Comic #976: Decor (Patreon)

I almost didn't do this one, because I've made this type of joke several times before. The basically premise being that the hero will destroy the world for cosmetics. For example, #932.

However, I really liked how this one would ultimately come at the punchline. I had a strong visual of the soap dispenser being in the foreground, with Nyte looking completely mentally drained and traumatized in the background. I like that just be showing her with the soap dispenser, you know she's committed atrocities. I don't have to show anything else.

I picked a soap dispenser because I needed a very boring object and it made sense for a reward for "cleansing". I originally considered "Ornate Tissue Box" but I quickly realized it could have some secondary gross connotations I didn't want to deal with. For drawing the soap dispenser itself, I had to look up a whole bunch of references. I saw a few that had animal heads for nozzles and realized I had to do a gryphon.

Initially I was going to have the achievement be a list of random zones she had to cleanse, but I didn't want to have to pick and choose zones randomly, and I certainly couldn't list all of them, so the idea came to me to list cities. I looked up a list of cities in Azeroth and when I came to Darnassus, I realized I couldn't include it because it was destroyed. It then occurred to me that I could include it, and just have it be checked off already, which would make a great visual gag. Really made me realize how many wow cities have been destroyed through the expansions.

There are a couple other small visual gags, like the vendor being named "Ven'dor", though in hindsight, that's not a very dwarvish name, and some of the other decor names, like "Anachronistic Wall Outlet".