Comic #952: Intruder (Patreon)

Oh man, I had to completely pivot the entire comic halfway through. As I was finishing drawing the comic, I realized I was duplicating the joke of an old comic of mine. This was what I had originally when I realized my mistake:

What you don't see in this early version, because I hadn't drawn it yet, was his servant passing him the newspaper in the third panel, and the final (fourth) panel being a spit-take as he reads the newspaper which mentions increased mount drop-rates for all legacy bosses.

I then realized I had LITERALLY MADE THAT COMIC BEFORE. Once I realized my mistake I was pretty stuck. I sat there for about 30 minutes trying to come up with an alternative idea that wouldn't require me to completely abandon what I had already drawn. You can see that the first three panels are pretty much identical in the early and final versions.

I then thought about the actual encounter, and the idea came to me that he could be having this entire tea break during the fight itself. There are many pauses in the fight for roleplay dialogue, as well as additional pauses that are remnants from the old days when it was a raid battle.

Hopefully the final joke ends up working, I don't think I've ever had to pivot this hard before on a comic.