Katabatic Winds
Can you hear me now?
My tenure in client services was before the era of Apple AirPods and sophisticated headphones that made active noise cancellation and voice isolation mainstream. As I shake my walking cane, I definitely remember several instances where I had to hop onto a call that I felt that I could not miss and desperately tried to find a quiet place to call in from.
Bluetooth wasn’t standard in many vehicles as well. Anytime I rented a car, I had to double-check to make sure Bluetooth functionality was available. On one of the accounts I worked on, I traveled between six locations: three separate client team sites (two downtown, one outside town), and three of our internal team sites (one downtown, one client-facing office just out of town, and one delivery center way out). Most days, I would have to travel between at least two and take phone calls in the car along the way. I definitely hit jackpot when I had to travel to five of the six in one day.
I’m sure I could’ve done a better job picking and choosing where to spend my time. In 2023, I can’t be bothered to even get off my chair in the comforts of my home office. My back is not pleased with this development - but my sanity is quite satisfied.
This comic strip is definitely inspired by Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes. I had this one planned out for several weeks but was too scared to get started on it mainly as I was not sure how I would render the more “realistic” parts with the penguin. After putting it off for a solid two weeks of not drawing, I said, “screw it” and just dived in feet first. I’m glad I did.
The drawing part was easy enough, especially as I’ve been doing some focused art studies. But holy hell did the painting part take time. I’ve yet to formally learn color values and rendering so I just winged it. I’m happy with how it turned out, but this definitely took three times longer than I planned - and exposed some major weaknesses I have to attend to very soon.
I also have to give credit to my wife and my friends who I bothered the hell out of with reviewing this strip. My wife reviews every single one of these. She’s a great barometer since she’s not been a part of the client services world. Her feedback really forces me to think about clarity both from the visual and storytelling perspectives. In this case, she reviewed three different iterations of panels 2 and 3 before we thought it looked right.
My other friend groups who are in client service are a great second filter to make sure the joke lands. A lot of times, their feedback helps me figure out the right way to depict things.
This was an older version. The feedback from one of my client services buddies was, “I thought you were talking about going to work in a snowstorm.”
There were elements of wading through a snowstorm for sure - but that took away from the punchline I wanted to tell. So ultimately, I removed all references to “survival” and it it really made the strip come together.
Ironically, I’m still assessing requirements by listening to feedback and coming up with solutions to hopefully make these comics work. I think I just tricked myself back into client service…
Ramen