Coming to a convention near you...

As I’m writing this, tomorrow are the Indiana and North Carolina primaries. I made some predictions last time, most of which proved to be false, so I’ll keep it simple this time.

• Something very important will happen tomorrow. Or it won’t.

I feel reasonably confident in this prediction.

Today’s cartoon has its origins in a previously rejected cartoon. Before the end of winter quarter I had kicked around the idea of doing a fake preview for the next quarter of “No Exit Nearby.” One of the ideas was Jim at the Democratic National Convention, rushing through an aisle of delegates screaming, “My God, Gravel’s gonna do it!” (This was before Gravel switched to the Libertarian Party).

The idea lay dormant for awhile, and after hearing weeks of discussion about how, “It’s going all the way to the convention!” the idea came roaring back.

These type of cartoons, which are a series of blackout gags, can be fun to do because you cram as many background jokes as you want without really distracting from the point. Since there’s really no story I’m telling, a sign like “Smoky Backroom-No Smoking” doesn’t cause the reader to lose their train of thought while reading the cartoon.

The “Smoky Backroom-No Smoking” joke by the way is one of my favorites. I have no idea if it amuses anyone else, but I really think it’s a very clever poke at political stereotypes.

The second panel originally revealed the middle finger in all its glory. I thought that if there was going to be a problem, then I should let my editor deal with it. Then I realized the other scenario could be me getting fired, so I chickened out and hid the bird. By the way, the “censored” on the middle finger is the first time I’ve used a computer typeface in a cartoon. I’ve avoided using typefaces as they look too computer generated and artificial, which breaks from the strip’s deliberately hand-made style. However, it did work here, and if it would work again in the future, I wouldn’t be hesitant to use it.

Fun Fact #43: Panel three features a very rare Jillian, namely her talking out of the side of her head. Jim does this all the time with no problems, but it’s much rarer on Jillian for obvious reasons. Simply put, she looks horrible, as it completely breaks her character structure, and she looks like a much different character. As a rule, I never draw Jillian like that. Rules are made to be broken however, and I break it here as it’s very effective. If you were about to die, wouldn’t you talk out of the side of your head?