I have to admit that this story was a little tough in the beginning. I was having a lot of trouble finding a way to lighten Audrey up on the date, and I turned to fellow web stripper, Will Rodriguez of “Mangled Stare”.
After a little back a forth, we’d worked our way to the current resolution, and Will capped it off by suggesting today’s last panel. Thanks for the assist, Will!
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It was important to me in this storyline to do a LITTLE damage control with Audrey as a character. I’d allowed her to get TOO negative and it was reaching the level where her attitude was going from funny to annoying. So showing her actually having a good time where she WASN’T being mean or controlling to Bernard helped, and having her openly thank Dandy was another step in the right direction, I think.
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I’m going to try and step away from our hairier heroes for a little bit to focus on Bernard, his family and Audrey for a few days. The idea of Bernard being tormented by bullies is NOT a new one. As a younger child, Bernard was besieged by a bully named Tommy who stole Bernard’s prized (though rarely worn these days) Beanie Hat. Back then, Dandy was a new addition to the household and ended up helping Bernard deal with his bully problem.
More recently in his life, Bernard had to deal with a slightly more complicated situation involving the evil cupie doll, Charlotte and her big brother Ron. That time, while Bernard wasn’t particularly frightened of the bully, he WAS overpowered and relied on Mr. Fuzzy’s robotic might to save the day.
Well, that was a couple of years ago and our boy has grown up a little more and seems to have things well in hand…
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For many a kid who grew up inclined towards the arts, this was a very real nightmare: Authority figures devaluing that which was most important to us. I’ve been lucky to have had a bunch of GREAT art teachers in my grade school days. THIS situation DID kinda happen to me a few times when the gym coaches were forced to play sub for a sick art teacher.
As a kid who counted the seconds until the high-water mark of Art class, it was pretty horrible. But in hindsight, I’m betting it was equally horrible for the poor coach suddenly trying to care about art class.
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It’s not clear if it’s Audrey or Coach Daws that has the bigger issues with authority here, but this IS partly inspired by reality. I DID actually do very basic art assignments multiple times (during the time period I was supposed to do it ONCE) to annoy the teacher. In my defense, I was forbidden from doing anything ELSE (except the ever present grade school “Activity” of putting ones head down and being quiet.) with my time once I completed assignments.
