This winter, both my wife and I got that super gnarly flu that everyone got, and I got it the week I needed to make a new comic. While in a somewhat delirious, Advil Cold & Sinus fuelled haze, I was laying around on our upstairs couch desperately trying to think of a story to draw. I resorted to my surefire recipe for story writing inspiration when all else fails (including writing on the toilet, or in the shower) I put away my idea book, laid down on the couch, stared at the ceiling, and put on some Hawkwind. It’s usually Pink Floyd, but I’ve been listening to Hawkwind a lot more lately.  

What I realized was that all I really wanted to do was draw a story about a wizard (Hawkwind sings a lot about wizards.) I also realized I didn’t really want to draw proper trees, and since this story was on some kind of alien planet, I could draw the trees any damn well way I chose, which is why they look like popsicles. And so, I came up with that week’s comic: “Tower.”

However, I wasn’t alone on the couch that day; I was hanging out with Pokey. During a Christmas time trip to Costco that year, my wife saw a woman and her young child leaving the store with a giant stuffed dinosaur. My wife had to have one. She regularly reminds me that buying Pokey was “the best $20 I ever spent.” Naturally my couch companion had to be included in the story. So that’s why Life is riding a dinosaur to the wizard’s tower. 

This bizarre flu-driven comic got considerably more attention and traffic than normal that week, and most people commented to me that they really liked that dinosaur. 

-Love Nick.