It’s probably not wise to admit, but Rich and I spent way, way too much time hashing out Li’s punchline. See, it started simply enough. Becky said, “Eww! Mike and Dallas?!” and Li said her line. Unfortunately, Li’s original punchline just wasn’t that funny. And I found it a little out of character, even though I was the genius who wrote the line in the first place.

So we tried lines. Abusrd lines, sarcastic lines, non-sequiteurs, even Scrubs-like dissertations reminiscent of Dr. Cox. We tried lines that weren’t funny (intentionally), and several revolving around her cup of cocoa. But none of them hit the right note. Then Rich found it. The direct statement of percieved fact. The simplicity of it was like a knife that expressed her annoyance at Becky’s misunderstanding, and her own quiet pride at having spent a good deal more time with Mike than Becky had up until that point. This solution came a scant 24 hours before the strip was to be posted, which is highly unusual for us; we have a fairly sizeable lead on the project, which is good, given how quickly Rich’s job can go from 10 hours a day to 20 hours a day.

Of course, they also say that when you explain a joke, it isn’t funny anymore. So this rant probably hasn’t helped the strip’s cause any. But, I do enjoy talking about the craft (pronounced “croft”, and drawled out in a pseudo-Alan-Rickman style) so.

~Matt

~*~

Did I come up with that punchline? We went through so many, I’m not even sure…

~Rich

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