It’s as if they don’t trust me not to meddle in their affairs, or something…

…

Once again, what we’re doing here is establishing the scenario a bit more. As implied in a couple of earlier strips, Poe and Shimako are “an item,” for lack of a better term. I wanted an established pairing to provide opportunities for the kind of banter that you only get out of a long-term relationship. The flipside of that, then, is the (storytelling) need for a romantic situation that, if not actually doomed, is not bound to be a “smooth sailing” deal.

And so… we get Roger and Rei, the jester and rocker versus the babysitter with an occasionally short fuse.

What could possibly go wrong?