First Published: January 9, 2008
A few weeks ago, I went back through the very first THIS IS ME sketchbook and found a rough scribble featuring this very joke. The sketch dates back to June 16, 2007 – that's before the first strip even went online!
The first reason for the delay is fodder for armchair psychologists: I didn't want to introduce my wife and my mother too close together. More importantly, though: I didn't have a follow-up gag. There was also the thorny issue of how to portray my mom in comic form.
When we recently returned from a few days at my parents', suddenly I had more than enough material. I made a sketch of what I thought she chould look like and it just clicked. Once the character design was there, the punch lines started to write themselves.
Me: "Did you notice that the scarecrow and the dragon both have mom's hair?"
Andrew: "I did not. But now that you mention it..."