Skin Horse

Shaenon: A few final sketches doodled during the “Big Bad Wolves” arc.

Okay, that got away from “Big Bad Wolves” pretty quickly. Whaddya want, I got bored drawing dogs and snow all the time. Now we’re on to a new storyline with fewer dogs and more babes. Yes!

Channing: I think that “Dead Dogs / Big Bad Wolves” was something of a watershed moment in my development as a webcomic author. This entire arc was the first complete storyline I came up with when Shaenon first pitched “Skin Horse” to me (over two years ago!) and at the time I really had no idea exactly how long it would take to play out a moderately complicated plot in four-panel-a-day format. The answer, I soon learned, was “one giant freaking hell of a long time”. Unfortunately, it was not a realization I came to before actually, y’know, going live with the story, and by then it was too late to turn back and retain any semblance of uniformity or continuity. I tried my best to leave a number of nonessential scenes and concepts on the cutting room floor; Sweetheart’s flashback reverie, for instance, was originally going to be an entire arc in and of itself, presenting more of her history with the pack and the Captain for “live” viewing, and the story is stronger for its absence.

Even so, this was a damn long storyline, with far too many dogs for anyone’s comfort. My thanks to the poor Cartoonist for her patience as I slowly learn how to do this thing I’m doing.

Shaenon: As usual, Jeff is far too hard on himself. Although this storyline contained many things that were difficult to draw (most of them dogs), I think it ended up being a fine story.