116. Understate Much

This has been an interesting stretch of strips for me to do; on the one hand, they provided a great opportunity to delve into part of the backstory I'd started to think up for Lara's character way back when I had first drawn her in the Band on the Run homage poster image. On the other hand, they've been kind of a downer and finding the funny has been tougher than usual, and it's usually pretty hard.

It's also been an education in terms of character writing, as Lara is the only C5 principal that doesn't have her initial basis in someone I know in the real world (or rather, not a single person; her origins were as an amalgam of about five different people). The others, being inspired by real individuals, didn't require me to formulate histories for them in order to get their “feel.” I see that this is a detriment, and as I utilize them in the future I'll have to more broadly fictionalize them to make them better characters.

Unrelated to writing her, Lara's appearance has developed nicely over this stretch. Any cartoon character's look changes and evolves as the cartoonist gets more comfortable with him/her/it, and by deciding to try drawing Lara without her headband I had to break habit, and ended up with a few panels I really like, that really capture the way she should look. Of course, as with the whole cast, consistency is another matter...