Panel 1: Ah, nice, Emp’s word balloon features an early appearance of the lettering riff I’ve dubbed “the wavy tail.” I use this nowadays to indicate only mild slurring of speech or a character on the verge of tears, as opposed to the full-on, undulating-outline “wavy balloon” I would use for the dialogue of a character who is seriously drunk or sobbing outright (or both). The idea, here, is that Emp is buzzed but not outright hammered. Note that Ninjette, who can hold her liquor considerably better than Emp, still has straight-outlined tails on her word balloons.

Panel 5: And there’s the “Unlocking F**kable Characters” line referred to in this chapter’s title.

Today’s Patreon Update: As this is a Monday, time for our weekly double dose of life drawings new-ish (2018) and old (2017), along with the high-res Photoshop raw scans for both of ‘em, available to all Patreon tiers.

-Adam Warren