I think I spent more time setting up the travel-Settlers-of-Catan game board than I spent shooting the frames. Partly this is because I wanted to make sure that the game board reflected an actual, probable game situation: Peter just placed a settlement right where the (as-yet-unnamed) rabbit wanted to go. Also, Peter has the longest road placard, worth two points, placing him only two points from winning the game.

Yes, I put way too much thought into something that nobody would actually pay attention to.

…

I faced three challenges in assembling this comic, only one of which was externally imposed. One of the roommates suggested a Star Wars theme, so I ran with that. I wracked my brain for a while and came up with the “let the Wookie win” scene, and a way to adapt that to a usable script. Great, but win what? I remembered my travel Settlers game, and discovered that it fits (barely) onto the stage portion of my desk. The final challenge involved shot composition, as there was no good way to have all four characters (even the unspeaking Peter) in all shots and still get the dialog in place. At least, I couldn’t do so without it devolving into just four static identical “wide” shots. So, I ended up with what you see above, after considerable trial and error.

I’m actually rather happy with how it turned out, which is good because I shot almost three times as many pictures as normal for a comic production… and I still couldn’t get the camera to focus on Neil properly when I wanted it to. Sigh.