Five Hours, Five Panels

Well, folks, it's that time of the month again, when I drag myself out of my hermitage atop Mount Suburbia, down some laudanum with a swig of scotch, and set pencil to paper for The Hypocrite Reader and her legion of illustration-hungry Investors. This time, I had the joy of wracking my mind on an article discussing the role of "[emotional] hunger strikes" in the context of relationships, which I thought was indistinguishable from protracted episodes of "the silent treatment," the author's arguments to the contrary notwithstanding. I set about doing one of my usual single-panel pieces, thinking that the article's point could be dispensed with concisely, but found my efforts unsatisfactory.

After several hours of furious head-scratching, scribbling, and muttered curses, it occurred to me that a multi-panel narrative was necessary in order to illustrate the extended privation such passive-aggression suggested, and promptly slept on the idea because, quite frankly, it was late, and I was tired. With an adequate solution in hand, the rest was straightforward pen-and-ink drawing, which, as the title of this post suggests, took five hours. You will find the results below: