046 “Just Keep Tumblin’ Down”

This was an interesting strip for a couple of reasons. First, it was the first time I used a “set-up strip,” a weaker joke strip to set up a bigger pay off in a later strip. With a 4 panel strip, it’s sometimes hard to set up the joke in 4 panels, so what I often do is a 4 panel weaker joke to help prepare things for the next stip. If you haven’t read #47 yet, I won’t go any further. Let’s just say that this kind of device is something that I do pretty often nowadays.

Second, this is the first time I drew one panel for use in all four panels, and just layered on specific elements to every panel, like an animator would. I did this for two panels and even three panels, but this is the first time I was confident enough to do it for all four. Seems strange that I would worry about that when a lot of online gag comics are of the cut and paste variety anyways.