WASTED POTENTIAL in ALIVE! Week 5: When Did We Get A Cat?

Pane 1:

Bill and Sheila in bed. Killer, the cat, is napping on headboard.

Sheila: Billy, I've been thinking.

Bill: hnf?

Sheila: About "us."

Panel 2:

Close-Up Sheila

Sheila: Next week, it'll be three years that we've been together. Maybe it's time to take our relationship to the "next level."

Panel 3:

Bill: I agree.

Sheila: You do?

Bill: Sure. So, do you want to "go steady?"

Panel 4:

Sheila hits Bill with pillow...Wakes up Killer.

Sound FX: THWUFF

Panel 5:

Close up on Bill..off panel, Sheila storms out of bedroom.

Sound FX: SLAM!

Panel 6:

Bill: What's she so upset about?

Killer: Nnyow.

Bill: I don't know either. {When did we get a cat?}*

Bill is my favorite character in the strip, as well as my favorite to draw....Twenty years after I first created him for Norm's Dorm, the strip I did for the Clarion University of Pennsylvania's Clarion Call, I'm still discovering aspects of his character that surprise me.

I created this strip to give Bill a little more time in the spotlight and explore his relationship with Sheila (another carry over from Norm's Dorm) a little.

Also--"When did we get a cat?" is a running gag in the strip. Basically, whenever Bill sees Killer, he says, or thinks, it. I know such a gag can get old quickly, and I've only used it in two strips of the over 60 that I've drawn.

By the way, this is one of the many early strips that I redrew a couple of years ago, and in the original version Sheila wasn't wearing the nightgown.

(* "{}" indicate thought balloon)