his past and his future. Notice how he thinks of himself as an organizer first - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Is the lounge guy smiling in the last panel? He was thinking of an unrelated thing that happened at work last week. Definitely not anything going on in this storyline... - Terrence

Original Commentary
I've seen them referred to as Purple Monkey Dishwasher comics - where jokes end with random gibberish in place of a punchline. It's kinda funny the first time, but I can't see the appeal of the tenth time.

The first draft had Brisbane name other comedians, and the agent would say why they were too busy to save the world. I could either make up Hypedonian comedians (in which case the reader would wonder if this was a reference he was supposed to get and all impact would be lost) or use existing comedians (which, in addition to being meaner than I'd like to be, would require me to do extensive research into bad comedians and exactly why they suck). That got nixed real quick - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Ok, the idea that Caleb's impression of Brisbane is funnier than Brisbane actually is? That's pretty good.

And accurate, because Caleb is doing it on purpose.

That would've been a good bit to have put into Unlike Minerva, ten years prior.

The bits about comedians from Hippedown, I wrote a script before I realized that it added complexity without adding depth.

B: Why me? Why not [name1]?
1: Lacks mainstream appeal, but kids think he's hilarious.
----
B: [name2]
1: He was pretty good in [movie]
---
B: That was only because of his costars. Anybody could've been good in [movie]. What about [name3]?
1: Busy.
B: Too busy to save the world from aliens?
1: Not aliens. Flying saucers.

And if I put in any names there, your first question will be "Should I know who that is?" and the answer would be no. - Terrence

Original Commentary
Yes, just a dream. Or is it? Showing thoughts or showing both sides of a phone conversation adds narrative truth to a story. Showing dreams takes it away. I'm not sure either should be done lightly - Terrence

Modern Commentary
It moves by a strange dream logic because it was a dream

Now, a sitcom can do a quick two-minute dream sequence that Gets Weird because it's immediately followed by another fifteen minutes that do things in the normal way. A three-panel-a-day webcomic does not have that luxury.

I'm not going to say it cannot be done in this medium - there are people working on webcomics with different talents than mine - but the medium is working against us here.

Which is a very long way of saying that it was funnier in my head - Terrence

Original Commentary
And yes, it was indeed only a dream. I'm not sure how many people saw that coming. I was emboldened by other webcomics that have had sudden genre shifts - if they could do it, then there was the possibility that I could. But that's why Kimberly is so awfully unconcerned, for instance, and why there are some odd transitions.

We have some vases that look just like that. They really do add color to the room - Terrence

The vases came from IKEA, and are actually right in front of my drawing area, I was told to draw a random looking thing- and these things are pretty random looking. -Isabel

Modern Commentary
I've never cared much for the "Suddenly, it's a different genre. Everything has changed. It was only a dream -- OR WAS IT?!"

So I figured, my best option waas to play it entirely straight and hope that my disdain showed through.

It was not a good option. I was in an Unlike Minerva state of mind, I think.

And this storyline...it's even worse than that.

As I've mentioned, we've had a variety of ideas about how to bring Nina back; one of them started with Brisbane getting lost in a dream, meeting Nina there, and realizing he has to - and wants to - go back to the real world with Kimberly.

This stupid meaningless one-week filler story just nixed that. We couldn't do that seriously after doing this. Isabel pointed this out to me after this ran, unfortunately. I would've burned this if I had realized. - Terrence