Yikes. Page 13 and I FINALLY got to the main cast. When I was starting the story, I really didn’t think it would take this long to get to Roka and company, but I just had a lot of other ground to cover first with the new Rogue crew and the Tylo check-in. But I hope it was worth the wait to see Ril immediately being his usual jerk self.

Ril got a VERY last minute line revision in panel 4, where his second balloon was originally, “Also, baby assassinations!” For me, the idea of sending an assassin after a baby was ridiculous enough to be funny, but long after completing the page, I wondered if some could interpret the line as referring to abortions. Ack. And I worried that if there’s an international translation of the series, that same thing could happen, which would be very unfortunate.

I had a surprisingly hard time coming up with a replacement line that was ridiculous, awful enough for Ril to expect a reaction without being overly grotesque, but also not a crime that’s problematic or possible in real life. And I just couldn’t come up with anything as funny as “baby assassination.” Ultimately, I just added “time travel” to the line to make it more of a play on the sci-fi idea of taking out an infant Hitler or John Conner. At least I hope it clearly comes across as that sort of thing and not the other thing.