Episode 6: "Guess Who's Coming for Snack?"

This blog is for me to share my comments on my ongoing experiment of creating the comic strip Alien Education. It's published by the high-tech means of sticking it to my office door.

I finally made some time Sunday before church to get episode 6 inked, so once again I can meet my target of a new episode every Monday.

This week's episode didn't involve as much experimentation with panels as some of them. I did try in the last line to use extra space to isolate the middle panel, hoping to create a sense that mom's stunned reaction lasts for quite a while. This trick is straight out of Scott McCloud's phenomenal Understanding Comics: the Invisible Art, so no credit to me for innovation. It was funny to find myself pressed for space when part of the point of this is to have extra space to work with.

In a couple of ways my little sketch version of this was better. I really showed the background, and made a little sight gag about Chuck's capacity to eat. But I still like the second panel, and it's still fun to watch these three bounce off of each other.

Next week a little more panel experimentation. Feel free to comment yourselves, if anyone's actually reading this!